But in the desert people say, and it is derived from thousands of years of experience, that when a man becomes so thirsty that he forgets everything…. The fiery sun on his head, the fire in the sand, and he is all thirst; now it is not even a verbal thing in him. It is not that he is thinking, “I am feeling thirsty.”

He is thirst. Not that he is thinking about it, he is it.

The desert people all over the world have experienced a very strange phenomenon. Whenever somebody comes to such a state of thirst – and many times it happens in the desert – he suddenly becomes intuitive. He starts moving towards the place where he will find water. He has no map, he has no instructions. He has no way to move logically in any direction because in the desert all directions are the same, and there is no reason to choose one direction and not another.

But now there is no question of choice. There is no question of thinking, he is just thirst. And that thirst moves existentially towards the place where it can be quenched.

When I came to know about this, I was surprised that no other mystic has taken note of the fact that the same is the situation of the seeker. Of course his desert is bigger, and his thirst is bigger too. The ordinary thirst is momentary; his thirst is eternal – but the basic principle is the same.

When a man becomes so aflame, he starts moving…I will not say he starts going in that direction; he finds himself going towards a certain direction, having no other alternative. There is no reason to stop. And that’s how those who have reached, have reached.

Remember one thing: that to get rid of the doer is the most essential thing if you want to taste another world – the world of happenings, where you are just a witness.

The law of reverse effect is: there are things which you can have but because you are trying to get them, you will not be able to get them. It is like when you want to fall asleep in the night. You try all kinds of tricks but you find that you cannot befool yourself – sleep is not coming. On the contrary, because of your tricks and because of all the things people have told you to do if you do not find sleep coming to you naturally – all those things keep you awake. Because to do them you have to be awake!

Somebody is repeating a mantra – but to repeat a mantra, you have to be awake. Somebody is doing some breathing exercises from Yoga – but breath is so deeply involved in life that if you are using breathing in a certain way, with a certain rhythm, it will keep you alert, awake, fresh.

Sleep needs totally different things. If you want sleep to come, forget all about sleep; that is the first rule. Do something else. Get involved in something so deeply that you are not at all concerned with sleep and it will start coming. You will hear small footsteps, you will feel it is coming, but don’t pay any attention.