It is not so easy — not through logic or power or somebody's teaching or repeating some mantras (mystical syllables). You cannot make it happen. But the possibility of that kind of thing happening is there in everybody because that is its nature. That is the reason why it happens to one in a billion. If you ask the question of why it should happen to that individual and not to you, it means you haven't got a chance. That has no cause — it is acausal — because I can't give you or tell you how this happened. There is no 'how' — that is the reason why I say it has no cause and cannot be reproduced. Reproducing a copy has no value at all — that is why it cannot be reproduced. No teacher has reproduced another teacher like himself. It is not my opinion; Buddha has not left another Buddha, no teacher has reproduced another teacher like himself. While he may have 'followers', he has something which cannot be reproduced, because Nature does not use anything as a model to reproduce another.
All that you are doing to purify yourself has no meaning at all, because that purificatory talk is not going to help you at all. It can make you into a saint, but it cannot touch the other thing. This kind of thing can take place only in the degenerated species (so the biologists say). It is going to throw out something unique, which has not been reproduced before — it is a biological freak. So all your morality, and all your practicing this, that and the other, has no meaning. That is why the Upanishadic seers never talked of morality or sadhana; whereas the saints have emphasized them because they are second-class imitators. This kind of a thing, if it has to happen, will happen in spite of those things. And I maintain that it is genetically fixed: only in such a man does this kind of a thing happen.
Q: Do you mean that it is unnecessary for anyone to aspire? UG: The aspiration is part of your consciousness. That has to come to an end; there is nothing that you can do to stop it. In other words, you cannot but do sadhana, you are doomed that way. Even if you drop sadhana, it creates a struggle in you — you will replace it with another kind of sadhana, like JK's gimmick, choiceless awareness. You begin to practice those gimmicks, the same old nonsense — the words are different, but the game is the same. But somewhere along the line the realization that that is not the thing has to dawn upon you; otherwise you will continue listening, hoping that listening to him the next time will make you understand. There is no chance of this. If anything has to happen, it has to happen here and now.
You see, the trouble is that the more beliefs you have, the more difficult it becomes for you, because one more thing is added to your tradition. Your tradition, which you want to preserve, has been strengthened and fortified by the appearance of a new man, because you are trying to fit him into the framework of your tradition. This structure (of belief) is interested in protecting the tradition. But this (new man) is interested in breaking the cumulative nature of the tradition — not in maintaining the tradition, but in breaking it. A certain person breaks it, and you make it a part of that accumulated wisdom — that is why it becomes more difficult. Even the revolutionary statement of that particular individual who has achieved this break-through has already become part of your tradition: your very listening has destroyed the revolutionary nature of this break-through and has made this a part of knowledge, tradition, because you are the tradition. The listening mechanism that is operating there in you is the tradition — it strengthens itself, fortifies itself, through the listening process. That is why I say that what is coming . out of my mouth is no different from the barking of dogs, the howling of jackals or the noise of cats.
By the time this has been accepted — what is coming out of me — the need has been created for somebody else to come and blast it. That is why I am talking. The very expression of this has created the need for something new to happen — that is its nature. That is the purpose (if there is any purpose); not to create a following, but to create something new there. Something new is saving you from the burden of the past. The moment it is given expression to, it is old.
Why be like this man? Handing over the torch from one person to another and maintaining the hierarchical structure — what for? Following another is an animal quality. Man cannot become man so long as he follows somebody. What is responsible for man remaining an animal is that culture — the top dog, following somebody — that has not helped you at all. You want to be a cheap imitation of Sankara or Buddha; you don't want to be yourself. What for? I tell you, you are far more unique and extraordinary than all those saints and saviours of mankind put together. Why do you want to be a cheap imitation of that fellow? That is one of the myths. Forget it. Sankara has been dead for centuries. You have that potential. The first thing is to drop Sankara. Of course, if you are using Sankara's teachings as a means to earn your livelihood, that is another thing.
Now supposing you are 'there' (let us put it that way), you will not say to yourself or to others that you are a free man, you will not try to free anybody; it is just there, like the flower. (I don't want to use that word; it has some mystical overtones.) The flower on the dung heap has a beauty of its own — the other flowers are no match to that. It will go one day — it doesn't matter.
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There is nothing that you can do. That statement has no meaning for you, because you are doing something all the time. You have to do something or the other, so this statement has no meaning, no relevance to you at all. The description of this state is a very dangerous thing because you are trying to relate this to the way you are functioning. What for? Because you want to change that, improve it, modify it or do something there in relation to what I am saying. What do you want to change there? What is it? Can you find it? Can you locate it? Can you pinpoint it and say "This is the thing that I want to be transformed or changed. Here is where I want to bring about a mutation?" How? What is that? Can you see it? Can you locate it? Can you find it out? You cannot. (Pause)
Whatever you want, you can get — whatever you want — whatever experience you want, you can experience. If you don't know, there is always somebody to help you — somewhere — you have to find out. Anything you want, you can experience. But whatever you experience is worthless - it is not it — because this is a thing which cannot be experienced; it is not an experience.
Enlightenment (if there is any such thing as enlightenment) is not an experience at all. So, this dawns on you — this realization (if you want to put it that way) that there is nothing to realize. Self- knowledge, or self-realization is to realize for yourself and by yourself that there is no self to realize — that is going to be a shattering blow.
Q: To whom?
UG: The one who is pursuing. That is why it happens to one in a million, one in a billion — not because of what he does or does not do — all your doing is the barrier.
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Unless you are 'there', you can't understand the meaninglessness of this (search) at all. When you are 'there', you see that the very search is the self, the very thing you want to be free from. There is no 'you' independent of the search (i.e. your sadhana to attain a goal) — that you don't understand. It is the goal that you have set before yourself that has created the 'you'. If the goal goes, if you brush aside the goal, you replace one with another. You can't be without illusion; you replace one illusion with another. If illusion goes, you go.
If you accept the goal, it is all right with me, but I say that the goal itself is false. You say that is what you want to achieve, so all this sadhana is necessary. I maintain that there is nothing to be achieved, nothing to be accomplished, nothing to be attained, so all that you are doing to achieve your goal is meaningless. I didn't understand that when I was doing all that sadhana. The earlier it dawns on you, the better for you. If those things produce some experiences, it will