Life is not static. If life were static there would be no need for meditation. The mind would do. Then you could think, and whenever, after many lives, you knocked at the door, the girl would be waiting for you. But life is a flux, a movement. Every moment it is changing and becoming new. If you miss a moment, you have missed.
Any action in which you can be total becomes meditation.
To be a criminal needs great unconsciousness. Meditation destroys your unconsciousness, opens the doors of light and suddenly what you were doing in the darkness starts disappearing.
Choice is bondage, choicelessness freedom. The moment you choose something, you have fallen in the trap of the world. If you can resist the temptation to choose, if you can remain choicelessly aware, the trap disappears on its own accord, because when you don`t choose you don`t help the trap to be there - the trap is also created by your choice.
Contentment is the door to god. If one is contented, one has already arrived. And the meaning of contentment is absolute acceptance as you are. Contentment means acceptance, discontentment means non-acceptance. A wants to become B - that is discontent. A is perfectly happy in being A, there is no desire to become B - that is contentment.
Creativity has nothing to do with any activity in particular - with painting, poetry, dancing, singing. It has nothing to do with anything in particular. Anything can be creative - you bring that quality to the activity. Activity itself is neither creative nor uncreative. You can paint in an uncreative way. You can sing in an uncreative way. You can clean the floor in a creative way. You can cook in a creative way. Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach - how you look at things.
To me, creativity is God. But it will be better if you allow me to change the word god into godliness, because I don`t want to be misunderstood. There is no person like God, but there is tremendous energy - exploding, unending, expanding. This expanding, unending, exploding energy, this creativity, is divine.
Creativity has three layers; the ultimate is the mystic: he lives in a climate of creativity. The poet, once in a while, brings some treasures from the beyond; the scientist, also very rarely, but whenever he can visit the ultimate he brings something precious to the world. But one thing is certain - mystic, scientist or poet, whatsoever comes into this world comes from the beyond. To bring the beyond is creativity. To bring the beyond into the known is creativity. To help God to be manifested in some form is creativity.
Creativity has nothing to do with creating something, creativity is simply the presence of God. Those who are fortunate enough to come in contact with a buddha`s silence will be transformed; they will know what creativity is. He has not done a thing and miracles have happened. He has not uttered a word and the message has been heard. He has not moved, but he has transformed you. He has not even touched you, and you are no longer the same.
God is creativity, not a Creator.
I'll never make any resolutions. Drop all resolutions! Let life be a natural spontaneity. The only golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
I am all in favor of the skeptical mind. Do not believe anything unless you have experienced it. Do not believe anything - go on questioning, however long it takes.
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.
When you become a sannyasin, I initiate you into freedom, and into nothing else... I am destroying your ideologies, creeds, cults, dogmas, and I am not replacing them with anything else.
I say with my own authority that if you go on questioning without accepting anybody's answer, including mine, by and by you will find that the answer is not found but the question disappears.
Be a giver. Share whatsoever you can. And remember, I am not making any distinction between. small things and great things. If you can smile whole-heartedly, hold somebody's hand and smile, then it is a creative act, a great creative act. Just embrace somebody to your heart and you are creative. Just look with loving eyes at somebody; just a loving look can change the whole world of a person.
How can one become enlightened in one single moment? One can, because one is enlightened -- one just has to recognize the fact. It is not something that happens from the outside, it is something that arises from the inside. It has always been there but you were clouded, you were full of thoughts.
Drop the idea of being Extraordinary! It's keeping you mediocre. To be Ordinary is the most extraordinary thing in the world. The Ordinary person has light in his eyes; he has become extraordinary but he has no idea of it.
The intelligent person depends on his own insight; he trusts his own being. He loves and respects himself.
Trust life. If you trust, only then can you drop your knowledge, only then can you put your mind aside.
It is not that I love contradictions: life is contradictory. Existence itself is possible only through contradictions.
People can be happy in only one way, and that is if they are authentically themselves. Then the springs of happiness start flowing, they become more alive, they become a joy to see, a joy to be with; they are a song, they are a dance.
Meditation makes you innocent, it makes you childlike. In that state, miracles are possible. That state is pure magic. A great transformation happens - in innocence you transcend the mind, and to transcend the mind is to become the Awakened One, the Enlightened One.
So remember, my meaning of discipline is not that of any Ten Commandments...Your discipline has to come from your very heart, it has to be your own-and there is a great difference. When somebody else gives you the discipline, it can never fit you; it will be like wearing somebody else's clothes. Either they will be too loose or too tight, and you will always feel a little bit silly in them.
It is not that the intellect sometimes misunderstands. Rather, the intellect always misunderstands. It is not that the intellect sometimes errs, it is that the intellect is the error.