leads to egolessness –

because the ego cannot exist in the present

and because awareness cannot exist except

in the present.

So they cannot exist simultaneously.

Ego is unawareness

and awareness is egolessness.

218. Love.

I live without planning,

and I also feel that this is the only way to be alive at all.

In fact I live a wild life,

absolutely unplanned,

not knowing anything about the future –

not even about the next moment.

Today is enough for me –

really more than enough!

The moment that is present is the only living moment –

the past is dead in the sense that it is no more

and the future is also dead

in the sense that it is not yet born.

And so to be concerned with the past is to be dead

and to be concerned with the future is also to be dead.

The only way to be alive is to be here and now –

in the moment and totally in it.

Living moment to moment I have found that ecstasy and bliss

which is not of this world at all.

The single moment lived totally transcends time itself.

It becomes the gap between two moments of time,

and if one can be in this gap

then one is beyond death

because time is death

and timelessness is life.

Life is not something fixed and finished,

life is living what is,

a process, just riverlike,

flowing always into the unknown,

from the shores of the known to the shores

of the unknown.

219. Love.

Anger, violence, greed or envy

cannot be overcome by the cultivation of their opposites,

because anger itself will cultivate its opposite

and violence will be present in its cultivated non-violence.

So always be aware

of the hypnotic spell of the opposite:

it never solves any problem

because it is beating around the bush.

Do not fall into the trap of the opposite

but understand anger, violence or greed

or anything else

directly.

To seek the opposite is a way of escape.

To seek the opposite is cowardice.

Live with your mind as it is.

Do not try to change it.

Be brave and face it and understand it.

When the light of awareness falls on anger or

greed or envy

there is change.

Awareness acts as a catalytic agent –

and then anger does not change into its opposite,

it is not that violence becomes non-violence,

but there is no-anger,

there is no-violence.

And when there is no-violence there is no-mind,

and an altogether different dimension opens its door:

the dimension of the spontaneous,

the dimension of the divine.

220. Love.

Moment to moment life passes into death,

because it is death.

Covered, it appears as life,

uncovered it is death.

Always remember this fact.

This is silent meditation.

And when this remembering even penetrates

your dreams

you will have a new door opened unto you.

In fact through it you will be altogether new,

and ultimately reborn.

Remembering death gives a new dimension

to consciousness

because to remember death is not natural.

On the contrary nature has arranged

that one should not be aware of it

because the moment one transcends death

one transcends nature also.

And one cannot transcend death

unless one is totally aware of the fact.

So be totally aware of death.

And it is happening each moment within and without.

It is present everywhere.

And because it is so obvious one becomes absent to it.

Remember – and deepen the consciousness,