Clarity is not part of the mind at all; clarity is the absence of the mind, confusion is the presence of the mind. Confusion and mind are synonymous.

You can't have a clear mind. If you have clarity, you cannot have the mind; if you have the mind, you can't have clarity. The mind is always divided against itself, it lives in conflict. Divisibility is its nature. Hence those who live in the mind never become individuals, indivisibles. They remain divided: one part wants this, another part wants that.

Mind is a crowd of many desires; it is not a single desire. Mind is multi-psychic, and all the fragments are falling apart in different directions. It is a miracle how we go on keeping ourselves together; it is a hard struggle to keep oneself together. Somehow we manage, but that togetherness remains only on the surface. Deep down there is turmoil.

-Rajneesh

Wondering is not questioning, it is feeling mystified by existence. Questioning is an effort to demystify existence; it is an effort not to accept the mystery of life. Hence we reduce every mystery to a question. The question means the mystery is only a problem to be solved, and once solved, there will be no mystery.

My effort in answering you is not to demystify existence but to mystify it more. Hence my contradictions. I cannot be consistent, I am not answering you. I cannot be consistent, because I am not here to make you more knowledgeable. If I am consistent, you will have a body of knowledge -- very satisfying to the mind, nourishing, strengthening, gratifying.

I am deliberately inconsistent, contradictory, so that you cannot make any body of knowledge out of me. So if one day you start gathering something, another day I take it away. I don't allow you to gather anything. Sooner or later, you are bound to be awakened to the fact that something totally different is transpiring here. It is not that I am giving you some dogma to be believed in, some philosophy to be lived by, no, not at all. I am utterly destructive, I am taking everything away from you.

-Rajneesh

All questions are silly and so are all answers. Questions come out of the mind like leaves come out of the trees. Questions are part of the mind that has to be dropped; questions keep the mind nourished.

A question is really a search for food. The answer is the food. The question is a groping:

the mind is feeling hungry, it wants to be strengthened, it wants to be fed, it searches for food. Wherever it can find something satisfying... any answer that makes the mind knowledgeable, that gives the mind the feeling "Now I know," functions as a food. And the mind can go on and on asking, collecting answers, becoming knowledgeable.

The more knowledgeable the mind is, the more difficult it is to drop it. And it has to be dropped, because unless questioning ceases in you, you will never be silent. Unless questioning disappears totally, you will not find that space, that serenity, that stillness, which can make you aware of who you are, and of what this reality is.

-Rajneesh

Atisha is not an escapist. He does not teach escapism, he does not tell you to move from situations which are not to your liking. He says: You have to learn to function in bodhichitta, in buddha-consciousness, in all kinds of situations -- in the marketplace, in the monastery; with people in the crowd or alone in a cave; with friends or with enemies; with family, familiar people, and with strangers; with men and with animals. In all kinds of situations, in all kinds of challenges, you have to learn to function in compassion, in meditation -- because all these experiences of different situations will make your bodhichitta more and more ripe.

Don't escape from any situation -- if you escape, then something will remain missing in you. Then your bodhichitta will not be that ripe, will not be that rich. Live life in its multidimensionality.

-Rajneesh

Buddha says again and again to his disciples, "IHI PASSIKO: come and see!" They are very scientific people. Buddhism is the most scientific religion on the earth; hence, Buddhism is gaining more and more ground in the world every day. As the world becomes more intelligent, Buddha will become more and more important. It is bound to be so. As more and more people come to know about science, Buddha will have great appeal, because he will convince the scientific mind -- because he says, "Whatsoever I am saying can be practiced." And I don't say to you, "Believe it," I say, "Experiment with it, experience it, and only then if you feel it yourself, trust it. Otherwise there is no need to believe."

Try this beautiful method of compassion: take in all the misery and pour out all the joy.

-Rajneesh