“You have said that there are no goals in life, no purpose – and yet we are all here with enlightenment as our goal – please speak in this.”
If you are here with enlightenment as your goal, you cannot be here.
Physically you may appear to be here but you cannot be with me.
The goal is in the future. I am here and a mind which is goal-oriented is bound to be in the future. We will never meet.
I know, you are here to attain something – that’s why you are missing it.
I am here to persuade you to drop the very idea of attaining anything – whatsoever – enlightenment, moksha, nirvana, god included.
If you drop this goal-oriented mind, and there are none other than goal-oriented mind, there is no other mind!
If you drop it, you are enlightened.
Enlightenment is not a search. It is a realization!
It is not a goal – it is the very nature of life itself.
As life is, it is enlightened!
It needs nothing to be added, to be improved.
Life is perfect. It is not moving from imperfection to perfection, it is moving from perfection to perfection.
You are here to attain something. That is functioning as a barrier.
Drop that barrier.
Just be here!
Forget about any purpose, life cannot have any purpose. Life is the purpose. How it can have any other purpose?
Otherwise, you will be in an infinite regress. Then that purpose will have another purpose, then that another purpose will have another purpose.
Life has no purpose and that’s why it is so beautiful.
Hindus have called it Leela, a play. It is not even a game.
Now in the west, the word ‘game’ has become very, very important.
Hundreds of books have been published within two, three years with the title: ‘Game’, ‘The Master Game’, ‘The Ultimate Game’, ‘The Game People Play’, and so on so forth..
But there’s a difference between ‘game’ and ‘play’, Hindus have called it ‘play’ not ‘game’ because even a game has something as a purpose.
A result to be attained, victory to be achieved, the opponent has to be conquered. Then a play becomes a game. Then it becomes serious.
Grown-ups play games, children only play. Just the very activity is enough onto itself, it has an intrinsic end, there is no goal added to it.
Life is Leela. It is a play!
And the moment you are ready to play, you are enlightened.
Try to understand from some other dimension. You are already that which you are trying to be. The more you will try, the more you will miss.
You leave all effort, you simply accept yourself, you just be that.
Suddenly it is there, it has always been there.
But you were seeking so seriously. That was the only cause of missing it!
You are here to attain something, enlightenment, samadhi, satori, or something.
To me all those words are nonsense. Because they again give you a new line of desiring.
They again open a door of desire. In the world you desire money, power, prestige, then you get fed up with it. Then you see the whole thing is just rubbish.
Even if you get, you are defeated. If you don’t get you are defeated.
Then you come to feel that this whole thing is nonsense, now suddenly, you start playing new games – enlightenment, meditation, yoga, god, the other world, the other shore.
Again! The mind is at ease – a new world of desires has opened. Now you will be after these goals.
And money is not so elusive as meditation. This world at least is solid, that shore, that world, the other world is absolutely fantasy.
Now you are in a deeper ditch than before.
With the first you could realize that it is useless, with the second, now it will take millions of lives to realize that this too is useless.
When one person comes to discover that all goals are useless, with no exception – all goals are useless – then there is nothing to do, – one just has to be -.
One relaxes. And one relaxes so totally because there is nothing to do, there is no tension.
Suddenly your boundaries melt – as snow melting in the morning sun.
With nothing to do – you disappear, the ego disappears. With nothing to do – nothing to be – nothing to achieve – who you will be?
The whole identity evaporates.
This is enlightenment, then you start a totally different way of life. You start being playful. You start being alive moment to moment – Nowhere to go.
Whatsoever the life gives you accept it with deep gratitude. Grace happens to you.
This is what I call ‘to become a god’.
The moment you start playing – living in the moment, you have become a god!
I am here to persuade you that you are already gods.
You may be here to become gods, that’s your trip, I am not concerned with it.
I know what I am here for – Just to persuade you to look at your own face once again – To search within and not go without searching for something which doesn’t exist.
Life is a purposeLESS play.
Play of infinite forces. Beautiful if you don’t have an achiever’s mind. Ugly if you have ambition – to become something – to be something – to do something.
Relax, drop the future completely.
Only this moment exists – and this moment is eternity.
And only this life is all that is there, don’t think of the other shore.
Just the other day I was telling the allegory of the man returning from the middle of the river.
Why he returned from the middle of the river? – Because there is no other shore, this is the only shore.
And why he started laughing? – Because he suddenly realized that he himself is the Buddha, whom he has been seeking?
Zen masters teach to their disciples that – meditating, if you someday come across Buddha, kill him immediately.
Don’t spend a single moment! Kill him immediately! Otherwise, he will lead you astray.
They’re right. While you are meditating, Krishna comes with his flute – it’s so beautiful – again you are dreaming! Again you are caught in a dream and desire.
And Jesus comes, and you are caught – in the web of the mind – it is a spider’s web.
And then Buddha comes, and you forget yourself. The Zen master said ‘kill the Buddha immediately, clear the way, don’t allow anybody else to be there!’
That is, don’t allow any goal to be there.
Just be!
Total – Alone – In your absolute purity! – This is enlightenment!
– I should repeat, because I know you will forget and forget and forget –
You are already that which you are seeking!
Let this be the basic mantra. If you can understand this mantra, you have understood all.
Give it a try.
To goals you have been giving – too many lives you have given to them. Now try to live moment to moment, as if there is no future.
In the beginning, it will be only as if, but by and by you will become aware that that as if is the only reality.
In the beginning, it may be just like acting – soon you will realize that that acting is the only reality.
You have come with a goal, but I won’t allow you to remain with a goal.
