A true story:

Two mothers were overheard talking about their sons.

“My boy has taken up meditation,” said one.

The other replied, “Well, I suppose it’s better than sitting around doing nothing.”

But that’s exactly what meditation is: sitting around doing nothing – really nothing, not even inside, not even thinking, not even feeling. When action as such stops in toto, meditation begins. When doing ceases utterly, categorically, when there is no movement in your being, then for the first time there is the flowering of meditation.

So listen to these words. These words are beautiful if understood rightly – which is very difficult because you are so unconscious, you are so blind. You are living in a state of stupor. You are almost drunk – although you never think of it that way. You may see the drunkenness of others, but you never think that you are also drunk – drunk with greed, lust, ambition, ego. And these are more alcoholic than any alcohol.

One of the greatest problems with man is: he can see very easily that others are wrong but he cannot see that he himself is in the same boat.

Two pink elephants walked into a pub.

The barman looked up and said, “He’s not here yet!”

Get it? He is thinking of some other drunkard who sees pink elephants. He is not drunk, it is some other guy who gets drunk and starts seeing pink elephants. Now he is seeing them, but he is telling the elephants, “Wait, he has not come yet. He must be coming sooner or later.”

The moment you start seeing your own state, a great, radical change sets in.

So listen to these sutras with great alertness, awareness, not in a kind of half-asleep, half-awake state. People are mostly in that state twenty-four hours a day: half asleep, half awake. Something they hear, something is always missed. And the trouble is that whatsoever is more significant is always missed because that is beyond their capacity. Whatsoever is nonessential is immediately heard, is understood by them; that is within their capacity. But they go on forgetting the essential – even if they hear it.

Just watch yourself. Understanding a Buddha, a Christ, a Krishna is one of the greatest exercises in awareness.