The real man of strength is not without heart, because without heart you are a machine, not a man. The real man of strength is hard as steel and as soft as a lotus petal. Only then has a real man attained.

-Rajneesh

Remember, if you are interested in the future you will always remain attached to the past. Why?

Because if you want to become somebody, from where will you get the knowledge to become? The knowledge will be supplied by the past, by the memory, by the skill that you have learned, by all the experiences that you have passed through. The knowledge will be supplied by the past, the know-how will be supplied by the past. If you are interested in the future, then you will remain half in the past and half in the future - and this is the division that keeps you schizophrenic. If you are just herenow, the past is not needed.

See it. Think of it. Just this moment, see it. If you are interested just in this moment, no past is needed, no skill is needed, no memory is needed, no knowledge is needed. And if you are just herenow, where is becoming? You are a being.

-Rajneesh

The egoistic person can try to become humble, but that's where he misses the whole point. You cannot try to become humble. If you try, your humbleness will be nothing but a new camouflage for the old ego, a new painting, a new coat of paint on the old ego, a new dressing, a new decoration, a renovation - but the old continues. It is the ego that was trying to become humble, and when you become humble the ego will feel very gratified. The ego will say, "Look, now there is nobody else who is as humble as I am." But this is ego, this is not humbleness.

The really egoless person is not humble at all. He is neither arrogant nor humble; he is simply himself. The humble person is just the egoist standing on his head, doing a sirshasana, a head-stand, that's all. Nothing has changed. Do you think when you stand on your head, something changes? You simply look foolish, silly, that's all. You may think you are doing something great - yoga, et cetera - all that happens is that you look silly. Nothing changes in you.

-Rajneesh

I am not a scholar and I am not concerned with details. And my purpose here is not to inform you rightly; my purpose is not that of a professor. My purpose is not to inform you at all, but transform you. So it doesn't matter. If it serves transformation, I can misquote. If it serves to hit you, your knowledge, your learnedness, I can do anything.

The purpose is to hammer, the purpose is to shock you.

See the purpose. I am not reading a scholarly, learned paper about Freud. Sometimes it may look different to you, if you are very learned and you have been reading books and Freudian psychology and you have been concerned with small details. It will look difficult for you, but that's really the purpose. If you can drop your knowledge and be mad with a madman like me, then something is going to happen to you. Freud is irrelevant.

-Rajneesh

"IS NOT LIFE NOTHING BUT MISERY?"

It depends on you. Life in itself is an empty canvas, it becomes whatsoever you paint on it. You can paint misery, you can paint bliss.

This freedom is your glory. You can use this freedom in such a way that your whole life becomes a hell, or in such a way that your life becomes a thing of beauty, benediction, bliss, something heavenly.

It all depends on you; man has all freedom.

That's why there is so much agony, because people are foolish and they don't know what to paint on the canvas.

Man is utterly free: that is the beauty of man, the glory. The immense gift of God is freedom. You are left unprogrammed, you don't carry a blueprint. You have to create yourself, you have to be self- creative. So it all depends on you: you can become a Buddha, a Bahaudin, or you can become an Adolf Hitler, a Benito Mussolini. You can become a murderer or a meditator. You can allow yourself to become a beautiful flowering of consciousness, or you can become a robot.

But remember, you are responsible - and only you, and nobody else.

-Rajneesh