"If you do it forcibly you will miss the point. It is very delicate. You have to look inward playfully, not seriously. That's what he means by 'taking things easily.' Don't take anything seriously.

"Existence is very easy. You have got your life without any effort, you are living your life without any effort. You are breathing perfectly well without being reminded; your heartbeat continues even in your sleep – so easy is existence with you! But you are not so easy with existence. You are very close-fisted. You want everything to be turned into an achievement.

"Enlightenment cannot be an achievement. That which you have already – how can it be an achievement? The authentic master simply takes away things which you don't have and you believe you have, and he gives you that which you already have. You are having many things which you don't have at all, you just believe that you have them. The master's function is that of a surgeon, to cut all that is not you and leave behind just the essential core – the eternal being.

"It is a very easy phenomenon; you can do it on your own. There are no problems and no risk in taking things easily, but people take things very tensely. They take things very seriously, and that spoils the whole game.

"And remember, life is a game. Once you understand it as a game, a deep playfulness arises on its own accord. The victory is not the point; the point is to play totally, joyously, dancingly.

"What is called playfulness is very essential in the inquiry of your own being. Says Bukko:

Taking things easily, and without forcing, after some time the rush of thought, outward and inward, subsides naturally, and the true face shows itself.

"When I say to you that meditation is nothing but thoughtlessness, you can misunderstand me. You are not to do anything to become thoughtless, because whatever you will do will be again a thought. You have to learn to see the procession of thoughts, standing by the side of the road as if it does not matter to you what is passing by. Just the ordinary traffic – if you can take your thoughts in such a manner that they are not of much concern, then easily, slowly, the caravan of thoughts which has continued for thousands of years disappears."