You come to me with a thousand and one problems, but my answer is always the same. If you come with anger I say be aware of it, if you come with greed I say be aware of it, if you come with lust I say be aware of it -- because awareness cuts the very root. What is the root? Unawareness is the root.

One can be angry only if he is unaware. Try to be angry and aware together and you will find it impossible. Either you will be aware, then anger will not be found, or you will be angry and awareness will have disappeared. Up to now, nobody has been able to manage both together, and I don't think you can prove the exception. Try it. It is possible you may think both are happening, but if you minutely watch you will see: when awareness is there anger is not, when anger is there awareness is not. Unawareness is the root of all illnesses; then awareness is the only medicine.

-Rajneesh

So Atisha says: There is no need to have many goals, one goal is enough. Inquire into the truth of your life. Only one search is enough to deliver you from all your miseries, sufferings, hells. Inquire into the truth of your being, see all the facets of it -- the anger, the greed, the lust. Go into each. And by going into each, you will find always and always the same source of joy, the same spring of joy. Slowly slowly you will become a festival. Nothing has been added from the outside, but you have discovered yourself. You have come into the kingdom of God.

-Rajneesh

Jesus says: Truth liberates. This is one of the most important statements ever made, very fundamental for every seeker to understand. Truth liberates -- not the truth that you gather from scriptures but the truth that you come across through your own experiencing.

You are sad. Go into your sadness rather than escaping into some activity, into some occupation, rather than going to see a friend or to a movie or turning on the radio or the tv. Rather than escaping from it, turning your back towards it, drop all activity. Close your eyes, go into it, see what it is, why it is -- and see without condemning it, because if you condemn you will not be able to see the totality of it. See without judging. If you judge, you will not be able to see the whole of it. Without judgment, without condemnation, without evaluation, just watch it, what it is. Look as if it is a flower, sad; a cloud, dark; but look at it with no judgment so that you can see all the facets of it.

And you will be surprised: the deeper you go into it, the more it starts dispersing. If a person can go into his sorrow deeply he will find all sorrow has evaporated. In that evaporation of sorrow is joy, is bliss.

-Rajneesh

If anything has to be prohibited from the world, it is not alcohol, it is politics. And how many people drink alcohol in India? Not more than seven percent. And how many more people are political? I don't think you can find any person who is not political -- very difficult.

You may not be actually in politics, but politics is far more subtle. The husband is trying to dominate over the wife -- this is politics. The wife is trying to manipulate the husband in her own way -- this is politics. The child is in a tantrum and wants a toy immediately -- this is politics. Politics means an effort to dominate the other. And it is very intoxicating; it is the worst kind of alcohol available in the world.

-Rajneesh

Millions are born as seeds and die as seeds. From the cradle to the grave, their story is just of drifting. Accidental it is, and the ultimate result is great sorrow. The idea of hell only symbolizes the great sorrow that you create by a wrong kind of living.

Atisha says:

DON'T SEEK SORROW FOR SPURIOUS COMFORTS.

Then what has to be done? Think of something higher -- something that is beyond death, something that cannot be destroyed, something that is indestructible, something that transcends time -- and sorrow will not be created.

If you search the ultimate, each moment of your life will become more and more peaceful, calm, quiet, cool, fragrant. If you search for the ultimate, if you search for the truth, or God or nirvana or whatsoever you want to call it; if you are in search for the deepest in life and the highest in life and you are not after spurious things, then your very search will bring a new quality to your being. You will feel rooted, integrated; you will feel together. And you will feel a new joy arising in your heart, not coming from the outside.

-Rajneesh