There is another kind of love; just to make the distinction we will call it compassion. A love without the desire to possess, a love without the desire to power, a love that simply wants to share its bliss, its grace, its joy, and asks nothing in return.

You can understand these anecdotes only out of your love. So while I am reading, listen to the very center of your being…and I have been teaching you nothing else but getting into the center. From now onwards I would like you, even while I am reading, to be not just a listener, but also a meditator. In absolute silence these flowers of eternity bloom.

Yakusan was puzzled, because the scriptures were holy scriptures. And Hakugan, who himself was known to be a great master, was saying to him to stop befooling people, “Throw away these scriptures. All your knowledge, reduced to reality, is nothing; because you don’t know on your own, you are simply living on a borrowed theology, philosophy, religion. You can talk like a buddha, you can quote exactly every word of the Buddha, but if you are not a buddha yourself, you are befooling people.”

It reminds me of the last day of Gautam Buddha’s life on this earth. It was a full-moon night. It is a strange coincidence; he was born on a full-moon night, he became enlightened on a full-moon night, he died on a full-moon night. What a beautiful, symmetrical, harmonious life, where end and beginning and the middle are all same.

He died, but he had thousands of disciples, and the problem was that he had left nothing in writing. What about the coming centuries? People will never know this great height that Gautam Buddha touched, this depth of consciousness that he reached. For the coming centuries every word that he had uttered in forty-two years had to be recorded.

But it was a problem…forty-two years he had been speaking – only one man had been continuously present, who was Ananda. Others sometimes were with him; sometimes they would go to preach, and sometimes they would stay with Buddha, particularly in the rainy season, when moving around was difficult; but most of the time, except Ananda, nobody remained with Gautam Buddha. But the trouble was – and his memory was unbelievable – but the trouble was that he was not enlightened himself.

Three hundred disciples who were enlightened gathered together in an assembly hall, but everybody said, “A few things I have heard, but I cannot say about his whole teaching, I have not been with him for all the time he was teaching.” Those three hundred people were enlightened, and they said, “We can say what our experience is, but if you want Gautam Buddha’s words you will have to let in Ananda, who is sitting outside the hall, on the steps.” He had not been allowed in, because he was not yet enlightened.