A Buddha is not a man of concentration, he is a man of awareness. He has not been trying to narrow down his consciousness; on the contrary, he has been trying to drop all barriers so that he becomes totally available to existence. Watch... existence is simultaneous. I am speaking here and the traffic noise is simultaneous. The train, the birds the wind blowing through the trees - in this moment the whole of existence converges. You listening to me, I speaking to you, and millions of things going on - it is tremendously rich.

All meditations are nothing but efforts to bring you to the present. When you live in the present moment, with no past hanging around you, with no future projection, you are free from life and death, you are free from body and mind. You are free - simply free - you are freedom.

Once you start drinking a little of meditativeness, a little of love, you start growing wings.

I teach you that there is no other aim than to live with such totality that each moment becomes a celebration. The very idea of "aim" brings future into the mind, because any aim, any end, any goal, needs future. All your goals deprive you of your present, which is the only reality you have. The future is only your imagination, and the past is just footprints left in the sands of your memory. Neither is the past real anymore, nor is the future real yet. This moment is the only reality.

But there is a world of difference between dancing and watching a dance performed by a group of professionals who are paid for it. You work hard during the day, and when you are tired in the evening you go to a concert to watch others dancing. It is all you can do, but it is not even an apology for celebration.

Wherever desire exists ego exists, and wherever ego exists illusion exists because ego is the greatest illusion there is. Even in a beggar who has nothing else you will find the same ego as you will find in Alexander the Great, because desiring is the same. Alexander the Great may have much money and much power, that does not matter; he is still desiring. The beggar may not have anything, but he is also desiring.

There are many kinds of richness, and the man who is rich because of money is the lowest as far as the categories of richness are concerned. Let me say it in this way: the man of wealth is the poorest rich man. Looked at from the side of the poor, he is the richest poor man. Looked at from the side of a creative artist, of a dancer, of a musician, of a scientist, he is the poorest rich man. And as far as the world of ultimate awakening is concerned he cannot even be called rich.