Miserliness has almost become an inbuilt-thing in you. The whole pattern of society creates it. It wants you to snatch things from people and not to give. It makes you ambitious, and an ambitious man becomes miserly. Whatsoever the ambition — worldly, non-worldly — but an ambitious man becomes miserly. Because he is always preparing for the future, he cannot afford to live and share. He is never here-now. If he has money, he has money for the future, not for now. And how can you share in the future? Sharing is possible only in the present. He has money for his old age. Or there are people who have their character, virtue, for the future life, for paradise. How can they share right now? They are accumulating, preparing for something great to happen somewhere in the future. Right now they are poor.

All ambitious people are poor, and because of their poverty, they become miserly. They go on holding everything. Useless things they go on holding. You go on  accumulating things — useless things — always thinking of the future. Someday these things will become useful; someday the need may arise. Who knows?   You may not be doing so in your house, but you all do so in your heart. If you go into your heart, into your mind, you will find it like a junkyard. You have accumulated many useless things there. You have never cleaned it. You go on putting in rubbish, and then you become heavy, and then you feel burdened, and then you feel disturbed. And then an inner ugliness arises.

But try to understand the base of miserliness. It is in the idea of living somewhere in the future. If you are to live herenow, you are never miserly, because you can share. For what to collect anything? For what to accumulate? There is no necessity that the tomorrow is going to be; it may not be. Why not share? Why not enjoy? This very moment life is flowering in you. Enjoy it, share it. Because by sharing, it becomes intense. By sharing, it becomes more vital. By sharing, it increases and grows.

So the whole point is to understand that the future is not. The future is created by the ambitious mind. The future is not part of time. It is part of ambition. Because ambition needs space to move. You cannot fulfill ambition now. You can fulfill life now, but not ambition. Ambition is against life, antilife.

Just see yourself and others. People are preparing: someday they are going to live. That day never comes. They go on preparing, and they die. It will never come because, if you get into preparations too much, that will become an obsession. You will simply prepare and prepare and prepare. It is as if somebody goes on accumulating foodstuff for some future use and goes on remaining hungry, starving, and dying. That’s what is happening to millions of people. They die, surrounded by much stuff which could have been used. They could have lived beautifully.

Nobody is hindering your path except your ambition.  So miserliness is part of ambition.  This question is from Bodhidharma. He is very ambitious. Not in a worldly sense — he does not want a big house, he does not want a big car, he does not want a big bank account — no, he is simple that way, very simple, almost a mahatma. He has nothing much and he does not bother about it. But he wants to be enlightened. That’s his problem. And he is in such a hurry to become enlightened.

Drop all nonsense. Live right now. There is no need for any enlightenment in the future. If you live right now, you are enlightened. The day you will be able to find out that life has to be lived right now, here-now, you are enlightened. Then one never thinks of the past and never thinks of the future. This moment is enough, enough unto itself. All misery disappears.

Misery is because you are not capable of living. So you create some goals — enlightenment is a goal to give you a feeling that you are important, that you are doing something, your life is meaningful, you are not living a meaningless life, you are a great spiritual seeker. All ego trips.

Enlightenment is not a goal. It is a consequence. You cannot seek it. You cannot make a goal out of it. It cannot become an object of desire. When you start living desirelessly, here-now, suddenly it is there. It is a consequence. It is a consequence of a vital life, of an alive being — so alive and so intense, so aflame, that this moment he moves so deeply into time that he touches eternity.

There are two moments in time. One is from one moment to another, horizontal — from A to B, from B to C, from C to D. That’s how you live; that’s how desire moves — horizontal. A really alive man, sensitive, aware, does not move from A to B. He moves deeper into A and deeper into A and deeper and deeper and deeper; his movement is vertical.

This is the meaning of Jesus’ cross. The cross is both vertical and horizontal. Jesus’ hands are on the horizontal part of the cross. His whole body is on the vertical. Hands are symbolic of action; action moves horizontally. Being moves vertically.          So don’t be absorbed in action too much; become more and more absorbed in being. And that’s what meditation is all about. It is to learn how to be without doing anything.   How to be, without doing anything. Just to be. And you start falling into this moment, deeper and deeper and deeper. And this vertical movement of time is eternity.

Both meet in you — time and eternity. Now it is for you to decide. If you move in ambition, you will move in time; and death exists in time. If you move in desire, you will move in time; and death exists in time. If you hanker for the ego, you will move in time. Death, ego, desire, ambition, they all are part of the horizontal line.

If you start digging in the moment and move vertically, you become a nonego, you become desireless, you become nonambitious. But suddenly you are aflame with life, you are an intense energy of life. God has taken possession of you.    Move vertically, and all miserliness disappears.

Perfection is a false ideal, but the ego wants it The ego wants to be perfect, so it goes on nagging you: “Become perfect.” Then it creates tensions, madness, insanities, and the ego goes on creating ego trips. The definition says, “The neurotic person is one who makes castles in the air, and the psychotic person is one who lives in those castles, and the psychiatrist one who collects the rent.” If you want to become neurotic, psychotic, then try to become perfect.

Ordinarily you live a very, very limited life. You don’t allow your energy a full play. A fragmented life. You want to love somebody, but you don’t love totally. Now I don’t say make your love perfect love. It is not possible, because a perfect love will mean now there is no more growth possible. It will be a death. I say make your love total, whole. Love wholly. Whatsoever is in you, don’t hold it. Give it totally, give in totally. Flow into the other totally; don’t hold. This is the only thing that will make you whole.

If you are swimming, swim totally. If you are walking, walk totally. In the walking, just become the walking, nothing else. If you are eating, eat totally.

Make wholeness a constant concern. Remember it. Drop the idea of perfection. It has been given to you by your parents, mother, father, teachers, colleges, universities, churches… but they have all made you neurotic. The whole world is suffering from neurosis.

Become whole. Do whatsoever you want to do, but do it totally. Dissolve into it, melt into it, and by and by you will have a flowering of your being. Then, then there is no idea of perfection in you.  But you are incomplete, divided, fragmentary. That’s why continuously the idea arises “How to be perfect?” Be whole, and the idea will drop on its own accord.

Just be yourself, at whatsoever cost. Whatsoever the cost, be yourself. Be sincere. In the beginning there will be much fear because you think that you are a great man and suddenly you reveal yourself to be an ordinary man. There will be fear, the ego will feel hurt; but let it feel hurt. In fact let it starve and die. Help it to death. Be ordinary, be simple, and you will become more whole and the tension will dissolve and there will be no need continuously to perform. It is such a great tension — continuously on performance, continuously in the show window, just watching what people are thinking and what you have to do to prove that you are something special. But just think about others also: they are all doing the same thing!

Try to walk on earth. Be realistic. And if you are ordinary, you will suddenly see many doors opening which were dosed because of your tense state. Relax.  And of course pride comes again and again in different ways, so watch. And always remember, it will come in subtle ways, so make your watching more accurate, exact, alert.

Yes, meditation will do. Nothing else is needed. Just meditate more, so you can see things clearly.