Life has to be lived before you decide anything about it – for or against. Those who have lived it in its intensity and totality have never been against it. Those who have been against it are the people who have never lived it in its intensity, who have never allowed it their totality; they have kept themselves aloof and closed – but that’s what the religions have been teaching, and how they have been destroying humanity.

Almustafa replied:

Pleasure is a freedom-song…

The statements he is going to make are very significant:

Pleasure is a freedom-song,
But it is not freedom.

Pleasure is only a song, a by-product; when you know freedom the song will arise in you. But they are not synonymous. The song may remain silent – it depends.

You feel pleasure only when you are living a moment of freedom – freedom from care, freedom from worries, freedom from concerns, freedom from jealousies, freedom from everything. In that moment of absolute freedom a song arises in you, and that song is pleasure. Freedom is the mother, the song is only one of the children; there are many other children to the mother. So they are not synonymous. Freedom brings many flowers – it is only one of those flowers. And freedom brings many treasures – it is only one of those treasures.

It is the blossoming of your desires,
But it is not their fruit.

Flowers are beautiful. You can enjoy them, appreciate them, but they cannot nourish you, they cannot become your food. You can have them for decoration, but they cannot become your blood, your bones and your marrow. This is what he means: It is the blossoming of your desires, but it is not their fruit.

So don’t stop at pleasure, there is much more ahead. Enjoy the flowers, collect the flowers, make a garland of the flowers, but remember: there are fruits also. And the fruit of your ripening is not pleasure; the fruit is blissfulness.

Pleasure is only a beginning – the tree is ready. The flowers are a song to announce that the tree is pregnant, and soon the fruits will be coming.

Don’t get lost in pleasures, but don’t escape from them either. Enjoy them, but remember, there is much more to life than pleasure.

Life does not end with pleasure, it only begins with it; the fruit is blissfulness. But pleasure gives you some taste of what is going to be ahead. It gives you a dream, a longing for more; it is a promise, “Just wait, fruits will be coming. Don’t close your eyes to the flowers; otherwise you will never find the fruits.”

That’s what I have been telling you again and again, in different ways. My words may be different, but my song is the same. I may enter the temple from different doors, but it is the same temple.