First examine what is constantly there in your mind, what is being repeated again and again. You don't have many thoughts. If you examine minutely you will see that you have only a few thoughts repeated again and again - maybe in new forms, new colors, new garments, new masks, but you have only a very few thoughts.

Zen is not effort. Effort is tension, effort is work, effort is to achieve something. Zen is not something to achieve. You are already that. Just relax, relax so deeply that you become a revelation to yourself.

Misery nourishes your ego - that's why you see so many miserable people in the world. The basic, central point is the ego.

Poetry has an indirect way of hinting at things. Poetry is feminine. Prose is masculine. Prose, the very structure of it, is logical; poetry is basically illogical. Prose has to be clear-cut; poetry has to be vague - that's its beauty, its quality. Prose simply says what it says; poetry says many things. Prose is needed in the day-to-day world, in the marketplace. But whenever something of the heart has to be said, prose is always found inadequate - one has to fall back to poetry.

You are asking, 'Is the concept of soul mates more useful than marriage?' Concepts don't matter. What matters is your understanding. You can change the word marriage to the word soul mates, but you are the same. You will make the same hell out of soul mates as you have been making out of marriage - nothing has changed, only the word, the label. Don't believe in labels too much.

If you are aware, you speak with awareness. But the awareness comes from the inward being. It flows from the inner being towards others.

You can go on changing the outer for lives and you will never be satisfied.