They had objections, but no logic. The professor had brought them to a point where they had to accept, unwillingly, that he is the greatest man in the world.

This is the work of the ego that is going on in everybody. Everybody somehow is trying to feel, to convince himself, that he is the greatest man in the world: somebody because he has more muscular strength; somebody because he has more intellectual, argumentative rationality; somebody because she is more beautiful than anybody else.

And you can always find something that will be supportive to you – but it is not really nourishing to you. It is cutting you off from existence. And then on every step there is going to be trouble; you will find that you are chained.

But why did you create yourself?

You want freedom? Then the only thing that has to be one is, be free of yourself. Be free of the ego and you will never find any bondage in nature. Then everything is beneficial. Nature gives you infinite freedom – but it is not against nature, it is according to its laws.

The freedom was there before too, but you were stubborn. You were trying to go upstream, and then you say, “The stream is pushing me back – it does not allow me to go upstream. What about my freedom?”

The stream has no awareness of one stupid fellow trying to go upstream. The river is going according to the cosmic laws of nature; if you want to be really free, relax and go with the stream. Don’t keep any distance between you and the stream. Then wherever the river leads is the goal, wherever it takes you is what you always wanted, because there is no separate entity.

With your separate entity every problem has arisen. You are miserable, you are in suffering, you are in tremendous anguish – and you are the cause of it all.

For example, I have never felt in thirty-three years, for a single moment, that anything goes against me – even those things which look to others as apparently going against me, I have not felt that at all.

If somebody comes and assassinates me, I will not for a single moment think that anything is going against me. I will relax and let the man assassinate me. I am not going to swim upstream. If this is what nature wants, I am absolutely willing to go with it.

Your absolute willingness to go with nature will give you the ultimate freedom. Of course, you will not be there, but freedom will be there. You cannot exist together – you and freedom.

Choice is yours. You can choose your ego and remain in bondage. You can choose freedom, freedom from the ego – and then all kinds of freedom are available to you.