The Buddha said:
"There was once a man who, being in despair over his inability to control his
passions, wished to mutilate himself. The Buddha said to him: Better
destroy your own evil thoughts than do harm to your own person. The mind
is lord. When the lord himself is calmed, the servants will of themselves be
yielding. If your mind is not cleansed of evil passions, what avails it to
mutilate yourself?"

Thereupon, the Buddha recited the gatha:
"Passions grow from the will, the will grows from thought and imagination:
when both are calmed, there is neither sensualism nor transmigration."

The Buddha said:
"This gatha was taught before by Kashyapabuddha."

The Buddha said:
"From the passions arises worry, and from worry arises fear. Away with the
passions, and no fear, no worry."

Man is in misery, and man has remained in misery down the centuries. Rarely
can you find a human being who is not miserable. It is so rare that it almost
seems unbelievable. Thats why Buddhas are never believed. People dont
believe that they ever existed. People cant believe it. They cant believe it
because of their own misery. The misery is such, and they are entangled
into it so deeply, that they dont see that any escape is possible.

The Buddhas must have been imagined -- people think -- Buddhas are
dreams of humanity. Thats what Sigmund Freud says: Buddhas are
wish-fulfilments. Man wants to be that way, man desires to be out of
misery, man would like to have that silence, that peace, that benediction --
but it has not happened. And Freud says there is no hope -- it cannot
happen by the very nature of things. Man cannot become happy.

Freud has to be listened to very keenly and very deeply. He cannot be
simply rejected outright; he is one of the most penetrating minds ever. And
when he says that happiness is not possible, and when he says that hoping
for happiness is hoping for the impossible, he means it. His own observation
of human misery led him to this conclusion. This conclusion is not that of a
philosopher. Freud is not a pessimist. But observing thousands of human
beings, getting deeper into their beings, he realized that man is made in
such a way that he has a built-in process of being miserable. At the most
he can be in comfort, but never in ecstasy. At the most we can make life a
little more convenient -- through scientific technology, through social
change, through better economy, and through other things -- but man will
remain miserable all the same.

How can Freud believe that a Buddha has ever existed? Such serenity
seems to be just a dream. Humanity has been dreaming about Buddha.

This idea arises because Buddha is so rare, so exceptional. He is not the
rule. Why has man remained in so much misery? And the miracle is that
everybody wants to be happy. You cannot find a man who wants to be
miserable, and yet everybody is in misery. Everybody wants to be happy,
blissful, peaceful, silent, everybody wants to be in joy, everybody wants to
celebrate -- but it seems impossible. Now, there must be some very deep
cause, so deep that Freudian analysis could not reach it, so deep that logic
cannot penetrate it.

Before we enter into the sutras, that basic thing has to be understood: Man
wants happiness, thats why he is miserable. The more you want to be
happy, the more miserable you will be. Now this is very absurd, but this is
the root cause. And when you understand the process of how the human
mind functions you will be able to realize it.

Man wants to be happy, hence he creates misery.

If you want to get out of misery, you will have to get out of your desire for
happiness -- then nobody can make you miserable. Here is where Freud
missed. He could not understand that the very desire for happiness can be
the cause of misery. How does it happen? Why in the first place do you
desire happiness? And what does it do to you, the desire for happiness?

The moment you desire for happiness, you have moved away from the
present, you have moved away from the existential, you have already
moved into the future -- which is nowhere, which has not come yet. You
have moved in a dream. Now, dreams can never be fulfilling. Your desire for
happiness is a dream. The dream is unreal. Through the unreal, nobody has
ever been able to reach to the real. You have taken a wrong train.

The desire for happiness simply shows that you are not happy right at this
moment. The desire for happiness simply shows that you are a miserable
being. And a miserable being projects in the future that some time, some
day, some way, he will be happy. Out of misery comes your projection. It
carries the very seeds of misery. It comes out of you -- it cannot be
different from you. It is your child: its face will be like you; in its body your
blood will be circulating. It will be your continuity.

You are unhappy today; you project tomorrow to be happy, but tomorrow is
a projection of you, of your today, of whatsoever you are. You are unhappy
-- the tomorrow will come out of this unhappiness and you will be more
unhappy. Of course, out of more unhappiness you will desire for more
happiness in the future again. And then you are in a vicious circle: the more
unhappy you become, the more you desire for happiness; the more you
desire for happiness, the more unhappy you become. Now it is like a dog
chasing its own tail.

In Zen they have a certain phrase for it. They say: Whipping the cart. If
your horses are not moving and you go on whipping the cart, it is not going
to help. You are miserable, then anything that you can dream and anything
that you can project is going to bring more misery.

So the first thing is not to dream, not to project.

The first thing is to be herenow. Whatsoever it is, just be herenow -- and a
tremendous revelation is waiting for you. The revelation is that nobody can
be unhappy in the herenow.

Have you ever been unhappy herenow? Right this moment you are reading
me: is there any possibility of being unhappy right now? You can think
about the yesterday and you can become unhappy. You can think about
tomorrow and you can become unhappy. But right this very moment, this
throbbing, beating, real moment -- can you be unhappy right now? Without
any past, without any future?

You can bring misery from the past, from the memory. Somebody insulted
you yesterday and you can still carry the wound, you can still carry the
hurt, and you can still feel unhappy about it: Why? Why did it happen to
you? Why did the man insult you? And you have been doing so much good
for him, and you have been always a help, always a friend -- and he
insulted you! You are playing with something that is no more. The yesterday
is gone.

Or you can be unhappy for tomorrow. Tomorrow your money will be finished
-- then where are you going to stay? Where are you going to eat?
Tomorrow your money will be finished! -- Then unhappiness enters in.

Either it comes from yesterday, or it comes from tomorrow, but it is never
herenow. Right this moment, in the now, unhappiness is impossible. If you
have learnt this much, you can become a Buddha. Then nobody is hindering
your path. Then you can forget all the Freuds. Then happiness is not only
possible -- it has already happened, it is just in front of you. And you are
missing it because you go on looking sideways.

Happiness is where you are; wherever you are, happiness is there. It
surrounds you. It is a natural phenomenon. It is just like air, just like sky.
Happiness is not to be sought: it is the very stuff the universe is made of.
Joy is the very stuff the universe is made of. But you have to look direct,
you have to look in the immediate. If you look sideways then you miss.

You miss because of you. You miss because you have a wrong approach.

This is the most fundamental truth Buddha brought to the world.

This is his contribution. He says: Go on dying to the past and never think of
the future -- and then try to be miserable. You will fail. You cannot be
miserable. Your failure is absolutely certain; it can be predicted. You cannot
manage, howsoever efficient you are in being miserable, howsoever trained,
but you cannot create misery this very moment.

Desiring for happiness helps you look somewhere else, and then you go on
missing. Happiness is not to be created -- happiness is just to be seen. It is
already present. This very moment, you can become happy, tremendously
happy.

This is how it happened to Buddha. He was the son of a king. He had
everything but was not happy. He became more and more unhappy -- the
more you have, the more unhappy you become. That is the misery of a rich
man. Thats what is happening in America today: the more rich they are
getting, the more unhappy they are becoming; the more rich they are
getting, the more they are completely at a loss what to do.

Poor people are always certain about what to do: they have to earn money,
they have to make a good house, they have to buy a car; they have to
send their children to the university. They always have a program waiting
for them. They are occupied. They have a future. They have hope: some
day or other. They remain in misery, but the hope is there.

The rich man is in misery and the hope has also disappeared. His misery is
double. You cannot find a poorer man than a rich man; he is doubly poor.
He remains projected in the future, and now he knows the future is not
going to supply anything -- because whatsoever he needs, he has it. He
becomes troubled, his mind becomes more and more anxious, apprehensive.
He becomes anguish. Thats what happened to Buddha.

He was rich. He had everything that it was possible to have. He became
very unhappy. One day he escaped from his palace, left all the riches, his
beautiful wife, his newly born child -- he escaped. He became a beggar. He
started seeking for happiness. He went to this guru, to that guru; he asked
everybody what to do to be happy -- and of course there were a thousand
and one people ready to advise him and he followed everybodys advice.
And the more he followed their advice, the more confused he became.

Buddha tried whatsoever was said to him.

Somebody said: "Do Hatha Yoga" -- he became a hatha yogi. He did yoga
postures and he did them to the very extreme. Nothing came out of it.
Maybe you can have a better body with Hatha Yoga, but you cannot
become happy. Just a better body, a more healthy body, makes no
difference. With more energy you will have more energy at your disposal to
become unhappy -- but you will become unhappy. What will you do with it?
If you have more money, what are you going to do with it? -- You will do
that which you can do. And if a little money makes you so miserable, more
money will make you more miserable. It is simple arithmetic.

Buddha dropped all yoga. He went to other teachers, the raja yogis, who
teach no body postures, who teach only mantras, chantings, meditations.
He did that too, but nothing came out of it. He was really in search. When
you are really in search then nothing can help, then there is no remedy.

Mediocre people stop somewhere on the way; they are not real seekers. A
real seeker is one who goes to the very end of the search, and comes to
realize that all search is nonsense. Searching itself is a way of desire --
that he recognized one day. One day he had left his palace, he had left his
worldly possessions; after six years of spiritual search, he dropped all
search. The material search was dropped before, now he dropped the
spiritual search. This world was dropped before, now he dropped the other
world too.

He was completely rid of desire and that very moment it happened. That
very moment there was benediction. When he was completely rid of desire,
when he had lost all hope, the future disappeared -- because the future
exists because of your hope. Future is not part of time, remember. Future is
part of your hope, desire; future is part of your greed. Future is not part of
time.

Time is always present. Time is never past, never future. Time is always
here. The now is infinite. The time never goes anywhere and never comes
from anywhere. It is already here and always here. It is your greed, it is
your desire, it is your hope, that some way, in some situation, you are going
to be happy.

All desire dropped, all hope dropped, all hope abandoned, suddenly Gautam
Siddhartha became a Buddha. It was always there but he was looking
somewhere else. It was there, inside, outside. It is how the universe is
made. It is blissful, it is truth, it is divine.

Man remains miserable because man goes on missing this fundamental truth
about his desiring. This has to be understood, then these sutras will be very
simple.

The Buddha said: "There was once a man who, being in despair over his
inability to control his passions, wished to mutilate himself. The Buddha said
to him: Better destroy your own evil thoughts than do harm to your own
person. The mind is lord. When the lord himself is calmed, the servants will
of themselves be yielding. If your mind is not cleansed of evil passions,
what avails it to mutilate yourself?"

Many things to be understood. First: a great misunderstanding exists about
Buddha that he was anti-body. That is absolutely wrong. He was never
anti-body. He was not for the body, thats true; but he was never
anti-body. This sutra will make it clear. He says:

"There was once a man who, being in despair over his inability to control his
passions, wished to mutilate himself."

And there have been many persons like that, not only one person. Millions
of people have destroyed their bodies in the search for truth, God, ecstasy,
or whatsoever you call it. Millions of people have concluded that the body is
the enemy. There is a certain logic in it.

People think it is because of the body that you are in misery. People think it
is because of the body that you have sexuality; it is because of the body
that you have greed; it is because of the body that you need money; it is
because of the body that you need relationship. People think it is because
of the body that the whole trouble arises, so why not destroy the body?
Why not commit suicide?

There have been many religious sects which are suicidal, which really teach
suicide; which say: "This body has to be dropped. If you are courageous
enough, then in one leap, drop this body. If you are not courageous, then
slowly, in parts, cut the body, drop the body."

There was a very popular sect in Russia before the revolution -- it was very
popular -- that used to teach people to cut their sexual organs. And there
were thousands and thousands of people who followed it -- just to mutilate
the sexual organs. The idea is that by cutting the sexual organ you will go
beyond sex. This is simply foolish, because the sex does not exist in the
sexual organ -- it exists in the mind. You can cut the sexual organ and sex
will still exist. In fact, now it will become more neurotic because there will
be no way to fulfill it.

There have been sects all over the world which teach fasting. Once in a
while, once a month, fasting can be of help, can be very healthy, can be a
cleansing process. But to go on long fasts is destroying the body. But there
have been sects: in Buddhas time there was this sect of the Jains which
was obsessed with the idea of fasting. "Go on fasting -- one month, two
months, three months -- and if you die while you are on a fast, you will
reach to the highest heaven."

Why did this idea of fasting become so deep-rooted? Food and sex seem to
be the two obsessions of man. And the people who think: "How to get out
of the misery?" think these two things are the reasons why they are
miserable. In fact, just the opposite is the case.

I have heard:

One airline received this letter: "Gentlemen -- may I please suggest that
your pilots do not turn on the little light that says Fasten Seat Belts,
because every time they do, the ride gets bumpy."

Now you can misunderstand the effect for the cause and the cause for the
effect -- and it seems logical! This man who wrote the letter, must have
watched again and again: whenever it is announced that you should fasten
your seat belts, suddenly the ride gets jumpy, bumpy, rough. He had
watched it many times. He must have been a professor of logic. Watching it
again and again: whenever the light comes on and the announcement,
immediately something goes wrong. His suggestion is very logical -- and yet
absurd. The announcement comes only because the ride is going to be
bumpy. The announcement is not the cause; the announcement does not
create it. It is going to be bumpy -- the announcement tries to help you.

But it happens in ordinary life too. Your mind is sexual. The cause is there.
The body simply follows it. But when the body follows then you become
aware. You are not yet so aware that you can see it when it is in the mind.
When it enters into the body, it becomes very solid -- then you become
aware. Your awareness is not sharp. You cannot catch it in the cause.
When it has already moved into the effect, then you catch it.

You catch it when it is already beyond control. You catch it only, you
become alert about it only, when it has already become solidified.

There are three states of any idea arising in you.

First, the idea is wordless; it is not formulated in thoughts. That is the
subtlest thing. If you can catch hold of it there, you will become free of it.
The second stage is when it has entered into words; it is formulated --
there is a thought arising in you. People are so sleepy that they dont
become aware even at the second stage. When the thought has become a
thing, when it has already entered into the gross body and the body has
become possessed by it, then you become aware. It simply shows your
unawareness.

Hence Buddha says if you really want to get rid of the misery, the pain,
that life that is almost like hell, you have to become more and more aware.
The more aware you become, the deeper the cause you can see. The
deeper the cause known, the more capable you become to get out of it. If
you can catch some desire when it has not even entered into your
conscious mind, and it is still just a feeling with no words, just in the
unconscious striving to get to the conscious, there it is very simple to stop
it.

It is just like: you can throw a small seed very easily. There is no trouble
about it. But when it has taken root and has become a great tree, it will be
difficult to uproot it.

First the idea arises in the innermost core. Then it enters into the mind.
Then it enters into the body. You feel it only when it has entered into the
body. There are even more sleepy people who dont even feel it there.
When it has entered into the world, then they feel it.

For example, anger arises first in your deepest core, wordless, undefined.
Then it comes to be a thought. Then it enters in your body; adrenaline and
other poisons are released in the bloodstream -- you are ready to kill
somebody or beat somebody, bite somebody. You are getting mad. But you
may not even become aware. When you hit somebody it has entered into
the world. That is the fourth stage. Then you become aware: "What have I
done?"

Havent you observed it many times? When you have hit somebody -- your
child, your friend, your wife -- then suddenly you become aware: "What
have I done? I never wanted to do it! It has happened in spite of me," you
say. This simply shows your unawareness.