Then you go on destroying this moment for the moment which never comes. Then you go on destroying this life for some life which exists nowhere. You go on destroying this world for some other world – some paradise, some moksha, some nirvana. To sacrifice the present for the future is to be trapped into death.

To live the moment, to live it totally and freely, is to delight in existence, is to celebrate it. And that is the only way of being; there is no other way. Idealism has put you on a wrong track.

The first thing to be understood: you are perfect.

If somebody says to you that you have to become perfect, he is the enemy. Beware of him! Escape from him as soon as possible. Don’t let him poison your being. Don’t let him destroy you. He may have been destroyed by others; now he is doing the same to you. He himself may be a victim. Have compassion on him, but don’t allow him to destroy you. He has not lived his life. He has only hoped; he has not lived. He has only dreamt; he has not lived. He has only prepared, planned; he has not lived.

The idealist mind goes on preparing for something that never happens. It is a nightmare. It goes on preparing and preparing – infinite preparations for a journey that never starts. It goes on planning in a thousand and one ways – subtle, cunning, clever – but the whole thing is pointless, because each moment it is denying life.

Life is knocking at your doors each moment and you are denying it, because you say you are preparing for it. You say, “How can I receive the guest right now? I am not ready.” By and by you become so accustomed to preparing that preparation becomes your life.

You have missed. This type of mind is constantly missing, and the more it misses, the more it plans desperately – to go somewhere, to reach somewhere, to attain something, to be somebody. And the misery of all miseries is that it is not going to happen.

Life was already available. You need not prepare for it. You are already entitled to enjoy it. By just being alive, you are already ready. Because you breathe, you are already capable. Because you can be conscious, you are already ready. Nothing is lacking.

Once you take the first wrong step, the whole journey goes wrong. The first step defines and decides your whole life. Never try to be perfect, otherwise you will be caught in a dead routine – preparing and preparing. You can watch yourself, you can watch others. People who have become addicted to idealism live a life of ritual, of empty gestures. They are always waiting: some great thing is going to happen. It never happens of course, because it cannot happen that way.

It is happening right now, here, and their eyes are fixed somewhere there, far away. It is happening at close quarters. It is already happening near your heart. Where your heart is beating, it is already happening – and they are looking at the sky.