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cast its reflections in the water, and the water has no desire or no mind to receive its image -- although it happens! When the wild geese flies, the water reflects it. The reflection is there, the image is there, but the water has no mind to reflect and the wild geese do not hanker to be reflected either.
This should be the way of my sannyasins. Be in the world, live in the world, live totally, without ambitions, without desires -- because all desires distract you from living, all ambitions sacrifice your present. Don't be greedy, because greed takes you into the future; don't be possessive, because possessiveness keeps you clinging to the past. A man who wants to live in the present has to be free of greed, of possessiveness, of ambitions, of desires.
And that's what I call the whole art of meditation. Be aware, be alert, so all these thieves have no possibility to enter and contaminate you. Be meditative, but be in the world. And this is my experience: that the world helps immensely -- it helps immensely to make you meditative. It gives you all the opportunities to be distracted, but if you don't get distracted then each success becomes a tremendous joy. You remain centered, you become the center of the cyclone. The cyclone goes on roaring around you, but your center remains unaffected.
Be a lotus flower. In the East the lotus flower symbolizes the essence of sannyas. The lotus flower grows in the mud, dirty mud. It does not escape, it remains there. It floats in the lake in water, but there is a beauty, a tremendous phenomenon: it is in the water, but the water never touches it. It is so velvety that in the morning if you go... and you will find dewdrops gathered on the petals of the lotus, on the leaves of the lotus, and they shine like pearls in the early morning sun. But they are not touching. The lotus leaf or the lotus petal remains dry, it does not become wet. The dewdrops rest there, but they remain separate.
That's the way of a true sannyasin: being in the world but remaining untouched, unaffected by it.
Anand Poonam, when meditation -- and this is what I call meditation: being in the world and remaining untouched --
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