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But it cannot be solved like a mathematical problem.

It is not a problem – it is a challenge.

It is not a question – it is an adventure.

Hence, those who only go on asking questions about life remain,

by this action, deprived of the answer forever.

Or acquire answers which are not answers at all.

It is such answers that one acquires from scriptures.

In fact, an answer acquired from any other source

cannot be an answer.

Because the truth of life cannot be borrowed.

Or such questioners fabricate answers of their own;

thus they certainly gain consolation, but not solutions.

Because fabricated answers are not answers.

Only the experience can be an answer.

Hence, I say: do not ask – live and know.

This is the difference between philosophy and religion.

To ask is philosophy, to live is religiousness.

And, the interesting thing is that philosophy asks but never gets the answer,

and religion does not ask at all and yet attains the answer.

162. Love.

Society is only a collectivity of individuals.

Hence, finally and essentially, it is a reflection of the minds

of the individuals.

If the individual mind is without peace, the society cannot be at peace.

Only a radical transformation of the individual mind can become the peace

of the society.

There is no other alternative.

Nor is there any shortcut.

The technique for individual transformation is meditation.

With more and more people moving into meditation; only then

is something possible.

To take shelter in the divine is the only way.

1971

163. Love.

You ask for the way to make the invisible visible?

Pay attention to the visible.

Do not just see, pay attention.

It means, when you see a flower,

let your whole being become the eye.

When you listen to the birds, let your entire body-soul become the ear.

When you look at a flower, do not think.

When you listen to birds, do not ponder.

Let the total consciousness

either see or hear or smell or taste or touch.

Because it is due to a shallowness of sensitivity that the invisible is unable

to become visible,

and the unknown remains unknown.

Deepen the sensitivity. Do not just swim in sensitivity, drown in it.

This I call meditation.

And, in meditation, the seen disappears

and finally the seer too. There remains only the seeing.

It is in this seeing that the invisible becomes visible

and the unknown becomes known.

Not only this – even the unknowable becomes knowable.

And remember that whatever I am writing –

do not start thinking about this as well: act.

Nothing has ever been nor can be attained

by creating theories.

There is no other door except ‘seeing for oneself’.

164. Love.

You ask: how far is the destination?

Ah! The destination is very far, and very near too.

And the distance or the nearness of the destination

is not dependent on the destination but upon you yourself.

The deeper the will, the nearer the destination.

If the will is total, then you yourself are the destination.

165. Love.

The word is not the thing –

the word God is not God.

But the mind goes on accumulating words and

words and words,

and then the words become the barrier.

See this as a fact with you:

can you see anything without the word?

Can you feel anything without the word?

Can you live even for a single moment without the word?

Do not think but see

and then you will be in meditation.

To exist wordlessly is to be in meditation.

166. Love.

Always see what is –

the facts.

That which is.

Do not project anything,

do not interpret,

do not impose any meaning:

that is, do not allow your mind to interfere,

and you will begin to encounter reality.

Otherwise everyone lives in his own world of dreaming.

And meditation is the coming out of these worlds,

these dreaming patterns.

A philosopher stopped Mulla Nasruddin on the street.

In order to test whether the Mulla

was sensitive to philosophical knowledge

he made a sign, pointing at the sky.

The philosopher meant: There is only one truth,

which covers all.

Nasruddin’s companion, an ordinary man, thought:

The philosopher is mad.

I wonder what precautions Nasruddin will take.

Nasruddin looked in his knapsack and took out a coil of rope.

This he handed to his companion.

Excellent, thought the companion.

We will bind him up if he becomes violent.

The philosopher saw that Nasruddin meant:

Ordinary humanity tries to find truth by methods

as unsuitable as attempting to climb

into the sky with a rope.

Now can you remain content with the fact

of Mulla Nasruddin giving the rope to his companion

without any interpretation whatsoever?

Remain with the fact, and you will be in meditation.

167. Love.

The ego is necessary

for both the sensation of pain and the feeling of pleasure

and vice versa also –

the sensation of pain and the feeling of pleasure,

are necessary for the existence of the ego.

In fact these are two sides of the same coin.

The name of the coin is ignorance.

Understand this

and do not fight with the ego

or with pain and pleasure,

because unless ignorance is gone

they will not go, they cannot go.

And you cannot fight with ignorance

because ignorance is just absence of something –

absence of yourself.