The master can only give you certain hints about how to find your path. He can give you certain indications whether you have found it or not, can give you certain criteria to judge whether you are moving towards the goal or away from the goal. But he does not give you guidelines. In the very nature of things, it is not possible. The moment you have found a master, you have found the path.

And who is the master? – not one who fulfills your mind expectations. A Christian mind has Christian expectations, a Hindu mind has Hindu expectations, a Buddhist mind has Buddhist expectations. A master is one who fulfills the longing of your heart. It has nothing to do with the mind. It is a love affair. You simply find that you are in love. You simply find that your heart feels at home, at ease, that your heart has found a treasure, feels a tremendous benediction. And as you come closer to the master – in your love, in your trust – your peace deepens; your silence becomes something not dead, the silence of a graveyard, but something singing and dancing, alive.

The more you are moving towards your life’s fulfillment, the more your life becomes a rejoicing, a deep joy for no reason at all, a blissfulness so deep and so abundant that you can start sharing it with others. In fact, you have to share it with others because it is overflowing, you cannot contain it. For the first time, you are small and your bliss is infinite. These are the indications that you are moving towards home: your ecstasies go on growing deeper and higher.

And if you are moving away, you will become more miserable, more sad, more saintly, more Christian, more Hindu, more Jaina – all kinds of diseases. More knowledgeable, but more and more empty inside, a beggar living by a thin thread of hope that somewhere in the other life, somewhere in the other world, you will be rewarded for all your sadness, your long British faces. Saints don’t laugh. They have fallen below humanity, because only human beings laugh. Buffaloes don’t laugh, donkeys don’t laugh – they all belong to the category of the saints and sages. Perhaps these fellows – donkeys and buffaloes – may have been great sages in their past lives and now they are getting their reward. Don’t misbehave with them. Be respectful. One never knows… But as far as I am concerned, your sense of humor, your laughter will become deeper as you grow in consciousness. You will become more playful in life.

So there are neither orders nor guidelines but only vague hints: indications, and a constant effort to sharpen your intelligence so that you can find your way. And when you have found, you have the courage to burst into song, into dance, into rejoicing. That’s the function of the master: to make you more intelligent and more courageous, more loving, more understanding. But there are no orders, no disciplines, no guidelines. Orders, disciplines, guidelines – these have been used by people who wanted to dominate you, by people who wanted to dictate their terms, to enforce their ideas on other people’s lives. I call all such people great criminals. To impose your idea on somebody, to give some ideal, some mold, is violence, sheer violence. You are being destructive, and a master cannot do that. A master is always creative.