If you close your eyes and learn how to see within, you will be surprised. A far more beautiful sky opens its doors for you. A far more unbelievably beautiful world welcomes you; it has great splendor. You could never have imagined that things could ever be so beautiful. Stones turn into diamonds. Naturally, one would like to cling. Great treasures are there; one would like to hoard them. And there is nobody to compete with you; you are alone, and the whole kingdom is yours.

And just as your nose has the capacity to smell beautiful flowers, it has an inner capacity too. Once you turn in, you will come to smell fragrances which are not of this world -- and it is very natural to be caught by them.

But all these experiences are hindrances, obstacles. The real seeker when he moves inwards has to be more alert than he had ever been on the outside. He has to be really alert not to be caught by anything.

And I am not saying don't enjoy. Enjoy -- but remember that you are not it. Enjoy, it is your right to enjoy -- but remember: "I am the witness of it all." If that witnessing is remembered, you will never be "goofed," you will never be deceived. Otherwise you can be deceived again and again.

To summarize: the spiritual experience is not an experience, but experiencing. Second, experiencing is a content; and you are not the content, you are just a mirror. If this much is remembered, then there is no pitfall for you. Then your path is straight.

-Rajneesh

Let me say that truth is an experience in the sense of experiencing. You can never declare, you can never claim "I have it." You can only be humble about it -- "It is happening" -- and then you will not be deceived. The deception comes because you start claiming "I have it." Then the ego arises saying, "I have the truth. Only I have the truth, nobody else does. I have arrived." And the ego raises its head.

Truth is an experiencing. You cannot claim it, it is very mercurial. If you want to grab it, it will disappear from your fist. You can have it only with an open hand, not with a fist.

When you make a noun out of it, you are trying to grab it in a fist; it will disappear. Let it remain a verb. Don't say, "I have arrived." Simply say, "The pilgrimage has started. I am a pilgrim, I am moving."

-Rajneesh

Truth cannot be transferred, truth cannot be handed over to you by somebody else, because it is not a commodity. It is not a thing, it is an experience. In fact, the word experience is not exactly the right word. It will be truer to say that it is an experiencing; this is the first thing to be understood.

I have to use language which is already there, created by the centuries, with all kinds of fallacies in it -- obviously. Language is created for day-to-day use, language is created for the mundane world; as far as it goes, it is good. It is perfectly adequate for the marketplace, but as you start moving into deeper waters it becomes more and more inadequate -- not only inadequate, it starts becoming utterly wrong.

For example, think of these two words, experience and experiencing. When you use the word experience it gives you a sense of completion, as if something has come to a completion, as if the full stop has arrived. In life there are no full stops. Life knows nothing of full stops; it is an ongoing process, an eternal river. The goal never arrives; it is always arriving, but it never arrives. Hence the word experience is not right. It gives a false notion of completion, perfection; it makes you feel as if now you have arrived.

ExperiencING is far more true.

-Rajneesh

God has given you this life, this tremendously valuable gift, and you cannot even appreciate it. You cannot welcome it, you cannot feel any gratitude for it. On the contrary, you are complaining and complaining and complaining. Your heart is full of grudges, not gratitude.

But this is what you have been taught by the priests down the ages. Priests have lived on it; this has been their basic strategy to exploit people.

If life is lived in its totality, the priest is not needed at all. If you are already okay as you are, if life is beautiful as it is, what is the need for a priest? What is the need of a mediator between you and God? You are directly in contact with God: you are living in God, breathing in God, God is pulsating in you.

-Rajneesh

Theists, atheists, both are victims. The really religious person has nothing to do with The Bible or the Koran or the Bhagavad Gita. The really religious person has a deep communion with existence. He can say yes to a roseflower, he can say yes to the stars, he can say yes to people, he can say yes to his own being, to his own desires. He can say yes to whatsoever life brings to him; he is a yea-sayer.

And in this yea-saying is contained the essential prayer.

-Rajneesh