I’m not saying to leave the world of action – because that will make you lopsided again. You are lopsided right now. You have only one mode to your life and that is action, doing something. There are people who cannot think of sitting silently; it is impossible. They cannot allow themselves a moment’s relaxation. They are only interested in action.

I have heard…

Mulla Nasruddin’s wife was standing near the window, and it was a beautiful sunset, and the birds were flying back to their nests. It was really a wonderful evening. And she told Nasruddin, “Look! Come here. See what a beautiful sunset!”

Nasruddin, never looking away from his newspaper, said “Now what is he doing, this sun?”

If something is being done; then he is interested. If it is just a sunset, then what is the point of looking at it?

You are interested only in action, if something is happening. This has become too fixed. This has to be relaxed a little: you have to go for a few moments, for a few hours, sometimes for a few days, totally to the other mode of life, just sitting and allowing things to happen. When you look at a sunset you are not expected to do anything. You simply look. When you look at a flower, what are you supposed to do? You simply look.

In fact there is no effort, even of looking at the flower. It is effortless. Your eyes are open, the flower is there…a moment of deep communion comes when the looked-at and the looker both disappear. Then there is beauty, then there is benediction. Then suddenly you are not the observer, and the flower is not the observed – because to observe there must still be some action. Now you are there and the flower is there, and somehow you overlap each other’s boundaries. The flower enters into you, you enter into the flower, and there is a sudden revelation. Call it beauty, call it truth, call it godliness.

These rare moments have to be allowed more and more. I cannot say they have to be cultivated, I cannot say you have to train for those moments, I cannot say that you have to do something – because again that will be using the language of the action mode, and will be very deeply misinterpreted. No, I can simply say to allow these moments more and more. Sometimes, simply don’t do anything. Relax on the lawn and look at the sky. Sometimes close the eyes and just look at your inner world – thoughts moving, floating; desires arising, going. Look at the colorful dreamworld that goes on within you. Just look. Don’t say, “I want to stop these thoughts” – again you have moved into the action mode. Don’t say, “I am meditating – go. All thoughts, go away from me” – because if you start saying that, you have started doing something. As if you are not…