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happy; as far as you are concerned, he has given you the dignity and the honor of accepting you. It is very natural that if you see something in yourself which is not right -- although the other person accepts you as you are -- you would like to be even better, just for him; to be softer, to be more loving, to be more tender, just for him.
I accept you as you are. I don't have any expectations of you; I don't want you to be molded into a certain idea, into a certain ideal. I don't want to make you a dead statue. I want you to be alive, more alive, and you can be alive only if your totality is accepted -- not only accepted, but respected.
I have a deep reverence for everything that is alive, a reverence for life itself.
If my reverence changes you, that is another thing; I am not responsible for it. And it is going to change you -- I warn you beforehand; you cannot blame me later on.
You are fortunate, Vasumati, that you feel completely seen, so understood and accepted. If we could accept people with whom we are in some way related -- friends or lovers -- and understand them, and allow them not to have any defenses so they can be completely natural, the world would be so beautiful and people would be so happy. But up to now we have lived under very wrong conceptions, and those wrong conceptions have to be dropped.
Two disciples of a famous rabbi came to visit him, and while they were waiting to be ushered into his presence, the rabbi's wife brought them two cups of lemon tea and a plate with two cakes on it -- one small, one big.
"After you," said one disciple to the other, offering him the plate.
"No, after you."
"No, no, I insist. After you."
"No, you take first."
Eventually one of the two helped himself first -- to the bigger cake. The other was outraged: "What! You helped yourself first, and took the bigger cake!"
"So?" said the other. "If you had chosen first, which cake would you have taken?"
"Why, the smaller one, of course!"
"Well, what are you complaining about? You have got the smaller one!"
All our manners, all our etiquette is so phony -- we don't mean what
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