Only one who knows himself can liberate himself from this borrowed self-image, and only in breaking the borrowed image can you know yourself.

The universe is like a spider web, If you touch a thread, the whole canvas vibrates.

I don't see that there is any God who created the world. I certainly experience a quality of godliness in existence, but it is a quality, not a person. It is more like love, more like silence, more like joy – less like a person. You are never going to meet God and say hello to him, how are you? I have been looking for you for thousands of years; where have you been hiding? God is not a person but only a presence. And when I say "presence," be very attentive, because you can go on listening according to your own conditioning. You can even make "presence" something objective – you have again fallen into the same trap. God is a presence at the innermost core of your being: it is your own presence. It is not a meeting with somebody else.

Meditation is just to be, not doing anything – no action, no thought, no emotion. You just are. And it is a sheer delight. From where does this delight come when you are not doing anything? It comes from nowhere, or, it comes from everywhere. It is uncaused, because the existence is made of the stuff called joy. It needs no cause, no reason. If you are unhappy you have a reason to be unhappy; if you are happy you are simply happy – there is no reason for it. Your mind tries to find a reason because it cannot believe in the uncaused, because it cannot control the uncaused – with the uncaused the mind simply becomes impotent. So the mind goes on finding some reason or other. But I would like to tell you that whenever you are happy, you are happy for no reason at all, whenever you are unhappy, you have some reason to be unhappy – because happiness is just the stuff you are made of. It is your very being, it is your innermost core. Joy is your innermost core.

In the world you desire money, power, prestige. Then you get fed up with it, then you see the whole thing is just rubbish - even if you get it you are defeated, if you don’t get it you are defeated. Then you come to feel that this whole thing is nonsense. Now suddenly you start playing new games: enlightenment, meditation, yoga, God, the other world, the other shore! Again the mind is at ease. A new world of desire has opened; now you will be after these goals. And money is not so elusive as meditation. This world at least is solid; that shore, that world, the other world, is absolutely fantasy. Now you are in a deeper ditch than before. With the first you could realize that it is useless, with the second now it will take millions of lives to realize that this too is useless. When one person comes to discover that all goals are useless - with no exception all goals are useless - then there is nothing to do, one just has to be. One relaxes, one relaxes so totally because there is nothing to do, there is no tension. Suddenly your boundaries melt as snow melting in the morning sun. With nothing to do you disappear, the ego disappears. With nothing to do, nothing to be, nothing to achieve, who will you be? The whole identity evaporates. This is enlightenment. Then you start a totally different way of life. You start being playful, you start being alive moment to moment, nowhere to go - whatsoever the life gives, you accept it with deep gratitude. Grace happens to you. This is what I call becoming a god. The moment you start playing, living in the moment, you have become a god.

God is not a person. That is one of the greatest misunderstandings, and it has prevailed so long that it has become almost a fact. Even if a lie is repeated continuously for centuries it is bound to appear as if it is a truth. God is a presence, not a person. Hence all worshipping is sheer stupidity. Prayerfulness is needed, not prayer. There is nobody to pray to; there is no possibility of any dialogue between you and God. Dialogue is possible only between two persons, and God is not a person but a presence—like beauty, like joy. God simply means godliness....God is the ultimate experience of silence, of beauty, of bliss, a state of inner celebration. Once you start looking at God as godliness there will be a radical change in your approach. Then prayer is no more valid; meditation becomes valid.

The human mind is very cunning. First we invent a personified God-we give God a personality-and then we make him responsible for what happens.

Whenever a person performs any act with all his heart and soul, that act becomes the path. ⁣Endless meditation, if half-hearted, will take you nowhere; whereas just singing a simple song with all your being merged in it, or dance a dance with the same total absorption and you will reach God.⁣ The question is not what you do, but how much of yourself you involved in the act.

Clear the way. Don't allow anybody else to be there; that is, don't allow any goal to be there.

Grow-ups play games, children only play.