Friedrich Nietzsche has said, "That day will be the most unfortunate day when man will not aspire to become higher, when man will not aspire to transcend himself. That day will be the most unfortunate when the arrow of man's desire will not be moving higher than man, when there will be no target to reach, when man will be confined, closed in himself. That day will be the most unfortunate day."

It seems the modern worldly man is coming closer and closer to that unfortunate day. That doomsday is coming closer and closer every moment. If we remain a seed and don't sprout, if we remain a tree and don't flower, if we remain a flower and don't release our fragrance, then, of course, life is hell -- just absurd, not worth living. Then to be born is to be born in misery. Then death is a blessing and life is a curse. But it is not so; it depends on us whether our life will be meaningful or meaningless. It depends entirely on us. The meaning of life has to be created by us. That meaning is not already transferred to us; only the potentiality, only the possibility, only the opportunity is there. We can flower into a meaningful existence, or we can wither away, useless. Great is the responsibility. If we don't do it, nobody else can do it for us. Life is so valuable; we will have to take control of the whole situation, and we will have to take the responsibility on our shoulders. We become an AUTHENTIC MAN really, the day we become responsible for our growth. We become a man really, the day we decide that we have to create meaning in our life. We are given a blank page: and we will have to write our song on it. The song is not already there. We are there; the possibility is there -- but the song has to be sung, the dance has to be danced. The dancer is there, but what is the meaning of a dancer if he has not danced yet? Even to call him a dancer is meaningless, because unless he dances how can we call him a dancer? Unless a seed becomes a tree it is not a seed. And unless a tree flowers it is not a tree. And unless a flower releases its fragrance it is not yet a flower. We create our being continuously. And if we don't create, we will be just moving here and there with no direction. The AUTHENTIC MAN starts from the first step having a whole vision, a whole perception of all the possibilities of man, of all the rungs of the ladder. The first step is libido, lust, sex energy. And sex-energy has continuously puzzled man. If it remains just sex, it will become meaningless. Then we will be in a rut. SEX is meaningful only when out of lust, love is born. Love is meaningful only when out of love, prayer is born. If our sex remains just sexuality, a circular repetition, a mechanical thing that we go on doing, then we will remain meaningless. Because sex is our energy; it has to be transformed. It is very crude, it is raw material. Much has to be done on it. It is a raw diamond. We have to cut it, polish it and give it a shape and a form. We have to give it beauty. It depends on us. If we go on carrying the raw stone, it is valueless -- not only that, it will be a burden on us. It is better to throw it, better to throw it than to carry it. Why carry it unless something higher can be evolved out of it? The AUTNENTIC MAN is not against sex, against lust but is aware that if we remain confined to lust, we will be lost. One has to rise above it. It is not that something is wrong in it. On the contrary the wrong arises when we are confined to it. If we can use it, make a stepping-stone out of it and can go higher than it, then it is beautiful. Without it, it would have been impossible to rise above it. Lust in itself is like a seed: just pure possibility waiting for the right soil, waiting for the right season, waiting for the gardener, the skillful man who can help it to sprout. 

A seed is not actual, just potential. There is no necessity for it to become a tree. It may not ever become; it may be lost completely. If we put that seed on a stone, it will remain a seed. Ages can pass and the seed will not sprout. Many people are like that seed: those who have not found their soil yet, who have not found their right season yet. These are the worldly people. A spiritual person is one whose seed has reached to the right soil, and is disappearing. When the seed disappears, the tree is born. When we disappear, then the soul is born. When the soul disappears, the God is born. We exist like the hard shell of a seed -- that is the ego of man. The worldly man is the egoistic man; the spiritual man is the humble man: he is disappearing as a seed. The humble man is one who is ready to lose himself, becomes vulnerable, opens its soft heart to the soil so the soil can work on it, and moves into the unknown; drops the confinement with the known, drops the commitment with the known, and becomes committed with the unknown. Dangers are there -- storms will be there, clouds and thunder and lightning. For a small plant there are a thousand and one risks. For the seed there is no danger. The seed is closed, windowless.

It is in an imprisonment -- protected. But a small plant is very fragile: a seed is very hard, secure; the plant is fragile and soft, and can be destroyed very easily. And the flower is still more fragile - as fragile as a dream, as fragile as a poem. And the fragrance is still more fragile – it almost disappears, becomes indefinable. All growth is towards the unknown, towards the soft, towards the fragile, towards the indefinable. GROWTH is towards disappearance. Only the gross appears; God is invisible. Only matter appears; mind is invisible. Only the gross can be touched, is tangible, but the subtle is intangible. That's why God cannot be seen -- because God is the fragrance of the flower -- very subtle, very, very subtle. With the gross there is more security. Lust is more secure than love; love is more secure than prayer. And if we are looking for security we will remain confined in lust. People are born in sex; everybody has to be born in sex. The problem arises when many people live only in sex, and die also in sex. That means that there has been no growth, no evolution. Being born in sex is perfectly natural, but to die in it? Then what is the point and meaning of being born? Then we have not grown; then nothing has happened to us. The longer we live in lust, the uglier becomes our being. And if we have to also die in it, then the whole life was wastage. We never even went a step further than our birth. Birth is of course natural; it has to be in sex. But death need not be. To be born in sex is natural; one need not be defensive about it. But to die in sex is unnatural. From sex one should step higher. From the seed to the fragrance is the evolution.

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