Tolstoy used to think, “What deep compassion she has!” But later on, by and by, he became aware that she had no compassion at all. This was a substitute.

Then they came out of the theater, and the driver sitting on the buggy and waiting for them was dead, frozen in the ice. He could not leave the buggy. He had to be there: any moment they might come. He was dead, frozen in ice. And Tolstoy’s mother wouldn’t pay even a single bit of attention to him. The man would be thrown out, thrown away, another man would be called and they would move. And she would not weep or cry.

Tolstoy says, “Then I became aware that her compassion was phony. It was a trick.”

It is very easy to cry in the theater, because nothing is involved. It is very easy to cry while looking at a movie: everybody cries at the movies. But to cry in life is difficult because then something is involved.

If you cry for this man who is dead, your driver, then next time you will have to change your lifestyle. Then, if it is snowing too much, you will not go to the theater. Or you will make arrangements for the driver to sit somewhere, or you will make arrangements for better clothing. But that will affect your style of life.

Who bothers about the real man? People cry when they read novels, when they see a movie, when they go to the theater. But in real life their eyes are simply vacant, empty: no tears come.

Remember this: if you really love Zorba, you will become a Zorba; if you love Jesus, you will become Jesus. This is one of the fundamental laws of life: that if you love somebody, if you love something, by and by the object of your love transforms you and you become alike.

Have you observed it? Sometimes you come across a couple, a wife and husband, who look alike. They talk in the same way, they walk in the same way, they smile in the same way. There is a deep affinity. What has happened? – because they are not brother and sister, so why are they so alike? They love each other and they love deeply. When you love somebody you are vulnerable. Then the other changes you and you go on changing the other. If wives and husbands really love each other, by the time life comes to an end they will be almost alike. It has to be so. Love transforms.

But the theater and movies and novels and poetry will not transform you much. In fact, they are the ways of avoiding the transformation. They are the ways of how not to look at life and live in fantasy.

This is not a question. This is a confession. If you had really wanted to dance, who can prevent you? And when that type of dance happens, who would like to prevent you? When you are possessed and it is not a mind thing….