And joy never arises out of respect. In fact, out of respect a little sadness arises. If you have observed closely, whenever you respect somebody you feel humiliated. You may not look at your humiliation because it hurts, but whenever you respect somebody there is humiliation – because if somebody is superior you are inferior, and the inferiority hurts. You can avoid it, you may not see it, you may keep it at the back, you may forget all about it, but it is there. If you search for it you will always find it lurking in the darkness of your unconscious.

Respect cannot give you joy, but love certainly gives you joy. Joy is a by-product of love, the aura of love. Wherever love is there is joy, there is silence, there is benediction.

Anybody can see it here. You are sitting in such silence. You may be the only commune on the whole of the earth sitting in such silence, in such love – engulfed, encompassed by something of the beyond.

Others who don’t know about love, may misunderstand your love as respect because they know only respect. Those who have never seen any real rose may think that the plastic flower is the real rose.

I have heard about an old woman who went to see an exhibition of Picasso paintings. She was very much puzzled looking at a painting; the cost was millions of dollars. She said to her husband, “This is madness. This painting millions of dollars? And in fact it is a copy of a calendar that has been hanging in my bathroom for years!”

The calendar is a copy, but the woman has known the calendar for years. Now the real painting looks like a copy of the calendar – “And millions of dollars? This man must be mad who is asking millions of dollars! I can give the calendar free to anybody. I am fed up with it, because for years I have been looking at it.”

Those who don’t know real roses and have always known the plastic, if you bring them to a rosebush they will think that these are plastic flowers attached to the bush.

People who come from the outside, seeing you sitting with me in deep communion, in deep love, your hearts beating with my heartbeat, will think that you are in deep respect. It is not respect at all. It is the real thing, not the synthetic flower. It is happening – it is a rare opportunity.

When there is somebody awake, many people who are groping in their sleep to be awake, longing in their sleep to be awake, start moving towards the source wherever awakening has happened. That’s how you have arrived here from faraway countries. You may not even be aware of how you have reached here, you may think it is just accidental. It is not. Many, many lives of longing to find a buddha, to find a christ, have brought you here. You are ancient pilgrims. Now you have found the opportunity.

You are fortunate to love, fortunate to feel the joy of love, fortunate because this love is going to become a door to the divine.

The second question: