Don’t try the impossible – and becoming is trying the impossible. You cannot be anybody other than you are; let this idea sink deep into your heart. Let me repeat: you cannot be anybody other than you are, there is no becoming. All becoming is the world. Not to be a part of becoming is to be a sannyasin.
Who is a sannyasin? – one who is no longer worried about becoming somebody because he is absolutely attuned with his being, he knows who he is and he is happy in being that; one who is grateful in being that. Misery comes whenever you try the impossible, so whenever you are miserable, remember: you must be trying something impossible.
Bliss is an outcome of simply being the natural. Bliss is not an achievement, it is a byproduct of relaxing with yourself, of simply being that which you are. Then this very moment all misery can disappear, and this very moment there is bliss, and this very moment there is benediction…and the heavens open up and godliness starts showering. And suddenly, a great stirring is felt in the heart: one who has been asleep becomes awake.
Becoming is your sleep. Being is your buddhahood, being is your awakening. And becoming creates anguish because you have to find ways and means, and everything fails, nothing ever succeeds. Nothing can ever succeed. Hence great anguish arises: your life, which could have bloomed in flowers, becomes only a bed of thorns.
But you are responsible and nobody else; it is your life, it is your responsibility. You have to take care about your being. And the greatest thing that can be said to you is: just be yourself. Carry no idea about how you should be – drop all “hows,” drop all ideas, drop all ideologies, drop all concepts, images of how you should be. You are already that. Start enjoying that which you are, and then this very ordinary life suddenly becomes extraordinary. Then these ordinary days have such tremendous poetry, then these ordinary moments are full of dance. Then these ordinary people are no more ordinary people; they turn into gods and goddesses. The moment you accept your being you accept everybody’s being.
Why has this happened at all in the first place? And why only to man? Why not to the trees and the birds and the animals? Why are the Himalayan peaks so beautiful, and why are the birds on the wing so enchanting, and why do the trees have such splendor? Why has this disappeared from man’s life? There is a reason, and it has to be understood.
Man is the only conscious being on the earth; that is his glory and that is his agony too. It depends on you whether it will be agony or glory. Consciousness is a double-edged sword. You have been given something so valuable that you don’t know what to do with it; it is almost like a sword in the hands of a child. The sword can be used rightly, can protect, but the sword can harm too. Anything that can become a blessing can also become a curse; it depends how you use it.