Existence is trying from everywhere to reach to you, but you are closed. Not a single window is open; no door is open. You have filled even small cracks in the wall out of fear, for the sake of security. This is not security, this is suicide.

Open all the doors, all the windows. Let the sun come in, let the wind come in, let the rain come in. Let existence enter into your being and give you a fresh life each moment. You can have such a joy, such immense ecstasy, without torturing yourself and becoming a saint, without making yourself uncomfortable doing all kinds of yoga gymnastics, which are nothing but contortions of your body. You can be at ease, comfortable.

There is no need of fasting, there is no need of lying on a bed of thorns, there is no need of renouncing the world – these are all stupid things. If you want to become a saint, they are necessary – stupidity is the foundation of all your saintliness. But if you want to be a man of understanding, then nothing of all this is needed. All that is needed is: remove the obstacles, watch, and see when listening happens and when it does not happen; what is the difference in your mind? That difference has to be destroyed.

Everybody is capable of it, but everybody has fallen into the habit of being preoccupied, because the whole crowd is preoccupied. And you are brought up, unfortunately, by these people. Your upbringing by wrong people is the basic problem, and there seems to be no alternative.

Many times a few children have been found in the forests, raised by wolves. Just six or seven years ago, near Lucknow a child was found in the forest, raised by wolves. The child had been missing from a village for almost fourteen years. His parents had lost all hope, they could not figure out where the child had gone. A wolf had just taken the child. But the child was so beautiful and so innocent that even the wolf, out of love and compassion, rather than eating the child, started raising him. And a group of wolves, female wolves, were giving their milk to the child.

For fourteen years he was amongst the wolves…and his life with them revealed many secrets. When he was found he could not stand on two feet, because he had never known anybody to stand on two feet; he was running on all fours. That’s the impact of upbringing. Naturally, he could not speak a single word of any language, but he used the language of the wolves perfectly well. He used to run so fast…no human being can run that fast; only wolves can do that. That showed many things that upbringing can do to a person.

He was kept in Lucknow hospital. First they tried all kinds of massages to get him up on two legs; it took six months for them to make him stand up. But still his running was so fast that they could not leave him without chains – he was still wanting to go back to the wolves in the forest. And then they started teaching him his name – they had given him the name Ram. It took almost one year for the poor boy to say “Ram”, when asked “What is your name?” That was all the language he ever learned: the word Ram.