If a man is saying what he knows himself, without quoting the scriptures, if he is quoting himself in this situation where the hearer is ready and open and the meditator himself is ready to shower, then the miracle happens. Something invisible is sown in the heart of the hearer.

…once you have heard it, it becomes an excellent cause for enlightenment for all time.
An ancient said, “those who hear this, even if they don’t believe, have blessings greater than humans or gods.”

A very strange statement, but very beautiful and true…. It does not matter whether you believe or not. Those who ask you to believe in what they say are slave creators. What I am saying to you – it does not matter whether you believe it or not, what matters is whether you hear it or not. If it is truth, just hearing is enough, believing is not needed. Believing is needed only when it is not truth, but only a quotation from the scriptures, from other buddhas. When it is not coming from your own heart-source, it does not have the freshness of the breeze passing through the pines, it does not have the freshness of the rose in the rain, it does not have the aliveness of a small child just born. It is stale, it is dead, and dead words are very dangerous. It is just like a dead corpse – it looks exactly like the living man, only it does not breathe. There is no other difference.

Those who have learned the strategy of stopping their breath for long times – and there are many techniques for it – they can play the game….

I have told you about one Zen master who said to his disciples, “Today I’m going to die. Don’t prevent me, enough is enough! I have been with you, I have tried my best and now the time has come, I have to leave. But I don’t want to leave in an unoriginal way. Find some original way for me to die.”

His disciples looked at each other, “Original way to die? People simply die!”

There was silence. Finally, one man said, “Just lie down on your bed and die.”

The master said, “That is too common, too mediocre.” Almost ninety-nine point nine percent of people do it that way. The bed is the most dangerous place in the world.

He said, “As far as I’m concerned, the moment the lights are off I jump out of bed. I lie down on the floor, that is safer. To sleep in a place where ninety-nine point nine percent of people have died, to sleep in that place? – I wonder how people can manage to sleep. Don’t ask me to be so unoriginal. Just suggest some way that is absolutely new.”

One man said, “I have heard about a buddha who died sitting in the lotus posture.”

But somebody else said, “That is not new. A few more have died the same way. It is unique, but not original, not ultra-original.”