Accepting Myself vs Loving Myself - What's the Difference?

Question:

THERE is great difference between the two. Accepting yourself is a much lower state of consciousness – better, of course, than rejecting yourself. It is a medicine; the disease is rejection. And anything medicinal has no permanent or ultimate value; its value is only in curing the disease. Once the disease is cured the medicine has to be thrown away.

The idea of accepting yourself arose because of all the religions for centuries teaching you not to accept yourself. They have created a certain conditioning in the mind which condemns you. It is the priest, the state, which have managed, by continuous repetition, to convince you that a few things are ugly in you: you have to hide them, repress them. And they also give you the idea what is good– which is not in you, which you have to learn and practice.

This point has to be noted: the bad is in you, born in you, part of your nature – obviously it has to be repressed, condemned, controlled, kept in order. The best thing is to destroy it completely. If it is not possible for you to destroy it, then at least don’t leave it uncontrolled; keep it in control. And the society respects the man most who has destroyed that bad part completely, burned it out. Such people are called saints, sages, mahatmas.

Lower than them are those people who have not been able to destroy it completely, but have been successful in controlling the bad part. It is within boundaries. They have created a cage for it - it can go on roaming inside it, roaring inside it. It is troublesome to them but it brings tremendous respectability outside in the world.

These are the respectable citizens.

The most condemned are those who allow freedom to their natural parts, which religions think are bad that goes with them. These people are condemned as criminals by the law. And if they are not caught by the law then religions have provided a God who is all-observing for twenty-four hours a day.

He never sleeps for a single moment, never takes His eyes off you as if you are the only person in this whole infinite universe - and goes on noting in detail what you are doing; not only that, but what you are thinking, dreaming, fantasizing. And all this has to be accounted for one day; on the day of judgment, you will have to answer for it.

So those who are caught by the law, the law will punish, and those who are somehow not caught by law - and of course the law cannot catch you if you are thinking a bad thought, fantasizing something. Even if you are fantasizing a murder, it is not illegal, it is not a crime; the law cannot punish you. The law can punish you only when your thought becomes an action.

But religions were not satisfied only with that, they want to punish your thoughts too; so, God will punish you.... And they have created their hell for those who allow their unacceptable parts to go according to nature.

In short, the natural being in you is not acceptable in its totality to these religions. Many fragments of it are absolutely condemned. A few fragments of it can be used, but in moderation, with control. And the real good has to be learned. You don't bring it from nature: it has to be earned, deserved.

Now, if for millions of years this kind of conditioning goes on and on, naturally you start having a certain conscience - which is not consciousness.

Conscience is a social by-product.
Consciousness is your ultimate nature.

For consciousness there is nothing wrong in you. Everything that nature has provided you can be used for the growth of consciousness. It is raw material.

Have you seen when a building is being constructed and all the raw material is there? You cannot conceive that a beautiful building will come out of it, that a Taj Mahal will be created out of this mess. Your immediate idea will be, "What is this mess all about? Clean ground is far better." But you don't know that all that is cluttering the ground can become part of an immensely beautiful building. It just needs the right architect, the right builders.

There is a Sufi school whose name is simply "The Builders." They have chosen the name "The Builders" because of this fact that man comes from nature as raw material. Nature gives you everything that you need to become a god; but it gives you freedom. It does not impose it on you, because if you are made a god, manufactured a god, your godliness will be worthless. Then you are assembled in a factory.

No. So much freedom is given to you that from the same raw material you can create a devil, you can create a god; you can create a hell for yourself, you can create a heaven. You can fall to the lowest and you can rise to the highest. But nothing is unnatural, neither the highest nor the lowest. Both are your possibilities, and you are free to choose.

But religions have been telling an absolute lie.

They have been saying that you are born in sin, that your nature is basically leading you towards more and more sin. You have to fight with nature, so everything natural becomes in some way evil, and everything that you can do against nature becomes good. That is their definition.

Just look at all the religions and their definitions of good and bad. They may differ about certain things - whether they are good or not - but as far as their fundamentals are concerned, there is no difference.

This is the basic fundamental: that all that has a natural pull on you is sick. You have to get out of the grip of nature - nature is evil and you have to become something supernatural. Then this question of rejection naturally arises. Much has to be rejected in you; almost everything that is natural has to be rejected in you.

It means, in other words, life has to be denied, love has to be destroyed, laughter has to be crippled. You have to be made almost a robot, functioning according to principles given by your pseudo-religious prophets, messiahs.

For example, Jesus says, "Love your enemy." He himself cannot love, neither can his God do that. It is such a simple thing: if God loves His enemies then the sinners should be sent to paradise, not to hell. And the whole bogus theology falls with a single hit, nothing much is needed. If God loves His enemies, then what about the devil? The devil is God's archenemy - He should make him a boyfriend, a girlfriend, anything, but He should love him.

And what are people doing in hell if God loves His enemies? If Jesus loves his enemies then, on the day of judgment, first he should choose his enemies to enter paradise. Christians should be the last because they are not his enemies; his love first should go to those who are against Christians. But that is not the case.

He promises his disciples that, "At the last judgment day, I will be there to sort out my people, my sheep." And it is significant that he calls them sheep. Whether he was a shepherd or not is questionable, but those people were certainly sheep - and they still are. In fact, except sheep, who needs the shepherd? - not man.

Jesus reduced people to sheep by forcing them to believe, to have faith - not to argue, not to doubt, not to question. You are destroying man's humanity, and by and by he becomes a vegetable. Of course vegetables are great believers. They never argue, they never doubt; even if you cut them they don't distrust you. You go on butchering them, they go on believing in you - and that's what Jesus wants from people.

Jesus cannot love his enemies. And he knows perfectly well that his father who is in heaven is also of the same mind, because when he was crucified.... His last prayer has never been looked at from this angle. It has been thought beautiful; from one angle it looks beautiful, but before you judge anything you should move around it and see it from all angles.

Jesus says, "Forgive these people for they know not what they are doing." He is asking his father to forgive these people who are crucifying him "because they know not what they are doing." Now, two things are certain: Firstly, he is not certain whether his father is going to forgive them or not; otherwise, what is the point of the prayer?

If He loves His enemies, He will simply give embraces and kisses to these people who crucified His son. There is no question of forgiving them; otherwise you are depriving them of the kisses of God and the embraces of God and the love of God. If He forgives them, they are no longer enemies; they have not done anything wrong so the question of loving them does not arise. And Jesus praying certainly shows that he is not certain that God is going to forgive them. He is suspicious; otherwise prayer is irrelevant, absurd.

Secondly, even though praying for them, that they should be forgiven, he goes on being arrogant - for which he is being crucified. And he is not leaving that point at all. In the end he adds his insistence, "Forgive them...." Why? "... because they know not what they are doing." They are ignorant and he knows. This idea, that they are all ignorant, is simply egoistic.

And you don't have any proof of what you have been telling them. They are simply asking for the proof, and this is one of the ways of finding out whether you are the messiah or not: the messiah should be crucified and there will be a resurrection. So these poor fellows are simply following religious scriptures. They know exactly what they are doing. They are not ignorant, they are really much too knowledgeable. Ignorant people are innocent; ignorant people don't crucify anybody.

These are knowledgeable rabbis, the high priests of the Jewish temple. These are very knowledgeable people, far more knowledgeable than Jesus is. And this is the whole conflict, that they think this man is simply a crackpot - with no arguments, with no logic, with no rationality, with no support of the scriptures - who goes on proclaiming that he is the only begotten son of God. Now, anybody can say that. There is no way to disprove it.

I have heard a story....

A man, very ugly, dirty, poor, uneducated, fell in love with a very beautiful girl of the city - rich, cultured. And he was in difficulty, how to get this girl? Even to meet her was difficult. The story belongs to India, it can happen only in India. One Gandhian, a follower of Mahatma Gandhi, suggested a simple method: do what Gandhi did.

The man said, "What am I supposed to do?"

The Gandhian said, "You simply go with your bed, spread the bed before the palace of that rich man and go on a fast. Say that unless you are married to the girl you are not going to break your fast - a fast unto death. And I will collect people; don't be worried."

The idea was appealing, and soon the man was lying there with signboards all around and flags and decked, "With our love...." & "Fast unto death for love." Nobody had ever heard of such a great lover before - and so religious too; not threatening anybody, simply killing himself. Now, you cannot take action against any person... and particularly in India. All the Gandhians were in support because of course it is a non-violent method. The police cannot interfere, the government cannot interfere.

The father was in trouble, thinking, "This is something strange. If he dies I am condemned for my whole life. People will say, 'You killed that man.' The murder is on my head. And I cannot let this man get married to my daughter. He has no merit, no qualification he is a beggar, a criminal."

Two or three days passed and it was in all the newspapers with big photos of the man saying that he was dying for love, and condemning the rich man.

Finally, the old man went to an old Gandhian to ask, "You suggest something, because I have inquired of all my friends and they say, 'Nothing can be done against it; even the British government had to leave because of Gandhian fasts. And who are you? - you will have to give in, otherwise that man will die on your floor and you are condemned forever. And nobody is going to marry your daughter either, remember, because a murder is on you, on your daughter: you killed a poor man."'

So finally he thought it was better to ask some Gandhian, an old Gandhian. The Gandhian said, "It is very simple - just use a Gandhian technique against a Gandhian technique. I know a prostitute uglier than that man, very old, just on the verge of death, suffering from leprosy. Just for a little money she will be ready...."

The rich man could not understand; he asked, "What do you mean? What will that prostitute do?"

He said, "She will do everything. We have to give some money to her and tonight she will also come with her bed, lie down by the side of the man and say, 'I will die if you don't marry me.' And by the morning the man will be gone - don't be worried. Just seeing that woman will be enough! He will never come back to your house."

And that's what happened. The man did not even wait for the morning; the moment he saw the woman coming he asked, "What is the matter? What are you doing here?"

She said, "I am going to marry you, otherwise I am going to do a fast unto death, here, just by your side. Either marry me or I will die."

The man looked here and there, but it was silent and in the middle of the night there is nobody. He rolled up his bed and not only escaped from that place, he escaped from the town for a few days, because who knows, that woman might find him and catch hold of him.... He himself had started the Gandhian game; now he was caught in it.

It is a very cunning device invented by all the religions.... They had to invent it because without it there was no way to catch hold of humanity. And certainly, they have been successful. For millions of years they have been sitting on your head. They have reduced all humanity to slavery, in every possible way.

What they have done is this: what is natural to you they have condemned some part of it. Different religions have chosen different parts - that doesn't matter. All that matters is, it has to be natural.

Natural means whatever you do you cannot destroy it. Whatever you do there is no way to get rid of it; at the most you can repress it, hide it so deep within yourself that nobody may be able to detect. But you will know always.... The priest, of course, knows; and the priest has ways of finding out.

First, it is absolutely there; there is no question about it, because it is against nature to drop it. The priest knows it is there, you know it is there. You may even forget it is there but the priest will not allow you to forget that. He will go on reminding you in every sermon, every scripture, every day in every possible way, that your animal - they call your natural being the animal, the devil - is within you, it is there. And the more sophisticated religions even make you confess it - for example, Catholicism.

You have to go to confess to the priest what sin you have committed, what sin you have been thinking to commit, what your fantasies are, what your dreams are. The pope has called it also a sin to confess directly to God. The world seems to be absolutely idiotic, dumb: this polack pope goes on saying things and nobody even raises a question. Confessing to God directly is a sin? Why? Is not God your father also? No, the reason is, if you start confessing to God directly, what about the priest?

The whole key to the Catholic enslavement of its followers is in the hands of the priest. He knows all the dark corners of everybody in the congregation. You cannot leave the congregation - he may expose you. He is dangerous in a way because you have confessed your secret to him, and you have confessed those things which you have been hiding from everybody else. Your whole respectability he can throw within a second; you will be nowhere. Right now you are at the height of respectability, but before the priest... he knows where you are, exactly.

Now, that is a great invention of Catholics - making you confess. But it makes no difference: all other religions, even without confession, know you... because what they have been asking of you is impossible. They have been telling you that two plus two is five, and they know it cannot be. Two plus two is always four.

And you have agreed with them that two plus two is five; now you are caught. If you say two plus two is four you are falling into your animalhood; two plus two has to be five. And you know that that is wrong, but the wrong is respected. The right is not right; the natural is not acceptable.

It is because of this that psychoanalysis became such a tremendously successful phenomenon. It took over the whole world. Never has a single man's idea been so significant that in his own lifetime it became a worldwide revolution. What was his secret? There was no secret. Simply seeing what Christians, Jews and other religions have been doing to people.... They have all repressed your sexuality; on that point they all agree, because sex is the most significant force in you.

Sex is your life-force.
It is from this energy that you come.
It is this energy that keeps you running, alive.

Call it elan vital, call it life-force - because the word sex has become so condemned by the priests that even to use it is to feel as if you are doing something wrong. Use "life-force" and you can see the difference. With the word life-force you don't feel at all guilty. With "sex" immediately something inside you starts pinching - that is your conscience. The priest has managed to create a small mechanism in you; it starts pinching you, telling you that something is wrong.

Sigmund Freud is a by-product of the religions. If there had been none of these religions, there would have been no possibility of any psychoanalysis, because what would there be to analyze? First one needs a repressive system, then a Sigmund Freud is needed, an Adler is needed, a Jung is needed and they will go on coming.

While religions go on suppressing, more and more sophisticated methods of psychoanalysis and treatment will be coming. It is a growing profession. But they should remember this, and I think they have understood the point; within this half century psychoanalysts have understood the point. Now they are functioning in cooperation with religions as deprogrammers... very strange.

A Christian father may take his son to the deprogrammer because the son is moving away from Christianity to some new movement, to some new idea, some new ideology; and the psychoanalyst helps the father. Of course he charges - that is his business - and he deprograms the son. And things can be vice versa too.

Just a few days ago an old man was here, perhaps he is sixty-five. Now his children are thinking to take him to the deprogrammer because he has been coming here for one year continually, and joining in therapies and meditations, and now he is thinking of taking sannyas. Now a crucial moment has come - the family is afraid. He is the head of the family - not only the head of the family, he is the chairman of the corporation, the family's business, which is tremendously large; one thousand million dollars per year he earns.

Of course millions of dollars he gives to charity, to Christians, so that religion is involved. They are afraid if he becomes a sannyasin, those millions will not go to Christianity. The children are afraid because it is all their inheritance but it is in his power. The psychiatrist is there, ready to help bring him back to the Christian fold.

Psychiatrists have understood this perfectly well, that the whole of their religion and their profession are together, they cannot be separated. If psychoanalysis succeeds, it will commit suicide; hence, psychoanalysis goes on and on, it never succeeds. It is not meant to succeed, because if a man is successfully psychoanalyzed he will be deprogrammed completely; then there is nothing to be done with him. He is completely free.

He will do things.... Now he need not have anybody else to guide him, to show him the way, to lead him to God. In his utter freedom he will know that he is part of this eternal existence and there is nobody to lead him. His nature is enough. His intuition is enough. Now he is clean enough to have his intuition function. No, psychoanalysis will not ever be complete.

And in the beginning of psychoanalysis the approach appeared as if it was against religion. It is not.

They are conspirators in the same game. First the priest and the politician were two shareholders in the conspiracy. Now, a third shareholder has entered - the psychotherapist, the psychoanalyst, the psychologist; and they have all kinds of varieties. They have all joined in the conspiracy.

In the Vatican they have created an academy of sciences. The purpose is not science; they will exploit it. Already twenty-six Nobel prize-winners are members of the academy. It has already become respectable. Who is going to be welcomed in the academy? Sixty other scientists around the world have joined the academy. Four times it will be meeting in the year, discussing scientific progress and the problems that scientific progress creates.

But the real reason is that they will supply to that pope all the necessary information, the latest in all fields of science, so that he can decide what is right and what is wrong; so he can decide whether science should move in this direction and should not move in that direction. Particularly his interest is in genetic engineering.

Now, that is going to happen sooner or later, and it has to be done. We are capable now of engineering the human child in thousands of ways. We can give him a lifelong healthy body, from the very beginning prepared to resist all kinds of sicknesses. We can arrange how long we would like him to live, how long we would like him to be young; he can be young to the very last breath.

There is no need for old age. Old age simply can be wiped out, just as sickness can be wiped out.

Man can grow up to youth, and then he can remain young for a hundred years, two hundred years; three hundred years is very easily possible. Right now it can be done, but it is not being done, because nobody is interested in life. All governments are interested in death.

All governments are putting seventy-five percent of their budget into arms. Even the poor countries are in the same competition: seventy-five percent of the budget of their country. People are dying, they don't have enough to eat - and they are creating nuclear bombs and atomic bombs.

Nobody is interested in life; otherwise all facts and research are available to show that man can at least live three hundred years. In fact scientists say, "We don't see any reason why man should have to die, because if he can manage for seventy years on an automatic renewal system, all that is needed is that his genes be reprogrammed." That is genetic engineering.

If your father lived to seventy, and your grandfather lived up to seventy, you can be quite certain that you cannot live more than that. Maybe you will live a year or two more because you have better medical facilities, but not much more because they have given you genes which have a program. Those are the same genes that your father had, your grandfather had, your mother had, your grandmother had. At the most you can take the average of the combination of all those people's genes, and that will be nearabout your life span.

But the genes can be reprogrammed; it is only a question of putting the right idea in their minds. Those genes have a certain small mind, and that mind carries the idea of seventy years of age. If you can just put one zero more it becomes seven hundred, and those poor genes will not in any way object to adding one zero more. It is no problem for them, not a burden. And genetic engineering is now capable of this; in animals it has succeeded, so there is no reason... because the process is the same whether in animals or man.

Now the pope is worried about that. And that is one of the reasons for creating the academy, so that genetic engineering be prohibited, or the pope decides whether it is moral or immoral. And certainly I can say that he will decide it is immoral, because God gives you seventy years - it is a God-given thing - and you try to improve upon God and make man seven hundred years old?

Certainly it will have implications, tremendous implications, because a man who is going to live seven hundred years will remain young at least up to five hundred years. That will be the equivalent of fifty - up to five hundred years he will remain interested in women!

You will have to change that phrase "dirty old man"; there will be no dirty old men. Up to five hundred years a man will be interested in women the women will be interested in men, and they will be capable of making love.

Of course the pope is worried. That's what he has been trying to cut down as much as possible - and these fools, genetic engineers, they are trying to prolong it. Just seventy years is enough for eternal hell. Five hundred years of youth - they will have to create new hells for you. The old hell will not hold that much population; such great old sinners will come in that the former old ones will look childish and be told "Just get out of here!"

It is strange that the academy that the pope has created is not interested in any real problem of life, but is interested only in how to cut man's life - not to solve any problems. But this is the logical end of their whole history. Your nature has to be destroyed, crippled repressed. That creates the greatest religious thing. guilt. And any man who is guilty cannot get out of the prison of the religions.

He may change from one prison to another; he may become a Christian from a Hindu, or a Buddhist from a Christian. That doesn't matter; it is simply choosing your prison. That much you are allowed, because these prisons are without walls; you can simply move from one prison into another prison. But you will remain imprisoned because every religion depends on guilt.

So the first thing is accepting yourself - which is not very great; but seeing the situation in which humanity is, still it is a great revolution: accepting yourself.

But I don't like the word "accept," because that means somehow "What to do? This is the way I am; I accept it." No, with an authentic religion just accepting yourself is not enough.

Loving yourself, that is totally different.
Then you are feeling blessed.

Whatever nature has given - and we are nature, extensions, parts of it - we have to live it with a song, with a dance, with no question of guilt. That idea of 'accepting' yourself has arisen because of guilt. Guilt says, "Don't accept yourself; reject, go on rejecting. The more you reject yourself, the greater a saint you are."

If you look into the history of religions you will find how many kinds of perversions have arisen out of this rejecting.

In Soviet Russia before the revolution there was a Christian cult, very prominent, which used to cut off their genitals. Every year at Christmas time - of course, that is the holiest time - these people would gather in great crowds around the churches and cut their genitals off and pile them up. Now women were at a loss, but not for long; soon they discovered they could cut off their breasts... and they started cutting off their breasts. It was such a bloody, idiotic affair, but these people were respected, worshipped almost like sages - they had done a great thing.

But even if you cut off your genitals that doesn't mean that fantasies about sex will disappear or sex will disappear. It is in the very cells of your body, every fiber of your body. But educated people, even in the beginning of this century, were doing this. It was only because of the revolution that it became a crime. It was very difficult to stop them even after the revolution because it was their religious practice. It continued even after the revolution, here and there; in secret they would gather and do it.

Jaina Monks

More or less all the religions have been doing it in different ways. Jainism gives its monks so little food that there is no possibility that they might be able to generate any sexual energy. The food is just enough for them to breathe - only that much energy... Jaina monks are just skeletons. But the surprising thing is, sexual fantasy does not leave. The body has almost gone, there are only bones: the food is not enough for the most essential things in the body, so of actual sex there is no question.

First your life has to be saved. Sex is the life of your children, of your future generations; but first your life has to be saved; so when food goes into you it has priorities. First, it has to save your brain; otherwise, even if you are alive you will not be of any use, you will be worse than dead.

So the first priority is for the brain. But you will see in the Jaina monks, their brains start disappearing. You can see from their face no sign of any intelligence. They have not done a single creative act in five thousand years. So many people doing nothing - what happened to their brains? Those very delicate tissues died because the food was not available. Right proteins were not available, right vitamins were not available - those tissues slowly slowly died.

Then the heart has to be looked after. Then there are other functions in the body. Only when your whole body is looked after well do you accumulate sexual energy, because sexual energy is not in any way concerned with your life, it is concerned with lives to come. It is concerned with future generations, it can wait. But if you die there is no question of waiting; first you have to be preserved.

So Jainism has cut the food of the Jaina monk in such a way that he has simply destroyed his whole life energy, the whole system. He lives - that means he breathes - and he dies. He never experiences any joy, he cannot even smile. There is nothing left in his life to smile or laugh about.

All the religions in subtle ways - for example, Catholics have monasteries where only monks live, no woman can enter. There are nunneries where only nuns live, no man can enter. And when they say no man can enter or no woman can enter.... I have inquired, "There must be some age limit - for example, a six-year-old boy, he is a man, can he enter where the nuns live? Or a six-year-old girl, can she enter where only monks live?"

They said, "What are you saying? Scriptures say even a six-month-old girl" - a six-month-old girl! - "cannot enter the monastery." And for one thousand years, in one monastery, Athos, no woman, not even a six-month-old girl, has entered. Now, they have cut out sex in a different way - but they have created a thousand and one perversions.

Homosexuality is one of the by-products of religions.

Now when I say it, all the religions will feel offended; let them be! Homosexuality is a by-product of religions - I cannot deny the truth - because you forced monks to live separately, nuns to live separately, you encouraged it.

Wherever only men are living, sooner or later homosexuality is going to happen. In army camps, in religious monasteries, in boys' hostels, in girls' hostels, in nunneries - wherever a single sex is living, an intelligent human mind will find some way to express its sexual energy; it is bound to find a way into homosexuality.

All religions condemn homosexuality.
And they are the producers of it.

They are playing really a very criminal game with humanity. On the one hand they are the causes of all perversions; on the other hand they condemn you because you are perverted.

My whole effort here is to make you aware that the people who cause perversions are not the people who are going to help you out of them. They are living respectable lives - rabbis, sages, popes, bishops, cardinals - on your guilt.

Let the guilt disappear from humanity and you will see all the religions disappearing so quickly.... It is just as when the early morning sun rises, and you can see that in the cool night, drops of water have accumulated on the petals of roses, on the leaves of trees. They are there, but as the sun rises they start evaporating; just within a few minutes they are gone.

Once guilt is dropped religions will simply evaporate; they cannot remain on the earth even a single moment more. It is guilt that keeps giving them food, sustenance; hence, the idea of accepting yourself arose. It is a humanitarian idea. It has come from those people who have been thinking, "How has man become unnecessarily miserable? He has made himself miserable just by fighting against himself." They created the idea of accepting yourself. It was good for its time, but it is not enough.

It is the minimum that you can do. But when you can do the maximum, why stop at the minimum? When you can dance to abandon, then why go on just moving your body a little, as if under compulsion, ashamed: "What am I doing?" Accepting yourself is just like that: smiling, and yet still feeling, "What am I doing?..."

Something is negative in "accepting" yourself. The very word, acceptance, means there has been rejection before, a denial, and now you are trying to cover that denial, that rejection, with acceptance.
No, I don't want this kind of idea to be implanted in you.

My whole vision is of a human being, totally alive, intensely alive, enjoying everything that life makes available, and enjoying it with grace, with gratitude towards existence.

And that's what loving yourself means.

It means that you have thrown all the garbage of religious rejection, repression. You have dropped all the ideals that they have given to you; you are now standing on your own as if you are Adam and Eve. No priest has been there before, no religion has been there before; you are uncorrupted, unspoiled, clean.

Start like Adam and Eve - just think of the idea!
Why bother about the past? Forget about it. You are the first man.

Start living as if you don't know how to live. Nobody is there to teach you, no guidelines exist. No books exist which say how to do this, how to do that. You are just left alone on an island. Everything is available: Intelligence is within you, instinct is within you, intellect is within you, intuition is within you. Now start moving.

Yes, perhaps you may commit a few mistakes - there is no wrong in it, that's how one learns. Perhaps a few times you may fall - nothing to be worried about. You can get up again; and next time you will be walking more carefully, more alert, so you have gained something out of that fall. Out of each mistake, each error, you are constantly gaining something.

Errors are valuable. Mistakes are immensely necessary. If you are somehow protected from committing mistakes and errors, you will never grow, you will never learn a thing, you will never mature.

So behave as if you are the first here. The whole world is available to you to explore. And in exploring it you will be surprised that simultaneously your inner world is being explored too, because as you explore the outer world your insight becomes deeper, your intelligence becomes sharper, your awareness becomes keener. And a perfectly fulfilled man is one who explores both the outer and the inner, and who, at the moment of death, can have a smile on his face: he lived totally, he is happy that he lived totally, he burned his life's candle from both ends together.

When you can burn your candle from both ends together, why be miserly and burn just one end? When you can enjoy double the light and two flames together, enjoy it - because enjoyment is not simply enjoyment. Every joy is growth and brings you closer to blissfulness, to ecstasy.

And unless you have attained to a state of ecstasy where you can say, "I have arrived, I am fulfilled.... The purpose of existence in me is completed. If now death comes, it is welcome. Now that is the only thing that I don't know." A man who can say, "Death is now the only thing that I don't know - life I have known," will be enthusiastic about death, will be eager to meet it, would like to have a plunge into it.

And this is the paradox of life: One who is ready to die, never dies.
One who is himself ready to jump into death, for him death disappears.

Death is only for cowards.
Death is only for those who have not lived, who have really remained dead their whole lives.
Death is not for the living.

The more alive you are, the farther away is death.
If you are totally living, there is no death: Death exists not.

Then there is only life, life eternal.

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