Now, a few things about samadhi will have to be understood.

One: it is not a goal to be achieved, it is not a desire to be achieved. It is not an expectation, it is not a hope, it is not in the future; it is here & now. That's why the only condition for samadhi is desirelessness - not even the desire for samadhi.

If you desire samadhi, you are continuously eroding samadhi yourself. The nature of desire has to be understood, and in that understanding it drops by itself, on its own accord. That's why I say that when your hopes are frustrated, you are in a beautiful space; use it. That is the moment when you can enter into samadhi more easily.

Blessed are those who are hopeless: let it be added to Jesus' other beatitudes.

Jesus says, "Blessed are the meek, because they shall inherit the earth."   I say to you: blessed are the hopeless, because they will inherit themselves in being whole.

HOPE      |      FEAR     

Try to see how hope is destroying you. With hope arises fear. Fear is the other side of the same coin.

Whenever you hope you also become afraid. You become afraid of whether you are going to fulfil your hope or not. Hope never comes alone; it keeps company with fear. Then, between fear and hope you are spread out. Hope is in the future and fear is also in the future, and you start swinging between hope and fear. Sometimes you feel, "Yes, it is going to be fulfilled"; and sometimes you feel, "No, it seems impossible," and fear arises. Between fear and hope, you lose your being.

Let me tell you one very famous old Indian story.

A fool was sent to buy flour and salt. He took a dish in which to carry his purchases. He was told not to mix the two ingredients, but to keep them separate. After the shop-keeper had filled the dish with flour, the fool, thinking of the instructions, inverted the dish asking that salt be poured on the upturned bottom. Therewith the flour was lost, but he had the salt. He brought it to his boss who enquired, "But where is the flour?" The fool turned the dish over to find it, so the salt was gone too.

Between hope and fear, your whole being is lost.

Moving Away

That is how one has become so disintegrated, split, schizophrenic. Just see the point of it: if you don't have any hope, you will not be creating any fear - because fear cannot come without hope.

Hope is a step toward fear within you. Hope creates the door for the fear to enter. If you don't have any hope then there is no point in fear. And when there is no hope and no fear, you cannot move away from yourself. You are simply that which you are. You are here-now. This moment becomes intensely alive.