One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen. You cannot do it every morning for a few minutes or for half an hour and then forget all about it. It has to become like your heartbeat. You have to sit in it, you have to walk in it. Yes, you have even to sleep in it.

My whole love and respect is for the person who accepts himself totally, as he is. He has courage. He has courage to face the whole pressure of the society which is bent upon splitting him into divisions — into good and bad, into saint and sinner. He is really a brave, courageous being who stands against the whole history of man, of morality, and declares to the skies his reality, whatever it is.

It is a totally different creativity I am talking about. A Taj Mahal... just watching it on a full moon night, and great meditation is bound to arise in you. Or the temples of Khajuraho, Konarak, Puri - just meditating on them and you will be surprised that all your sexuality is transformed into love. They are miracles of creativity. They were not created by pathological people, they were created by those who had attained.

Charity is to unburden you from your guilt, so you say, `I am doing something: I going to open a hospital, going to open a college. I give money to this charity fund, to that trust....` You feel a little happier. The world has lived in poverty, the world has lived in scarcity, ninety-nine percent of people have lived a poor life, almost starving and dying, and only one percent of people have lived with richness, with money - they have always felt guilty. To help them, the religions developed the idea of charity. It is to rid them of their guilt.

We have been distracted into unnatural motivations: money, prestige, power. Listening to the cuckoo is not going to give you money. Listening to the cuckoo is not going to give you power, prestige. Watching the butterfly is not going to help you economically, politically, socially. These things are not paying, but these things make you happy.

Wisdom happens through meditation, and bliss also happens through meditation. Both the flowers bloom on the same branch.

The world can come to a harmony if meditation is spread far and wide.