which is nothing but a faint echo of the past itself.

Our whole activity springs from the past

or the future –

which is the same thing.

Then the present is false and dead:

and if the present is false then we cannot be real,

and if the present is dead then we cannot be alive.

That is why I insist on living in the present

and dying each moment to the past.

Live atomically – moment to moment –

and then your life will have a totally different quality:

the quality of the divine.

270. Love.

To me meditation means –

be playful and transcend all seriousness.

See: life is not serious.

Look around: existence is not serious.

Only disease is serious, and of course death,

and the exploiters of death – the priests!

Life is playful and festive and therefore purposeless.

It is not going anywhere, because there is nowhere to go.

It is always here and here.

It is always now and now.

It is just abundant energy overflowing from here to here

and from now to now,

and once you know it and be it

you are in that ecstasy which is the purpose

of purposelessness!

Don’t be a mind and you will know it and be it.

Meditation is no-mindedness.

Mind is thinking, and thinking is going astray

from the being.

Mind is forgetfulness of “that which is”.

Meditation is coming back home.

So, come back home.

And I create situations so that

you may remember the forgotten,

and I will go on creating situations

until you have returned.

271. Love.

There are things which cannot be proved,

and there is no evidence for them

because they are self-evident.

To try to prove them is ridiculous,

and the effort shows that one

is not acquainted with them.

Such are all the proofs of God.

Sitting one day in the teahouse

Mulla Nasruddin heard the rhetoric of

a traveling scholar –

he was arguing to prove the existence of God.

Questioned by one of the company on some point

the scholar drew a book from his pocket

and slammed it on the table:

This is my evidence. And I wrote it myself!

A man who could not only read but write was a rarity,

and a man who had written a book…!

The villagers treated the pundit with profound respect –

and of course Mulla Nasruddin was impressed.

Some days later Mulla appeared at the teahouse

and asked whether anyone wanted to buy a house.

Tell us something about it,

Mulla, the people asked him,

for we did not even know that you had a

house of your own.

Actions speak louder than words! shouted Mulla,

and from his pocket he took a brick

and hurled it on the table in front of them.

This is my evidence! Examine the quality –

and I built the house myself!

272. Love.

When you are with me be completely at ease and relaxed;

that is, be totally yourself.

If you feel like crying, then cry;

if you feel like weeping, then weep –

but just be continually aware.

Do not think about what you are doing,

just be the doing.

And when your senses are shaken like leaves in the wind,

enter this shaking,

because only in such situations is the being revealed.

If a feeling against someone or for someone arises

do not project it on the person in question

but remain centered in yourself,

and you will know a transcendence

which is not of this world at all.

273. Love.

The past is not

nor is the future,

but the mind exists between these two non-existences,

and therefore – the misery.

To live in the mind is to live in misery,