Love is a breakthrough; a breakthrough from the ego, from all boundaries, from all limitations. Hence love becomes the sky, the inner sky. And the outer sky is nothing compared to the inner; the outer is just a pale reflection of the inner. Once one has looked into the inner then for the first time one feels that even this sky that we have known always is not so unlimited; it has its own limitations. And modern physics says that it is limited. But the inner sky has no limitation.
That inner sky has been called by many names. Buddha called it 'nirvana': cessation of the ego.
Mahavira called it 'moksha': absolute freedom. Jesus is more poetic about it; he calls it 'the kingdom of god'. But they all indicate the same thing: the moment ego disappears there is freedom, and that freedom is unlimited. The moment the ego disappears the kingdom of god descends in you. When the king dies, the kingdom arrives. If the king lives he remains a beggar.
One can have either one: either you can have the king - the ego, which wants to dominate, wants to possess - or you can have the kingdom. But nobody can have both; that is not the nature of things.
And millions decide to have the king although in deciding to have the king they remain beggars, because a king without a kingdom is nothing but a beggar. And a kingdom without a king is a real kingdom. Even that interference of the presence of the king is no more there.
Lao Tzu says 'The greatest king is one about whom the people never come to know.' The greatest king is one who goes on doing things for the people, but people think that they themselves are doing them, one who remains absent, who remains subtle.
Lao Tzu is right: when you are really the king, you don't brag about yourself. There is no need to beat the drums, there is no need to shout and to make the world feel your presence.
The idea of making the world feel your presence comes from an inferiority complex - because you are afraid, you are suspicious; you are not certain that you are. You want others to confirm it - that you are, that you are great, that you are beautiful, that you are wise, that you are this and that. And if others are not confirming it you yourself start bragging. You start saying things loudly to yourself.
Even if nobody listens, at least you are listening. This is a way of convincing oneself that one is somebody, but deep down in it there is the feeling that one is nobody.
But when the presence is really there, when one is there - not as an ego but just as an eternal presence - one can be absolutely absent. That's why god is so absent in the world: he is a true king. He goes on doing things and everybody thinks that they are doing them. He breathes in you and you think you are breathing. He becomes hungry in you and you think you are hungry. He is thirsty, you think you are thirsty. When the thirst is quenched he is contented; you think you are contented. And he is so absent that he does not interfere with your false notion. He allows you that much freedom.
Because god allows freedom we have created the ego. Because of his utter absence we have created the ego. And the stronger the ego becomes, the more we will be unaware of god. That is the meaning when I say 'Let the king die.' This king is a beggar. When the king is dead - only the kingdom is left and the king is absent - then you have become a sovereign... you are a Buddha, a Christ. And those are all names of the inner sky. But the way to it is love. The boat to the other shore is love.
Deva means divine, nirmoh means non-possessiveness - divine non-possessiveness. And one of the greatest problems for the human mind is how to drop possessiveness, because the human mind feeds on possessiveness. It wants to possess more and more, it wants to possess everything. The more it possesses, the more it feels secure. So it hankers for money, it hankers for prestige, power.
Even in relationship it starts possessing people. And to possess a person is to destroy him, because the moment you possess a person, the person is reduced to a thing. One should not even possess things, but people are even possessing persons. That's why in the world you see so many robots:
they have all been reduced to machines, things.
The day the child is born the parents start possessing him; they cripple, they destroy. Then the church possesses the child; immediately he is to be baptized. He becomes a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan. Then the society possesses him, the country possesses him; and this goes on and on. Then his wife will possess him, his children will possess him. It is a long, long story of being possessed. It is natural that the person is reduced to being a robot. All his freedom is poisoned, all his being is crippled. He can only crawl and creep; he cannot fly. This is what hell is: to be reduced to a thing. But if there are so many people ready to reduce you to a thing it is very difficult to escape.
But one needs to escape.
To escape from being possessed is the rebellion of religion. That is true religion when a person refuses to be possessed by anybody. The moment you refuse to be possessed by anybody you have to refuse to possess others too, because it is a double-edged sword. You should not possess anybody. Love people but don't possess.
That is the meaning of the word 'nirmoh'; and it is one of the most beautiful states to be in. If a person is in a state of non-possessiveness, meditation has happened, silence has come.
All our anxieties are by-products of possessions. The more a person possesses, the more anxious, worried, he becomes. The richer people cannot sleep: they go on driving themselves mad. And the paradox is that they have been searching for all these things - bank balance and power - their whole lives in order to live. But the moment they possess all these things, life becomes impossible. They have lost their souls on the way. They themselves have become possessions of their possessions.
They are no more free people: they are slaves of their things.
And now there are so many worries: whether they will be able to maintain so much money, whether they will be able to remain rich - it is a very competitive world. They lose sleep, they lose silence, they lose relaxation... they suffer. This is hell. Hell is not some place somewhere. It is a state of anxiety, utter anxiety, insecurity, fear.
'Nirmoh' has to be your key. Live in the world but live like a lotus. The lotus lives in the water but remains untouched by it; that is 'nirmoh'. So use it as a key and slowly, slowly as you live it, the meaning will become more and more clear, more clear and transparent.
[About jealousy] It will go... it will go, because it only creates suffering. The moment you become perfectly aware that it only creates suffering it will drop of its own accord. We can carry a thing on only if we hope that something beautiful is going to happen out of it - but never has any beautiful thing happened out of jealousy, and it is not going to happen ever. It simply poisons your sources of love. It poisons all possibilities of your growth, it poisons all relationships. It creates only smoke around you.
There is no question of finding a way out. The question is to see how you go in. Going out is not the question at all. You are out of it. The only thing to watch is how one goes into it. The moment you have seen the process of going into it, you will not go into it. That very awareness becomes the disappearance of jealousy.
Next time it happens, just watch it. Become very objective, a detached watcher, just to see what exactly it is, how it arises just like a small seed, and then how it grows and becomes a big tree and how you are completely lost in it. Just see the whole process of its growth and just see how you help it to grow. Don't be in a hurry to drop it and don't be in a hurry to get out of it; that's where people are wrong. People are in such a hurry to get out that they can't see how they get in, and that is the secret: just watch how you get in.
Once you have seen the whole process and the misery that comes out of it, in that very understanding something evaporates. It is not a question of dropping - just an old habit evaporates.
Suddenly you are out of it and laughing, and suddenly you see the whole foolishness of it, the whole stupidity of it. And then one is surprised at how one suffered so long because of such a stupid thing!
So I will not tell you how to get out of it: I will tell you to watch how you get in. Never be worried about dropping a thing - always remain concerned about understanding it. Dropping is not the question at all. It is just as if somebody asks how not to go through the wall. We will say 'If you can see that this is a wall you will not go through it.' It is not a question of how not to go through the wall; the only thing is to see clearly where the wall is and where the door is. If you see clearly, you will go through the door; you will not go through the wall. It is only a question of clarity. But down the ages we have been told to change our habits, to drop this, to drop that, to create this character, this style of life, this virtue, and nobody has really been telling the secret. The secret is: just watch who you are, how you function, how you move into things. And forget the question of dropping, because if you have already decided to drop something, your observation will be biased. If you have already decided to be against something how can you watch it?
Nobody can watch one's enemy; one wants to avoid him. If you have already decided that something is ugly, bad, evil, then you start looking sideways; you don't encounter it. If it is evil, who wants to see it? You want to escape somehow - and you cannot escape unless you encounter the evil. So don't call it 'evil, don t call it names. Even to call it 'jealousy' is already to condemn it. Call it X, Y, Z.
Say 'I suffer from X, an unknown quality - something mysterious - that makes me suffer, so I have to watch this X and see what it is.'
And once you can watch rightly clarity arises, and clarity is transformation. To understand a thing is to be free of it. To be aware is enough. It is in this sense that Socrates has said 'Knowledge is virtue.'
To know a thing is enough - it becomes your virtue; your character is immediately transformed. My emphasis is not on character at all but on consciousness. Character follows consciousness like a shadow. You need not be concerned about a shadow; a shadow will come automatically.
So while you are here, go through groups, watch - it will arise many times - and watch it in a very friendly way. It is something in you; you have to become acquainted with it. It is part of you; just by denying it, nothing is helped. You have to learn about it. And be unbiased, unprejudiced. Remain open: as if we don't know what it is - good or bad, we will see. If it is good then it will grow with awareness; if it is bad it will disappear with awareness. When you bring light into a dark room, darkness disappears, but you can see the paintings on the walls; they don't disappear.
With awareness growing all that is good remains, becomes more clear, more prominent - you can see it better, you can enjoy it better, you can live it better - and all that is bad starts disappearing like darkness. It is going to happen!
Relax more and more into the work. Make it more and more loving and prayerful, and that becomes meditation. And finally the work has to become meditation. One can only live in meditation if meditation is not something apart that you do it for one hour and then the rest of your life you do something else. Meditation cannot go very deep unless it is spread all over your life, unless twenty- four hours a day become involved in meditation, but to do that, you have to transform the quality of your work.
That is the purpose of all the activities of the ashram. I am interested in making it a really big commune, so many activities, so that almost all the activities that are possible in the outer world are available in the commune. You can live the whole world in the commune and live it with a new quality and a new awareness and a new love. Then life is a joy, then life has meaning.
Bliss is not a goal it is a by-product. When a painter is painting, he is not searching for pleasure. He is simply painting, he is enjoying painting. He is completely involved in the painting, he is lost in it; and then joy arises, pleasure arises, bliss arises - they are consequences, by-products.
One of the most harmful things that Sigmund Freud has done to this age is that he has based his whole psychology on the will to pleasure, on the idea that man is searching for pleasure. Nobody ever searches for pleasure, and those who search never find. Pleasure can never be a goal; it is always a by-product. Whenever you are involved, deeply involved in any activity, there is pleasure.
One cannot seek it directly, one cannot go towards pleasure as a goal; one has to do something else and then pleasure comes.
Life is not a will to pleasure: life is a will to meaning. Do something meaningful, do something significant and creative, and pleasure is the reward; it comes of its own accord. The singer sings a song or the musician plays on the guitar.... They are completely lost in their activity; they are not there, separate. The dancer becomes the dance... and then there is joy, then there is pleasure and great bliss and benediction.
The purpose of all the activities in the ashram, and finally in the commune, is to teach you how to remain in meditation for twenty-four hours. So we are going to create a miniature world where all that is available outside is available, but with a totally different quality. That quality will be meditation.
[To a sannyasin who feels restless] The head always goes ahead! But nothing to be worried about; that's the function of the head. It has just to go on looking into the future - groping to find where to go, what to do, what will be better, what not do to. That is the function of the head. Don't be worried about it; it is doing its function.
Don't get too identified with it, that's all.