The so-called transcendental meditation is nothing but a psychological tranquilizer. It is nothing—just a tranquilizer. It helps, but it is good for sleep, not for meditation. You can sleep well, a more calm sleep will be there. It is good, but it is not meditation at all. If you repeat a word constantly it creates a certain boredom, and boredom is good for sleep.

He said, Contented? I am the MOST discontented man in the world! Don't you know I am the wealthiest man in the world? That is my discontent. Now I know there is no more to wealth: all that is possible I have attained, and yet I am dying empty. My life has been just a wastage. Next time, if God gives me another opportunity, I am not going to try money any more - it has failed.

The man who is egoless is the man who has no ideals. Let this be the criterion, and you have stumbled upon a fundamental. The man of no ego is the man of no ideals. Then how can the ego be created? - the very energy is missing. The energy comes out of friction, conflict, struggle, will.

Live without expectations and there will be no frustration.

Meditation has to become your heartbeat; even when you are asleep the meditation continues like an undercurrent.

The authentic religion teaches you to discover your immortality, to discover the god within you.

When you are in anger, in passion, violent, aggressive, you feel a crystallized ego within you. Whenever you are in love, in compassion, it is not there.

Miserliness has its own conveniences, otherwise nobody would be a miser. If you are not a miser, you become more insecure. If you cling to money, to things, you feel a certain security: at least there is something to ding to; you don't feel empty. Maybe you are full of rubbish; but at least something is there, you are not empty.

Whether you create, or you observe an objective piece of creativity, meditation should be the key. Without it, mind can only spread on the canvas its nightmares. Most of the paintings of the great painters like Paul Gaugin or Picasso are almost like vomit. They could not contain their agony and suffering - it was so much they threw it on the canvas to get relief. The real objective art is not a relief; it is not a sickness that you want to get rid of. It is a blissfulness that you want to share. And by sharing, it grows; you have more of it, the more it is shared.

Creativity has nothing to do with any activity in particular - with painting, poetry, dancing, singing. It has nothing to do with anything in particular.

Don't try to understand life. Live it! Don't try to understand love. Move into love. Then you will know - and all that knowing will come out of your experiencing. The more you know, the more you know that much remains to be known.

Life is a garden. It is an opportunity. You can grow weeds, you can grow roses; it all depends on you.

Just as the day cannot exist without the night, just as life cannot exist without death, creativity cannot exist without silence. And vice versa is also true: silence cannot exist without creativity.

A man who is 100% sane is dead.

When it comes to deciding between your love and your truth, truth has to be the decisive factor.

Remember, until you become a buddha you have wasted your life. Buddhahood is your flowering, your fragrance. A tree is fulfilled when it blooms, and a man is fulfilled when he releases the fragrance of buddhahood, when he becomes luminous; then he comes to know who he is. In knowing that, all is known. In knowing that, God is known. In knowing that, truth is achieved - you become the truth, and truth liberates. Truth is freedom.

When there is no mind, you are in yoga; when there is mind you are not in yoga. So you may do all the postures, but if the mind goes on functioning, if you go on thinking, you are not in yoga. Yoga is the state of no-mind. If you can be without the mind without doing any posture, you have become a perfect yogi. It has happened to many without doing any postures, and it has not happened to many who have been doing postures for many lives.

Love is power, the purest power and the greatest power: Love is God. Nothing can be higher than that. But this power is not a desire to enslave others, this power is not a destructive force. This power is the very source of creation. This power is creativity. And this power will transform you totally into a new being. It has no concern with anybody. Its whole concern is to bring your seeds to their ultimate flowering.

So your life becomes a vital celebration, your relationship becomes a festive thing. Whatsoever you do, every moment is a festival. You eat, and eating becomes a celebration; you take a bath, and bathing becomes a celebration; you talk, and talking becomes a celebration; relationship becomes a celebration. Your outer life becomes festive, there is no sadness in it. How can sadness exist with silence?

First, meditation, and then out of meditation comes creativity of its own accord.

Just by being aware, thoughts start disappearing. There is no need to fight. Your awareness is enough to destroy them. And when the mind is empty, the temple is ready. And inside the temple the only god worth placing is silence. So those three words you have to remember: relaxation, thoughtlessness, silence. And if these three words are no more words to you but become experiences, your life will be transformed.

God is nothing but creativity. So wherever there is a sign of creativity, God has a signature there. He has already been there. Maybe even the poet does not know, but he has been touched by something from the beyond.

My sannyasins have to be creators, not through the mind but through meditation. And it comes of its own accord, one need not even think about it. So I don't teach creativity, I only teach silence. And then out of that silence much creativity comes. One is surprised oneself at how much one was carrying in one's being, unexpressed, at how great was one's potential. When one comes across it one cannot believes it!