| |
here in the living room, but if you need something, just call. I will leave the door of my room open."
She went to bed and spent an anxious night listening to the man snoring. Next morning, exhausted, she went out to feed her chickens.
The man came out, looking refreshed, and remarked, "You have a lot of beautiful chickens."
"Yes, but only fifteen."
"Only fifteen?" said the man. "Then why do you have two cocks for such a small number?"
"That's not a problem," replied the young woman. "One of the cocks is a Christian theologian!"
Be simple, be natural, be spontaneous. I teach ecstasy -- and ecstasy in the ordinary life. The life has not to be in any way renounced but transformed. Renunciation is escapism, it is cowardliness. And you have worshipped cowards as saints up to now. You have worshipped people who were not courageous enough to accept all the challenges of life. And there are millions of challenges -- every moment there is a challenge. The coward escapes. The coward has to be condemned, not respected.
My sannyasins have to live in the world, totally in the world, responding to every challenge, because the more you respond to the challenges of life the more intelligent you become. Intelligence is like a sword: the more you use it the more it remains sharp. If you don't use it, it starts getting rusty, it loses its sharpness -- it becomes absolutely useless.
Hence your saints look dull, dead. But we have been conditioned to respect these dead corpses. We have been told for thousands of years that these are the real people. They are not real at all! They are very plastic, very phony. A coward can never be a real person. Reality needs all the challenges of life, all the dangers of life, all the insecurities of life. Only then integrity arises, authenticity arises, responsibility arises.
Be in the world but don't be of it. Live in the world, but don't allow the world to live in you. That's my message.
There is a Zen saying:
The wild geese do not intend
to cast their reflections.
The water has no mind
to receive their image.
The wild geese has no desire to
|
|
|