All questions and responses are ridiculous. Mind questions emerge like leaves from trees. Questions nurture the mind and must be dismissed. Questions are food searches. The answer is food. The mind is hungry, wants to be strong and fed, and hunts for sustenance. Where it finds satisfaction… Any answer that makes the mind think “Now I know,” is food. Mind may keep asking, learning, finding answers. Losing information is harder the more knowledgeable you are. You must stop questioning or you will never be silent. Until questioning stops, you won’t find the space, calm, and stillness that can help you understand yourself and reality. Reality will never answer you. That has never happened and never will. That’s not how things work. When there are no questions, reality becomes apparent. First, realize that all inquiries and answers are ridiculous. You’ll wonder why I keep answering your inquiries. Look closely into my responses—they’re not answers. They break your mind, not nourish it. The objective is to shock. My answers are meant to batter your mind, not answer.
When you initially arrive here and don’t understand me or my purpose, you may assume I’m answering. Your stronger connection with me while you stay here makes you realize that my answers are not to give you answers. Not to impart knowledge, but the contrary. It removes your knowledge, makes you unknowable, and makes you innocent again so questioning disappears. Your consciousness changes when you don’t question. The quality is fantastic. Wondering is existence mystification, not questioning. Questioning seeks to explain life and reject its mystery. We turn every riddle into a question. The query implies that the mystery is a problem to be solved, which will eliminate it. In replying you, I hope to mystify existence more. Hence my paradoxes. I’m inconsistent and not responding. I cannot be consistent since I am not here to educate you. A mind-satisfying, nourishing, fortifying, and fulfilling body of information will result from my consistency. I’m intentionally inconsistent and contradictory so you can’t make any knowledge from me. So one day you gather stuff, the next I take it. I prohibit gathering. Something is different here, and you’ll realize it eventually. I am not providing you a dogma or philosophy to follow. I destroy everything and take it from you. Your mind will quit questioning slowly. The point? What’s the point of no response? The day you stop questioning is a happy day because then you wonder. You’ve entered a new dimension; you’re a youngster again. Jesus says, “Unless you are like small children you will not enter into my kingdom of God.” Means you must be uninformed, innocent, unthinking, and inquiring again.
Thus, children and adults have different questions. Difference is quality. The child asks to express his surprise, not to be answered. If you don’t answer, the child forgets and asks again. His objective is to talk to himself, not to be answered. He’s talking about his wonder and trying to find out the riddle. He doesn’t want a response, thus none will satisfy him. He’ll ask more questions if you answer. His curiosity persists. A well-educated, smart, well-read, infomed adult asks a question to learn more. My mind always wants more. It wants more money, prestige, and knowledge. Mind dwells in “more.” This keeps you from facing reality. Reality is a mystery, not a question. A mystery to be lived, experienced, loved, dissolved, and drowned in. I answer to ruin the question, not to answer. I’m no teacher. Masters help you unlearn, while teachers teach. Goran Strandberg, “This sounds like a silly question.” It is. All are “what can I do?” You can do what? You say, “l am not sure that I want to become enlightened.” The mind is never certain. The mind is always uncertain. Never clear, mind lives in confusion. Clarity is mindlessness, while confusion is mind. Mind and confusion go together. Mental clarity is impossible. One cannot have the mind and clarity at the same time. The mind is always at odds with itself. Divisibility is its nature. Thus, mind dwellers never become indivisible. One side wants this, the other wants that.
Mind is many desires, not one. Multi-psychic mind fragments are coming apart in different directions. It is a miracle that we can keep ourselves together; it is hard. Somehow, we manage, but our togetherness is superficial. There’s turbulence underneath. You love a woman—are you sure? Yes, really? I have never met a sure lover. You might marry, but are you sure? Was having children really your goal? Nothing is certain in your life. However, you must keep yourself busy, so you do. Surety is not mental; it cannot be. Every level will have the same issue. You have the same issue. You claim “l am not sure that I want to become enlightened.” But there must be a desire, otherwise why ask? Your mind must be saying, “Strandberg, become enlightened” partially. Another part must say, “Are you mad? Have you lost your senses? You have a wife at home, and children, and work, and you love your country and you are trying to become enlightened? You must have become a victim of mass hypnosis: so many people in orange, it is dangerous to live with such mad people. So many mad people, enjoying and laughing and loving and looking so happy! Strandberg, keep on remembering: you have a wife, children, a job. Keep alert!” But the urge will keep coming. Enlightenment must be worthwhile if so many people want it. How can you deceive so many? Thousands seeking enlightenment? Can’t be all nonsense. A desire arises: try it. Fear exists too. However, this is always the case. The same question: Chevrolet, Ford, or Benz for a car purchase? You’ll never buy a car without your wife’s help! Though less mentally active than men, women are more decisive. Still feeling, they work from the heart. Luckily, they are still primitive, a little wild, inclined toward the intuition rather than the cerebral, and capable and courageous enough to act decisively, intuitively, and illogically.
All choices are emotional. The mind cannot decide. Choosing mentally is impossible. Enlightenment, God, and life beyond death are not my topics. Small factors like which soap to buy or which toothpaste to buy will cause the same problem. Fragmented mind. I keep telling you to stop thinking and start living. Minds only think, never live. Though attractive, its thoughts are dreams. Let go of the intellect to live. Get out of your head to live now. Because it must decide first, the mind is engaged in thought and cannot live in the moment. When the mind decides—if it does—it’s too late. You always fall behind. The mind chases life and misses it constantly. Many of you have imagined that Anand Maitreya will catch a train, but he always misses it. I guess nearly everyone has fantasies of just making it… miss it. The train has gone when you reach the station. See it leaving, but it’s too late to board. Anand Maitreya’s dream is profound and universal. The mind usually misses the train, thus this dream represents it. It’s inevitable because the mind needs time to think, and time keeps sliding away from you. You hold one moment, never two. Such a small moment leaves no room for thoughts to travel or exist. Live it or think it. Living enlightens, thinking misses. Strandberg, enlightenment is not a choice. Not a goal. Enlightenment is realizing we only live in the present. The next moment may or may not come. Indeed, tomorrow never comes. It arrives constantly but never arrives. The mind dwells on tomorrows… and only now can life exist. Jesus tells his disciples, “Look at the lilies in the field, how beautiful they are! Even the great Solomon was not so beautiful attired in all his grandeur as these poor lily flowers.” The secret? The secret is they don’t think ahead. Now they live here.
To live now, here, or as a flower is to be enlightened! Don’t consider what I say. Don’t think, just be. Enlightenment tastes like this. After tasting it, you’ll want more. It’s the most normal state of consciousness, not a goal. Nothing exceptional or extraordinary. Trees, birds, rocks, the sun, and the moon are enlightened. Due to his thinking and missing, only man is not. When you understand you’re missing because you brood too much, small glances appear. Meditation occurs in brief intervals in mental traffic and no traffic. They can happen anywhere…. Yes, Strandberg, in your country! No worries—you don’t need to be in India. India cannot patent enlightenment since it has no copyright. Be enlightened anywhere. Being a husband, father, mother, or wife might enlighten you. Engineers, doctors, carpenters, vagrants, and hippies can be enlightened. Be enlightened anywhere. No effort is needed to achieve enlightenment. You must rest for it, not strive. Relax for enlightenment. Due to the old habit, you will become enlightened and unenlightened many times. You comment, “l am surprised to see so many people around who seem to have that desire.” They will never be enlightened. No one can have both desire and enlightenment. Eat the cake or have it—not both. You will never get enlightenment if you crave it. Desiring precludes enlightenment, hence wanting it is a paradox. Enlightenment is simple: you are or you are not. Enlightenment is your essence, not anything else. Thus, making a big effort is unnecessary. You need not plan for it because it is not a business. Already true! First, Atisha says, “Truth is.”
Enlightenment is like the sun shining everywhere. You can stay with closed eyes in a dark night despite the daylight raining everywhere. Open your eyes and the night is gone. Despite your perception, there was no darkness. It was a private, stupid, weird thing you did. You’ve worked hard to be unenlightened. You must keep trying to be ignorant. Stop trying to stay unenlightened and you’re enlightened. Enlightenment is your nature. Please don’t misunderstand my people. Desirous newcomers have arrived in search of something. However, those who have been with me longer no longer want. They live in the moment, appreciating life’s amazing ordinariness. Small things like drinking hot tea in the morning might be enlightened or unenlightened. Unenlightened people sip hot tea in the morning and ponder about going to the morning conversation. You missed an insightful tea. Remember, if that’s your habit, you’ll miss the talk too—this is just tea. In the discourse, you’ll think, “I have to do the Sufi meditation, I have to rush to do this and that and then come back.” It’s not a one-time event, but a pattern, gestalt. You remain unenlightened if your gestalt is always rushing ahead, thinking of the next instant. This is your work. Nothing except understanding is needed for enlightenment. “Why should I go on keeping myself unenlightened?” I asked myself. “Enough is enough. I have lived so many lives in an unenlightened way.” Since then, I now live enlightened. This is comprehension, not desire. “l feel very much attached to my country and love my work there.” Excellent! Love your work and nation, return, but live there moment-to-moment to stay educated. Don’t lag or haste. Be present in whatever you’re doing. “Still,” you add, “l want to take sannyas. Is that possible? Is it not a contradiction?”
A contradiction. This concludes your contradictions. You must seal the doors of your paradoxical, conflicting life to escape it. Sannyas is closing doors at the end. Sannyas is simply a declaration that “l have lived in the mind for so long, and nothing but misery has been my experience. Now I am taking a jump out of the mind into the unknown. I am wing into a totally different kind of life.” It’s a sign that you’ve understood and want to get closer to me. Being close to, related to, or intimate with a master is a path to enlightenment. Your mind will create fear of the unknown and hold you back. Because it’s familiar and efficient, life with the known is safer. You need a mentor who has lived in the unknown and is innocent to step into it. You need the guide not for advice, but to ingest the spirit of the unknown, its delight, and its celebration. Trying the master’s drink will change your mind. Sanyas is about that. Strandberg can take sannyas. It will start with the same debate: accept it or leave it. It’s normal because you’ve done it for years. You’re used to this. I influence and lure you into sannyas. Great persuasion and seduction are needed. I established sannyas because of that. Why bother? You could have came here, listened to me, and left. You would have listened but not approached me. A bridge. You would have heard me but not felt my stillness. I would have told you about love, but not my love. Sannyas enables it. Energy-field, buddhafield. It is nonverbal, heart-to-heart, and one day being-to-being communion.