will never become a lotus. It is as if a lotus seed is afraid of falling into mud — maybe out of ego that I am a lotus seed! And I cannot fall into the mud. ” But then it is going to remain a seed; it will never bloom as a lotus. If it wants to bloom like a lotus, it has to fall into the mud, it has to live this contradiction. Without this contradiction of living in the mud there is no going beyond.
You ask me, Maya: SOMETIMES WHEN YOU SPEAK, I GET THE VISION OF LIVING A KIND OF ZORBA THE GREEK LIFE — EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY — LUSTY AND PASSIONATE, AND | THINK THIS IS THE WAY. OTHER TIMES | FEEL YOU ARE SAYING THAT THE WAY IS TO SIT SILENTLY; WATCHFUL AND UNMOVING LIKE A MONK.
No. I will be the last person to make a monk out of you — otherwise, why are the monks and nuns so much against me? I would like you to become rooted into the earth. I am perfectly in agreement with Friedrich Nietzsche who says: ”I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth and do not believe in those who speak of other- worldly hopes! ” Learn your first lesson of trust by trusting the earth. It is your home right now!
Don’t hanker for the other world. Live this world, and live it with intensity, with passion. Live it with totality, with your whole being. And out of that whole trust, out of that life of passion, love and joy, you will become able to go beyond.
The other world is hidden in this world. The Buddha is asleep in the Zorba. It has to be awakened. And nobody can awaken you except life itself.
| am here to help you to be total WHEREVER you are, in whatsoever state you are — live that state totally. It is only living a thing totally that one transcends it.
First become a Zorba, a flower of this earth, and earn the capacity through it to become a Buddha — the flower of the other world. The other world is not away from this world; the other world is not against this world: the other world is hidden in this. THIS is only a manifestation of the other, and the other is the unmanifest part of it.
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