There comes a moment when nothing is in your mind, not even the question. The question has eaten itself up.

That's what happens in a Zen koan: an absurd question. And why absurd? - for this particular reason: if it is not absurd then the mind will supply an answer. And if the mind supplies an answer, out of that answer ten more questions will arise. And then it will be a regress ad infinitum; there will be no end to it. Hence an absurd question is given to the meditator so that mind cannot supply any answer. If no answer is supplied how long can you go on asking the question, how long? - one year, two years, three years, four, five, six... one gets tired. A moment comes when one is so exhausted with the question and the futility of it all, and one knows there is no answer to it. One day, out of sheer exhaustion, the question slips out of your consciousness. You are left alone, a pure mirror reflecting nothing.

The question has eaten itself; that is koan. The snake has started eating its own tail: now the circle is complete, the perfect circle. The perfect circle has been the symbol of wisdom. The question is the beginning of knowledge, the perfect circle is the symbol of wisdom.

-Rajneesh

You see people all over the world growing old, but without growing up. Even in their old age they remain childish deep down, because they never allowed their own real self to grow. They have been piling upon the false self, decorating, bringing more ornaments for the false self, creating new props so it doesn't collapse; but this false self cannot grow. Remember one thing: no false thing can ever grow, it remains stuck. Can you think of a plastic flower growing? The real rose grows, the plastic rose remains as it is. It is dead, how can it grow?

The self that is given to you by others is a dead entity; it cannot grow, it cannot flow. It is a frozen thing! And with that frozen thing you will be imprisoned.

When I look at people, watch their faces and their beings, I am constantly in deep pain seeing them.

Great compassion arises. They could have been beautiful beings but they have remained retarded.

-Rajneesh

Intelligence comes only when you discover yourself. Intelligence is the shadow of that discovery; the great exhilaration that happens when you have stumbled upon yourself face to face, when you have encountered yourself, when you know who you are. Suddenly you are rooted in existence, suddenly you are beyond time. Even death cannot kill you and fire cannot burn you. You are eternal.

In that eternity all fear disappears. And when there is no fear there is freedom. In that beautiful experience of oneself all hankering for possessions disappears, because you possess the very kingdom of God. Now nothing is of worth. In that experience all doubts dissolve. You have come to an absolute rock, and only on this rock can the temple of religion be built. This rock is eternal.

Otherwise whatsoever you are doing is just making sandcastles on the seashore; just a strong gust of wind and all those castles will disappear.

All that you are doing is writing your name on the sand. Time is just sand and nothing else. Time cannot give you any taste of the eternal, and without that taste one remains frightened of death.

The invented self is always afraid, continuously afraid. It lives in fear, it lives in paranoia, it lives in neurosis. The discovered self knows nothing of the abnormal, perverted, neurotic mind. It becomes simple, it becomes ordinary, but that ordinariness is luminous.

-Rajneesh

The people who were crucifying Jesus were absolutely unaware of the person whom they were confronting. Who was this man that they were killing? They were killing God! They were killing one of the most significant expressions of God on the earth, but they were blissfully unaware.

That's why Jesus said, "Father, forgive these people, because they don't know what they are doing. They don't know me, and what they are killing is their own idea of me. They cannot kill me."

That's why people like Jesus, Socrates, Buddha, are not at all worried about what you think about them. They know themselves; your thinking makes no difference. Your thinking will make a difference to you, but it makes no difference to them. They go on living on their own; they live an authentic life.

-Rajneesh

You are not to invent your self. You have to discover it. And discovery means an inward journey. Discovery means not asking the other but asking oneself "Who am I?" asking in one's aloneness "Who am I?" letting this question penetrate deeper and deeper, like an arrow, so that it penetrates your very core - and there, one day, is the revelation.

And the moment you know who you are your whole life is transformed. Your whole life becomes divine because you are gods. Your faces are different, your talents are different, your colors are different, your minds, your conditionings are different, but these are only layers around you; they don't constitute your core. The core is your original face, uncontaminated by the society.

And when you come to know your original face - the face that you had before you were born and the face that you will again have when you have died, the face that has been given to you by God - that face is the greatest experience. Knowing it, one knows all. Not knowing it, you can become very knowledgeable, but you are just hiding your ignorance.

-Rajneesh