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into his own being. So zen people have the right name for this temptation to imitate; they call it the buddha disease. They love Buddha tremendously, but they call this the buddha disease. Mm? he is so beautiful that one is naturally tempted to imitate, but then it becomes a disease.
The zen masters are known to have said that if you meet the Buddha on the way, kill him immediately! They worship the Buddha every day morning, evening -- and they pray. And they say if while meditating the Buddha image arises in you, take a sword and cut it immediately. Then and there be finished with it... otherwise this fellow is dangerous.
They say,'If you repeat the name of Buddha, wash your mouth, rinse your mouth immediately, because this name, too, is dangerous.' They love Buddha and they say such things! It looks contradictory, but it is not.
Never be imitative if you want one day to become an offering to god. Always try to listen to your own heart.
My whole effort here is not to make anything out of you but to simply help you to become whatsoever you can become -- whatsoever! I have no fixed idea... I have no ideal. I have to simply help you to grow.
Mm? just like a gardener: he helps the rosebush to be a rosebush, and he helps the lotus to be a lotus. He does not try to make the lotus become a rosebush. Neither does he try to make the rosebush a lotus. He protects. He waters... he gives the manure. He gives his love and warmth. He surrounds the rosebush with all the care that he can, just to help it to become itself.
Anand means bliss, shanti means silence. And in the final analysis bliss becomes silence, or silence becomes bliss. They are two aspects of the same energy, two aspects of the same coin. If you are really silent, you will be blissful. If you are blissful, you will be silent.
That's the difference between real silence and a false silence. One can be in a false silence -- one can force oneself to be silent -- but then one will not be blissful; one will be somehow controlling. Then the silence will be out of discipline, practice, enforcement. That silence will be regimented -- just as in the army you can order people
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