Once you are aware of it you don’t even have to say, “I am not the body.” You are not. You simply see it through and through. You are not the body, nor are you the mind, nor are you the emotions. All these are just reflected in you, but by mistake you have been identifying yourself with them.

You were thinking, “My body, my mind…” But your thoughts are not yours, nor is your mind yours, nor is your body yours. What remains when you negate all these identifications? Only a pure awareness, a kind of isness; a being who radiates light, who radiates eternity, who dances with joy that he has come home.

Finally, you will lose awareness of your own body. Your long held conceptions and notions will perish…

Basui is really poor. I have compassion for him because all these things have to happen before realization. But this is the problem with a man who has not traveled the path himself but has only collected wisdom from others. He will put things upside down. He does not know which comes first and which comes second.

Your long-held conceptions and notions will perish, after absolute questioning, in the way that every drop of water vanishes from a tub broken open at the bottom. Perfect enlightenment…

Nonsense has many forms, stupidity has no limits. Enlightenment as such is perfect, so don’t use ‘perfect’ enlightenment. That is unnecessary repetition. ‘Perfect’ is enough or ‘enlightenment’ is enough, because both are the same.

Using ‘perfect’ enlightenment gives the idea that there can be imperfect enlightenment too – fifty percent enlightenment, sixty percent enlightenment. Enlightenment is always one hundred percent, neither less nor more. No buddha is higher than another buddha. The moment you awaken to your being, you have gone beyond all categories, you have melted in the universe where everything is equal. Perhaps Zen is the only real communism.

The communism that we hear about from Marx and Engels and their followers is a very poor thing. And it is very unpsychological, because no two men are equal. You cannot find two men who are equal; every man has his own distinct individuality. Hence, on this level of the outside world, equality can only be imposed by force. It was not just because of the character Joseph Stalin, anybody in his place – if he was obsessed with the idea of equality – would have had to do the same. He killed one million Russians in an effort to make them equal.

I am reminded of a story from old Greek mythology…. A king was very much interested in gold. He prayed for it day and night. Finally, the gods gave him the power that whatever he touched would become gold. So he touched everything in his house and made it gold. But he lost his wife, he lost his daughter, he lost his son. They all escaped, because if he had touched them…He was really AIDS-positive – the first pioneer!