One of the names of Buddha is TATHAGATA - one who lives in suchness, one who has become free from all the distractions of the mind. And the miracle is that the mind consists only of distraction, so once you are free of all distractions there is no mind left. In the present there is no mind. In the present there is only consciousness, awareness, watchfulness.

Zen is the most scientific method to inquire into your consciousness. It takes you beyond mind into a space called no-mind. No self, but pure awareness, and you have a taste of eternity and immortality.

In the East we call this state meditation: no belief, no thought, no desire, no prejudice, no conditioning - in fact, no mind at all. A state of no-mind is meditation. When you can look without any mind interfering, distorting, interpreting, then you see the truth. The truth is already all around; just you have to put your mind aside.

No need to choose; become choiceless. And whatsoever happens happens; whatsoever happens is good. Let things happen rather than trying to do, and you will be surprised that all ambiguity disappears. It is a by-product of the chooser's mind, the choosing mind, that creates ambiguity. Otherwise there is no dilemma. Negative and positive are perfectly balancing in life.

The mind always wants to choose. The mind lives through choice. If you don't choose the mind drops. This is the way of Lao Tzu. How to drop the mind? - don't choose! That's why he never prescribes any meditation, because then there is no need for any meditation.

First examine what is constantly there in your mind, what is being repeated again and again. You don't have many thoughts. If you examine minutely you will see that you have only a few thoughts repeated again and again - maybe in new forms, new colors, new garments, new masks, but you have only a very few thoughts.

Wherever you go, your mind will go with you. Your knowledge will go with you, your prejudices will go with you, your scriptures will go with you. Your idea that you are a Hindu or a Mohammedan will go with you. So what are you renouncing?

The mind creates so many temptations - so alluring they are, so magnetic is their power - that unless you are in the power-field of someone whose magnetism is far more powerful than any other kind of temptation, it is impossible to reach. That is the meaning of disciplehood.

The mind is just like a crowd; thoughts are the individuals. And because thoughts are there continuously you think the process is substantial. Drop each individual thought and finally nothing is left. There is no mind as such, only thinking.

This mind is a prison. It cannot find any freedom anywhere. It must die before freedom comes to you. But we have taken the mind as us, we are identified with it. This death of mind never happens to us, it never occurs to us.

Mind is memory, not intelligence.

Remember, intelligence is not part of the mind. Intellect is, but intelligence is not; hence, the intellectual is full of mind but in life he behaves very unintelligently. He has a certain expertise, he is trained intellectually to, do a certain thing, his mind is functioning like a computer. But life is not one-dimensional, you cannot exhaust it in one expertise; it is multi-dimensional.

Our mind is a machine, it is not a mystery. And the mind always wants to know the how, the why. And because of this persistent inquiry about how and why, it goes on missing all that is beyond the boundaries of machines. Life is beyond the boundaries of machines.

The whole of life has become an institution, a madhouse in which duties are to be fulfilled not love; in which you have to behave, not be spontaneous; in which a pattern has to be followed, not the overflow of life and energy. That's why the mind thinks and decides everything, because there is danger.

First prepare the ground, then prayer happens on its own accord. Prayer is something that you cannot do. Meditation is something that you can do because it has something to do with your mind.

Mind is the absence of meditation. The moment meditation arises in you, mind is found nowhere.

Life as such has to be taken as a cosmic joke - and then suddenly you relax because there is nothing to be tense about. And in that very relaxation something starts changing in you - a radical change, a transformation - and the small things of life starts having new meaning, new significance. One learns only one thing, how to rejoice in life.

Don't be bothered by perfection. Replace the word 'Perfection' by 'Totality. Totality will give you a different dimension.

Your real being only flowers with unconditional love. Ambition is against love. Anything that is against love is against you and your real life.

The less the head, the more the wound will heal. No head there is no wound. Live a headless life. Move as a total being, and accept things.

To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.

A man who is afraid of death will be afraid of life also, because life brings death. If you are afraid of the enemy and you close your door, the friend will also be prohibited.

Truth needs meditative eyes. If you don't have meditative eyes, then the whole life is just dull dead facts, unrelated to each other, accidental, meaningless, a jumble, just a chance phenomenon. If you see the truth, everything falls into line, everything falls together in a harmony, everything starts having significance.

Life is not somewhere waiting for you, it is happening in you. It is not in the future as a goal to be arrived at, it is herenow, this very moment - in your breathing, circulating in your blood, beating in your heart. Whatsoever you are is your life, and if you start seeking meaning somewhere else, you will miss it. Man has done that for centuries.

Just look at life with more playful eyes. Don't be serious. Seriousness becomes like a blindness. Don't pretend to be a thinker, a philosopher. Just simply be a human being. The whole world is showering its joy on you in so many ways, but if you are too serious, you cannot open your heart.

If your inner being changes, your whole outer life will be totally different. It will have a different fragrance, a different beauty, a different grace. And when your inner being is changed and becomes a flame of light, you will become a light unto others too. You will become a beckoning light, a great herald of a new dawn. Your very presence will trigger revolutions in other people's lives.

Meditation is not concentration. It is simple awareness. You simply relax and watch the breathing. In that watching, nothing is excluded. The car is humming - perfectly okay, accept it. The traffic is passing - that's okay, part of life. The fellow passenger snoring by your side, accept it. Nothing is rejected. You are not to narrow down your consciousness.

Life is not a tragedy, it is a comedy. To be alive means to have a sense of humor.

The really intelligent person keeps his childhood alive to his last breath.He never loses it-the wonder the child feels looking at the birds,looking at the flowers,looking at the sky...Intelligence also has to be,in the same way,childlike.

Watch,witness,observe your thoughts-without any judgement,without any condemnation or evaluation...

The miserable person is easily enslaved.The cheerful person,the blissful person,cannot be enslaved.

You are creating your own hell.

Don't get attached to anything.

One day you will disappear on a funeral pyre - just into nothingness, as smoke.

Never be ashamed of your tears. Be proud that you are still natural. Be proud that you can express the inexpressible through your tears.

Eyes which have lost their tears have lost their most beautiful, their most glorious treasure.

People are not things, you cannot have ownership.

I would like marriage to disappear completely from the world, and with marriage, divorce will disappear.

The only thing that matters in life is your own opinion about yourself, nobody can destroy your dignity then, because it is not dependent on anybody's opinion.

Love is just like a breeze: it comes, but you should not close your doors to keep the breeze inside.

Love is the ultimate, the end. You love for love's own sake. It is not a means to anything else, it is its own end.

We remain unnecessarily worried. All worries are futile because that which is going to happen is going to happen.

A certain darkness is needed to see the stars.

You can become happy just by deciding to be happy.

By 'Love' people mean a certain kind of monopoly understanding a simple fact: that the moment you possess a living being you have killed him.

People say love is blind because they do not know what love is. I say unto you, only love has eyes; other than love, everything is blind.

Never sacrifice your life for anything! Sacrifice everything for life! Life is the ultimate goal.

The ego is an island in the ocean of Hell. You want to get rid of the Hell but you don't want to get rid of that island. Then there is trouble.

Life is absolutely balanced between the positive and the negative. Now it is your choice which side you want to be - in heaven or in hell.

This very moment you can drop all problems because they are your creation.