So some may be asking out of intellectual curiosity; some may be asking just to show their knowledge – not that they want to know the answer but that they already know the answer. They are just checking whether I also know the answer or not. There are different categories of questioners.

A few are very childish. One man is continuously asking that he should be allowed to sit in the first row. It seems he has come here only to sit in the first row, because he is threatening that if he is not allowed to sit in the first row, he will go away from here, be against me, propagandize against me. The qualifications that he is showing in his threats certainly prohibit him from the first rows – he will never be allowed to be in the first rows. He seems to be absolutely stupid. Does he think that he can threaten me, or blackmail me?

And the very desire to sit in the first row is nothing but egoistic; here you are to be humble. The people who are sitting in the first rows have been here for years, and they have disappeared long before. That’s why they are in the first rows – just posthumous existences. Once they used to be; now they are no more. You are too much – you will have to remain in the very last row. If you want to be in the first row, disappear. Your question is coming out of your ego and you must be blind, utterly blind, because you cannot see what kind of question you are asking.

And I don’t determine who should sit in the first row. It is something autonomous: slowly, slowly, as people drop their egos, they start moving closer to me.

Your ego is the distance between me and you.

If you want the distance not to be there then you have not to ask, you have to destroy your ego and the distance will disappear. One day you will find yourself sitting in the first row.

There are questions and questions. A few people are asking because I have said something before and now I am saying something which appears to them to be different or even contradictory. Neither were they hearing at that time, nor are they hearing at this time – because those who have listened to me are not going to find any contradiction anywhere. Their deep listening will make a great harmony out of all statements that I am making. If the statements look opposite, that means you are incapable of creating a harmony. You have not heard, you have not understood.

A few people go on asking questions just to show others that they are growing spiritually very high. One day they are touching the very sky; another day their girlfriend has left them, and all their spiritual flight is finished! One day they are beyond jealousy, beyond ego, and the next day their question comes: “What to do with jealousy? Perhaps it has come back….” It has never gone anywhere. They were just enjoying the idea that they don’t have any jealousy. Perhaps there was no opportunity for jealousy to show, and now the opportunity has arisen.