Even sleeping becomes worship. If all your activities start becoming worship, then sleep is also an activity. You fall into sleep so silently, so serene, so joyful. The whole day has given you so much that your whole sleep becomes a silent rest in the very bosom of existence.

So there is a tremendous difference between work and worship.

Worship will transform you.

Worship will give you a real, authentic experience of life.

Work, at the most, can give you a livelihood.

But there is no need to do anything that you don’t want to do. One has to be a little more rebellious, a little more individualistic, a little more alert and aware so that the society, religion, politics, do not exploit you. It does not matter even if you remain a beggar; you will be more blissful than Alexander the Great. He died in utter misery, because he could see he had conquered almost the whole known world, but what had he gained? He had simply wasted his life. He died when he was only thirty-three. He had not lived – there was no time to live, there was no time to love. There was no time to sing, there was no time to play on a flute, there was no time to dance. For thirty-three years he was simply murdering, continuously, innocent people for an insane ambition: he wanted to be the conqueror of the world.

But what are you going to do? Even if you become the conqueror of the world, you will be empty and hollow. And if your whole life has gone into murdering people, killing people, burning people, you will become incapable of loving. You will become incapable of enjoying beautiful music, a beautiful painting, a beautiful dance.

You are bound to become incapable, because a person who has been continuously killing people his whole life has also killed his own heart, has also killed his own sensitivity, has also killed his own aesthetic sense.

I know about a very famous surgeon…he was a friend of mine. He was retiring, and all his friends and students – he was also a professor in the medical college – had gathered to celebrate, to give him a beautiful farewell party. They were dancing and singing, but I looked at him – he was sad.

I approached him and asked, “What is the matter? You should be rejoicing. These people have gathered here to give you a beautiful, joyful farewell.”

He said, “I am sad because I never wanted to be a surgeon. I wanted to be a musician. My parents forced me, and I was not strong enough to rebel, and they destroyed my whole life.”

I said to him, “But you became one of the best surgeons in the country.”

He said, “Who cares! Even if I was the worst musician in the country, I would have loved it. It was my own choice, my own individuality, my own expression, my own signature. This has been slavery. And because I am retiring I feel sad. My whole life is wasted, and it does not seem that now I can begin as a musician.”