Mohammedans have the holy Koran as their scripture and Hindus have the Veda as their scripture, and Sikhs have Guru Granth, and Christians have the Bible as their scripture, and Jews have the Talmud. If you ask me, “What is the scripture of Zen?” they don’t have any scripture, their scripture is the universe. And that is the beauty of Zen.

In every stone is the sermon, and in every sound of a bird God is reciting. In every movement around you it is God dancing.

Compassion is when you allow this eternal song to flow through you, to pulsate through you – when you cooperate with this divinity, when you move hand in hand with God. It has nothing to do with you; you have to disappear for it to be. For compassion to be, you have to disappear utterly – it flows only into your absence.

Kindness cultivated makes you very egoistic. You can go and see: people who are kind are very egoistic, more egoistic than the people who are cruel. This is strange. The cruel person feels a little guilty too, but the so-called kind person feels perfectly okay – always holier-than-thou, always better than others. He is very self-conscious in what he is doing; his each act brings more energy and more power to his ego. He is becoming greater and greater every day. The whole trip is of the ego.

This is the first thing, compassion is not the so-called kindness. It has the essential part of kindness in it – the essential part of being soft, of being sympathetic, of being empathetic, of not being hard, of being creative, of being helpful. But nothing is done as an act on your part; everything flows through you. It is from God, and you are happy and thankful that God has chosen you as a vehicle. You become transparent and it passes through you. You become a transparent glass so the sun passes through you – you don’t hinder. It is pure kindness with no ego in it.

The second thing: compassion is not your so-called love either. It has the essential quality of love, but it is not your love. Your love is just lust parading as love. Your love has nothing to do with love – it is a kind of exploitation of the other, in a beautiful name, with a great slogan.

You go on saying “I love you” – but have you ever loved anybody? You have simply used others; you have not loved. Then how can using the other become love? In fact, to use the other is the greatest destructive act possible in the world – because to use the other as a means is criminal.

Immanuel Kant, describing his concept of morality, says: “To use the other as a means is immoral – the basic immoral act.” Never use the other as a means, because everybody is an end unto himself. Respect the other as an end unto himself. When you respect the other as an end unto himself, you love. when you start using – the husband using the wife, the wife using the husband-there are motives. and you can see it all around.