Become riverlike.
Become a white cloud floating in the sky, and let the winds take you wheresoever they take. Don't, don't follow any rules.
This is what I mean when I say: Be a sannyasin.
Just be.
Your ochre robes, your mala -- these are rules.
This is a game.
This is not what I mean by real sannyas.
But you are so accustomed to games that before I lead you to a ruleless life, in the transitory period you will need rules.
Moving from this world of rules, of games, to that world without rules and games, a bridge has to be passed. Your orange clothes, your mala, are just for that transitory period. You cannot drop rules immediately, so I give you new rules.
But be fully alert that your robes are not your sannyas, your mala is not your sannyas, your new name is not your sannyas.
Sannyas will be there when there is no name, when you become nameless.
Then there will be no rules.
Then you will be so ordinary, you will not be recognized.
Only then.... But don't think that now it is okay, so no need to take sannyas and no need to take an orange robe.
That is again a trick.
You have to pass through this, you have to go through this.
You cannot bypass it -- and if you try to bypass you will never reach to the other shore.
Rules of the world, then rules of sannyas, and then comes a no-rule state; no, commandments are needed.
Don't change the old commandments -- they are okay as they are.
You be, simply be, and follow and flow into the being.



ZEN IS JUST ZEN.
There is nothing comparable to it. It is unique -- unique in the sense that it is the most ordinary and yet the most extraordinary phenomenon that has happened to human consciousness. It is the most ordinary because it does not believe in knowledge, it does not believe in mind. It is not a philosophy, not a religion either. It is the acceptance of the ordinary existence with a total heart, with one's total being, not desiring some other world, supra-mundane, supra-mental. It has no interest in any esoteric nonsense, no interest in metaphysics at all. It does not hanker for the other shore; this shore is more than enough. Its acceptance of this shore is so tremendous that through that very acceptance it transforms this shore -- and this very shore becomes the other shore: This very body the buddha; This very earth the lotus paradise.



Remember, there are things which cannot be taught but which can only be caught. I am here, you can watch me, you can look into me and you will see a balance and you will see a silence. It is almost tangible, you can touch it, you can hear it, you can see it. It is here. I cannot say what it is, I cannot specifically give you techniques how to attain to it. At the most I can tell you a few parables, a few stories. They will be just hints. Those that understand will allow those hints to fall into their hearts like seeds. In their time, in the right season, they will sprout and you will understand me really only on the day you also experience the same that I am experiencing. I have crossed to the other shore, you are shouting from the other side, 'Tell me, friend, how did you manage to cross?'
I can tell you only one thing ... keep to the middle.
Keep continuously alert that you don't lose the balance, and then everything will take care of itself.



If you are still seeking something -- maybe in the other life, on the other shore, in heaven, in paradise, in moksha, it makes no difference -- you are still a worldly man. If all seeking has stopped and you have suddenly become aware that now there is only one thing to know -- 'Who is this seeker in me? What is this energy that wants to seek? Who am I?' -- then there is a transformation. All values change suddenly. You start moving inwards.

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