Great Throughts Treasury

"The education that exists in the world is not true education. True education will be a help towards enlightenment because it will make you more meditative, more silent, more aware, more inward-looking. The education that exists in the world makes you more ambitious, outward-looking, more egoistic, more superficial. It gives you all kinds of wrong values. It is a kind of poisoning. It does not help you, in any way, to be yourself. It is destructive. It helps you to be somebody else, and that’s its very destructive foundation. It is a poisoning, but so slow that you never become aware. It begins the day you are born and it goes on slowly slowly destroying you, distracting you from your nature."

"The basic education is missing. The first thing to be taught is meditation, the art of going in, because only out of that arises a discipline."

"The word ‘education’ is beautiful. It means “drawing something out”: drawing out that which is within you. In fact, we should not use it for the ordinary education. It is wrong to use a beautiful word like ‘education’ for this rotten system of schools, colleges and universities. It is not education in the literal sense even, because instead of drawing out what is within you it forces things from the outside upon you. It is an imposition.Real education is like drawing water from a well, not pouring something into the well. Real education is drawing out your being so that your inner luminosity starts filtering through your body, through your behavior."

"D.H. Lawrence was very much against your so-called education — it is not education, it is mis-education. Real education can only be based on love, not on knowledge. Real education cannot be utilitarian, real education cannot be of the marketplace. Not that real education will not give you knowledge; first, real education will prepare your heart, your love, and then whatever knowledge is needed to pass through life will be given to you, but that will be secondary. And it will never be overpowering; it will not be more valuable than love. And whenever there is a possibility of any conflict between love and knowledge, real education will help you to be ready to drop your knowledge and move with your love; it will give you courage, it will give you adventure. It will give you space to live, accepting all risks, insecurities; it will help you to be ready to sacrifice yourself if love demands it. It will put love not only above knowledge but even above life, because life is meaningless without love. Love without life is still meaningful; even if your body dies it makes no difference to your love energy. It continues, it is eternal, it is not a time phenomenon. To have a loving heart, you need a little less calculating head. To be capable of loving you need to be capable of wondering. That’s why, Nur, I always say that awe and childlike innocence are deeply related with the energy called love. In fact they are different names for the same thing."

"Love is never a relationship, and relationship is never love. Love relates, but it is not a relationship. Relationship is a dead thing, a closed thing. Love is a flowing. Relationship may be just out of fear, may not have anything to do with love. Relationship may be just a kind of security — financial or something else. The relationship is needed only because love is not there. Relationship is a substitute. Become alert! Relationship destroys love, destroys the very possibility of its birth."

"No relationship can satisfy, because every relationship begins with great hope, and that is not possible to be fulfilled. Yes, that hope can be fulfilled, but it can be fulfilled only when you have fallen in love with the whole. No part can fulfill it. When you have fallen in love with the total, when the merger happens with the total, only then will there be contentment. There will be nobody who is contented, there will be simply contentment. And then there is no end to it."

"Relationship is a mirror. Wherever you are related with a person — a wife, a husband, a friend, a lover, an enemy — a mirror is there. The wife mirrors the husband. You can see yourself there, and if you see an ugly husband, don’t try to leave your wife — the ugliness is in you. Drop that ugliness! This mirror is beautiful, and be thankful to this mirror. But stupid and cowardly people always escape and renounce; brave and wise people always live in relationship, and use it as a mirror. Living with someone is a constant mirroring around you. Every moment the other reveals you, exposes you. The closer the relationship, the clearer is the mirror: the more distant the relationship, the mirror is not so clear."

"ZEN BELIEVES that truth cannot be expressed by words, but it can be expressed by gestures, action. Something can be done about it. You cannot say it, but you can show it. Mind, and mind’s hold on you, is the imprisonment. Get rid of the mind. The question is not how to know truth; the question is how to get rid of the mind, how to get rid of this constant ignoring, this ignorance; how to be just here naked, throbbing, streaming, flowing, overflowing, and meeting the truth that has already been there, that has always been there. Truth is immediate, radiant, herenow. It is not that truth has to be discovered — only you have to become aware. Truth is already here."

"Truth cannot be said, cannot be written, cannot be indicated in any way. If it can be said, you will attain to truth just by hearing it; if it can be written, you will attain to truth just by reading it; if it can be indicated, you will attain to truth by mere indication. This is not possible, there is no way to transfer truth to you; there exists no bridge. It cannot be given, it cannot be communicated. Truth cannot be delivered, there is no way to deliver it. Once delivered it is dead, it has already become untrue."

"That’s what spirituality is really all about: to live death intensely, to live life intensely; to live both so passionately that nothing is left behind unlived, not even death. If you live life and death totally, you transcend. In that tremendous passion and intensity of life and death, you transcend duality, you transcend the dichotomy, you come to the One. That One is really the truth. You can call it God, you can call it life, you can call it truth, samadhi, ecstasy, or whatsoever you choose."

"A certain darkness is needed to see stars."

"A grown man - this one who does not need for anyone to cling to and rely on anyone. Adult man - is the one who is happy with myself. His seclusion - this is not the loneliness, his seclusion - this solitude"

"A little foolishness, enough to enjoy life, and a little wisdom to avoid the errors, that will do."

"A crazy idea of surrender and transfer is jumping out of the sea or do not jump or jump to thy Lord But you do not mind."

"A man becomes a Buddha the moment he accepts all that life brings with gratitude."

"A respectable person is invariably unrespectable within."

"A preaching that awakens, a preaching that enlightens -- as when a light turned on awakens and of course annoys a sleeper?, wake up! Be converted! this is the church's authentic preaching. Naturally, such preaching must meet conflict, must spoil what is miscalled prestige, must disturb, must be persecuted. It cannot get along with the powers of darkness and sin."

"A man who is 100% sane is dead."

"A mature person has the integrity to be alone. And when a mature person gives love, he gives without any strings attached to it: he simply gives. And when a mature person gives love, he feels grateful that you have accepted his love, not vice versa. He does not expect you to be thankful for it ? no, not at all, he does not even need your thanks. He thanks you for accepting his love. And when two mature persons are in love, one of the greatest paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone, they are together so much so that they are almost one. But their oneness does not destroy their individuality; in fact, it enhances it: they become more individual. Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. How can you dominate the person you love? Just think over it."

"A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good so that they become entrenched in their sinful state, betrays the gospel's call. A preaching that does not discomfit sinners but lulls them in their sin leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death."

"All our attachments are outward oriented and hence this illusion."

"All of the religions are looking after the poor. At least leave me alone to look after the rich. I am the rich man's guru."

"All errors are just ordinary, what extraordinary sin can you commit? All the sins have been committed already. You cannot find a new sin - it is very difficult, it is almost impossible to be original about sin. For millions of years people have committed everything that can be committed. To be thrown in hell for your sins. Now this is too much! you can throw a man into hell for five years, ten years, twenty years, fifty years. If a man has lived for seventy years you can throw him there for seventy years. And that is if you only believe in one life. It is good that they believe in one life."

"All that is great cannot be possessed - and that is one of the most foolish things man goes on doing. We want to possess."

"Always remember to judge everything by your inner feeling of bliss."

"All the buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be ? don't try to become. Within these two words ? being and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance."

"And so, brothers and sisters, I repeat again what I have said here so often, addressing by radio those who perhaps have caused so many injustices and acts of violence, those who have brought tears to so many homes, those who have stained themselves with the blood of so many murders, those who have hands soiled with tortures, those who have calloused their consciences, who are unmoved to see under their boots a person abased, suffering, perhaps ready to die. To all of them I say: no matter your crimes. They are ugly and horrible, and you have abased the highest dignity of a human person, but God calls you and forgives you. And here perhaps arises the aversion of those who feel they are laborers from the first hour. How can I be in heaven with those criminals? Brothers and sisters, in heaven there are no criminals. The greatest criminal, once he has repented of his sins, is now a child of God."

"And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder."

"Any mundane activity can become meditative. Digging a hole in the garden, planting new roses in the garden ? you can do it with such tremendous love and compassion, you can do it with the hands of a buddha. There is no contradiction ... I say unto you, your every act should be a ceremony. If you can bring your consciousness, your awareness, your intelligence to the act, if you can be spontaneous, then there is no need for any other religion: life itself will be the religion."

"And nobody denies the genius of Picasso, for example, his works are far from art every dimension it help him to recover from its ills, has prevented him his works of madness I Ir those who are queuing up to buy such plates and they are proud that they adorn the walls of their homes or not patients also?"

"Aspire not to have more but to be more."

"Anybody who gives you a belief system is your enemy, because the belief system becomes the barrier for your eyes, you cannot see the truth."

"At the Hospital, everyone thinks about dying. And I'd never been much for romanticizing death especially not suicide. I'd always been a fan of staying alive. After all, you basically do all you can not to die all the time. The search for immortality isn't just from storybooks. Every day you do it. You buckle your seatbelt, you take vitamin supplements, look both ways before you cross the street. And you really think you?re doing all you can. Bullshit. We can lift weights for fucking hours and we're still going to die."

"Be ? don't try to become."

"Be fully present at any moment, was as complete as that nothing carries over to the next moment."

"Be less of a judge and you will be surprised that when you become a witness and you don't judge yourself, you stop judging others too. And that makes you more human, more compassionate, more understanding."

"Be realistic: plan for a miracle."

"Because of the womb being a central phenomenon in the feminine body, the whole psychology of woman differs: she is non-aggressive, non-inquiring, non-questioning, non-doubting, because all of those things are part of aggression. She will not take the initiative; she simply waits - and she can wait infinitely."

"Beautiful is the moment in which we understand that we are no more than an instrument of God; we live only as long as God wants us to live; we can only do as much as God makes us able to do; we are only as intelligent as God would have us be."

"Be ordinary, but bring a quality of awareness to your ordinary life. Bring God to your ordinary life introduce God into your ordinary life. Sleep, eat, love, pray, meditate, but don?t think that you are making or doing something special?and then you will be special."

"Before an order to kill that a man may give, the law of God must prevail that says: Thou shalt not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God."

"Become loving. When you are in the embrace, become the embrace. Become the kiss. Forget yourself so totally that you can say, 'I am no more. Only love exists.' Then the heart is not beating, but love is beating. Then the blood is not circulating, but love is circulating. Then eyes are not seeing, love is seeing. Then hands are not moving to touch, love is moving to touch. Become love and enter everlasting life."

"Belief is in ignorance. If you know, you know. And it is good that if you don?t know, know that you don?t know ? the belief can deceive you. The belief can create an atmosphere in your mind, where, without knowing, you start thinking that you know. Belief is not trust, and the more strongly you say that you believe totally, the more you are afraid of the doubt within you."

"Bliss means you have reached to the very innermost core of your being. It belongs to the ultimate depth of your being where even the ego is no more, where only silence prevails; you have disappeared. In joy you exist a little bit, but in bliss you are not. Th ego has dissolved; it is a state of nonbeing."

"Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. it is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order. The church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be carried out at the cost of so much blood. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression."

"Buddha declared before his death that he would be coming again after twenty-five centuries, and that his name would be Maitreya. Maitreya means the friend. Buddhas don't come back; no enlightened person ever comes back, so it is just a way of saying... What he was saying is of tremendous importance. It has nothing to do with his coming back; he cannot come back. What he meant was that the ancient relationship between the Master and the disciple would become irrelevant in twenty-five centuries. It was his clarity of perception ? he was not predicting anything ? just his clarity to see that as things are changing, as they have changed in the past and as they go on changing, it would take at least twenty-five centuries for the Master and disciple relationship to become out of date. Then the enlightened Master will be only the friend. I had always wanted not to be a Master to anybody. But people want a Master, they want to be disciples; hence, I played the role. It is time that I should say to you that now many of you are ready to accept me as the friend. Those who are in tune with me continuously, without any break, are the only real friends."

"Buddha did not teach anything to believe in. He was not a teacher in that sense, because he did not teach. He was, on the contrary, an anti-teacher, he took away all the teachings that people were carrying. Slowly, he helped his disciples to become nude, naked."

"Courage is a love affair with the unknown."

"Buddha says once you understand that you are lost and you have to find your own way and there is no help coming, you become responsible. Prayer is irresponsible. To pray is just to avoid responsibility, to pray is to be lazy. To pray is just an escape. Buddha says effort is needed. It is an insult to pray."

"Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence."