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you, doctor!" exclaimed the woman, relieved. "I will be there in a minute. I just need to saddle him and we will come at a gallop!"
Because all are mad, not to be mad becomes very difficult. That's why Jesus suffered, Socrates suffered, Buddha suffered. These are the people who are not mad.
Now this man, Nan Chuan, is bound to suffer in a world which lives for goals, for great ideals. Such a man is bound to suffer because he says:
"THE ORDINARY MIND IS TAO."
The very effort to be extraordinary is the effort to become insane. Sanity is Tao. To be sane is to know what Tao is, to be sane is to be in Tao. If you are not experiencing Tao, that simply means in some way or other you are insane. But because everybody else is also like you, you will not feel it. To become sane amongst these insane creates trouble. Suddenly you become alone, suddenly the crowd is against you. Suddenly you see nobody agrees with you, everybody disagrees with you. You are bound to be killed, murdered, stoned, poisoned, because the crowd will not tolerate your existence.
But all these people who have known truth have seen this simple fact: that just to be ordinary is enough, nothing else is needed.
That's my approach here. I am not giving you great ideals.
Just the other day Akam had a question that some of my sannyasin has dropped sannyas in Holland and has become a follower of a Hindu mahatma who claims that he knows the secret of immortality -- physical immortality. The way Akam has written the question is such that I feel that Akam also feels attracted.
Akam, you also do the same. You drop sannyas and you also become the follower of the mahatma -- because I want to get rid of all kinds of fools. And these mahatmas are good: they help me to get rid of stupid people. Physical immortality... Now for millions of y ears man knows that everybody has to die and everybody dies. Buddha died, Mahavira died, Krishna died, Lao Tzu died, Jesus died, Mohammed died -- everybody dies! Some foolish mahatma, some insane man still can attract people. That simply means people are mad. And this is not new -- this type of people have always been around.
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