Pines 2

 A burglar has to be unpredictable, logic is not possible. He has to be illogical -- so much

so that nobody can predict him. But illogic is possible only if your whole energy moves

through the right hemisphere.

LOCKED INSIDE THE CHEST, THE BOY WAS ANGRY, TERRIFIED, AND

PUZZLED AS TO HOW HE WAS GOING TO GET OUT.

'How?' is a logical question. Hence he was terrified because there was no way -- 'How?'

was simply impotent. Then an idea flashed to him. Now this is a shift: only in dangerous

situations where the left hemisphere cannot function, does it, as a last resort. allow the

right hemisphere to have its say. When it cannot function, when it feels that now there is

no go, now it is defeated, then it says why not give a chance to the oppressed, to the

imprisoned part of the mind? Give that too a chance. Maybe...there can be no harm.

THEN AN IDEA FLASHED ON HIM -- HE MADE A NOISE LIKE A CAT.

Now this is not logical. Making a noise like a cat? Simply an absurd idea. But it worked.

THE FAMILY TOLD A MAID TO TAKE A CANDLE AND EXAMINE THE CHEST.

WHEN THE LID WAS UNLOCKED THE BOY JUMPED OUT, BLEW OUT THE

CANDLE, PUSHED HIS WAY PAST THE ASTONISHED MAID, AND RAN OUT.

THE PEOPLE RAN AFTER HIM.

NOTICING A WELL BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD THE BOY THREW IN A

LARGE STONE, THEN HID IN THE DARKNESS. THE PURSUERS GATHERED

AROUND THE WELL TRYING TO SEE THE BURGLAR DROWNING HIMSELF.

This too is not of the logical mind. Because the logical mind needs time -- the logical

mind needs time to proceed, to think, to argue this way and that, all the alternatives -- and

there are a thousand and one alternatives. When you are in a situation there is no time to

think. If people are pursuing you -- how can you think? Thinking is good when you are

sitting in an armchair. With your closed eyes you can philosophize and think and argue,

for this and against that, pro and con; but when people are pursuing you and your life is

in danger you have no time to think -- one lives in the moment, one simply becomes

spontaneous. It is not that he decided to throw the stone, it simply happened. It was not a

conclusion, he was not thinking about doing it, he simply found himself doing it. He

threw a stone in the well and hid himself in the darkness, and the pursuers stopped,

thinking the burglar had drowned himself in the well.

WHEN THE BOY GOT HOME HE WAS VERY ANGRY AT HIS FATHER AND HE

TRIED TO TELL HIM THE STORY; BUT THE FATHER SAID: 'DON'T BOTHER

TO TELL ME THE DETAILS, YOU ARE HERE YOU HAVE LEARNED THE ART.'

What is the point of telling the details? They are useless. Details are useless as far as

intuition is concerned because intuition is never a repetition. Details are meaningful as far

as logic is concerned. So, logical people go on into minute details so that if the same

situation happens again they will be in control and they will know what to do.

But in the life of a burglar the same situation never happens again. And in real life also

the same situation never happens again. If you have conclusions in your mind you will

become almost dead, you will not be responding. In life, response is needed, not reaction:

you have to act out of nowhere, with no conclusions inside. With no center you have to

act -- you have to act into the unknown from the unknown.

And this is what Goso Hoyen used to say when people asked him what Zen is like. This

story he would tell.

Zen is exactly like burglary: it is an art, it is not a science; it is feminine, it is not male; it

is not aggressive, it is receptive; it is not a well-planned methodology; it is a spontaneity.

It has nothing to do with theories, hypotheses, doctrines, scriptures; it has something to

do with only one thing -- that is, awareness.

What happened in that moment when the boy was inside the chest? In such a danger you

cannot be sleepy, in such a danger your consciousness becomes very sharp, has to. Life is

at stake, you are totally awake -- that's how one should be totally awake each moment.

And when you are totally awake, this shift happens: from the left hemisphere the energy

moves to the right hemisphere. Whenever you are alert, you become intuitive; flashes

come to you, flashes from the unknown, out of the blue. You may not follow them -- then

you will miss much.

In fact all the great discoveries in science come from the right hemisphere also, not from

the left. You must have heard about Madam Curie, the only woman who got a Nobel

Prize. She had been working hard for three years on a certain mathematical problem but

could not solve it. She worked hard. argued from this way and that, but there was no way.

One night. tired. exhausted. she fell asleep -- and while she was falling asleep then too

she was trying to solve the problem. In the night she awoke. walked, wrote the answer on

some paper. came back. and went to sleep. In the morning she found the answer there on

the table but she could not believe who had done it. Nobody could do it! The servant --

you could not expect him to do it; he did not know anything about mathematics. She

remembered well that last night she had tried her best and could not do it. What had

happened? Then she tried to remember -- because the handwriting was hers. She tried to

remember...and then a faint remembrance came: as if in a dream she had walked to the

table and written.

From where had this answer come? It could not be from the left hemisphere. the left had

been working hard for three years. And there was no process on the paper, just the

conclusion. If it had come from the left there would have been a process, it goes step by

step. But this was like a flash -- the same kind of flash that had happened to the boy in the

chest. The left hemisphere, tired, exhausted, helpless, sought the help of the right

hemisphere.

Whenever you are in such a corner that your logic fails, don't be desperate, don't become

hopeless. Those moments may prove the greatest blessings in your life: those are the

moments that the left allows the right to have its way. Then the feminine part, the

receptive part. gives you an idea. If you follow it. many doors will be opened. But it is

possible you may miss it; you may say. 'What nonsense!'

This boy could have missed. The idea is not very normal, regular, logical. Make a noise

like a cat? For what? He could have asked, 'Why? and then he would have missed. But he

could not ask because the situation was such that there was no other way. So he thought,

'Let us try. What is wrong in it?' He used the clue.

The father was right. He said, 'Don't go into details. they are not important. You are back

home, you have learned the art.'

The whole art is how to function from the feminine part of the mind. because the

feminine is joined with the Whole and the male is not joined with the Whole. The male is

aggressive, the male is constantly in struggle -- the feminine is constantly in surrender, in

deep trust. Hence the feminine body is so beautiful, so round. There is a deep trust and a

deep harmony with nature. A woman lives in deep surrender -- a man is constantly

fighting, angry, doing this and that, trying to prove something, trying to reach

somewhere. A woman is happy, not trying to reach anywhere. Ask women if they would

like to go to the moon. They will simply be amazed. For what? What is the point? Why

take such trouble? The home is perfectly good. The woman is not interested in what is

happening in Vietnam and what is happening in Korea and what is happening in Israel

She is at the most interested in what is happening in the neighborhood, at the most

interested in who has fallen in love with whom, who has escaped with whom... in gossips

not in politics. She is more interested in the immediate, here now, and that gives her a

harmony, a grace. Man is constantly trying to prove something. and if you want to prove

of course you have to fight and compete and accumulate.

Once a woman tried to get Dr. Johnson to talk with her but he seemed to take very little

notice of her.

'Why, Doctor,' she said archly, 'I believe you prefer the company of men to that of

women.'

'Madam,' replied Johnson, 'I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I

like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence.'

Man has been forcing woman to be silent, not only outside, inside also -- forcing the

feminine part to keep quiet. Just watch within you. If the feminine part says something

you immediately jump upon it and you say, 'Logical? Absurd!' People come to me and

they say. 'The heart says we would like to become SANNYASINS but the head says no...'

Dr. Johnson, trying to keep the woman silent. The heart is feminine.

You miss much in your life because the head goes on talking; it does not allow. And the

only quality in the head is that it is more articulate, cunning, dangerous, violent. Because

of its violence it has become the leader inside, and that inside leadership has become an

outside leadership for man. Man has dominated women in the outside world also; the

grace is dominated by violence.

I was invited to a school for a certain function. There was a rally of school-children and

in the rally the procession had been arranged according to height -- from the shortest up

to the tallest. But the pattern was broken, I noticed, by the first boy heading the

procession. He was a gangling youth who looked a head taller than the rest. 'Why is he at

the front?'

I asked a young girl, 'Is he the leader of the school, the captain, or something like that?'

'No,' she whispered, 'he pinches.'

The male mind goes on pinching, creating trouble. Trouble-makers become leaders. In

the schools, all wise teachers choose the greatest trouble-makers as captains of the classes

and the schools -- the trouble-makers. the criminals. Once they are in a powerful post

their whole energy for trouble-making becomes helpful for the teacher. They start

creating discipline -- the same ones.

Just watch the politicians in the world: when one party is in power the opposite party

goes on creating trouble in the country. They are the law-breakers, the revolutionaries.

And the party which is in power goes on creating discipline. Once they are thrown out of

power, they will create trouble. and once the opposite party comes into power they

become the guardians of discipline.

They are all trouble-makers.

The male mind is a trouble-making phenomenon -- hence it overpowers. it dominates.

But deep down. although you may attain power, you miss life -- and deep down, the

feminine mind continues. Unless you fall back to the feminine and you surrender. unless

your resistance and struggle become surrender. you will not know what real life, and the

celebration of it, is.

I have heard one anecdote.

An American scientist once visited the offices of the great Nobel prize-winning physicist,

Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen, and was amazed to find that over his desk was a horseshoe,

securely nailed to the wall with the open end up in the approved manner so it would catch

the good luck and not let it spill out.

The American said with a nervous laugh, 'Surely you don't believe the horseshoe will

bring you good luck, do you, Professor Bohr? After all, as a level-headed scientist....'

Bohr chuckled, 'I believe in no such thing, my good friend, not at all. I am scarcely likely

to believe in such foolish nonsense. However, I am told that a horseshoe will bring you

good luck whether you believe in it or not.'

Look a little deeper, and just underneath your logic you will find fresh waters of intuition,

fresh waters of trust, flowing.

Yoga is a way to use reason to reach God -- of course very difficult, and the longest path.

If you follow Patanjali you are trying to do that which can happen without doing; you are

trying hard to do something. You are trying to pull yourself by shoe-strings -- to pull

yourself up.

Zen is the way of the spontaneous -- the effortless effort, the way of intuition.

A Zen Master, Ikkyu, a great poet, has said: I can see clouds a thousand miles away, hear

ancient music in the pines.

This is what Zen is all about. You cannot see clouds a thousand miles away with the

logical mind. The logical mind is like glass, too dirty, too covered with the dust of ideas,

theories, doctrines. But you can see clouds a thousand miles away with the pure glass of

intuition, with no thoughts -- just pure awareness. The mirror is clean and the clarity

supreme.

You cannot hear ancient music in the pines with the ordinary logical mind. How can you

hear the ancient music? Music once gone is gone forever.

But I tell you, Ikkyu is right. You can hear ancient music in the pines -- I have heard it --

but a shift, a total change, a change of gestalt, is needed. Then you can see Buddha

preaching again and you can hear Buddha speaking again. You can hear the ancient

music in the pines because it is eternal music, it is never lost. You have lost the capacity

to hear it. The music is eternal; once you regain your capacity, suddenly it is there again.

It has always been there, only you were not there. Be here now and you can also see

clouds a thousand miles away, and hear ancient music in the pines.

Change more and more towards the right hemisphere, become more and more feminine,

more and more loving, surrendering, trusting, more and more closer to the Whole. Don't

try to be an island -- become part of the continent.

Ancient Music in the Pines

Chapter #2

Chapter title: A thousand and one bifurcations

22 February 1976 am in Buddha Hall

 Archive code: 7602220

 ShortTitle: ANCIEN02

 Audio: Yes

 Video: No

 Length: 101 mins

The first question:

Question 1

YOU TOLD ME THAT MY MIND IS IMMATURE. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO

HAVE A MIND THAT IS MATURE?

To think that you know is to be immature. To function from knowledge, from conclusion,

is to be immature. To function from no-knowledge, from no conclusion, from no past, is

maturity.

Maturity is deep trust in your own consciousness; immaturity is a distrust in your own

consciousness. When you distrust your consciousness you trust your knowledge, but that

is a substitute and a very poor substitute at that. Try to understand this -- it is important.

You have been living, you have experienced many things; you have read, you have

listened, you have thought. Now all those conclusions are there. When a certain situation

arises. you can function in two ways. You can function through all the accumulated past,

according to it -- that's what I mean by functioning through a center. through

conclusions, through experience, stale, dead -- then whatsoever you do your response is

not going to be a response, it will be a reaction. And to be reactionary is to be immature.

Or, if you can function right now, here in this moment, through your consciousness,

through your being aware, putting aside all that you have known -- this is what I call

functioning through no-knowledge, this is functioning through innocence. And this is

maturity.

I was reading one anecdote.

It seemed to Mr. Smith that now that his son had turned thirteen, it was important to

discuss those matters which an adolescent ought to know about life. So he called the boy

into the study one evening. shut the door carefully, and said with impressive dignity.

'Son, I would like to discuss the facts of life with you.'

'Sure thing, Dad.' said the boy. 'What do you want to know?'

The mind is immature when it is not ready to learn. The ego feels very fulfilled if it need

not learn anything from anybody; the ego feels very enhanced if it feels that it already

knows. But the problem is that life goes on changing, it is never the same; it goes on

flowing, it is a flux. And your knowledge is always the same. Your knowledge is not

evolving with life, it is stuck somewhere in the past, and whenever you react through it

you will miss the point because it will not be exactly the right thing to do. Life has

changed but your knowledge remains the same. and you act out of this knowledge. That

means you face today with your yesterday's knowledge. You will never be able to be

alive. The more you function through knowledge, the more immature you become.

Now let me tell you a paradox: every child who is innocent is mature.

Maturity has nothing to do with age because it has nothing to do with experience;

maturity has something to do with responsiveness, freshness, virginity, innocence. So

when I use the word 'mature' I don't mean that when you become more experienced you

will be more mature. That's what people usually mean when they use the word -- I don't

mean that. The more you gather knowledge, the more your mind will become immature;

and by the time you are seventy or eighty, you will be completely immature because you

will have a stale past to function through. Watch a small child...knowing nothing, having

no experience, he functions here and now.

That's why children can learn more than aged people. Psychologists say that if a child is

not forced to learn, not forced to discipline himself, he can learn any foreign language in

three months. Just left to himself with people who know the language he will catch it in

three months. But if you force him to learn, it will take almost three years, because the

more you force, the more he starts functioning through whatsoever he learns, through

yesterday's knowledge. If he is left to himself he moves freely, spontaneously; learning

comes easy, by itself, on its own accord.

By the time the child reaches the year eight he has learned almost seventy per cent of

whatsoever he is going to learn in his whole life. He may live eighty years, but by the

time he is eight he has learned seventy per cent -- he will learn only thirty per cent more,

and every day his capacity to learn will be less and less and less. The more he knows, the

less he learns. When people use the word 'maturity' they mean more knowledge; when I

use the word 'maturity' I mean the capacity to learn. Not to know but to learn -- and they

are different, totally different, diametrically opposite things. Knowledge is a dead thing;

the capacity to learn is an alive process -- you simply remain capable of learning, you

simply remain available, you simply remain open, ready to receive. Learning is

receptivity. Knowledge makes you less receptive because you go on thinking that if you

already know, what is there to learn? When you already know. you miss much; when you

don't know anything you cannot miss anything.

Socrates said in his old age, 'Now I know nothing!' That was maturity. At the very end he

said, 'I know nothing.'

Life is so vast. How can this tiny mind know? At the most, glimpses are enough. Even

they are too much. Existence is so tremendously vast and infinite, beginningless,

endless... how can this tiny drop of consciousness know it? It is enough even that a few

glimpses come, a few doors open, a few moments happen when you come in contact with

existence. But those moments cannot be turned into knowledge.

And your mind tends to do it -- then it becomes more and more immature.

So the first thing is that you should be capable of learning and your learning capacity

should never be burdened by knowledge, never be covered by dust. The mirror of

learning should remain clean and fresh so it can go on reflecting.

The mind can function in two ways. It can function like a camera: once exposed, finished

-- the film immediately becomes knowledgeable and it loses its learning capacity.

Exposed once and it already knows -- now it is useless; now it is not capable of learning

more. If you expose it again and again it will become more confused. That's why people

who know too much are always afraid of learning... because they will become confused.

They are already exposed films. Then there is another type of learning -- learning like a

mirror. Expose the mirror for a thousand and one times, it makes no difference -- if you

come in front of the mirror, you are reflected: if you go, the reflection goes. The mirror

never accumulates.

The film in the camera immediately accumulates -- it catches hold, clings, but the mirror

simply mirrors: you come in front, you are in it; you go, you are gone.

This is the way to remain mature. Every child is born mature and almost all people die

immature. This will look very paradoxical but this is so. Remain innocent and you will

remain mature.

The second thing is that the immature mind is always interested in trivia. The immature

mind is always interested in things: money, houses, cars, power, prestige...all trivia, all

rot. The mature mind is interested in existence, in being, in life itself. So when I say to

you that you have an immature mind I mean you are still interested in things, not in

persons; still interested in the outside, not in the inside; still interested in objects, not in

subjectivity; still interested in the finite, not interested in the infinite.

Just watch your mind -- where it moves, what its fantasies are. If you find a valuable

diamond on the road and just there by its side a rose has flowered, in what will you be

interested? In the rose or in the diamond? You will not be able to see the rose if you are

interested in the diamond; you will simply miss the rose, it is valueless. Your eyes will be

too clouded by the diamond, your whole mind will become focused on the diamond, and

you will miss another diamond which was more alive -- the rose.

In the Hindu paradise they say roses are not ordinary roses, they are made of diamonds. I

don't know, but I have seen roses. If you can see roses here exactly on this earth, they are

made of diamonds -- so why go far away? Not in paradise but here now, once you know

how to see a rose there is nothing comparable to it. And once you can see the rose you

may forget completely about the diamond.

It happened that Mulla Nasruddin came to me one day. He was very much worried and he

said, 'Ah, poor Mr. Jones. Did you hear, Osho, what happened to him? He tripped at the

top of the stairs, fell down the whole flight, banged his head and died.'

Shocked, I said, 'Died?'

'Died,' he repeated with emphasis, 'and broke his glasses too!'

The immature mind is more interested in glasses than in life and death and love; more

interested in things, like houses and cars. When I tell you that you have an immature

mind, I mean you are still interested in that which is worthless, non-essential. At the most

it can be used, at the most it can become a decoration in life, but it cannot replace life, it

cannot substitute life, it cannot become life itself.

And there are many people who have made it a life. I know a few rich people who live

such beggarly lives -- one cannot imagine it.

I used to know a man in Delhi who had six bungalows, all out on rent. And he lived in a

small dark cell with no children and no wife.

I asked him once, 'You have enough. Why do you go on living in this small dark cell?

Why have you imposed this imprisonment upon yourself? What penance are you doing?'

He said, 'None. I have always lived this way and it is perfectly beautiful. And people are

living in those six bungalows.'

He goes to those bungalows only to collect rent.

I asked him, 'Why have you never married?'

'I am a poor man and women are very costly. I could not afford it,' he said.

If you meet that man you will not be able to recognize that he owns six big houses and

earns a lot of money. What has happened to this man? He is more interested in money

than he is in himself, he is more interested in money than he is in love, he is more

interested in the power that money brings -- but he has never shared anything with

anybody.

These people are not rare, they are very common. Everybody has such a tendency inside.

And people go on rationalizing. Man is very clever -- he says, 'This is not miserliness.

Don't misunderstand me. I am a simple man. I live a simple life. I am a religious man,

and a simple life is beautiful.'

If you are too interested in things you are immature. Shift your attention. Become more

and more interested in people rather than in yourself.

I have a SANNYASIN here, Nisha. She always falls in love with beggarly people and she

is tremendously rich. Just a few days before, she came and asked 'Why, Osho, do I go on

falling in love with beggarly people -- people who are almost on the street?' I know the

reason... with a beggarly man she need not be worried about her money. And she thinks

that she helps these people -- by food, by small things -- in fact she has never fallen in

love. She is so much in love with money that she cannot fall in love with persons. She

purchases these people for money -- they are without any cost, without any risk. And

they feel obliged because she gives food, clothing, shelter -- they feel obliged, so they

pretend that they love her, and she goes on pretending that she has fallen in love. This is a

way to protect the money and this is a way to remain closed, miserly.

And she is suffering, in pain, but she cannot see the point. She has to learn how to share.

If you know how to share, you are mature; if you don't know how to share, you are

immature.

This sharing goes on on all levels, in all directions, in all dimensions. So one of the most

basic things to understand is the more you share something, the more it grows in you.

Share whatsoever you have and it will grow; cling to it, become afraid of sharing, of

friendship, of love, and it will shrink'. Life knows only one law and that law is of

expansion and sharing.

Look at nature. Nature is such a spendthrift. When one flower is needed, a thousand and

one flowers will bloom. When you make love to a woman or to a man, in each orgasm

millions of cells are released. One would have been enough because at the most one child

can be conceived, but millions of cells are released. One man can populate the whole

earth -- just one man! One ordinary man has at least four thousand intercourses in his

life -- one ordinary man -- and in each intercourse millions of cells are released. The

whole world, the whole population that exists right now, can be produced by one man.

And yet the man will become the father of only two or three, if in the West; or twelve,

fourteen, fifteen, if in the East -- that's all. For fifteen persons to be conceived, millions

of cells are released.

Nature is a spendthrift. Where one flower is needed it produces millions. One tree will

produce.... Look at the Gulmohr -- millions of seeds are ready. They will all fall down

and a few, one, two, four, five, ten, twenty, a hundred, may become trees. Why so many

seeds? God is not a miser. If you ask for one he gives millions. Just ask! Jesus has said,

'Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you, ask and it shall be given.' Remember, if

you ask for one, millions will be given.

The moment you become miserly you are closed to the basic phenomenon of life:

expansion, sharing. The moment you start clinging to things, you have missed the target

-- you have missed. Because things are not the target, you, your innermost being, is the

target -- not a beautiful house, but a beautiful you; not much money, but a rich you; not

many things, but an open being, available to millions of things.

When I say you are immature, I mean you are too concerned with things and you have

not yet learned that life consists of consciousness -- of beings, not of things. Things are

to be used, they are needed, but don't start living by them. Man cannot live by bread

alone -- once living by bread alone, things alone, you are already dead.

And the third thing: maturity is always spontaneous. It does not plan, it makes no

rehearsals.

People come to me.... Just the other night somebody was there. He said, 'I prepare so

many questions when I come to see you. but when I come here I forget. What do you do

to me?' I am not doing anything at all. It is YOU. The moment you prepare something

you are already saying that it is false. The real thing need not be prepared. In life.

rehearsals are not needed, they are needed in a drama. A drama is a false thing. If you

prepare your questions it means that those questions are not yours. If you are thirsty and

you come to me, will you forget that you are thirsty and you would like your thirst to be

quenched? How can you forget? In fact, when you reach the side of a river thirst will

burn more intensely. The moment you see water flowing, and hear the sound of gurgling,

immediately all that you have been suppressing will bubble up, it will respond, your

whole being will say, 'I am thirsty!' If you are thirsty you will not forget.

But you prepare questions. You prepare yourself to go to the river and say, 'I am very

thirsty.' What is the point of preparing? If you are thirsty, you are; if you are not, by the

time you reach to the river, you will forget about it.

When I say you are immature I mean that you prepare your questions, your inquiries.

They are mind things. they don't come from your heart, they are not related to you, they

have no roots in you.

It is related in George Bernard Shaw's life that once, at the opening of one of his plays, he

stepped forward at its conclusion with obvious complaisance, to accept the rousing

plaudits of the crowd. There was one dissenter, however, who seized the occasion of a

lull in the applause to call out in stentorian tones, 'Your play stinks!'

There was a momentary horrified silence, but Shaw, unperturbed, exclaimed from the

stage, 'My friend, I agree with you completely, but what are we two' -- here he waved his

hand over the audience -- 'against the great majority?'

And applause returned more loudly than ever.

You cannot prepare something like that, it is impossible It is a spontaneous response --

hence the beauty of it. You cannot prepare for such things. And life is such a continuous

thing: either you act or you miss. Later on, you will find a thousand and one answers --

you could have said this, you could have said that -- but they are of no use.

Mark Twain was coming back home with his wife from a lecture hall. He had just

delivered a beautiful talk. His wife had not been present, she had just come to pick him

up.

On the way she asked, 'How was the lecture?'

Mark Twain said, 'Which one? The one that I prepared, or the one that I delivered, or the

one that I am thinking now that I should have delivered? Which one?'

If you prepare, this is going to be so. Remain conscious, alert, aware, and act out of your

spontaneity. And not only will others see the alive response of it, you also will be thrilled

by your own response. Not only will others be surprised, you will also be surprised

yourself.

I call a mind mature which retains the capacity to be surprised. A mind is mature if it

goes on continuously being surprised. by others, by himself, by everything. Life is a

constant wonder: he has no ready-made plans or ready-made responses for it, he never

knows what is going to happen, he moves into the unknown each moment. And he never

jumps ahead of himself, he never lags behind himself, he remains simply himself,

wherever he is.

And, the last and most basic thing: when I say that you have an immature mind, basically

I mean that you have a mind. Mind as such is immature; only no-mind is mature.

Maturity has nothing to do with mind because mind means all that you know; mind

means your experiences, mind means your past, your rehearsals, your preparations. All

these things are implied in the word 'mind.' Mind is not something in particular, it is the

whole accumulation, all the junk, the whole heap, of your dead past.

When I say, 'Be mature,' I mean become a no-mind. If you act spontaneously, you will

act out of no-mind. If you remain capable of learning, you will remain capable of being a

no-mind again and again and again -- the mind will never be accumulated. If you are

capable of remaining alert-and spontaneous, able to be surprised by life and by yourself,

you will become by and by more and more interested in the interior-most life, in the core

of life. When you see a person, you will not see just the body, your gaze will become

penetrating, your gaze will become like an x-ray. It will catch hold of the person -- of

the consciousness there, of the inner light there in the other person. The body is just an

abode -- you will meet the person, you will shake hands, but not only hands, you will

shake the person, you will meet the person. And in your own life, by and by, you will

become aware that the body is just the outermost garment: you have to take care of it, it is

not to be neglected, it is valuable, but it is not the end. You are the master, not the

servant. And by and by, the more you penetrate withinwards, you will see that the mind

also is an innermost garment -- more valuable than the body but not more valuable than

you. You remain the supreme value.

Once you know your supreme value, you have become mature; and once you know your

supreme value, you know the supreme value of all: all beings are Buddhas -- nobody is

less than that; the whole of life is Divine; you are always walking on holy ground.

It is said that when Moses went to the hill to meet his God, the bush was afire and from

behind the bush he heard, 'Stop! Take your shoes off. This is holy ground.' I have always

liked it, loved it. But all ground is holy ground and all bushes are afire with God. If you

have not seen this yet you have missed much. Look again. All bushes are afire with God

and from every bush comes the commandment, 'Stop and take your shoes off. It is holy

ground you are walking on. All ground, the whole earth, the whole existence is sacred.

Once you have that feeling entering you, I will call you mature -- not before that. A

mature mind is a religious mind.