In a few Zen monasteries, every monk has to start his morning with laughter, and has to end his night with laughter - the first thing and the last thing! You try it. . . For no reason! Because there is no reason. Simply, you are again there, still alive - it is a miracle!

Love can never really be a great base for marriage because love is fun and play. If you marry someone for love you will be frustrated, because soon the fun is gone, the newness is gone, and boredom sets in. Marriage is for deep friendship, deep intimacy. Love is implied in it, but it is not alone. So marriage is spiritual. It is spiritual. There are many things which you can never develop alone. Even your own growth needs someone to respond, someone so intimate that you can open yourself totally to him or her.

Physical beauty and ugliness is not very important. The real thing is the inner. I can teach you how to be beautiful from within, and that is real beauty. Once it is there, your physical form won't matter much. Your eyes will start shining with joy; your face will have a gleam, a glory. The form will become immaterial. When something starts flowing from within you, some grace, then the outer form is just put aside.

Jesus must have been a really great artist in creating enemies because he was only thirty-three when he was crucified, and there were only three years of work because he appeared at the age of thirty. Up to that time he was with the mystery schools, going around the world to Egypt, to India, and the possibility is even to Tibet and to Japan.

Awareness means that whatsoever is happening in the moment is happening with complete consciousness; you are present there. If you are present when anger is happening, anger cannot happen. It can happen only when you are fast asleep. When you are present, immediate, transformation starts in your being, because when you are present, aware, many things are simply not possible. All that is called sin is not possible if you are aware. So, in fact, there is only one sin and that is unawareness.

I would like you to drop the ego, to dissolve, to disappear, because only then is there fulfillment. The ego knows only emptiness; it is always unfulfilled. By the very nature, by its very intrinsic nature, it cannot attain to fulfillment. When you are not, fulfillment is. Call it God, or give it a name Patanjali would like - samadhi - the attainment of the ultimate, but it comes when you disappear.

Dont avoid extremes, and dont choose any one extreme. Remain available to both the polarities - that is the art, the secret of balancing.