Consciousness is self-surgery.

And don't ask me how can we raise ...? Nobody can do it for somebody else; you can only do it for yourself.

This is the fundamental of spiritual surgery: you can only be successful on yourself.

Howsoever painful it is ... but there is no other way. Yes, it pays tremendously if you can pass through the test.

If you can pass through the pain, if you can pass through all the misery, the suffering that you have repressed will rise again. It is like entering a house which nobody has entered for years. You will raise so much dust - and that dust is not simple dust, it covers your wounds. It has helped you to forget yourself. It has made you unconscious of yourself. It is not like taking off your clothes, it is more like peeling off your skin.

But once you succeed, then all the pain seems to be just nothing, because the bliss that descends on you is incomparable; the pain that you suffered looks so tiny and so meaningless. But that is in the end.

-Rajneesh

Now you are asking me - how are we going to raise the consciousness of the world? Why should we raise the consciousness of the world? Are you nuts or something? Can't you let the world alone?

You just raise your consciousness.

No, but this is how the world is. Nobody is interested in raising his own consciousness. Everybody is interested in raising the world's consciousness - that seems to be easier, more fun. To raise one's own consciousness is arduous. To raise the consciousness of the world is just fun, no problem to you. Whether it is raised or not, you are not losing anything.

-Rajneesh

You are shattered only when you are living in a glass house. Then anybody can throw a stone and that's enough. But I am not living in a glass house. The ego is a glass house: it is continuously afraid of being shattered. Somebody does not say "Hello" to you on the road, and that's enough. He has not done anything, he has not even said "Hello" - but this man used to say "Hello" every day.

It pinches, it hurts: "What happened? Have I fallen in his eyes, or what?" He will disturb your sleep because he has not said "Hello" to you.

Expectations always lead to frustrations.

Expectations are the seeds, and frustration is the crop that sooner or later you will have to reap. It is your own doing.

-Rajneesh

Respect the children, make them fearless.

But if you are yourself full of fear, how can you make them fearless?

Don't force respect on them towards you because you are their father, you are their daddy, their mom, this and that.

Change this attitude and see what transformation respect can bring to your children.

They will listen to you more carefully if you respect them. They will try to understand you and your mind more carefully if you respect them. They have to. And in no way are you imposing anything; so if by understanding they feel you are right and they go on that way, they will not lose their original face.

-Rajneesh

So much attachment to names, titles, professions, religions - and this is all your identity. And behind all this brown bag is lost your original face.

You are asking me how, in our commune, we can save the original face of our children.

You don't have to do anything directly.

Anything done directly will be a disturbance.

You have to learn the art of non-doing.

-Rajneesh