Three sutras, basic for life transformation, are ultimate in a way. The first: be non-ambitious.
Kill out ambition.
Totally. Unless ambition is killed you will remain in misery. Ambition is the source of all misery.
What is ambition? A wants to be B, the poor wants to be rich, the ugly wants to be beautiful. Everyone longs to be something, someone else, something other than what he is. No one is content with himself. That’s what ambition is.
Whatsoever you are, you are not content with it. That is ambition. Then you are bound to be in misery, because you cannot be anything else. You can only be yourself, nothing else is possible. All else is just futile, harmful, dangerous. You can waste your life, your existence.
Whatsoever you are, you are. Accept it, don’t desire otherwise. This is what non-ambition means. Non-ambitiousness is basic to all spiritual transformation, because once you accept yourself many things start happening.
The first thing… If you accept yourself totally, the first thing that happens to you is a non-tense life. There is no tension. You don’t want to be anything else, there is nowhere to go. Then, you can be here and now. Then, there is no comparison. Then, you are unique, yourself. Then, you are not thinking in terms of others.
Then, there is no future. Ambition needs future, ambition needs space to grow. Ambition cannot grow here and now, there is no space. The moment is so small, so atomic. Ambition needs the future; and the greater the ambition, the greater the future that is needed.
If your ambition is such that it cannot be fulfilled in this life, then you will create an afterlife. You will create heaven, you will create moksha, you will create the concept of rebirth. I am not saying that there is no rebirth. I am saying that you believe in rebirth, not because it is there – you believe in it because your ambitions are so great that they cannot be fulfilled in one lifetime. Your belief in rebirth, reincarnation, is not because it is a fact. It is because of ambition and desire. Reincarnation may be a fact, but for you it is just a fiction. For you it is just more future, more space to move in.
Remember, you cannot be ambitious in the present moment. Impossible! There is no space. The present moment is so atomic, so small, that you cannot move in it. You can be in it, but you cannot desire in it. It is long enough to be, but it is not long enough for desiring. To desire, you need future, time. Really, time exists because of desire.
For the trees here, there is no time. For the birds singing here, there is no time. For the stars and for the sun and for the earth, there is no time. Time exists because of human desire. If humanity was not on this earth there would be no time: there would be no past and no future.
So don’t think that the past, the future and the present are parts of time; they are not. The past and the future are parts of a desiring mind. Time consists only of the present, the herenow. Time consists only of eternal moments, the eternal moment. Your desire creates the future. Your memory creates the past. They are parts of your mind. Don’t desire, and the future disappears. And when there is no future, how can you be tense? How?
There is no possibility of being tense if there is no future. And if there is no past – if you know that it is simply memory, the dust collected on the way – how can there be any anxiety? With the past, anxiety enters. With the future, plans, imagination, projections, tensions exist. With the past dropped, the future not opened, you are here, now. No anxiety, no tension, no anguish.
Non-ambition means accepting yourself as you are. That doesn’t mean that there is no possibility of growth. No, on the contrary, when you accept yourself as you are, the transformation sets in. You start growing, but the dimension differs. Then the dimension is not in the future, the dimension is in the eternal.
Know well this distinction. You can move in two ways: if you move into the future, you are moving into the mind – a fiction, a dream world. If you don’t move into the future, then a different dimension becomes open for you. From this very moment you are moving into the eternal.
The eternal is hidden in the moment.
If you can be here right now, in the moment, you have entered the eternal. If you go on thinking of the future and the past, you are moving in the temporal. The temporal is the world, and the eternal is nirvana.
Buddha is reported to have said again and again that if you can be in the now, there is no need of any technique to meditate. It is enough. It will do all that is needed. But how can you be in the now if you are ambitious?
The ambitious mind cannot be in the now. It can be anywhere else, but it cannot be in the now. The ambitious mind always moves away from the present. It is thinking of that which is to come, it is thinking of tomorrow. It is thinking of an afterlife, it is not interested in the life that is here. It is interested in something that should be. It is not interested in the is; it is always interested in the ought, in the should. That interest is non-religious. A religious mind, a religious consciousness, is interested in existence as it is. The first sutra is: Kill out ambition totally, so that you can be here and now, so that you can enter the eternal.
The second sutra:
Kill out desire of life.
Kill out desire of life. Life’s laws are very paradoxical. If you desire life, you will miss it. That is the surest way to miss it. If you desire life, you will miss it; if you don’t desire it, abundant life will happen to you.
Through desire you move against life. It looks paradoxical. It is. But this paradoxical law has to be understood deeply. Why, when you desire life, do you miss it? It should not be so. Logically, mathematically, it should not be so. If someone desires life, why should he miss it? The mechanism is such that when you desire, you have again moved into the future – and life is here! Life is already the case, how can you desire it? Only that which is not, can be desired. And life is. How can you desire it? It already is, it has happened already. You are life. So if you desire it, you will miss it. Through desire, you are moving away. Every desire leads you further and further away. That’s why there is so much insistence on desirelessness. Not that Buddha or all those who talk about desirelessness are against life; really, on the contrary, they are for life. But they say “Don’t desire,” and to us it looks as if they are against life, life-negative. They are not.
We are missing life through desire. They say “Don’t desire.” Then what happens if you don’t desire? What will happen? Life will happen to you. It is already happening, but you cannot look at it – your eyes are fixed on the future. You are somewhere else, your mind is not here. Life is here and you are not here, so the meeting has become impossible. Life will always be here and you will never be here; then there will be no meeting. Then you will hanker for life, you will desire life – and you will go on missing it.
Allow life to happen to your consciousness. What can be done? – be attentive, here. Don’t be somewhere else.
The moment you start desiring life, you become afraid of death – it is bound to be, because the desire for life creates the fear of death. There is no death. In reality, nothing dies: nothing can. It is impossible. Death never happens, death is not. Then why do we feel death so much, and why are we so afraid of death, which is not? – because of the desire for life. The desire for life creates a counter fear: the fear of death. We don’t know life, but we desire life. Then the fear comes that life is going to be destroyed.
We see death happening… Someone dies – have you ever observed the fact that it is always someone else who dies, never you? It is always someone else who dies. You see death from outside, you have not seen it from inside. You just see someone dying, you don’t know what is happening to him in his innermost core. You just know what is happening on the periphery. The periphery has died: it is no longer alive, the man cannot breathe. But what has happened in the core, in the very being, in the center? You don’t know.
No one has witnessed death. And no one can, because there is only one way to witness it: if you move to your own innermost core and witness it there. But death never happens there. That is why a Buddha laughs at death, a Krishna laughs.
Krishna says to Arjuna in the Gita, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t think that someone is going to die. No one dies; you cannot kill anyone. It is impossible.” In this world, nothing can be destroyed. Existence is eternal. Nothing can be destroyed, not even matter can be destroyed. Destruction is not possible, only change is possible.
Life goes on moving. One wave dies, appears to die, and arises as another wave. Only forms disappear and new forms appear, but nothing dies and nothing is born.
If nothing dies then nothing is born, because death is possible only if something is born. Birth and death are two fallacies. You existed before your birth, otherwise birth would not have been possible. You will exist after your death, otherwise it would not be possible for you to be here and now. But the desire to cling to life creates the fear – the fear of death.
If you drop the desire for life, immediately the fear of death disappears. And when the fear of death disappears, you can know what life is. A mind trembling in fear, in anguish, cannot know. Knowing needs a very calm, unafraid, fearless consciousness. Desire for life means fear of death.
The sutra says: Kill out desire of life, so that the fear of death disappears. And when there is no death, and no clinging to life, you will know what life is, because life has already happened to you. You are it! It is not something extrinsic, it is something intrinsic. It is happening already. You are breathing in it. You are just like a fish in the ocean of life, but not aware of it because your attention is obsessed with the future. Desire means obsession with the future. No desire means living here and now.
And the third sutra:
Kill out desire of comfort.
Desire for happiness – kill it out. It appears very gloomy, sad, life-negative. It is not. The more you desire comfort, the more discomfort will be felt. The more you desire comfort, the more discomfort you are creating for yourself because discomfort is relative to the desire for comfort.
The more you ask for happiness, the more you will be in suffering. The suffering is a shadow. The greater the desire for happiness, the greater will be the shadow. Ask for happiness and you will never get it. You will suffer frustration. Why? – because there is only one way to be happy, and that is to be happy here.
Happiness is not a result, happiness is a way of life.
Happiness is not the end result of desire. Happiness is an attitude, not a desire. You can be happy here if you know how to be, and you will never be happy if you don’t know how to be and you go on desiring it. Happiness is an art. It is a way of life. If you can be silent and aware of the life that is around you and within you this very moment, you will be happy. The birds are singing, the wind is blowing… The trees are happy, the sky is happy; everything in existence is happy except you.
Existence is happiness. It is an eternal celebration, a festivity.
Look at existence! Every tree is in a festive mood, every bird is in a festive mood. Except man, everything is in a festive mood. The whole of existence is a festival, a constant, continuous festival. No sadness, no death, no misery exists anywhere, except in the human mind. Something is wrong with the mind, not with existence. Something is wrong with you, not with the situation.
Why is man unhappy? No animal is so unhappy, no bird is so unhappy, no fish is as unhappy as man. Why is man so unhappy? – because man desires happiness, and the birds are happy right now, the trees are happy right now. Man desires happiness – he is never happy here and now. He always desires it, and goes on missing it, because happiness is here. It is happening all around you. Allow it to enter within. Be part of existence. Don’t move into the future. Existence never moves into the future, only the mind does.
This is what I call meditation: be here, don’t move into the future. Be non-ambitious, kill all desire for life, don’t desire happiness. And then you will be happy, and no one can destroy your happiness. Then it becomes impossible for you to be unhappy. Then you will be deathless and eternal life will have happened to you. It has already happened but you are not aware of it. Then you will be fulfilled. Non-ambitious, you will be fulfilled.
You are unique. Everything, every peak experience that is possible to anyone, is possible to you also – but it will happen only in a unique way.
It has happened to a Buddha, to a Jesus, to a Zarathustra, it will happen to you also. But it never happens in the same way. It is not going to happen to you like it happened to a Buddha. It is not going to happen to you like it happened to a Jesus. It will happen in a unique, individual way to you. It will happen to you. It will be absolutely new. The innermost core of the experience will be the same – the same bliss, the same silence, the same enlightenment – but on the periphery everything will be different.
So don’t imitate anyone. That is part of ambition. Don’t imitate Jesus, don’t imitate Buddha. Try to be yourself. Rather, even trying is futile. Just be yourself. When you are yourself, you are open to all possibilities. When you are yourself, the whole existence starts helping you. You are not fighting it.
When you are not fighting… This is what trust means. When you are not fighting, existence will happen to you. If you are fighting with it you are simply destroying yourself: your possibilities, energy, life, your existence.
Don’t fight! Surrender to existence.
Accept yourself as the whole wishes you to be. Don’t try to be anything else, and enlightenment can happen any moment. It can happen this very moment. There is no need to wait. But these three basic sutras are to be remembered.
Now we will start our morning meditation.

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