You say, “You seem to be the only person in the world who never disappoints me.” I may be the only person in the world with whom you don’t have any expectations. Just try…and you will find many people who will not disappoint you. The seeds of disappointment are in your expectations. There may be a few people even here who may be disappointed in me, if they are carrying in their unconscious some desire, some longing that should be fulfilled.

I am not going to fulfill anybody’s expectations. I am not here to fulfill your expectations; neither are you here to fulfill my expectations. I have to be myself, and you have to be yourself. We create bridges of expectations, not knowing that expectation can never become a bridge – it always becomes a wall. The more you expect, the more frustrated you are.

Don’t expect anything, and suddenly you find a tremendous contentment arising within your own self. This is the essential core of religion.

But even a man like Jesus was expecting on the cross that God was going to do some miracle, and the miracle was not happening. Naturally, he must have felt very disappointed in the God for whom he was sacrificing his whole life. And he shouted at the sky, “Father, have you forsaken me?” This is the language of expectation and demand. Then, even God is going to disappoint you.

But he must have been a man of sharp intelligence. He must have understood that he was carrying a wrong desire. You cannot demand anything from existence. You can only give. Existence returns a thousandfold, but not according to your expectation. He must have seen that there has been, in his unconscious, a demand. He dropped the demand at the last moment. At the very last moment he looked again at the sky and said, “Father, thy will be done, not mine.” And a great serenity and silence descended upon the man, even though he was suffering on the cross.

In a certain way, everybody is suffering. The only difference is that in the case of Jesus the cross was made by other people, and he was crucified. In your case, you are the cross, you are the crucifier, and you are the crucified. Except you, everything else is irrelevant. If you want to get out of your miseries, your frustrations – just drop expecting. Who told you that you have a right to expect? But we are all carrying subtle expectations in every relationship, and then small things become frustrations.

You are saying, “You never abandon me.” I cannot, because it is not that I have imprisoned you – it is not in my hands either to imprison you or to make you free. You are here of your own accord, and you can leave at any moment. Within you is the whole source of your being here, or going away. I have never abandoned anyone, for the simple reason that I don’t dominate anybody.

Nobody is my possession.

People have to abandon each other because the possession becomes too heavy; the burden becomes intolerable. It is almost like – you can say, “You never divorce me.” Even if I want to divorce you, no court is going to accept my application because I’ve never married you. Who am I divorcing? Divorce necessarily has to be preceded by marriage, and vice versa: marriage necessarily brings divorce in. Whether you are courageous enough to go through the whole process or remain in limbo, it is going to be a suffering.