If you love a person, by and by the person becomes the door to the whole. But one has to start with the person, with the small, with the atomic. You cannot take the jump. The Ganges cannot simply jump into the ocean, it has to start in the Gangotri, just a small stream; then wider and wider and bigger and bigger it goes, and then finally it merges with the ocean.

This moment! - this here-now - is forgotten when you start thinking in terms of achieving something. When the achieving mind arises, you lose contact with the paradise you are in.

People are imitative and imitation is bound to be unintelligent. They want to do exactly the things which others are doing. That destroys their freshness. Do things in your own style; live your life according to your own light. And even if the same situation arises, be alert to find a new response. It is only a question of a little alertness, and once you have started enjoying... and it is really a great joy to respond to old situations always in a new way, because that newness keeps you young, keeps you conscious, keeps you non-mechanical, keeps you alive.

Millions of people miss meditation because meditation has taken on a wrong connotation. It looks very serious, looks gloomy, has something of the church in it, looks as if it is only for people who are dead, or almost dead, who are gloomy, serious, have long faces, who have lost festivity, fun, playfulness, celebration.... A really meditative person is playful: life is fun for him.... He enjoys it tremendously. He is not serious. He is relaxed.

Vegetarianism is a conscious effort, a deliberate effort, to get out of the heaviness that keeps you tethered to the earth so that you can fly - so that the flight from the alone to the alone becomes possible.

Devotion means for the total; it is never for Rama, never for Krishna. Of course, Rama and Krishna are implied in the total, but it is never for a chosen one. Love is always for the chosen one, devotion is for the whole. So you cannot be a devotee of Rama. If you are for Rama, you are only a lover; and when you are a lover, then competition is bound to be there. Then Krishna will be a competitor, and Christ will be a competitor, and the same jealousies, the same conflicts, and all the same nonsense will follow. It has followed.

The feminine is more powerful than the masculine, the soft is more powerful than the hard, the water is more powerful than the rock.