Through silence you are sensitive, and through activity you are in contact. Sensitivity inside and contact outside - this is the balance. Then you have two wings. Otherwise, you will be flying with one wing - either activity or silence. But one wing is not enough. You may flutter a little here and there, but one wing cannot lead you to the heights. You cannot move into the sky, you cannot go far away - two wings are needed. And they balance, activity - inactivity; they balance.

-Rajneesh

Zen is a perfect balance. A Zen Master meditates, but then he also goes to the woods to cut wood because winter is approaching. He does many things just like an ordinary man. He is nothing special. Nansen is one of the very few rare human beings who attained to the highest, like a Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus, and continued cutting wood.

When Nansen was very old somebody asked: How are you? He said: Perfect. Cutting wood, carrying water to the ashram, preparing food, working in the garden; it is so beautiful.

Look... cutting wood he remains himself. Activity is there, but the mind is absolutely silent. Carrying water to the ashram, he carries water, but there is nobody inside.

If you can act without somebody there inside you will enter a realm of tremendous beauty, because activity releases energy and silence enjoys the release. With activity, you spread out; you become a vast sky, and deep inside - nobody, a silence. The silence spreads with your activity. Nansen carrying water to the ashram is silence carrying water to the ashram. Nansen cutting wood, is silence cutting wood.

-Rajneesh

If you realize that the ego is your house on fire, you drop it. You don't ask: What will I gain out of it? You simply become a nobody, an ordinary being. And once you are ordinary, everything starts happening.

Zen is ordinary - it makes people just nobodies, and this is the beauty of it. When you become a nobody, when you are ordinary, this is the most extraordinary phenomenon possible. Listen - everybody wants to be extraordinary. So the longing to be extraordinary is very ordinary because everybody wants it. And to become ordinary is absolutely extraordinary because nobody wants it; nobody longs for it - remember this. Only then can you understand Zen Masters.

-Rajneesh

The first thing to be understood, and understood as deeply as possible is that Zen is nothing special.

It is nothing extraordinary. The people who are in search of religion are always, almost always, very egoistic. Their very search starts because their egos are not satisfied with this world. They would like something more precious, to be more of the Divine - something extraordinary. Egoists are attracted towards religion more easily, and this is the problem - because religion says that if the ego is there, there can be no growth. And egoists are easily attracted towards religion but religion starts only when you drop the ego.

But this world is temporary; nothing is permanent here and the ego would like something permanent, eternal. Everything in this world is made of the same stuff as dreams, and the ego is not content.

The ego would like things made of solid rock. So the ego condemns this world and starts a journey towards the eternal. But the eternal has its own conditions, and this is the first condition: if you don't drop the ego, you cannot enter the gate.

-Rajneesh

The last barrier is the idea that your are empty, you are Enlightened, you have achieved, you have reached, you have known, you have realized God - the last barrier. Because with this realization, the 'I' is still clinging. Only the objects have changed, but not you. First, you were clinging to riches, to your prestige, to your power, domination, your house, your car. Now they have changed; now it is emptiness, now it is Enlightenment, now it is God. But your hands are still not open, you are carrying something within them. Your hands are closed. The very word, 'emptiness' means that now you have nothing, not even the one who can declare. That's why Joshu says: Do something, but be finished with this idea.

-Rajneesh