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Main Index
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of utter futility!" It is not; there is great significance in it.
The fish in the ocean is born in the ocean, lives in the ocean, but knows nothing about the ocean -- unless you take the fish out of the ocean. Then, suddenly, a recognition arises in the fish. Only when you lose something do you remember. Only in that contrast does remembering happen. Then let the fish go back to the ocean. It is the same fish, it is the same ocean, the same situation -- yet everything is different. Now the fish knows that the ocean is her life, her very being. Before, she was in the ocean but unaware; now, she is in the ocean but aware. And that's the great difference, the difference that makes the difference.
We have lived in God, we all come from the original source of existence, but we have to be thrown out into the world so that we can start searching for God again, searching for the ocean -- thirsty, hungry, starving, longing. And the day we find it again there is great rejoicing. And it is not anything new.
The day Buddha became enlightened he laughed and he said to himself, "This is very strange! What I have gained is not an achievement at all, it is only a recognition. I had it always, but I was unaware of it."
The only difference between a sinner and a sage is that the sinner is full of forgetfulness, and the sage is full of remembering. And between these two is that hocus-pocus being called the saint. He does not know anything, he does not remember anything. He has heard other sages or may have read the scriptures, and he repeats those scriptures like a parrot -- not only repeats but practices also. He tries to behave like a sage. But any effort to behave like a sage shows only one thing: that you are not a sage yet.
The sage lives simply, spontaneously; there is no question of effort at all. He lives life just as you breathe. He is very ordinary; there is nothing special about a sage. But the saint is very special, because the saint is trying to DO something. And of course he is making a great effort, because it is not his own understanding. So he is continuously torturing himself to behave rightly, violently forcing himself to behave
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