Om Mani Padme HumThe Sound of Silence: The Diamond in the LotusTalks given from 07/12/87 am to 17/01/88 amEnglish Discourse series30 ChaptersYear published: 19871The music of OM7 December 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE FAMOUS TIBETAN MANTRA, "OM MANI PADME HUM"? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Maneesha, the only country in the world which has devoted all its genius to the inner exploration is Tibet. Its findings are of tremendous value. Om mani padme hum is one of the most beautiful expressions for the ultimate experience. Its meaning is "the sound of silence, the diamond in the lotus." NEXTLINE Silence also has its sound, its music... although the outer ears cannot hear it, just as the outer eyes cannot see it. We have six outer senses. In the past man knew only that we have five outer senses; the sixth is a new discovery. It is inside your ears; hence people failed to recognize it. It is the sense of balance. When you feel giddy or when you see a drunkard walking, it is the sense of balance that is affected. NEXTLINE Just as these six senses are used to experience the outer, exactly the same six senses exist to experience the inner -- to see it, to hear it, to feel its utter balance, its beauty. It is invisible to the outer eyes but not to the inner. You cannot touch it with your outer senses, but the inner senses are absolutely immersed in it. NEXTLINE OM is the sound when everything else disappears from your being -- no thought, no dream, no projections, no expectations, not even a single ripple -- your whole lake of consciousness is simply silent; it has become just a mirror. In those rare moments you hear the sound of silence. It is the most valuable experience because it not only shows a quality of the inner music -- it also shows that the inner is full of harmony, joy, blissfulness. All that is implied in the music of OM. NEXTLINE You are not to say it. If you say it you will miss the real thing. You have to hear it, you have to be utterly calm and quiet and suddenly it is all around you, a very subtle dance. And the moment you are able to hear it, you have entered into the very secrets of existence. You have become so subtle that now you deserve that all the mysteries be exposed to you. NEXTLINE Existence waits till you are ready. NEXTLINE In the East all the religions without exception agree on this point, that the sound which is heard in the final, highest peak of silence is something similar to OM. NEXTLINE The word OM is not written alphabetically in any language of the East because it is not part of language. It is written as a symbol; hence the same symbol is used in Sanskrit, in Pali, in Prakrit, in Tibetan -- everywhere the same symbol, because all the mystics of all the ages have reached to the same experience, that it is not part of our mundane world; hence it should not be written in letters. It should have its own symbol which is beyond language. It does not mean anything as far as mind is concerned, but it means tremendously much as far as your spiritual growth is concerned. NEXTLINE All music, particularly the classical music, has been trying to catch the sound of silence so that even people who have not entered into their beings can experience something similar. But the similar is not the same, it is a very faraway echo. Even the greatest musician has to use sounds, but howsoever beautifully he arranges them, he cannot be absolutely silent. He gives gaps of silence in between; the whole play is between sound and silence. Those who don't understand hear the sounds, and those who understand hear the silence, the gaps between two sounds. NEXTLINE The real music is in the gaps. NEXTLINE It is not created by the musician -- the musician is creating the sounds and leaving the gaps as a contrast, so that you can experience something of what happens to the mystic in his inner world. NEXTLINE OM is one of the great achievements of the seekers of truth. There have been cases which are absolutely unbelievable, but they are historical.... NEXTLINE When Marpa, a Tibetan mystic, died, his closest disciples were sitting all around him ... because the death of a mystic is as tremendously valuable as his life, perhaps more. If you can be close to the mystic when he is dying, you can experience many things, because his whole consciousness is leaving the body -- and if you are alert and conscious, you can feel a new fragrance; you can see a new light, you can hear a new music. NEXTLINE When Marpa died he was living in a temple. And all his disciples became suddenly surprised -- they looked all around -- from where is the sound of OM coming? Then finally they realized that it was not coming from anywhere -- it was coming from Marpa! They heard it by putting their ears to his feet, to his hands, and they could not believe it -- inside his whole body there was a vibration creating the sound of OM. He had been hearing that sound for his whole life since he became enlightened. Because of his constant inner experience of the sound, the sound had entered even into his physical cells. Every fiber of his body had learned a certain synchronicity, the same wavelength. NEXTLINE But it has been experienced with other mystics also. The inner starts radiating, particularly at the moment of death when everything comes to a crescendo. But man is so blind and so utterly unintelligent: knowing that the mystics experience the music of silence within them and they name it OM, people started repeating OM as a mantra, thinking that by repeating it they will also be able to hear it. NEXTLINE By repeating it you will never be able to hear it. Your mind is functioning when you are repeating it. But perhaps I am the first person to tell it to you; otherwise for centuries people have been teaching: Repeat OM. That creates a false experience, and you can be lost in the false and you will never discover the real. NEXTLINE I say to you not to repeat it but simply be silent and listen to it. As your mind becomes calm and quiet, suddenly you will become aware: like a whisper, the OM is arising within your being. When it arises on its own, it has a totally different quality. It transforms you. NEXTLINE Modern physics says that everything in the world is constituted of electrical energy. According to modern physics even sounds are nothing but electric waves. The physicists have been working from the outside. NEXTLINE The mystics say just the opposite, but I don't see that they are contradictory. They say the whole existence is made up of the soundless sound OM. And even electricity or fire are nothing but a certain condensed form of the sound. NEXTLINE In the East it has been known: there have been musicians who could create by their music a flame on an unlit candle. As the music falls over the unlit candle suddenly the flame arises. It was a test in the ancient days, that unless a musician could create light, fire, flame, with his music he was still amateur. He was not recognized as a master. NEXTLINE The explanations of physics and the mystics look different, but perhaps there is some deeper source which can withdraw the contradiction and opposition. Perhaps it is only a different interpretation, because the mystic is coming from the inside and the physicist is looking at the outside. What the physicist feels as electricity, the mystic feels as the music of the whole existence. They are both saying the same thing in different languages. And if there is a choice, I would choose the mystic, because he is experiencing it in his very center. His experience is not just an experiment on objects, his experience is an experiment on his own consciousness. And consciousness is the very cream of existence. NEXTLINE This mantra has many secrets in it. The first wordless word is OM, and the last is HUM. The first is the flowering and the last is the seed. NEXTLINE The Sufis don't use the whole name of Allah -- that is the Mohammedan name for God. They use allah hoo, and slowly, slowly they change allah hoo into simply hoo, hoo. They have found that the sound of hoo strikes exactly at the life source just below the navel. You were connected with your life, with your mother, from the navel. Just below the navel is the source of your own life. NEXTLINE Just try: when you say hoo the hit is below the navel. That's what we are using in our Dynamic Meditation. It is a Sufi discovery, but it can also be done in the Tibetan way. Rather than hoo -- hoo seems to be a little harsh -- hum seems to be a little softer. But the softer will take a longer time to wake up your energies. It is possible that in the particular climate of Tibet, the softer was perfectly good. They did not need such a harsh sound in order to hit the life source. But in the harsh desert of Arabia where Sufi mystics started using hoo.... NEXTLINE I had a choice when I was working on the Dynamic Meditation, whether to use hum or to choose hoo. I tried both and I found that perhaps in India, hoo is better than in the colder heights of Tibet where things are bound to be different. Just hum is perfectly right for them. NEXTLINE Hum is the hit to create OM in you. NEXTLINE If you hit the seed of your life it starts disappearing in the soil and green leaves, sprouts start growing. Between the two -- OM and hum -- is mani padme. I don't think anybody has been able to express the ultimate experience, the ultimate beatitude, better than mani padme. You have to visualize it. The lotus flower in the East is the most beautiful, the biggest flower. And if you put diamonds on the lotus flower in the early morning sun, you will have a tremendously beautiful experience... the lotus flower with diamonds. NEXTLINE It is very difficult to say anything about the ultimate experience, but Tibetan mystics have tried the best. Many things have been said about it, but "diamond in the lotus" seems to be the best expression -- because it is the greatest, most beautiful experience, and they have chosen two of the most beautiful things of the ordinary world, the lotus and the diamond. It is just a visual expression of the beauty that you come to see within yourself. NEXTLINE This mantra om mani padme hum has a whole philosophy within it. Start with hum, the last word, and the first will arise on its own accord. And when your inner being is filled with the sound of silence, you will also have the beautiful experience of seeing a lotus with a diamond in the early morning sun. The diamond is radiating. The lotus is so soft, so feminine, so delicate -- it has no comparison in any other flower. NEXTLINE It became so important to the mystics... you must have seen Gautam Buddha's statues sitting on a lotus. They are showing symbolically that he has reached the ultimate; his own inner lotus has flowered. And not only the lotus has flowered, the diamond hidden behind it, inside it... as it opens its petals, you find a Kohinoor. The diamond has a quality -- that's why it has been chosen. It is symbolic of eternity. The diamond is for ever, it knows no death; it is immortal. The experience is beautiful and eternal. NEXTLINE But unfortunately, Tibet has fallen into a darkness. Its monasteries have been closed, its seekers of truth have been forced to work in labor camps. The only country in the world which was working -- a one-pointed genius, all its intelligence in the search for one's own interiority and its treasures -- has been stopped by the communist invasion of Tibet. NEXTLINE And it is such an ugly world that nobody has objected to it. On the contrary, because China is big and powerful, even countries which are more powerful than China can ever be, like America, have accepted that Tibet belongs to China. That is sheer nonsense -- just because China is powerful and everybody wants China to be on their side. Neither the Soviets nor America have challenged the claim of China. Leave America and the Soviets aside -- even India has not objected. It was such a beautiful experiment, and Tibet had no weapons to fight with, they had no army to fight; they had never thought about it. Their whole thing was an introverted pilgrimage. NEXTLINE Nowhere has such concentrated effort been made to discover man's being. Every family in Tibet used to give their eldest son to some monastery where he was to meditate and grow closer to awakening. It was a joy to every family that at least one of them was wholeheartedly, twenty-four hours a day, working on the inner being. They were also working but they could not give all their time; they had to create food and clothes and shelter, and in Tibet it is a difficult matter. The climate is not very helpful; to live in Tibet is a tremendous struggle. But still every family used to give their first-born child to the monastery. NEXTLINE There were hundreds of monasteries... and these monasteries should not be compared with any Catholic monasteries. These monasteries had no comparison in the whole world. These monasteries were concerned with only one thing: to make you aware of yourself. NEXTLINE Thousands of devices have been created down the centuries so that your lotus can blossom and you can find your ultimate treasure, the diamond. These are just symbolic words, but the destruction of Tibet should be known in history, particularly when man becomes a little more aware and humanity a little more humane.... NEXTLINE This is the greatest calamity of the twentieth century that Tibet has fallen into the hands of materialists who don't believe that you have anything inside you. They believe that you are only matter and your consciousness is only a by-product of matter. And all this is simply without any experience of the inner -- just logical, rational philosophizing. NEXTLINE Not a single communist in the world has meditated, but it is strange -- they all deny the inner. Nobody thinks about how the outer can exist if there is no inner. They exist together, they are inseparable. The outer is only a protection for the inner, because the inner is very delicate and soft. But the outer is accepted and the inner is denied. And even if sometimes it is accepted, the world is dominated by such dirty politicians that they use even the inner experiences for ugly ends. NEXTLINE Just the other day, I came to know that America is now training its soldiers in meditation so that they can fight without any nervous breakdown, without going mad, without feeling any fear -- so they can lie down in their ditches silently, calm and cool and collected. No meditator may have ever thought that meditation can also be used for fighting wars, but in the hands of politicians everything becomes ugly -- even meditation. Now the army camps in America are teaching meditation so that their soldiers can be more calm and quiet while killing people. NEXTLINE But I want to warn America: you are playing with fire. You don't understand exactly what meditation will do. Your soldiers will become so calm and quiet that they will throw away their weapons and they will simply refuse to kill. A meditator cannot kill; a meditator cannot be destructive. So they are going to be surprised one day that their soldiers are no longer interested in fighting. War, violence, murder, massacre of millions of people -- this is not possible if a man knows something of meditation. Then he also knows not only himself, he knows the other whom he is killing. He is his brother. They all belong to the same oceanic existence. NEXTLINE In the Soviet Union, also, they are interested in meditation. But the purpose is the same -- not realization of yourself, but making you stronger so that you can kill and bomb and use nuclear weapons and missiles to kill whole nations. NEXTLINE But they are both going on a dangerous path, unknowingly. It is good, they should be helped. Once meditation spreads among their soldiers, those soldiers will become sannyasins! So I am immensely happy that their idea is different, and they don't know anything about meditation. They have only heard that it makes people calm and cool so they can fight without any fear, without looking back. Meditation gives them a feeling of immortality; hence their fear will disappear. NEXTLINE But meditation not only gives them the experience of their own immortality -- it also gives them the experience that everybody is immortal. Death is a fiction. Why unnecessarily harass people? They will be living, you cannot kill them. Not even your nuclear weapons are going to kill them. NEXTLINE Krishna, in the Gita, has a beautiful statement: Nainam chhindanti shastrani; naham dahati pavakahr. "Neither can any weapon destroy me nor can any fire burn me." Yes the body will be burned, but I am not the body.... NEXTLINE Meditation gives you the feel, for the first time, of your authentic reality. NEXTLINE If humanity were a little more aware, Tibet should be made free because it is the only country which has devoted almost two thousand years to doing nothing but going deeper into meditation. And it can teach the whole world something which is immensely needed. NEXTLINE But Communist China is trying to destroy everything that has been created in two thousand years. All their devices, all their methods of meditation, their whole spiritual climate is being polluted, poisoned. And they are simple people; they cannot defend themselves. They don't have anything to defend themselves with -- no tanks, no bombs, no airplanes, no army. An innocent race which has lived without any war for two thousand years... It disturbs nobody; it is so far away from everybody -- even to reach there is a difficult task. They live on the very roof of the world. The highest mountains, eternal snows, are their home. Leave them alone! China will not lose anything, but the whole world will be benefited by their experience. NEXTLINE And the world will need their experience. The world is getting fed up with money, power, prestige, all that scientific technology has created -- people are getting fed up. They are finished with it. People in the advanced countries are no longer interested in sex, are no longer interested in drugs. Things are falling away, and a strange despair like a dark cloud is descending on the advanced countries -- of deep frustration, meaninglessness, and anguish. They will all need a different climate of meditation to dispel all these clouds and bring again a new day into their lives, a new dawn, a new experience of themselves, a discovery of their original being. NEXTLINE Tibet should be left as an experimental lab for man's inner search. But not a single nation in the world has raised its voice against this ugly attack on Tibet. And China has not only attacked it, they have amalgamated it into their map. Now, on the modern Chinese map, Tibet is their territory. NEXTLINE And we think the world is civilized, where innocent people who are not doing any harm to anybody are simply destroyed. And with them, something of great importance to all humanity is also destroyed. If there were something civilized in man, every nation would have stood against the invasion of Tibet by China. It is the invasion of matter against consciousness; it is the invasion of materialism against spiritual heights. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Maneesha, the word mantra is untranslatable in English, in any Western language, but its meaning, its significance, can be explained to you. A mantra is not just something to chant. It is not chanting. A mantra is something to let sink deep in your being, just as roots go deep into the earth. The deeper the roots go into the earth, the higher the tree will go into the sky. A mantra is something like a seed to be allowed to go deep into your being so that it can send its roots to the sources of your life and finally to the universal life. Then its branches, its foliage will go high into the sky, and when the right time comes, when the spring comes, it will be filled with thousands of flowers. NEXTLINE Unless a tree blossoms, it knows no blissfulness. It goes on feeling something is missing. You may have all the pleasures and comforts and luxuries of the world, but unless you know yourself, unless your inner lotus opens, you will go on missing something. You may not be certain what you are missing but a feeling... that something is being missed, that "I am not complete," that "I am not whole," that "I am not what existence wanted me to be." This "missing" feeling goes on nagging everybody. Only the expansion of your consciousness will help you to get rid of this feeling, of this nagging, of this anguish, this angst. NEXTLINE Even people like Jaspers, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Marcel, Jean-Paul Sartre, the highest geniuses of the West, are agreed on a few things: that life is nothing but boredom, that life is nothing but anxiety, anguish, that life is accidental, it has no significance... that it is absolutely futile to search for any blissful space; there exists none. And when great philosophers like these agree on such points, the ordinary masses simply follow them. NEXTLINE Whatever they are saying is absolutely wrong, because none of them has ever meditated, none of them has entered into his own subjectivity. They are just in their heads. They have not even moved to their hearts, what to say about their beings? What to say about their disappearing into the universal? NEXTLINE Unless you disappear into the universal ocean just like a dewdrop, you will not find significance. You will not find your real dignity. You will not find that existence showers so much joy and so much celebration on you that you cannot contain it; you have to share it. You become a raincloud which is so much burdened with rain that it has to shower. A man of deep insight, a man of intuition, a man who has reached to his being becomes a raincloud. He is not just a blessing to himself, he becomes a blessing to the whole world. NEXTLINE This Tibetan mantra om mani padme hum is a condensed form of the whole inner pilgrimage. It says how to start, what will happen when the flower opens, what will be your ultimate experience of your inner treasures. NEXTLINE Eastern languages are very rich in the sense that they have made very condensed statements which can be unfolded into big scriptures. The reason was that when these mantras were created there was no writing. People had to remember them. When people have to remember them, you have to be very telegraphic, as condensed as possible. Once writing came into existence, that condensedness disappeared. Now you can explain with page after page of writing. But have you ever thought that when you receive a long letter... the longer the letter, the less is the meaning. But when you receive a telegram, naturally... just eight or ten words, but the meaning is immense and the impact is immense. NEXTLINE These are telegrams. They can easily be remembered, they can be passed from one generation to another generation without any fear that they will be distorted. NEXTLINE You have not to repeat the mantra, you have to understand its meaning and let that meaning sink into you. Sitting silently, be utterly quiet, unmoving. Watch your mind. A few thoughts will be there, but as you become silent those thoughts will disappear, and suddenly you hear a humming sound all around you. NEXTLINE That humming sound is not made by you. NEXTLINE It is at the very center of existence. NEXTLINE It is the sound of the skies. NEXTLINE It is the sound of space. NEXTLINE It is the sound of the universe; it is its indication of aliveness. It is vibrating with dance and music. NEXTLINE This OM is perhaps the greatest symbol in the whole world. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Question 2 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE CAN IT BE THAT CRYING IS MY CELEBRATION AT THE MOMENT? WHEN I LOOK AT YOU, MY HEART IS TURNING INSIDE OUT AND A WHOLE MONSOON IS BREAKING LOOSE, LEAVING ME HELPLESS. NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, WHO IS IT THAT IS CRYING? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Deva Paro, it looks a little strange but it is true: you can transform anything into a celebration. Just as you can transform any celebration into a miserable affair -- it all depends on you. NEXTLINE I have heard, in a small school the drawing teacher made a painting on the board. He was a good painter, and he was showing his students that the artist can change, just by a little touch, the whole meaning of the painting. NEXTLINE It was a portrait of a man, very sad. He touched the lips and immediately the sadness disappeared from the painting -- the man was smiling. And as the man started smiling, the whole painting had a different perspective. NEXTLINE Just then a little boy stood up and said, "This is nothing." NEXTLINE The painter said, "What do you mean this is nothing?" NEXTLINE He said, "My mother, just giving me a slap, changes the whole world! I may be smiling and when she hits I start crying, and when I look all around it looks so sad. You need a brush and the painting and all this; my mother needs nothing." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE You are saying, "Can it be that crying is my celebration?" If you feel blissful in crying, there is no harm. It is perfectly beautiful. Tears can be of joy, of love. Tears can show that you are overfilled with something that starts flowing through the tears. It need not be sadness, it need not be mourning; it can be festivity. It all depends on you. And you have to feel what it is, because you will be absolutely certain whether your tears are coming out of frustration, out of sadness, out of failure, or they are coming out of love, joy, gratitude, prayer. NEXTLINE Tears are one of the most mysterious things you have. They can have all the colors of the rainbow. It depends on your consciousness what colors you give to them. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I have heard a very beautiful story. It is Julius Caesar's birthday, and after breakfast the Roman senators are eager for him to take a chariot ride with them to view their present to him. NEXTLINE Caesar is delighted to find the whole of the driveway to the imperial palace is lined with crucified Christians. As they drive along, Caesar brings the procession to a sudden halt. "That man there!" he cries. "He must be alive -- his lips are moving. I want to hear what he is saying." NEXTLINE The senators raise Caesar on their shoulders. "Closer, closer!" he shouts. "I can't hear." NEXTLINE Finally, with his ear almost touching the man's lips, he hears, "Happy birthday to you." NEXTLINE One can change every situation. Now he is being crucified, but he has no complaint. Within minutes he may be dead, but his heart wants to say, "Happy birthday to you." NEXTLINE And he must have embarrassed Caesar; he must have created a deep impression on him. From that day onwards, Christians were not crucified again in Caesar's time. He felt so humble. He felt so sorry about what he was doing to these beautiful people, who are capable of rejoicing in his birthday and are being crucified as a present. NEXTLINE It all depends on you, Paro. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Old man Finkelstein suspects that his butler has been stealing cigars and shouts to him in the next room, "James, you have been stealing my cigars." There is no answer so he repeats it louder. There is still no answer, so he goes into the next room and confronts his servant. "James," he says, "didn't you hear me speaking to you just now?" NEXTLINE "No, sir," replies the butler, "there must be something wrong with the acoustics." NEXTLINE "Really," says Finkelstein. "Well, you go next door and say something and we will see whether I can hear it." NEXTLINE James goes into the next room and yells out at the top of his voice, "Some fat son-of-a-bitch has been screwing around with my wife." NEXTLINE He then returns. "Did you hear me, sir?" he asks nonchalantly. NEXTLINE "You are right, James" replies Finkelstein, blushing, "I could not hear a word. Have a cigar." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE If you are feeling blissful, peaceful, silent in your crying, in your tears, and if after tears you feel relaxed, relieved of some burden, it is perfectly good. Don't try to stop it... because humanity has been given such wrong training about so many things that it has not left any human being natural. Everybody has become artificial, and particularly men -- every society has forced them not to cry; it is against your manliness. NEXTLINE It is okay for women to cry and weep. They don't belong to your status, they are second class citizens. But you, being first class, should show your strength. Your tears expose your weakness. But if you go on for thousands of years teaching every child such nonsense, he starts holding his tears back. Nobody wants to be exposed as a weakling. But the simple truth is, nature has given you exactly the same glands for tears as nature has given to women. NEXTLINE And if nature is listened to, then stopping your tears is a dangerous thing. It is not only tears that will be stopped -- you will become less sensitive, you will become less loving. You will become harder, you will become cruel, you will become a sadist. This will be the outcome of a simple thing. You will go neurotic, psychotic -- four times more men end up in insane asylums than women. And the reason is that women know how to cry and weep. They know how to let their burdens and tensions be relieved through tears. NEXTLINE Man goes on accumulating and one day it is too late. Then either he jumps from a sixty-storey building and finishes himself off... NEXTLINE There are strange people. A man jumped from the eightieth floor and he passed the window where one of his friends was standing. The friend said, "Goodbye," and the man also waved his hand. And soon he was flat on the ground, finished. NEXTLINE People came running to his friend and said, "Have you seen anything?" NEXTLINE And he said, "Yes." NEXTLINE They said, "Your friend has committed suicide!" NEXTLINE He said, "This is strange, because just a few minutes before, he was perfectly okay. While he was passing my window, we even said hello to each other." NEXTLINE Man has been prevented from being natural so that he can be made into a soldier, so that he can be made into a harder personality, to compete in the world. Because the woman was not going to compete in the world, and she was not going to wars either, there was no need. She could be allowed to cry and weep. It became a distinction, that it is manly not to weep, not to cry. NEXTLINE It is simply against nature. The women don't go so mad because in their tears they are throwing away all their tensions. They don't accumulate to such a point that it is beyond their capacity to control it and everything goes through a breakdown. NEXTLINE Exactly four times more men commit suicide, although at least forty times more women threaten to commit suicide. But they don't. Women have remained in a way closer to nature because they were deprived from participating in man's power struggle. In disguise, this curse proved a blessing. NEXTLINE Man made himself more and more tense, neurotic -- and then there comes a point where life becomes so heavy, each moment such a torture, that it is better to commit suicide. NEXTLINE Women just talk about it. Even if sometimes they try with sleeping pills -- not jumping from buildings, because that is dangerous -- they will take just a few sleeping pills which will be enough to harass the husband and will make him more henpecked, because he will remain always alert that the whole neighborhood condemns him..."You must be treating your wife badly; otherwise why does she try to commit suicide?" The doctor is angry, and the wife is enjoying a good sleep! Once in a while a woman, just by mistake, takes too many pills -- it is not really the intention, just a mistake. NEXTLINE It is good, Paro, to enjoy your tears. And don't keep them only for tensions and anxieties and frustrations and moments of sadness. No, that is using them in a wrong way. Use them when you are in love. Use them when you are feeling peaceful. Use them when you see a beautiful sunset. NEXTLINE What can be said to the sunset? It won't understand any language. But your tears, perhaps, will be understood. When you see a beautiful flower, how can you resist having a few tears that existence is so beautiful? If you see a Gautam Buddha and you don't have tears in your eyes, then you are behaving inhumanly, unnaturally. Seeing Gautam Buddha, you should be in such a celebration -- at least one of us has reached to the ultimate potential of his being, and he is a proof that we can also reach. NEXTLINE You are also saying, Paro, "When I look at you my heart is turning inside out and a whole monsoon is breaking loose, leaving me helpless. Who is it that is crying?" NEXTLINE It is your original being. The false never cries. The hypocrite never cries. It is only the original, the authentic. NEXTLINE This is the whole purpose of the communion that is happening here -- to fall into a synchronicity with my heart. Naturally your heart will have to change. It will have to take a new rhythm, a new harmony, a new wavelength. And it is natural to feel helpless because you have been told that tears are a sign of weakness, helplessness. NEXTLINE Tears are your strength, not helplessness. NEXTLINE Tears show that you are alive, that you have not shrunk and lost all your juice. Tears show that your heart still feels, still can dance, still can rejoice. NEXTLINE There is a statue of Mahavira in Rajasthan. It is very famous because it is made of a very strange stone -- which is not found in India, but is found in Africa. Somebody must have brought that stone. But in India it has become a miracle because it perspires; tears flow from the eyes. And the people who follow Mahavira, naturally, are deeply impressed. They think perhaps he is weeping for us out of compassion. NEXTLINE One woman had come to me and she said, "I have never been impressed by anything so much as the tears coming from a stone statue of Mahavira." NEXTLINE I said, "You don't understand; I have seen the statue..." The statue is in the middle of the lake -- a small temple, an open temple, just pillars. And because the statue is porous, when the vapors are rising from the lake because of the hot sun -- and Rajasthan is very hot, it is a desert -- that porous statue goes on soaking up much of the vapor that is moving around. You will not find that statue in summer with tears or perspiration or anything, but in winter when it is cold the vapors that it has soaked up start becoming water again. Because of the coldness, they start coming out of the rock. NEXTLINE I told the woman, "You are impressed by it, and you are not impressed by millions of people who cry? And that stone is not doing anything as far as compassion is concerned; it is just that this kind of stone is not available in India." NEXTLINE She was very much shocked because I hurt her religious feelings. I said, "I am not hurting your religious feelings. I am simply making you aware that if you can be so much impressed by the tears of a stone statue, what about living human beings?" NEXTLINE But tears are taboo -- one of the things that have been repressed. Friedrich Nietzsche is quoted as saying that he smiles because he is afraid if he does not smile he will start crying and tears will come to his eyes. His smile is just a protection; it keeps him occupied, he remains with a false smile so that authentic tears cannot come out. Naturally, for a German, it is a question of manliness. How can a German cry and weep and have tears? NEXTLINE But more or less all men around the world are Germans. They are all male oriented, trying to impose a supremacy of men over women. But I say unto you, your tears are far more valuable than man's domination. His supremacy is nothing. He has suffered much because of this stupid attitude. Allow those tears. They are not of helplessness, they are of tremendous joy. NEXTLINE And you ask, "Who is it that is crying?" It is you in your originality, not you in your personality. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE "I am leaving home," shouts Giovanni to his parents. "I want wine, women, adventure." NEXTLINE His old father gets up out of his chair. NEXTLINE "And don't you try to stop me," cries Giovanni. NEXTLINE "Who's trying to stop you?" exclaims the old man. "I'm coming with you!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Just be a little more understanding of all your sentiments, emotions -- they all have a certain place in the total harmony of your being. But we have been kept almost blind to our own potentialities, dimensions. Be a little more alert about everything, and remember that the natural is the superior and the unnatural is phony and American. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Rabbi Finklebaum had never gambled in his life, so one day he went to the horse races just for the experience. Before the first race he saw a priest making some strange sign over a horse and then watched the priest put ten dollars on the horse to win. And sure enough, the horse won the race. So he followed the priest and watched him make signs over another horse. This time the rabbi went off and put fifty dollars on the horse and it won at ten to one. NEXTLINE Again he followed the priest and saw him make weird signs over another horse, so he went off and put all the five hundred dollars he had won on the previous race on this horse. He ran up into the stand to watch the race, hoping to make a fortune, but this time the horse he had backed fell at the first fence and died. NEXTLINE The rabbi ran off and found the priest. "Look here," said the rabbi, "what was the meaning of all that? The first two horses you made signs over won, and then the third one fell at the first fence and I lost all my money. What is going on?" NEXTLINE "I am sorry, rabbi," said the priest, "but I can't help it if you don't know the difference between a blessing and the last rites." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE There is so much misunderstanding. You don't know what is real, what is unreal. You don't know what has been imposed on you by others and what you have brought from existence itself as a gift. NEXTLINE You have to discriminate, and always choose the natural. Even if it goes against all traditions, all religions, all cultures, don't be worried: except the natural, there is no authentic religiousness anywhere. Except the existential, there is nothing holy that you can find... in the Bible, in the Koran, in the Gita. NEXTLINE Just watch -- inside you is nature, inside you is the existential. Always follow it, and you will never be going wrong. To be natural, to be in tune with existence, is the only authentic spirituality. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 2A very simple and humble affair7 December 1987 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE IS BLISSFULNESS AN EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE TOWARDS EXISTENCE? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Sanjiva, it is just the reverse. Blissfulness is not an expression of gratitude; on the contrary, gratitude is an expression of blissfulness. First comes the experience of bliss. First you attain to the state of consciousness where ecstasy is natural, where your potential blossoms to its ultimate expression. A great dance arises in you, a tremendous peace and a deep silence -- but it is not the silence of the graveyard, it is a silence fully alive, throbbing with a heartbeat. This whole experience is bliss. And because of this bliss that existence makes available to you, a feeling of gratitude, a thankfulness arises. NEXTLINE To me, this is the only authentic prayer. Not the prayers that are being done in the churches, in the synagogues, in the temples, before stone statues of God -- those prayers are full of greed. They are asking for something; in other words they are complaining about something. Something is wrong in life and God should put it right. There is no gratitude in those prayers; on the contrary, they are absolute indicators of ungratefulness. NEXTLINE The moment you ask for something, you are saying that what you deserve has not been given to you, that what is your birthright has not been fulfilled. You are throwing the responsibility upon existence. Rather than being grateful for what has been given to you, you are showing ungratefulness out of what your greed demands, your ambition demands, out of what your desires are manipulating you towards. The prayers in the so-called temples of God are not true prayers. They are full of your greed, desire, lust. NEXTLINE The authentic prayer arises only to the meditator. It is not addressed towards a god -- which is only a hypothesis; there is no proof for any God. Yes, there is absolute proof for godliness: a quality of divineness in the sun rising in the morning, in the starry night, in the beautiful flight of a bird on the wing, in the flowers, in the trees, in the oceans. NEXTLINE All this vast universe is enough unto itself. It needs no God -- God is only a consolation for the ignorant. The meditator encounters existence itself. His own being becomes the experience of godliness. He knows that in his own inner being he is part of eternal life. There is no death, there has never been any death. Experiencing this, there arises a dance so subtle... there arises a deep gratitude, not addressed to anybody in particular but simply addressed to the whole cosmos. To the stars, to the trees, to the earth, to the moon, to the animals, to people... it is an unaddressed gratefulness. NEXTLINE And unless you experience an unaddressed gratefulness, you don't know exactly the meaning of prayer. The word `prayer' gives a wrong connotation; it should be changed into prayerfulness, just as I am changing `God' into godliness. NEXTLINE H.G. Wells has written one of the most important histories of the world. And when he comes to write about Gautam Buddha he has a tremendous statement to make. He says Gautam Buddha was the most godless person, yet the most godly. Gautam Buddha did not believe in any god, but he believed that everybody can become a god. To be a god is nothing but the realization of your total potential. Your seed is carrying within itself, in its womb, the ultimate flowering of the lotus paradise. There are possibilities of as many gods as there are living beings in existence, if every one comes to its ultimate expression. NEXTLINE The very idea of one god creating the world is dictatorial. It is the fanatic's idea; it is fascist. One god is very dangerous to all democratic values, and once we accept one god as the creator of existence we are depriving man of his dignity, his freedom. He is reduced to a puppet. If God is the creator, you can't have any freedom. If there is a God who is ruling the world, then what freedom can you have? NEXTLINE In India they say that without God's will even a small leaf does not move. They think they are being very religious when they make such statements. But if without God's will even a leaf of a tree cannot move in the wind, then what freedom can you have? Then we are only puppets; our strings are in the hands of an unknown God. If he wants us to be miserable we will be miserable. If he wants us to be blissful we will be blissful. It will not be a dignity; it will be simply that everything is in his hands. We remain beggars. NEXTLINE People like Gautam Buddha want you to be emperors. They give you back your dignity, your honor, your self-respect. God and self-respect cannot exist together. There is no coexistence possible. NEXTLINE Gautam Buddha denied God not because he was an atheist; he denied God because he was a lover of ultimate freedom. His denial has a totally different reason. Atheists have been denying God not for the freedom of man, but just to give man a licentiousness: "Eat, drink, be merry, because there is no God and you need not be worried. You need not feel any responsibility towards life, towards yourself." Atheists make people irresponsible. They make people synonymous with vegetables. They deny your inner being; they deny your very spirituality. NEXTLINE Gautam Buddha is not an atheist. He certainly is not a theist -- he does not propose any hypothetical god who has to be worshipped. On the contrary, he changes the whole dimension of religion. The people who are looking towards a god in the sky are looking outward. Gautam Buddha insists there is no god; there is no need to look outward -- look inward. And if you can look inward, with your eyes closed in deep silence, you will start feeling a new quality to your life, to your existence; a quality that can only be called godliness, that can only be called divine... something more than matter. You don't end with matter. NEXTLINE Matter may be the foundation of life, but it is not its highest peak. Matter may be the roots of the tree, but it is not its flowers. And unless you know the flowering consciousness in you, you cannot feel bliss. NEXTLINE Bliss is the ultimate experience of your coming home, of your feeling at ease with existence, relaxed, in a total unity and harmony. NEXTLINE The moment your heartbeat and the heartbeat of existence become one, the moment your small dance is in tune with the vast dance that goes on around you, the moment you become part of this celebration that is existence, there arises a tremendous gratitude. You don't have to do it. You simply find it arising from you, just as fragrance arises from the flowers. It is a spontaneous thing. NEXTLINE This is true prayerfulness. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I have told you a beautiful story by Leo Tolstoy. An archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church was very angry because thousands of people were going to see three absolutely unknown villagers who lived on a small island in a lake. People thought they were saints. NEXTLINE Now in Christianity, unless the church certifies you as a saint, you cannot be a saint. This is such a stupidity that you cannot conceive... For centuries this has been going on. In fact, the English word `saint' comes from sanctus. It means sanction by the church. Unless the church gives you a sanction... it is almost like getting an honorary D.Litt. from a university. NEXTLINE Sainthood cannot be certified by anyone. There is no one who has the authority to certify anybody's sainthood. Sainthood is, in itself, self evident. The moment you see it, you know it. The moment you feel it, you know it. It needs no other approval. NEXTLINE But the archbishop was very angry; "Without my permission, without my sanction, how have three idiots from a village become saints?" And people were not coming to his congregation; people were going to visit those faraway saints. NEXTLINE Finally he decided to go and see for himself what was going on. He took a motorboat, reached the small island. It was so small that there was only one tree on the island, but with beautiful foliage, and all those three saints were sitting underneath it. NEXTLINE Just by looking at them the archbishop knew: These are absolutely uneducated villagers -- who has created this rumor? And how gullible are people that they are worshipping these people? And as he descended from his boat all the three villagers touched his feet. He was immensely happy. NEXTLINE He said, "Are you the three priests the whole country is talking about?" NEXTLINE They said, "We don't know. People come to us, we cannot prevent them coming. All that we know is that we are absolutely contented. All that we know is that there is no more desire, no more ambition. Life is just a tremendous blessing, and we are enjoying it. More than that we don't know. We are uneducated, we are villagers." NEXTLINE The archbishop was very happy. He said, "What kind of prayer do you do?" NEXTLINE Those three saints looked at each other ashamed, embarrassed. Finally one said that it was not much of a prayer. "We have created it by ourselves. We don't know what is the authorized prayer of the church, but whatever we have been doing we will tell you." NEXTLINE Christianity believes in the trinity of God -- that God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, three together. And those three villagers said, "Thinking that he is three and we are also three, we have made our prayer: `You are three, we are three, have mercy on us!' More than that we don't know." NEXTLINE The archbishop was very angry -- "This is not the right thing for a Christian to do! How have you dared to create such a stupid prayer? I will tell you the authorized version which the church accepts." NEXTLINE They said, "We will be very grateful, but make it a little short, because we are uneducated and we cannot remember anything long." NEXTLINE The archbishop said, "You will have to remember it!" NEXTLINE They said, "We will try if you insist." NEXTLINE The archbishop recited the whole prayer. It was really long, and when he had said the whole prayer one of the three said, "You will have to repeat it at least three times, because we are three. Be kind and compassionate so we can remember it." NEXTLINE He repeated it three times, they listened silently, and the archbishop was very happy. They touched his feet again, and he said, "You are nice people, but remember the prayer that I have taught you." And then he left in his motorboat. NEXTLINE When he was just in the middle of the lake he saw something almost like a cloud, running towards the boat. He could not figure out what was happening. Then he saw -- those three saints were coming, running on the lake. They said, "Wait! We have forgotten the prayer, so we thought it would be better to catch hold of you. At least three times more; have mercy on us." NEXTLINE But seeing them walking on water, the archbishop thought, "Perhaps I have unnecessarily disturbed these beautiful people." NEXTLINE He said, "Forgive me for interfering. You continue your old prayer, which has been heard. My prayer has not been heard yet. My prayer is nothing but my intellectual approach to a hypothetical God. Your prayer comes from your very heart. Your prayer is not to ask for something, your prayer is just a thankfulness because you are feeling so contented. You don't have anything, but you have tremendous contentment. Your bliss is enough. Then, whatever way you want to give thanks is up to you. There is no need for you to know about the authorized prayer. On the contrary... I'm feeling miserable; I have missed my whole life in reading, learning, accumulating knowledge, holy scriptures. But I cannot walk on the waters. Your simple prayer has been heard." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE This small story from Leo Tolstoy has always appealed to me tremendously. The implications of the story are great. You need not believe in God to be religious. First you have to be religious to know something about godliness. All the religions are putting the bullock behind the cart. Hence the whole humanity is suffering -- no movement, no progress, no spiritual growth. NEXTLINE Your religiousness, your blissfulness, your meditativeness, your experience of your own interiority, your own subjectivity... coming to the very center of the cyclone, you will be able to dance a prayer, to sing a prayer, and it need not be anything intellectual. It has to be something coming from your being spontaneously. NEXTLINE It will be a simple thank you. NEXTLINE And not to any personal god, because there is no personal god -- a thank you to the whole universe. The whole universe is intelligent. The whole universe is divine. NEXTLINE Sanjiva, you are asking "Is blissfulness an expression of gratitude towards existence?" No, it is just vice versa: gratitude is an expression of blissfulness. Without knowing bliss, how can you be grateful? Grateful for what? NEXTLINE Put things right: first, search for those rare moments when you are in tune with existence. Seek the inner path so that you can know who you are. NEXTLINE Knowing oneself is the whole of religion. Anything else is just a footnote. NEXTLINE The essential religion is simply expressed by Socrates in two words, "Know thyself." In fact, within these two words are included all the holy scriptures of the world and all the mystical experiences of people who have come to know themselves. The moment you know yourself you have known the most precious thing in existence; your consciousness, your bliss. And you have known the most beautiful, almost unbelievable experience -- what we were talking about this morning: om mani padme hum. You have come to experience something which can only be called the sound of silence, the diamond in the lotus -- an experience of a beauty which cannot be seen with open eyes, a sound of silence which cannot be heard by your outer ears. But at the very center it is already present; you just have to go there. NEXTLINE I teach you not to be bothered by any scriptures, not to be bothered by any churches, not to be bothered by any philosophical or theological systems. NEXTLINE Religion is a very simple and humble affair. NEXTLINE Just go withinwards. NEXTLINE Know thyself; be thyself. NEXTLINE And all blessings will shower on you as if thousands of roses are showering. Only out of that experience will gratitude arise. Gratitude is not possible before experiencing something of the ultimate. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Question 2 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE EXPERIENCING HEADACHE, I DISCOVERED MY MALE NATURE. EXPERIENCING HEARTACHE, I DISCOVERED MY FEMALE NATURE. NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, IS THERE ALSO GOING TO BE A BEING-ACHE? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Paritosh Gyano, there is no such thing as being-ache. The being knows superb wholeness, health. It knows no disease, no sickness, no death. To go beyond your head and your heart is to transcend the duality of existence. This transcendence brings you to your being. NEXTLINE Being simply means you have dropped the ego that was part of your head. You have even dropped the separation, very subtle and delicate, that was part of your heart; you have dropped all barriers between you and the whole. Suddenly the dewdrop has slipped from the lotus leaf into the ocean. It has become one with it. NEXTLINE In a sense you are no more and in a sense you are for the first time. As a dewdrop you are no more but as the ocean you are for the first time, and this is your nature. NEXTLINE One of the great psychologists, William James, has contributed tremendously by coining a new word for spiritual experience, the "oceanic" experience. He is perfectly right. It is the experience of expansion, all boundaries disappearing farther and farther and farther away. A moment comes when you don't see any boundaries to you; you become the ocean itself. You are, but you are no more in a prison. You are, but you are no more in a cage. You have come out of the cage, you have come out of the prison, and you are flying into the sky in total freedom. NEXTLINE Remember one thing: a bird on the wing and the same bird in the cage are not the same at all. The bird in the cage is no more the same because it has lost its freedom, it has lost its tremendous sky. It has lost the joy of dancing in the wind, in the rain, in the sun. You may have given it a golden cage but you have destroyed its dignity, its freedom, its joy. You have reduced it into a prisoner -- it looks like the same bird but it is not. NEXTLINE A man confined to the boundaries of the mind and the heart and the body is imprisoned, walls upon walls. NEXTLINE In the last prison where I was in America they had three doors. It was the most modern, ultramodern, technologically; the first jail of its kind made in America. It had been opened just three months before. Everything was electronic. Those three doors were almost impossible for any human being to cross. First they were all electrified -- just to touch them was enough and you would be dead. And they were so high that no ladder or anything was possible. And then... one after another, three. NEXTLINE They opened only by using a remote controller, which my jailer used to keep in his car. He would press the button, and the first gate would open. It was almost like a mountain, so big, so high, and as the car entered, it would have to wait for the first door to come down. Only when the first door had come down would the remote controller work on the second door. And when the second door had come down, then the remote controller would work on the third door. NEXTLINE When I entered for the first time that jail in Portland I told the jailer, "Perhaps you don't know, but you have managed a perfect symbol." NEXTLINE He said, "Symbol of what?" NEXTLINE I said, "This is the situation of man: the body is the first door, the mind the second, and the heart is the third. And then behind these three doors is the poor soul." NEXTLINE He said, "I never thought about it. It must be just coincidence; nobody has thought about it, that three doors... why three? Why not four?" He said, "I don't know. I have not made it." NEXTLINE But I told him, whoever made it perhaps unconsciously felt something of the symmetry, the correspondence between the imprisonment of human consciousness and being an architect for making a prison for human beings. Once you get beyond the body... which is not very difficult, because the body is very beautiful in a way because it is still in tune with nature. Hence to go beyond it is very easy; it does not give much resistance. It is very cooperative. NEXTLINE The real problem is the mind, because the mind is created by human society, specially designed to keep you a slave. The body has a beauty of its own. It is still part of the trees and the ocean and the mountains and the stars. It has not been polluted by the society. It has not been poisoned by the churches and religions and the priests. But the mind has been completely conditioned, distorted, given ideas which are absolutely false. Your mind is functioning almost like a mask and hiding your original face. NEXTLINE To transcend the mind is the whole art of meditation, and the East has devoted almost ten thousand years to a single purpose -- all its intelligence and genius -- of discovering how to transcend the mind and its conditionings. That whole effort of ten thousand years has culminated in refining the method of meditation. NEXTLINE In a single word, meditation means watching the mind, witnessing the mind. If you can witness the mind, just silently looking at it -- without any justification, without any appreciation, without any condemnation, with no judgment at all, for or against -- simply watching as if you have nothing to do with it... it is just the traffic that goes on in the mind. Stand by the side and watch it. And the miracle of meditation is that just by watching it, it slowly slowly disappears. NEXTLINE The moment mind disappears, you come to the last door which is very fragile -- and that too is not polluted by the society -- your heart. In fact, your heart immediately gives you a way. It never prevents you, it is ready almost every moment for you to come to it and it will open the door towards the being. The heart is your friend. NEXTLINE The head is your enemy. The body is your friend, the heart is your friend, but just in between the two stands the enemy like a Himalaya, a big mountain wall. But it can be crossed over by a simple method. Gautam Buddha called the method vipassana. Patanjali called the method dhyan. And the Sanskrit word dhyan became, in China, ch'an and in Japan it became zen. But it is the same word. In English there is not exactly any equivalent for zen or dhyan or ch'an. We arbitrarily use the word meditation. NEXTLINE But you should remember: whatever meaning is given to the word meditation in your dictionaries, is not the meaning as I am using it. All the dictionaries will say meditation means thinking about something. Whenever I say to a Western mind, "Meditate" the immediate question is, "On what?" The reason is that in the West, meditation never developed to the point dhyan or ch'an or zen have developed in the East. NEXTLINE Meditation means simply awareness -- not thinking about something or concentrating on something or contemplating something. The Western word is always concerned with something. Meditation as I am using it simply means a state of awareness. NEXTLINE Just like a mirror -- do you think a mirror is trying to concentrate on something? Whatever comes before it is reflected, but the mirror is unconcerned. Whether a beautiful woman comes before it or an ugly woman comes before it or nobody comes before it, it is absolutely unconcerned; a simple, reflective source. Meditation is only a reflecting awareness. You simply watch whatever comes in front of you. NEXTLINE And by this simple watching, mind disappears. You have heard about miracles, but this is the only miracle. All other miracles are simply stories. NEXTLINE Jesus walking on water or turning water into wine or making dead people come to life again... all are beautiful stories. If they are symbolically understood they have great significance. But if you insist that they are historical facts, then you are being simply stupid. Symbolically they are beautiful. Symbolically, every master in the world is bringing people to life who are dead. What am I doing here? Pulling people out of their graves! And Jesus pulled out Lazarus after he had been dead only four days. I have been pulling people out who have been dead for years, for lives! And because they have lived in their graves so long they are very reluctant to come out. They give all their resistance -- "What are you doing? This is our house! We have lived here peacefully, don't disturb us!" NEXTLINE Symbolically it is right: every master is trying to give you a new life. As you are, you are not really alive. You are just vegetating. If the miracles are interpreted as metaphors, they have a beauty. NEXTLINE I am reminded of a strange story which Christians have completely dropped from their scriptures. But it exists in the Sufi literature. The Sufi story is about Jesus. NEXTLINE Jesus is coming into a town and just as he enters the town he sees a man whom he recognizes; he had known him before. He was blind and Jesus had cured his eyes. That man is running after a prostitute. Jesus stops the man and asks him, "Do you remember me?" NEXTLINE He said, "Yes, I remember you and I can never forgive you! I was blind and I was perfectly happy, because I had never seen any beauty. You gave me eyes. Now tell me -- what am I to do with these eyes? These eyes are attracted towards beautiful women." NEXTLINE Jesus could not believe... he was stunned, shocked: "I thought I had done some great service to this man and he is angry! He is saying, `Before you gave me eyes, I never thought about women, I never thought that there were prostitutes. But since you have given me eyes you have destroyed me.'" NEXTLINE Jesus leaves the man without saying anything -- there is nothing to say. And as he moves on he finds another man lying in the gutter, saying all kinds of meaningless things, completely drunk. Jesus pulls him out of the gutter and recognizes that he had given him legs. But now he is feeling a little shaky himself. He asks the man, "Do you know me?" NEXTLINE The man says, "Yes, I know you. Even though I am drunk, I cannot forgive you: it is you who disturbed my peaceful life. Without legs I could not go anywhere. I was a peaceful person -- no fight, no gambling, no question of friends, no question of going to the pub. You gave me legs, and since then I have not found a single moment of peacefulness, of sitting silently. I am running after this, after that, and in the end when I am tired I get drunk. And you can see yourself what is happening to me. You are responsible for my situation! You should have told me beforehand that if I was getting the legs, all these problems were going to arise. You did not warn me. You simply cured me without even asking my permission." NEXTLINE Jesus became so freaked, he left the city. He did not go any further. He said, "Nobody knows what kind of people I am going to meet." But as he was coming out of the city he saw a man who was trying to hang himself from a tree. He said, "Wait, what are you doing?" NEXTLINE He said, "Again you have come! I was dead, and you forced me to be alive again. Now I don't have employment, my wife has left me because she thinks a man who has died cannot be revived; she thinks I am a ghost. Nobody wants to meet me. Friends simply don't recognize me. I go into the city and people don't look at me. Now what do you want me to do? And again when I am going to hang myself you are here! What kind of revenge are you taking? Can't you leave me alone? Now I cannot even hang myself. Once I was dead and you revived me -- if I hang myself you are going to revive me again. You are so intent on making miracles, you don't even care who are the sufferers of your miracles!" NEXTLINE When I came to see this story, I loved it. Every Christian should know about it. NEXTLINE There is no miracle except one, and that is the miracle of meditation which takes you away from the mind. And the heart is always welcoming you. It is always ready to give you a way, to guide you towards your being. And the being is your wholeness, it is your ultimate well-being. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE A policeman notices a car weaving dangerously along the road, and when he pulls it over a beautiful woman gets out. She is clearly under the influence of drink but to make sure, the cop gives her a breath test. Sure enough, she is over the limit, so the cop says, "Lady, you have had two or three stiff ones." NEXTLINE "My God," cries the woman, "it shows that too?" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Headache is okay, heartache is okay, but don't go beyond that. Beyond that there is no ache, no pain, no suffering. Beyond the heart is all that you have always longed for -- knowingly, unknowingly -- searched for, consciously or unconsciously. NEXTLINE Your journey is long. Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism -- three religions which were founded outside India -- have all committed one great mistake: they have given people the idea that you have only one life. That has created many problems. NEXTLINE In the East all the religions have agreed on one point: that you have been here for thousands of lives; this is not the only life you have. You have lived many lives; the pilgrimage is long, and you have been going almost in circles. So your consciousness has not grown; you are committing the same mistakes again and again. Each life is wasted almost in a repetitive way. NEXTLINE People say history repeats itself. History has no business to repeat itself; it repeats itself because we are unconscious so we go on making the same mistake again and again. Our consciousness remains the same. That's why in every life we live on the same miserable plane. We never grow up. NEXTLINE This is time enough. You should start working deeply on your being, searching for it, because once you have known your being then you are not going to be born again in a body. Then you are not going to be in another prison, then you will be freed from all prisons. And this ultimate freedom is the only lesson worth learning through all these lives. NEXTLINE But we are functioning almost in a drunken way. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Ruben Levinsky is telling his friends at the club how his five-year-old son got his nursemaid pregnant. NEXTLINE "But that is impossible!" cries Sollie. NEXTLINE "Unfortunately it is not," replies the embarrassed Ruben. "The little wretch punctured all my condoms with a pin." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE It is a very strange world. I have heard a proverb, very ancient: "God made women without a sense of humor so they could love men without laughing at them." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Hymie Goldberg is sitting in a bar one night when the man sitting on the next stool slides off and lands on the floor. NEXTLINE Feeling that there is no way the man will make it home on his own, Hymie finds his address in his wallet and decides to help him. Slipping an arm around his waist, they head for the door. But immediately the man's legs crumple and he collapses. NEXTLINE "You drunken bum," complains Hymie, "why the hell didn't you stop drinking sooner?" The man mumbles something, but Hymie is in no mood to listen. Feeling as righteous as Mother Teresa, Hymie throws his shoulders beneath the man and carries him home. Knocking indignantly, he strides in when a women opens the door, and dumps the man on the couch. NEXTLINE "Here is your husband," says Hymie. "And if I were you, I would have a serious talk with him about his drinking." NEXTLINE "I will," promises the woman. "But tell me," she continues, looking outside, "where is his wheelchair?" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE It is a hilarious world. Everything is going so unconsciously. The only thing worth remembering is not to lose the opportunity that you have to develop your consciousness to the point where you have the same vision, the same clarity, the same intuition, the same understanding as a Gautam Buddha. Unless you become that much awakened, your life is going to repeat again and again the same mistakes. An unconscious man cannot be expected to change his life's course. It is only consciousness, growing consciousness, that is going to change your lifestyle. NEXTLINE And once you are fully awakened, enlightened, you need not come back again into another womb. The enlightened being disappears into the womb of the universe itself. Not that you are no more, but in fact you are for the first time -- as vast, as infinite as this universe is, with no boundaries, and expanding continuously. NEXTLINE All your misery is because you are so vast and you have been forced into a small body, into a small mind, into a small heart. Your love wants to expand but your heart is too small. Your clarity wants to become as clear as a sky without clouds, but your head is too small and too crowded. Your being wants to have wings and fly across the sun like an eagle, but it is encaged -- three walls around it; it is almost impossible for it to get out of this prison. NEXTLINE The East has been working only for one thing -- that's why it has not created much science, much technology, because all its geniuses were concerned with only one thing, and that was the innermost core of your being. They were not objective people. They were more and more interested in subjectivity. The East has found the golden key. It can open the doors for you, of infinite bliss, of all the splendor that is hidden in existence. It can allow you to receive gifts from all dimensions. NEXTLINE You are not a miserable creature. You are carrying a god within you, and you have to discover this god. This is the only miracle I believe in, the only magic. Everything else is non-essential. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 3This place is for innocence22 December 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE WHY IS CHILDLIKENESS COMPARED TO MEDITATION? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Garimo, when a man is reborn, only then he understands the beauty and the grandeur of childhood. The child is ignorant; hence he is unable to understand the tremendous innocence that surrounds him. Once a child becomes aware of his own innocence, there is no difference between the child and the sage. The sage is not higher and the child is not lower. The only difference is, the child knows not what he is and the sage knows it. NEXTLINE I am reminded of Socrates. In his very last moments of life he said to his disciples, "When I was young I used to think I knew much. As I became older, as I knew more, a strange thing started happening: an awareness that knowing more was bringing me to knowing less." NEXTLINE And finally, when the Oracle of Delphi declared Socrates to be the wisest man in the world... the people of Athens were very happy and they went to Socrates, but Socrates said, "Go back and tell the Oracle that at least for once its prophecy has been wrong. Socrates knows nothing." NEXTLINE The people were shocked. They went to the Oracle... but the Oracle laughed and said, "That's why I have declared him the wisest man in the world! It is only the ignorant people who think they know." The more you know, the more you become innocent. NEXTLINE According to the Socratic division, there are two categories of people: the ignorant knowers and the knowing ignorants. The world is dominated by the second category. These are your priests, your professors; these are your leaders, these are your saints, these are your religious messiahs, saviors, prophets, all proclaiming that they know. But their very proclamation destroys the utter simplicity and innocence of a child. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Bodhidharma remained in China for fourteen years. He was sent by his master to spread the message of meditation. After fourteen years, he wanted to come back to the Himalayas; he was old and was ready to disappear into the eternal snows. He had thousands of disciples -- he was one of the rarest people who have existed on the earth -- but he called only four disciples and he said, "I will ask only one question: what is the essence of my teaching? Whoever gives me the right answer will be my successor." NEXTLINE There was great silence, tremendous expectation. Everybody looked at the first disciple, who was the most learned, most scholarly. The first disciple said, "Going beyond the mind is what all your teaching can be reduced to." NEXTLINE Bodhidharma said, "You have my skin, but not more than that." NEXTLINE He turned to the second disciple who said, "There is no one to go beyond the mind. All is silent. There is no division between the one that has to be transcended and one that has to transcend. This is the essence of your teaching." NEXTLINE Bodhidharma said, "You have my bones." NEXTLINE And he turned to the third disciple, who said, "The essence of your teaching is inexpressible." NEXTLINE Bodhidharma laughed and he said, "But you have expressed it! You have said something about it. You have my marrow." NEXTLINE And he turned to the fourth disciple who had only tears and utter silence, no answer. He fell at the feet of Bodhidharma... and he was accepted as the successor, although he had not answered anything. NEXTLINE But he has answered -- without answering, without using words, without using language. His tears have shown much more than any language can contain... and his gratitude and his prayerfulness and his thankfulness to the master... what more can you say? NEXTLINE The great gathering of disciples was very much disappointed, because this was a man nobody had ever bothered about. The great scholars have been rejected; the great knowers have not been accepted, and an ordinary man... NEXTLINE But that ordinariness is the only extraordinary thing in the world... that childlike wonder, that childlike experience of the mysterious all around. NEXTLINE Remember one thing: the moment you start knowing something you are not a child. You have started becoming part of the adult world. The society has initiated you into civilization; it has distracted you from your essential nature. NEXTLINE When the child is surrounded by the mysterious all around, everything just a mystery with no answer, with no question, he is exactly at the point the sage ultimately reaches. Garimo, that's why childlikeness is compared again and again to meditation. Meditation would not have been needed if people had remained in their essential childlikeness. NEXTLINE Do you know the root of the word `meditation'? -- it comes from the same root as `medicine'. It is a medicine. But the medicine is needed only if you are sick. Meditation is needed if you are spiritually sick. Childlikeness is your spiritual health, your spiritual wholeness; you don't need any meditation. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Little Ernie wants a bicycle, but when he asks his mother, she tells him he can only have one if he behaves himself, which he promises to do. But after a week of trying to be good, Ernie finds it impossible. So his mother suggests, "If you write a note to Jesus, maybe you will find it easier to be good." NEXTLINE Ernie rushes upstairs, sits on his bed, and writes: "Dear Jesus, if you let me have a bike, I promise to be good for the rest of my life." Realizing that he could never manage that, he starts again: "Dear Jesus, if you let me have a bike, I promise to be good for a month." Knowing that he can't do that, he suddenly has an idea. NEXTLINE He runs into his mother's room, takes her statue of the Virgin Mary, puts it in a shoe box and hides it under the bed. Then he begins to write again: "Dear Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again..." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE When the Goldberg family moved into their new house, a visiting relative asked little Herschel how he liked the new place. NEXTLINE "It is terrific!" he says. "I have my own room, Ruthie has her own room and Sarah has her own room too. But poor Mom is still in with Dad." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Garimo, a few maxims for you to meditate on. Perhaps your dormant childlikeness may start becoming active. The first maxim: NEXTLINE "Smile -- tomorrow will be worse." NEXTLINE "Nothing makes a woman feel older than meeting a fat, bald man who knew her at school." NEXTLINE "There are no important differences between men and women, but the unimportant ones are the most interesting." NEXTLINE "If it can't be done in bed, it is probably not worth doing." NEXTLINE "Success for some people depends on becoming well known. For others, it depends on never being found out." NEXTLINE "The seven ages of women: the right age, and the six wild guesses." NEXTLINE "A woman, generally speaking, is generally speaking." NEXTLINE "Old age is when you put on your glasses to think." NEXTLINE "The honeymoon is over when she stops calling you `honey' and starts calling you `listen!'" NEXTLINE "The honeymoon is over when a quickie before dinner is a drink." NEXTLINE "The honeymoon is over when the dog brings your slippers and your wife barks at you." NEXTLINE "If you are lonesome as a bachelor, take the big step -- get a dog. The license is cheaper and he already has a fur coat." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE For absolutely irrational reasons, man has been dragged into seriousness. All religions have played their role in poisoning man. The people who are going on any kind of power trip are bound to destroy man's laughter, his innocent wondering eyes, his childhood. The giggle of a child seems to be more dangerous to these people than nuclear weapons. NEXTLINE And in fact they are right -- if the whole world starts laughing a little more, wars will be reduced. If people start loving their innocence without bothering about knowledge, life will have a beauty and a blessing of which we have become completely unaware. NEXTLINE Just today, Hasya brought me a letter from a sannyasin who says that for seven years he has been so cowardly... because he has wanted to tell me something, but was afraid. Somehow he has gathered courage and he has written. His question was, "Whenever you quote any scientific theory, it is not up to date." Now, I am amazed! Do you think science can ever be up to date? By the time it is up to date it is already out of date. What was up to date yesterday, today has become out of date. What was up to date today will become out of date tomorrow. Seeing this stupidity, I simply dropped the idea of being up to date. What is the point? NEXTLINE And you have not come here to learn science. If once in a while I mention any scientific theory it is not to explain the theory to you, it is to indicate towards something else. It is just an arrow pointing beyond, and if you don't look at the beyond and you get entangled with the arrow, you have missed the point. NEXTLINE If you are so much interested in science, you should go to a science college. Libraries are full, there are hundreds of universities. This is not the place for you. This is the most unscientific place you can find in the world! And when I say unscientific, I mean exactly that. Science means knowledge -- this place is not for knowledge. NEXTLINE This place is for innocence. NEXTLINE I am not imparting more information to you. My effort is to take away your information and give you a transformation. NEXTLINE You unnecessarily waited for seven years. But now there is no need; the choice is clear. Here we have gathered to forget all that we know, and if you are still interested in accumulating borrowed knowledge, then I feel sorry for you. NEXTLINE All the religions try to insist that what they are saying is true, although all their truths have been found to be superstitions. Three hundred years ago the shift came -- from religion to science. And science started emphasizing that whatever it says is true. It was an old habit gathered from religions. Soon they became aware that at least religion remained for ten thousand years with the same knowledge... because the knowledge in the religious area was such that there was no way to find out whether it was up to date or out of date, whether God was still alive, or dead, or sick. So God remained. In fact, nobody ever knew whether he had been born yet or not. Heaven and hell all remained true for thousands of years without any change. The reason was not that they were true, the reason was that they were simply fictions and there was no way and no criterion to judge. NEXTLINE Science took the same attitude towards its own theories, but soon the fallacy was found. Science was not talking about fictions but about facts. And as you know more facts, you have to change your old theories every day. In fact, it is said that today you cannot write a very big, comprehensive book on science because by the time the book is complete, all that you have written will be out of date. You can write only papers, and in that too you have to be very quick to read them in some conference or publish them in some periodical, because you are not alone in the world. Many people are working on the same facts. Somebody may come with a better fitting, more adequate ideology. NEXTLINE Albert Einstein was asked, "If you had not discovered the theory of relativity, do you think it would have been discovered ever?" And naturally the questioner was convinced that unless there is a mind like Albert Einstein, the theory cannot be discovered. NEXTLINE But he was shocked when Albert Einstein said to him, "If I had not discovered it, within three weeks at the most it would have been discovered by somebody else. Thousands of scientific minds are working. It was just fortunate that I jumped quickly and published my research." NEXTLINE And strangely enough it was found that another German physicist had discovered the theory of relativity BEFORE Albert Einstein. But he was a lazy guy; he simply waited. What is the hurry? He was thinking that nobody else was going to discover such a complicated theory. He had all the notes prepared, only he had not put them together. But do you think Albert Einstein is up to date today? You are wrong. In science, nobody can remain up to date. Maybe for a few moments, a few days, a few weeks... NEXTLINE I am not concerned with the temporal and the ephemeral and the timely. My concern is with the eternal. And the eternal has nothing to do with science or knowledge; the eternal has something to do with the mysterious and the innocent. NEXTLINE You be childlike, with open eyes, without any prejudices hidden behind the eyes. Just look with clarity, and small flowers or grass leaves or butterflies or a sunset will give you as much blissfulness as Gautam Buddha found in his enlightenment. The question is not dependent on things, the question is of your openness. Knowledge closes you. It becomes an enclosure, an imprisonment. And innocence opens all the doors, all the windows. NEXTLINE Sun comes in, cool breezes pass through. NEXTLINE Fragrance of flowers suddenly visits you. NEXTLINE And once in a while a bird may come and sing a song and pass through another window. NEXTLINE Innocence is the only religiousness. NEXTLINE Religiousness does not depend on your holy scriptures. It does not depend on how much you know about the world. It depends on how much you are ready to be just like a clean mirror, reflecting nothing. NEXTLINE Utter silence, innocence, purity... and the whole existence is transformed for you. Each moment becomes ecstatic. Small things, sipping a cup of tea, become so prayerful, no other prayer can be compared to it. Just watching a cloud moving freely in the sky, and in innocence a synchronicity happens. The cloud is no more there as an object and you are no more here as a subject. Something meets and merges with the cloud. You start flying with the cloud. NEXTLINE You start dancing with the rain, with the trees. You start singing with the birds. You start dancing with the peacocks, without moving, just sitting, your consciousness starts spreading all around you. NEXTLINE The day you have touched existence with your consciousness, religion is born in you, and you are born again. NEXTLINE This is your real birth. NEXTLINE This real birth I have called sannyas. NEXTLINE One birth is from the mother and the father; another birth is that which happens between the disciple and the master. And the second birth opens all the doors and all the secrets to explore. Life becomes a continuous adventure, a moment to moment excitement, a day and night ecstasy. Neither life disappears into death nor day dies into the darkness of the night. Suddenly you become aware that day and night are two wings of the same bird, that life and death are two wings of the same bird. NEXTLINE The whole sky of consciousness is yours. NEXTLINE You don't have to be a Christian, you don't have to be a Hindu, you don't have to be a Mohammedan. You only have to be a child. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Just a few jokes, for you to laugh.... NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Gordon MacTavish becomes the head of the Clan MacTavish and inherits a fortune. His friends at the pub fear that his new wealth will change him. There is a big discussion at the pub when the door bursts open and in strides MacTavish, waving them all to the bar. NEXTLINE "When MacTavish drinks," he booms, "everyone drinks!" NEXTLINE When everyone has had a drink, he slaps down a dollar bill on the bar and announces, "And when MacTavish pays, everyone pays!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Hamish MacTavish is flying from Los Angeles to New York to go to his company's annual sales meeting. He is sipping his complimentary champagne in the first class lounge when a gorgeous blond sits down next to him. He is trying hard not to look at her ample chest, and when she says, "I know you must be wondering about my T-shirt," Hamish is very pleased to be be able to look straight at her bulging breasts with the initials N.N.A. printed across them. He admits that he is curious, so she tells him it stands for the National Nymphomaniacs Association. And as it turns out, she is also going to her annual national convention. NEXTLINE Excitedly Hamish asks, "What kind of man do you prefer?" NEXTLINE "Well," she confesses, "my absolute favorite is mature American Indians." But then noticing Hamish's disappointment, she quickly adds, "But a close second, Jewish businessmen." NEXTLINE "In that case," says Hamish, unable to contain himself any longer, "let me introduce myself." He then raises his champagne glass and says, "My name is Geronimo Goldberg." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE The young minister decides to get married. In his innocence he finds a girl who has had much experience with men. On the wedding night he gets into his pajamas while his wife strips naked and jumps into bed. Kneeling beside the bed, the minister prays, "Ah God, on this great night, give us your guidance." NEXTLINE "Don't worry about that," says his wife. "I'll give the guidance, just pray for endurance!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 4Never meditate over something23 December 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO "MEDITATE OVER" SOMETHING? I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO "THINK OVER" SOMETHING; THAT'S WHAT THE MIND IS CONTINUOUSLY DOING: REMEMBERING, ANALYZING, PLANNING, IMAGINING, ETCETERA. NEXTLINE I ALSO CAME TO KNOW A STATE OF MEDITATION WHERE THE "I" IS NO MORE, WHERE ALL THE BOUNDARIES ARE LOST, JUST A MELTING INTO THE WHOLE, A DISAPPEARING, WEIGHTLESSNESS, LIGHT, AND BLISS. NEXTLINE BUT WHAT, BELOVED MASTER, DO YOU MEAN WHEN YOU SAY TO US, "MEDITATE OVER IT"? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Bodhi Deshna, the languages of the West have no equivalent to meditation. It is sheer poverty of experience and poverty of language -- just as in the East you will not find many words which exist in the Western hemisphere, particularly scientific, technological, objective. So the first thing to be understood is that we are trying something almost impossible. NEXTLINE In the East we have all the three words that English has, but we also have a fourth word that English -- or any Western language -- has missed. And the reason is not just linguistic; the reason is that this kind of experience has not been available to them. NEXTLINE The first word is `concentration'. In the East we call it ekagrata, one-pointedness. NEXTLINE The second word is `contemplation'. In the East we call it vimarsh, thinking, but only about a particular subject. Not diverting, going astray, but consistently remaining with the same experience and going deeper and more comprehensively into it. It is a development of concentration. NEXTLINE The third word is `meditation'. In the West, since Marcus Aurelius, meditation has been in a mess. His was the first book written in the West about meditation. But not knowing what meditation can be, he defines it as a deeper concentration and a deeper contemplation. Both definitions are unjustified. NEXTLINE In the East we have another word, dhyan. It does not mean concentration, it does not mean contemplation, it does not mean meditation even. It means a state of no-mind. All those three are mind activities -- whether you are concentrating, contemplating, or meditating, you are always objective. There is something you are concentrating upon, there is something you are meditating upon, there is something you are contemplating upon. Your processes may be different but the boundary line is clear cut: it is within the mind. Mind can do all these three things without any difficulty. NEXTLINE Dhyan is beyond mind. NEXTLINE This is not the first time that the difficulty has been raised -- it has been raised by many people. After Gautam Buddha, his disciples reached China nearabout eighteen hundred years ago and they were faced with the same difficulty. Finally they decided not to translate the word because there is no possible translation. They used the word dhyan, but in the Chinese pronunciation it became ch'an. And when fourteen hundred years ago the transmission of the lamp reached to Japan, again there was the same difficulty: what to do with ch'an? The Japanese had no equivalent or even similar word for it. So they also decided to use the same word; in their pronunciation it became zen. NEXTLINE And it is a strange story, that Gautam Buddha himself never used the word dhyan, because he never used the Sanskrit language. It was one of his revolutionary steps to use the people's language, not the language of the scholars. Sanskrit has never been a living language; it has never been used by the people in the marketplace. It has been the language of the learned, the scholars, the professors, the philosophers, the theologians, and there was a tremendous gap between the world of scholars and the world of the ordinary human being. It was tremendously courageous of Gautam Buddha not to use the language in which he was trained, but to use the language of the people. He used a language called Pali. In Pali, dhyan becomes jhan. Jhan and zen are not very far away, and ch'an also fits perfectly well between the two. NEXTLINE But the people who translated the first scriptures describing meditation thought that they understood the meaning of dhyan. Most of them were Christian missionaries, and naturally they had nothing beyond the conception of mind. Christianity has never thought about going beyond the mind; hence the possibility does not exist for anything like dhyan. The closest they could come was `meditation'. But the moment you use `meditation', it becomes, automatically, meditation upon what? `Meditation' is intrinsically objective -- the word. Dhyan is not. NEXTLINE When you use dhyan, it does not mean on what. It simply means going beyond the mind. And the moment you go beyond the mind, you go beyond all objects. You simply are. Dhyan is not a process, but a state of being. Not a duality between subject and object, but simply a dewdrop slipping from the lotus leaf into the ocean. NEXTLINE Talking to you, when I say, "Meditate over it" I know the word I am using is wrong. But the reason that I am using the wrong word is because only the wrong people are around me! All the misfits of the world... they fit me very well! But you can be reminded that language should not become a barrier. NEXTLINE Meditation is a state. You are simply silent -- no thought to concentrate on, no subject to contemplate, no object to meditate over. The other has disappeared. And remember, the moment the other disappears, you cannot exist. You are part of the other. Just as if light disappears, there will be no darkness; if life disappears, there will be no death; they are intrinsically joined together. "I" and "you" can either exist together in a certain kind of coexistence or we have to disappear and then what remains is neither me nor you. What remains is the universal energy. NEXTLINE Meditation is disappearing into the universal. NEXTLINE Mind is the barrier. And the more you concentrate, the more you contemplate, the more you meditate upon something, you will never go out of the mind. And mind is the dewdrop I have referred to. So the first thing to understand is that for meditation, only in the East and particularly in India was the first word coined. Words are coined only when you have a certain experience which is incapable of being expressed in the existing language. NEXTLINE For ten thousand years India has been pouring all its genius into a single effort, and that is dhyan. If you use the word `dhyan', you will not ask, "On what?" The very word `dhyan' has no intrinsic duality. Dhyan means simply silence. Utter silence, serenity. NEXTLINE Your question is significant. You are asking, "What does it mean to meditate over something?" It means nothing! Never meditate over something; otherwise it is not meditation. NEXTLINE You are saying, "I know what it means to think over something. That's what the mind is continuously doing -- remembering, analyzing, planning, imagining, etcetera." Everybody knows that. NEXTLINE "I also came to know a state of meditation where the `I' is no more." NEXTLINE My own understanding is, Bodhi Deshna, that up to this point you were talking about your existential experience; beyond this point you are simply borrowing words which you have not experienced. You say, "I also came to know..." Who will come to know? If the "I" is there, then the "thou" is there. If the experiencer is there, then the experience is there. Still the duality exists; you have not gone beyond the mind. You have not attained what you call a state of meditation. NEXTLINE You say "... where the `I' is no more..." These are words which are beautiful and you must have loved them, but you don't know the meaning of them. This is the point I was talking about last night, when Bodhidharma chose as his successor the disciple who did not answer. Because any answer will be wrong; any answer will mean "I am still here." Any answer will mean mind is still functioning. Any answer is bound to be wrong. The man who was chosen as the successor had only tears of joy and fell at the feet of Bodhidharma in tremendous gratitude and thankfulness. NEXTLINE Nothing can be said. NEXTLINE The moment you say something you have to use the mind, you have to use language, and then naturally all the fallacies of language and all the boundaries of the mind come in. NEXTLINE You say, "... where the `I' is no more..." If you are no more, then the question should have stopped here. Now who is prolonging the question still further? You go on, saying, "... where all the boundaries are lost..." Whose boundaries? Certainly you are there, seeing that boundaries are getting lost. But if you are there, boundaries cannot be lost. That is a contradiction in terms. NEXTLINE You are saying, "... just melting into the whole..." Have you ever heard any dewdrop shouting to the world, "Listen, I am melting into the ocean"? One simply melts and there is nothing to say. NEXTLINE And silence prevails. NEXTLINE But you go on describing all the beautiful words that you must have read, you must have heard: "... just melting into the whole, a disappearing, weightlessness, light and bliss..." But to whom are all these experiences happening? You are no more! For all these experiences to happen, at least you are needed. Your mind is needed, your language is needed, and again you ask. If this were an existential experience, in the first place you would not have said anything. NEXTLINE I am reminded of a great Zen master who was sitting on the sea beach when a king happened to pass by. He had always wanted to see the master, but there was no time -- the affairs of the kingdom and the worries and the wars... this was a golden opportunity. He stopped his chariot, got down and went to the master and asked him, "I don't have much time, but I want to know what the essential teaching is. I don't want to die ignorant." NEXTLINE The master remained silent. NEXTLINE The king said, "I can understand, you are very old and perhaps you have gone deaf." NEXTLINE The master smiled. NEXTLINE The king shouted in his ears, "I want to know the essence of your teaching!" NEXTLINE The master wrote with his finger on the sand, "Dhyan." He did not speak. NEXTLINE The king said, "But that does not make much sense to me. I have heard that word many times. Elaborate a little more." NEXTLINE The master said to him, "I have already fallen for your sake. Otherwise the right answer was the first, when I had remained silent. But perhaps you don't know the communion that exists in silence. Out of compassion, I wrote `dhyan'; now you want elaboration. I will try." He wrote again in bigger letters, dhyan. NEXTLINE The king was getting a little angry. He said, "What kind of elaboration is this? It is the same word!" NEXTLINE The master said, "You will have to forgive me, because I cannot fall more. Just for your sake, I will not let the centuries laugh about me. Nobody has said anything about dhyan, and nobody can say anything about dhyan." NEXTLINE Then what have the masters been doing down the ages? They create devices, situations in which they hope that perhaps in a thousand people one may get an insight. Those devices are not meditations. Those devices are only to bring you to a point in your own inner space where suddenly you realize and you say "Aha!" And the moment you understand the state of meditation, all methods of meditation become futile. Those methods are just arbitrary, created out of compassion for people to whom there is no other way to communicate a higher reality than the mind. NEXTLINE If what you say has been your experience, then the last part will be missing. You say, "But what, beloved master, do you mean when you say to us: `Meditate over it'?" I say to you, "Meditate over it" with all the explanations that there is no "it" and there is no meditator. When I say "Meditate over it" I mean exactly the opposite: NEXTLINE No it, no meditator. NEXTLINE Just be. NEXTLINE But language is very poor. Even the very cultured languages are poor as far as the interior space of man is concerned. They don't have any indicative words because millions of people have lived but nobody has looked within. And when once in a while somebody looks within, he finds a space which cannot be translated in any way. You should understand not only your difficulty -- your difficulty is very small -- you should understand the difficulty of the man who has existentially reached the spot which he cannot translate. NEXTLINE One of the most beautiful mystics of India, Kabir, was asked the same question. He laughed and he said, "I cannot exactly give you an explanation, but I can give you some indication. It is like the experience of sweetness to a dumb man. He knows it, but he cannot speak it. The dumb man has no incapacity to experience the sweetness of something, but if you ask him what is his experience, he cannot express it." This inexpressibility has misguided many people. They think that a thing which cannot be expressed cannot exist. They think expressibility and existence are bound to be synonymous. It is not so. NEXTLINE What can you say about love? Whatever you say will be wrong. In fact, when you are in love you don't even say "I love you," because that seems so small in comparison to your experience. My own understanding is that people start saying to each other, "I love you" when love has disappeared. NEXTLINE The American philosopher Dale Carnegie -- and a man like Dale Carnegie can be called a philosopher only in America -- suggests in his book, which has sold second only to the Holy Bible: "Whenever you come home, kiss your wife and say, `I love you.' Whenever you go out of your home, kiss your wife and say, `I love you.'" And there are millions of idiots who are doing it! The wife knows that this is only bluffing; the man knows it is all bluffing.... NEXTLINE When you love, love is so tremendous and so vast that you simply sit hand in hand, not uttering a single word. NEXTLINE The actual experience of love has never been expressed by any poet and will never be expressed. And love is part of our ordinary reality, just as sweetness or bitterness is. These inner spaces of meditation are not our usual experiences, so when somebody stumbles upon them he is at a loss to say what he has found. NEXTLINE There was a man in Japan whose name people have forgotten -- they only remember the "Laughing Buddha" because he never said anything. Ask him anything, his answer would be the same: he would laugh. I think he was a very sincere man, utterly authentic. He did not compromise with any language, with any mind, with any expression. He simply laughed. And if you can understand through his laughter, his smile, it is up to you. Most of the people thought he was mad. NEXTLINE When Bodhidharma became the state of meditation, the first thing that happened to him was to laugh loudly. But Bodhidharma was a learned scholar, not like a simple, Japanese laughing buddha. He did not laugh. He was asked later on by his disciples, "Please fulfill our curiosity: when you became enlightened, what was the first thing that you wanted to do?" NEXTLINE He said, "The first thing? I was no longer there -- a tremendous laughter -- but I had not to go on laughing. Otherwise people would think me just a madman. And my master's advice was, `Even a very wise master rarely finds authentic disciples. If people start thinking you are mad, then the possibility of transforming anybody is almost negligible.' So I reminded myself: laugh within yourself as much as you can, but don't show it!" NEXTLINE Have you seen Bodhidharma's pictures? You can use those pictures to scare your children! Nobody has inquired what happened ... because he was a prince; this face that is depicted is not the face of a beautiful prince. But I know the reason. The reason is, he is holding his laughter inside! And because of this holding, his whole face has become distorted. His eyes are bulging. He has decided to remain serious. But I don't think anybody has ever analyzed why Bodhidharma, one of the most beautiful men, should have such a ferocious look. I can say with absolute certainty that he is in tremendous trouble. If he had laughed, you would have seen his beauty, but the master had said not to laugh, otherwise nobody was going to take him seriously. So the poor fellow became too serious, and when you are containing a belly laughter inside you everything becomes distorted. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Bodhi Deshna, first you have to sort out what is your experience and what is your knowledge. Knowledge is simply bullshit. If you don't like the word bullshit, then you can call it cow dung, because that is a holy thing. And as you are scraping it away, you will find something of tremendous value, of your own experience. That experience will give you the meaning of meditation. NEXTLINE I cannot give it to you. NEXTLINE I can only show the path, how it is gained. NEXTLINE But to say what it is, I am as dumb as anybody else has ever been. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Wishing to surprise her husband with a new wig she has just bought, Ruthie Finkelstein strolls unannounced into his office. NEXTLINE "Do you think you could find a place in your life for a woman like me?" she asks sexily. NEXTLINE "Not a chance," replies Moishe. "You remind me too much of my wife." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE So beware of wigs! And remember one thing, that whatever grows within you undistorted, unpolluted, unpoisoned by the millions who are around you, trust it. That is your potential. And remember that in your potential, you will not find your self. And the moment you don't find your self, there is lightness, there is blessing, there is ecstasy, but you cannot say it. The one who used to say is no more. NEXTLINE The Sufis have one of the most holy books in the whole world, perhaps the only holy book. For fourteen hundred years that book has existed. No publishing house has been ready to print it, because there is nothing in it to print. It is just absolutely blank. NEXTLINE The first master who had the book used to hide it under his pillow. His disciples were very curious... "He says everything, but if you ask about the book he simply smiles." They tried in every way: they would leave the windows open so that in the night when there was nobody and the master took out the book to read it... They even climbed over his roof, removing a few tiles to see what was written in the book. But the master was reading next to a small candle, and it was very difficult to figure out what was there. And immediately, as soon as he became aware of anybody, he would close the book and put it under his pillow. NEXTLINE The day he died, nobody was so much interested in his death -- everybody was interested in the book! They pulled out the book and they were amazed: there was not a single word written anywhere. Those who had the perceptivity could see the great compassion of the master, that he never said anything about the book. He left it for them to discover. NEXTLINE That book still exists -- in a distorted form, because one publisher in England has published it but he was also worried about who is going to purchase it. A pseudo-Sufi has written an introduction and its whole history of fourteen hundred years. So there is something written to be read, but that has destroyed the whole mystery of the book. NEXTLINE You are the mystery which cannot be contained in words. And remember it as a criterion: whatever can be reduced to language is just your mind functioning. Meditation is a state when mind stops functioning; you are simply consciousness. Not even conscious of yourself, but pure consciousness. Not even the slightest idea that "I am this," that "I am enjoying bliss and I am enjoying ecstasy." NEXTLINE When ecstasy comes, the flood is so big, "you" cannot remain in that flood. When blessings shower on you, you evaporate. NEXTLINE Gautam Buddha is right when he says, "I can only point to the moon, but don't cling to my finger. The finger is not the moon." But you will be surprised about human stupidity. After Gautam Buddha... because he said, "Don't make statues of me, because I am not here so that you should worship me. I am here so that I can awaken you." But he has not prohibited... he may not have even thought about how deep is the ignorance of man. People created temples, with a finger carved in beautiful marble, and everybody forgot the moon. And people worshipped the finger and the whole point was missed! What Gautam Buddha was saying was that whatever he was doing for forty-two years continuously was nothing but a finger pointing to the moon. Leave the finger aside and look at the moon. NEXTLINE What I am saying to you is, don't get involved in the linguistics, in the language, in the grammar. Those are all irrelevant. Just look at the moon. Even a finger which is not very beautiful can point to the moon -- words are not very beautiful, but if you are wise enough you can leave the words and listen to the essence. NEXTLINE But don't start believing in that essence and talking about it. Let it become your experience. And even when it becomes your experience you will not be able to give any explanation to it. You can cry out of joy, you can laugh, you can dance... perhaps those gestures signify more beautifully than the ordinary language. NEXTLINE Meera danced -- she is one of the most beautiful women in the world. Perhaps no other woman has reached to the heights Meera reached. And she was a queen, but the day the moment arrived and the space within her opened, she forgot all her palaces. She started dancing in the streets of her own capital. Naturally, the family was very much disturbed -- a queen dancing in the marketplace! They came to persuade her, but she said, "I have found something that can only be expressed by dancing. I will dance all over the country." NEXTLINE She danced all over the country. Nobody knows how many people understood the dance. She sang beautiful songs. They are not philosophical treatises, but they have beautiful gaps. If you can catch those gaps, you can enter into the unknown. Her dances are a language of a totally different caliber. If you can understand her dance, perhaps something will start dancing in you. All that is needed is an openness, a receptivity, so that her dance can trigger the dormant energy in your being. And if you can also dance, you will have communicated, you will have understood what meditation is. NEXTLINE And here there is not one Meera, there are many. If you cannot understand meditation here, there is not much possibility to understand it anywhere else. The world is too worldly; and their antagonism towards me is because I am trying to take you away from the crowd on untrodden paths where no guide exists, no maps exist. And the crowd is worried. Whether the crowd is of Christians or of Hindus or of Buddhists, it doesn't matter. The crowd does not want anybody to get out of its fold; that reduces its political power. NEXTLINE All your religions are simply political powers; in the name of religion the greatest cheating and exploitation of humanity. I want to take you away from the crowd, whichever crowd you belong to. NEXTLINE I respect the individual, because only the individual can know what meditation is and only the individual can know the beauty, the ecstasy, the dance of this immensely beautiful existence. Crowds have never become enlightened, it has always been the individual. NEXTLINE I create the individual. NEXTLINE Just the other day, one of my old sannyasins, Amrito from Holland, told Hasya that he is writing a book called TEN YEARS OF PREPARATION. He is a man of great intellectual capacity, an intellectual giant, but his heart is just like that of a small child. Because of his intellect, he has been going to all kinds of people -- Da Free John, J. Krishnamurti, whenever he hears of somebody he will immediately rush there. In these ten years he must have encountered many so-called enlightened people. NEXTLINE He had a personal interview lasting one hour with J. Krishnamurti, and he showed the script to Hasya. Krishnamurti talks about me: "The gentleman in Poona is just a ladder. As far as I am concerned, I am an elevator." NEXTLINE I have sent a message to Amrito that I don't think of it as a criticism of me, I accept it as a compliment! With a ladder you are free; it is not so with an elevator. In an elevator you are encaged, you cannot go anywhere, and the elevator never goes anywhere -- it simply goes up and down. And Krishnamurti, for ninety years, was going just like an elevator, up and down, up and down. With an elevator you are not the master; you are subservient to a mechanical device which depends on many complexities -- electricity, engineering, electronics. You can get stuck in the middle and you cannot do anything. NEXTLINE With a ladder, you are absolutely free! You are the master: you can take the ladder wherever you want, you can leave the ladder wherever you want. The ladder will not cling to you and the ladder will not ask you for any kind of surrender. I love the idea! I am certainly an old-fashioned ladder. NEXTLINE My whole effort is to make masters of you. Krishnamurti has not even been able to make disciples of you. NEXTLINE I have called Amrito tonight to ask, "What other nonsense have you been listening to from these so-called enlightened people? You are my disciple and you have to finish your book with my declaration that you are now a master! Without that, the book will remain incomplete. But first tell me what all these idiots have been telling you so I can answer them; otherwise your book will remain incomplete." NEXTLINE There was a man in Bombay, Nisargadatta Maharaj. Nobody knew this big name; he was known to the masses as "Beedie Baba" because he was continuously smoking beedies. You can find in every village such kinds of beedie babas. I think India has seven hundred thousand villages and each village must have at least one; more is possible. And Amrito wrote a few days ago to me, because another young Dutchman became very much involved with Beedie Baba... The man seems to be very sincere, but the trouble is that the people who come from the West have a very childlike heart, very trusting, and they are unaware that in India spirituality is just a routine. Everybody talks about great things and their lives are as ugly as possible. NEXTLINE When Beedie Baba said that he would speak only to this young Dutchman, naturally his ego must have felt tremendously vast. NEXTLINE The crowd that surrounded Beedie Baba was also of the same quality... rickshaw wallahs waiting for their passengers, sitting by the side of Beedie Baba. And when he said he would not speak to anybody unless it was this Dutchman... So he spoke to the Dutchman, who has now compiled books on Beedie Baba. NEXTLINE Now in India it is almost parrot-like, but to the Westerner it seems to be a tremendous revelation -- when Beedie Baba said, "Aham brahmasmi; I am God, I am that" the young Dutchman immediately wrote a book: I AM THAT! Because for the West, spirituality is a foreign affair, just as for the East, science is a foreign affair. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I have heard: In a factory in Bombay, they installed a very costly mechanism. Two days it worked, and then it stopped. It worked for two days because the expert was present, and the moment the expert was gone the mechanism stopped. They phoned the expert -- "What to do?" NEXTLINE He said, "I will have to come and it will cost a lot of money, ten thousand dollars." NEXTLINE But to keep the factory closed was even more costly, so they had to allow the man to come. And the man came and just hit the machine and it started working! The industrialist asked him, "Just for this hitting you are costing me ten thousand dollars?" NEXTLINE He said, "It is not for the hitting. For hitting it is only one dollar, but to know where to hit it costs money." NEXTLINE When Amrito's letter came to me about this Dutchman, saying that "Many sannyasins are going to him, and I am also going to him," I talked about it. He heard it, and he took the tape to the man. The man heard it, and he was very grateful but baffled also, because he was gathering a big crowd of disciples. But because he felt baffled and he was grateful that I had talked about him... I would like Amrito, when he goes back, either to bring the man to me or send him to me. Because I know where to hit! NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 5Just to relax on the river23 December 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE WHEN I HEARD YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE HERE FOR US AND WE ARE HERE FOR YOU, I WAS SO TOUCHED BY THE SIMPLICITY AND THE TRUTH OF IT. IT WENT TO MY HEART LIKE AN ARROW. OH BELOVED MASTER, IT'S ALL SO DEEP. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Prem Jivan, truth is the most obvious and the most simple thing in existence. This has created tremendous difficulty -- the mind is not interested in the obvious. The mind is not excited by the simple, because deep down mind is nothing but your ego, and the nourishment of the ego comes from the challenge of the far away. The more arduous, the more torturous, the more difficult an achievement is, the more the mind becomes fascinated. It is ready to go to the farthest star, not even bothering what it is going to get there; that is irrelevant. NEXTLINE I remember a remark by Edmund Hillary, who was the first man to climb Everest, the highest mountain in the Himalayas. When he came down, the whole world's media was interested to know what his experience was, what he had gained. Before him, for almost a hundred years, hundreds of mountaineers had destroyed their lives in the same effort of achieving Everest. NEXTLINE Edmund Hillary could not answer. For a moment there was silence, and then he said, "Just because it is there, a challenge to humanity -- that was enough for me to risk my life. I have not gained anything, I have not experienced anything." NEXTLINE The truth is, whenever I think of Edmund Hillary standing on the Everest, alone, he looks to me to be embarrassed, utterly idiotic. And in fact he did not stay there longer than two minutes. For those two minutes he risked his life. NEXTLINE This will give you an insight into the human mind and its workings. That which is available cannot be made an achievement. And that which is not available, the farther away it is, the more nourishment there is to the ego. The obvious, that which you already have, has no interest at all for the mind. NEXTLINE That's why millions of people have lived on the earth and missed their own being. They traveled far and wide, world travelers -- Marco Polo, Columbus -- they tried to conquer the whole world, like Alexander the Great. But they forgot one thing: they have not even known themselves; the question of conquering does not arise. NEXTLINE Alexander was on the way to India when he heard about a very strange man, Diogenes, who lived just by the side of the road. Alexander had heard many stories about the man; he was a legend in his own time. He lived naked. NEXTLINE In India it is easy, but in the West it is not so easy -- in India thousands of Jaina monks have lived naked. But you will be surprised to know why Jainism never reached outside India -- the nakedness prevented it. Buddhism spread all over Asia to Tibet, to China, to Korea, to Japan, because they were not living naked. Mahavira was a contemporary of Gautam Buddha, but he could not move -- neither have any of his disciples in twenty-five centuries moved -- out of India. NEXTLINE But Diogenes must have been a more courageous man than Mahavira. He lived in Greece absolutely naked. All his possessions consisted only of one ordinary old-style lamp that he carried twenty-four hours, lighted, even in full daylight. Whenever he would meet anybody he would bring his lamp close to the person's face... and you could see the disappointment, the frustration on his face. People would ask, "What are you trying to find?" NEXTLINE He said, "I am simply trying to find an authentic man, a simple man, a sincere man -- a man without a mask, just natural, as if he has been born just now." NEXTLINE The day Diogenes died, people gathered, and they asked, "For your whole life, your search has been only one. Did you succeed in finding a natural, simple, innocent man?" NEXTLINE Diogenes said, "Don't ask such depressing questions. All that I can say about men is that they have not stolen my lamp yet." NEXTLINE There were many stories about the man. Alexander stopped his army and said, "I would like to see him." NEXTLINE The first question that Diogenes asked Alexander is the first question every intelligent person has to ask himself. NEXTLINE Diogenes did not waste a single moment. He said, "Alexander, you are trying to conquer the whole world. What about you? Will there be time enough after you have conquered the world to know yourself? Are you certain about tomorrow, or the next moment?" NEXTLINE Alexander had never faced such a man. He had conquered great kings, emperors, but he could see that Diogenes is a lion of a man. With downcast eyes, Alexander said, "I cannot say that I am certain about the next moment. But one thing I can promise to you, that when I have conquered the world I would love to rest and relax just like you." NEXTLINE Diogenes was having a morning sunbath by the side of a river, surrounded by beautiful trees. He laughed... sometimes I think his laughter must be still echoing. NEXTLINE People like Diogenes belong to eternity. Their signatures are not made on water. NEXTLINE Alexander felt offended and asked, "Why are you laughing?" NEXTLINE Diogenes said, "It is so simple! If I can rest and relax without conquering the world, what is preventing you? The river is big enough and I have no objection. You can take any place you want -- even if you want my place, I can change. Rest now if you ever want to rest. Relax now. Now -- or remember, never." NEXTLINE What Diogenes was saying was absolute truth, but to a man who is on an ego trip it was too obvious, too simple. Just to relax on the river bank does not give any nourishment to the ego. What have you conquered? What is your achievement? NEXTLINE People measure their own lives according to their successes, according to their money, according to their power. There is no way to measure your success if you simply settle with the obvious and the simple. The obvious is nothing but a graveyard for your ego. NEXTLINE Prem Jivan, remember: truth is always simple. It is the untruth that is complex. If you are accustomed to lie, you will have to have a good memory. But if you are simply stating the truth, you don't need to have any memory at all. Lies are so complex, they need a very complex bio-computer which you call memory. Truth is so simple, it does not even need to be said. NEXTLINE I am reminded of Lao Tzu. He used to go every day for a morning walk, early, before the sun rises. Just by the side of his village there was a small hillock which was the most beautiful spot to see the sun rising. One of his neighbors asked him, "Can I also come with you?" NEXTLINE Lao Tzu said, "Whether you can come with me is not the right question. The road does not belong to me; neither the mountains, nor the sunrise. If you can come by my side but not with me, everything is okay. But remember: you are alone, I am alone. Nothing has to be said; no word has to be uttered." NEXTLINE The man had known Lao Tzu for a long time. He agreed. But one day the neighbor had a guest and the guest was also excited and wanted to follow his host, to go with Lao Tzu on his morning walk. The neighbor explained to him: "Lao Tzu has no other conditions except that you are alone; he does not want to become a crowd. Language is prohibited. You should not say anything, and I don't think he will object." NEXTLINE He did not object, and the guest remembered... but how long can you remember? When the beautiful sun started rising out of the morning mist he forgot all about what his host had said to him. And he said a simple thing, which should not be objectionable; he said, "What a beautiful sunrise!" And then suddenly he remembered: you are alone, you are not supposed to use words. Only mad people use words when they are alone. NEXTLINE They came back. Reaching the house, Lao Tzu said to his neighbor, "Please tell your guest never to come again. He is too talkative." NEXTLINE In a two-hour morning walk he had uttered only that small sentence -- "What a beautiful sunrise!" But still Lao Tzu is right. Because the guest tried to argue with him -- he said, "I simply expressed my feeling." NEXTLINE Lao Tzu said, "I was also present, I was also experiencing the sunrise and the beauty. We were all surrounded with the same blessing, the birds singing and the flowers opening. I am not blind; I also have a heart. You insulted me by saying, `What a beautiful sunrise' -- do you think I cannot understand the beauty? And moreover you forgot your promise. You are not a man who can be relied upon, you are not a man of your word." NEXTLINE These strange people like Lao Tzu or Diogenes are the authentic people of the world. And they have known the truth not by conquering the world, not by becoming astronauts, not by climbing Everest; they have known the truth just by sitting silently doing nothing. And obviously, the grass grows by itself! NEXTLINE You don't have to do a thing. And when truth comes to you in its utter simplicity, it goes deep to the very center of your being because it is not a mind fabrication; it is not a thought, it is something existential. NEXTLINE Your experience is perfectly true. "It went," you say, "to my heart like an arrow." NEXTLINE Yes, it goes into the heart just like an arrow. And after such experience you are never the same person -- you cannot be. Just think of a blind man: if his eyes can be cured and he starts seeing the light and the colors, do you think he will remain the same man as he was when he was blind? He will be a totally new person. NEXTLINE Perhaps you are not aware that your experience of life comes eighty percent from your eyes. Only twenty percent is divided among the other four senses. It is not coincidental that a blind man attracts your sympathy more than anybody else. A man who is deaf, a man who cannot smell, a man who cannot walk -- of course they create a certain sympathy in you, but the man who cannot see takes the major portion of your sympathy. NEXTLINE Without knowing the reasoning, you are functioning naturally. The blind man is living only twenty percent of his life. Eighty percent of his life does not exist -- no colors, no paintings, no flowers, no butterflies... not all the greenery of the world, not the mountains with eternal snows. No sky full of stars, no beautiful sunrise, no beautiful sunset. His life is reduced to such a minimum.... NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I have heard: NEXTLINE A young man had just won a lottery, and he was passing over a bridge. He always used to give some money to a blind beggar there, but that beggar was not present -- somebody else was present. But he was still spreading his hands asking for the money "for a blind man." So the young man gave him a rupee. The blind man immediately told him, "It is a false coin." NEXTLINE The man said, "Are you blind or not?" NEXTLINE He said, "I used to be blind before, but people were cheating me. Then I changed my profession; I became deaf and dumb." NEXTLINE The man asked, "And what happened to the blind man who used to sit here?" NEXTLINE He said, "It is his holiday, he has gone to a movie." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Your experiences, unless they transform you, are not experiences. They are only clouds in your mind. If you have felt the truth, then it is going to transform your whole life. It will have its impact on your every action, on your every attitude. There is no other way to know whether a man has found the truth or not. The only way is, all his gestures, his eyes, his very presence will start affecting you in a totally different way than you have ever been affected by another being, another man. NEXTLINE He may not say a single word, but his silence will overwhelm you. He may not look at you, but his eyes you will not be able to forget, ever. They will haunt you, they will follow you like a shadow. NEXTLINE His words will be just the same as your words. Dictionaries cannot make any distinction, but you are not a dictionary -- when a man like Gautam Buddha speaks, he uses the same words that everybody else is using but his words have a flavor, an authenticity, a sincerity of the heart, a tremendous love and compassion which the word itself does not necessarily carry. NEXTLINE But if you are open, available -- if the arrow has struck you in the heart -- then it opens a window that has remained closed perhaps for millions of lives. And from that small window tremendous experiences can float inwards, can transform you so totally.... NEXTLINE NEXTLINE It is said that in the great capital of Vaishali there used to be a thief, a master thief. He was known as a master thief because he was never caught; in fact the situation had become such that people bragged if the master thief had entered their houses. It became something prestigious, because the master thief would not go to a beggar. He would go to the emperors, to the kings, to the richest people. NEXTLINE Mahavira was staying for four months of the rainy season in Vaishali. The master thief was training his son in the art of which he was the master. NEXTLINE He said, "Listen, one thing: never go to hear this man Mahavira. Even if by chance you are passing and you hear a word or a sentence from the man, close your ears. Because he can destroy just with a single word my whole effort of making you my successor." NEXTLINE Naturally it created a great curiosity in the young man. The father has been training him for years, and he is so afraid of a man that just a single word from him and the whole discipline can be destroyed! He might never have heard Mahavira, but his father created the curiosity. One day he went, but he heard only one sentence and became afraid of his father, because his father was no ordinary man -- if he comes to know, he will kill him! There is no other punishment. But he heard one sentence and escaped. NEXTLINE That night his father was in the palace of the king, and much jewelry was stolen. The father escaped. The son was not part of the stealing process but the son was caught. He was coming from the discourse of Mahavira where he had heard only one sentence, which was absolutely meaningless. NEXTLINE The sentence which he heard was that in heaven men and women have a few strange things about them: one is that their feet are not the same as ours. Their feet are backwards; they walk forwards but their feet are backwards. This is not great philosophy. NEXTLINE But the young man was caught in place of his father because they looked alike. There was a difference in age, but in the dark night... The police used a strategy to make the young man confess. He was given so much alcohol that he fell asleep. When in the middle of the night he opened his eyes, he was in a beautiful palace, with such beautiful women -- he has never seen such beautiful women -- all kinds of delicious foods, ready for him. He thought, "Perhaps I have died and I have entered heaven!" NEXTLINE Then he suddenly remembered what Mahavira was saying, that in heaven the feet are backwards. So he looked at the feet -- they were not backwards. Otherwise he would have been caught, because those beautiful women were asking him: "Tell us everything you have done in your life. You are just in the reception room of heaven, and this is customary, to give your whole record before you enter heaven." NEXTLINE He was just going to give them an account of his whole life but he stopped. He said, "My God! If I had not heard that one sentence, I would have been finished today. Although I have not done great robberies, I have done smaller things. This has been my whole training." He simply remained silent. Asked again and again, he said, "I don't have any record. I am a man of silence, not a man of action. I am a meditator." There was no other way -- in the morning he was released. NEXTLINE He did not go to his home, he went to Mahavira and he said, "Your single sentence, which was absolutely irrelevant, has saved my life. Now this life belongs to you, not to my father. And if your single sentence can save my life I can conceive the tremendous transformation that can happen if I understand all your words, and if I can understand even your wordless silences." NEXTLINE Mahavira said, "I will accept you only on one condition: you go and tell your father what has happened. It is your duty. Your father also needs to be saved. What he is doing is utterly stupid." NEXTLINE The son was very afraid but he had to go. He told the whole story. The father was shocked at first, but then he realized the truth of it. And the story is that both became initiates of Mahavira. NEXTLINE A man of the qualities of Mahavira not only transforms his actions, they change automatically. His words also start growing new meanings, new fragrances. His silences are also messages. NEXTLINE Prem Jivan, what has happened to you is going to happen to everybody who is sincerely here to be transmuted, who is not here for any ego trip, who is here for a deeper understanding of himself. NEXTLINE The miracle of the deeper understanding of oneself is that simultaneously you understand the whole mystery of existence. Just one thing to be remembered: when I use the word `understanding', I don't mean knowledge. You feel it, you touch it, you live it. You sing it, you dance it, but you don't know it. It never becomes knowledge; it becomes your very life. NEXTLINE You are it. NEXTLINE But unfortunate are those who are just curiosity-mongers, who are just beggars in a way, collecting dregs from scriptures, from other people, from the rotten old past, and then covering their ignorance with their so-called knowledge. These are the most stupid people in the world, but they dominate the world because they are knowledgeable people and knowledge gives them a certain power. NEXTLINE A man who wants to understand the mystery of existence has to drop the idea of power completely. He has to be utterly non-existential, as if he is not, and all the doors suddenly open. NEXTLINE Paradise is not somewhere else. NEXTLINE Paradise is the moment you are available to existence in totality. On this same earth, in this same time, you have entered the lotus paradise of Gautam Buddha. NEXTLINE Those who teach you about a heaven above in the sky are the greatest criminals the world has known, because they are depriving you of the paradise that is herenow available. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Question 2 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE BEING WITH `NOT KNOWING WHAT IS' SEEMS A BETTER POINTER NOW, BUT IT IS STILL CONTAMINATED WITH BECOMING. CAN INSIGHT REALLY STOP THE MOVEMENT OF BECOMING, OR IS THIS THEORETICAL? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Deva Amrito, the question you have asked is significant for every seeker on the path. You are asking, "Being with `not knowing what is' seems a better pointer now, but it is still contaminated with becoming. Can insight really stop the movement of becoming, or is this theoretical?" NEXTLINE First: being is becoming. NEXTLINE They are not two things. NEXTLINE It is the language that creates the fallacy of division. When you see a river, you don't really see a river, you see a rivering because the water is continuously flowing. It is never in a state of being, it is always in a state of becoming. NEXTLINE You see a tree, you see a child, you see a bud -- everything is always in a state of becoming. But the language has changed verbs into nouns. It calls flowing water a river. It has forgotten completely the great insight of Heraclitus, that you cannot step in the same river twice. Where are you going to find the same river twice? NEXTLINE But if I happen to meet Heraclitus some day -- and nothing is impossible in this mysterious existence -- I am going to hit him hard! Because although he has stated something tremendously beautiful, it is only half true. NEXTLINE I would like to say, you cannot step even once in the same river because when your feet touch the surface, the water underneath is flowing. When you reach the middle, the waters on the surface and underneath are flowing. When you reach the bottom, it is not the same river that you had entered. Even once is impossible, such is the river's aliveness. NEXTLINE Nothing is dead in existence. But language has made everything dead. NEXTLINE We call somebody a "child" and somebody a "young man" and somebody an "old man" -- as if there are milestones where you can say that on a certain Monday, this man became old, this child became a young man. The young child is flowing continuously into the youth; the youth is flowing continuously into old age. Old age is flowing continuously into death and death is flowing continuously into future life. NEXTLINE There is no place where existence knows any stop -- not to mention stop, it knows not even a semicolon or a comma; it is an unending sentence which goes on and on from eternity to eternity. NEXTLINE Amrito, you are making it a theoretical question. You want to be satisfied with being. But you don't understand the nature of being: the nature of being is becoming. Once you see the point -- that the nature of being is becoming -- there is no question of any conflict. You don't have to repress becoming, you don't have to force yourself into being. You can allow your being its natural course of becoming. NEXTLINE Who are you? You are the being and you are the becoming and they are not two separate things. NEXTLINE Mind has a tendency to divide things and then create categories and hierarchies, and then create problems: how to achieve this, how to achieve that. NEXTLINE One Zen master, Lin Chi, used to say to his disciples, "I am going to ask a question. If you answer, whatever the answer, I am going to hit you. If you don't answer, I am still going to hit you." He left no other possibility; any answer will be a wrong answer, and in being afraid that all answers are going to be wrong answers, your silence is also an answer. You are trying to be clever. Lin Chi will not leave you alone, he will hit you in any case. NEXTLINE When Lin Chi's successor arrived, as usual Lin Chi said, "I am going to ask the question..." And the successor said, "You need not. If you ask the question, I am going to hit you -- whatever the question. And if you don't ask I am going to hit you." NEXTLINE In a gathering of disciples, this stranger... and Lin Chi hugged him and said, "So you have come! Take the seat, because I am retiring." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Ed Meese comes into the oval office one morning and says, "Mr. President, I was wondering, sir, if it might be possible for my son to work somewhere in the White House." NEXTLINE "Of course," replied Reagan, "what does he do?" NEXTLINE Meese throws up his arms and says, "Well, actually he does nothing." NEXTLINE "Excellent," replies Reagan, "we won't have to train him." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Amrito, you don't need any training. You just enjoy whatever you are -- being, becoming ... don't miss a single point. Life appears from the outside as static. From the inside, it is a constant flux. And once you know life from outside and inside, the flux and the stasis are no longer different. And this is the revelation: one becomes absolutely happy, contented, fulfilled in any situation, in any state of affairs. One has no complaint, no grudge. One is simply utterly satisfied with existence as it is. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Ronald Reagan dies and goes to hell. The Devil ushers him in and Reagan is very surprised: instead of the eternal fires he had always expected, there is only a big pool full of shit. The Devil explains that the more evil you were on earth, the more you are covered with shit here. And indeed, Reagan looks around and sees many former friends and colleagues. NEXTLINE One scene catches his eye. In a far corner there is a short, black-haired man with a tiny mustache whose right arm is raised to the sky in salute, and the shit only comes up to his ankles. Reagan calls to the Devil and asks, "What about this man? He was very evil on earth -- why is he only covered in shit up to his ankles?" NEXTLINE The Devil shouts, "Hey, Hitler, when will you learn to stand on your own feet instead of always standing on the pope's head?" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 6Don't just accept: rejoice!24 December 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE WHAT IS TOTAL ACCEPTANCE? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Milarepa, the very word total acceptance has somewhere in it the shadow of non-acceptance. Total acceptance has been preached because people are living in total rejection; whatever happens to them, they are bound to find something wrong in it. NEXTLINE It is something very important to understand that all our so-called religious qualities are reactions. People are violent -- we create a reaction, and a philosophy of teaching nonviolence comes out of it. A man who has been violent may become intellectually convinced that it is not right. He may even strive to become nonviolent, but his nonviolence will also carry the same violent attitude. NEXTLINE And this is not only true about ordinary people; even people like Mahatma Gandhi, who became the apostle of nonviolence, carried a deep-rooted violence all his life. I will give you few examples so that you can understand.... NEXTLINE Mahatma Gandhi was against everything that has been developed by technology, science, and man's intelligence, after the spinning wheel. With the spinning wheel, history stops for him. Now, nobody can see directly why this should be violent. But if man stops with the spinning wheel, almost one tenth of the population of the world will die. Certainly Gandhi is not proposing the death of one tenth of humanity, but that is the implication. And those who remain will be undernourished, hungry, starving, without enough shelter. And all this is covered with a beautiful word -- "nonviolence." NEXTLINE In his own life, Mahatma Gandhi was as violent a man as you can find. His eldest son, Haridas, wanted to be educated and Gandhi was against anything that has come from the West. Now this very attitude is antagonistic; it is not the attitude of a compassionate man. The compassionate man, the man of love, knows only one world. And the measure he took against Haridas was this: he said, "If you want to be educated, you will never see my face again." Do you see any nonviolence in it? NEXTLINE He closed the doors to Haridas. In India, it is the tradition that when the father dies, the eldest son gives the fire to his funeral pyre. Haridas was not allowed. Gandhi had made it clear: "Either living or dead, I have nothing to do with Haridas." And what was his crime? -- just that he wanted to be educated! NEXTLINE Gandhi had very fanatic ideas, and fanatic ideas don't go together with nonviolence. Everybody had to clean the toilet... and when I say clean the toilet you should not understand the Western toilet -- the Indian toilet is the ugliest, the dirtiest. He forced his wife to share the cleaning of his ashram's toilets. She could not understand it. She refused. But Gandhi said, "If you refuse, then this is not your house and I am not your husband." This is suitable to a dictatorial, unloving, violent person, but not to a loving person. NEXTLINE Once, at a train station, Haridas was hiding in the crowd; Gandhi was passing by on the train and Haridas just wanted to see his father's face from far away, his mother's face -- he won't allow himself to come close. But Gandhi was informed by his followers that Haridas was waiting at the coming station. All the windows, all the doors of the compartment were closed, and Gandhi told his weeping wife, "You stop your tears, because they show that you are not with me but with Haridas." NEXTLINE And what crime had Haridas done? He simply became educated in a contemporary way. And there are so many instances in Gandhi's life in which he is utterly violent, but the umbrella of "nonviolence" covers everything. NEXTLINE You are asking, Milarepa, "What is total acceptance?" The first thing to remember: either acceptance is total or it is not acceptance. "Total acceptance" shows that you have repressed something deep into your unconscious and to keep it repressed, you are using your total force. NEXTLINE Acceptance should be simple. NEXTLINE It should be spontaneous; it should not be out of a certain ideology. It should be out of your understanding. Then there is no question of total or untotal acceptance. NEXTLINE A clarity of vision will show you either acceptance or non-acceptance. But "total acceptance" has never been looked into deeply -- why the emphasis on "total"? The emphasis is because it is a repressive measure; you have not understood it. Hence the same things exist in many dimensions: total abstinence, total celibacy, total surrender. I hate the word total! Look into your ordinary way of life ... do you say to some woman, "I love you totally"? Just to love is enough, more than total. The moment you insist, "I love you totally," it creates suspicion. You are trying to hide something behind the great word "total." NEXTLINE Acceptance is beautiful, but "total acceptance" is not. Acceptance means it is arising out of your own awareness, not out of the teachings, scriptures and so-called masters roaming all around the world. It is your own understanding. In fact, when it is your own understanding, even the word `acceptance' becomes futile. NEXTLINE This moment -- this silence, the birds in the trees, the sunrays reaching to you -- is there any question of acceptance? It is simply happening. It is not a theoretical mind discipline. You are not sitting here with a forced discipline. You are sitting here in this enormous silence without any effort. It is so beautiful that any effort will destroy it. NEXTLINE Let me repeat it in another way: NEXTLINE Do you love with effort? Are you compassionate with effort? Are you living with effort, breathing with effort? Is there any effort in your heartbeats? NEXTLINE Just the same way, the whole of life becomes a spontaneous flow. Your perceptivity, your clarity decides which direction to move. But there is no effort, because effort implies you are divided -- one part of you is trying to take you in one direction, another part is trying to take you in another direction. Then comes the effort. Only schizophrenic humanity lives with effort. NEXTLINE I don't know any effort in my life. And I cannot conceive that a man of effort can ever be in tune with existence. With whom are you fighting? Effort is a fight. NEXTLINE I don't give you any discipline, I don't give you any commandments. I don't want you to be anyone else than you are. It is perfectly beautiful the way you are. The day you understand it... NEXTLINE No trees are making any effort. Small bushes are perfectly happy with being small. Tall cedars of Lebanon are perfectly happy with their tallness, but there is no comparison; they don't look at the small bushes as inferior -- that is their spontaneity, that is how they are. In this relaxedness comes a shadow, silently, without even making any sound of footsteps -- acceptance. NEXTLINE But I don't like the word, because "acceptance" means that something in you is not accepting -- maybe it is a minority part. To repress that minority part, you bring total acceptance. NEXTLINE A young man came to me some twenty years ago and said, "I want to totally surrender to you." I said, "Then you have knocked on the wrong door -- go back. The day there is no idea of total and there is no idea of surrender, my doors are open to you. I will rejoice in you as you are -- not pruning your branches, molding you into a certain ideal." But all the so-called religions of the world have been doing the same. They are asking of you only one thing: "Don't be yourself, be somebody else." NEXTLINE Just the other day, I was talking to Deva Amrito. I told him, "These should be the last words in your pilgrimage, in your seeking for the truth..." His book is going to be called YEARS OF PREPARATION. That gives a dangerous meaning: it means you are moving to achieve something, to become something. There is a certain ideal, far away -- you would like to be a Gautam Buddha, a Bodhidharma, a Chuang Tzu or a Jesus Christ. The figure may not be very clear, but there is some faraway star that you are striving to reach. I told him, "These are my words, and should be put in quotation marks: All these years of preparation were futile. You are exactly the same as you have always been." NEXTLINE But there are types... people like me are very lazy. I know that this is my place; I don't go running around and then come to this seat. YEARS OF PREPARATION -- and to achieve something you have always been? And you cannot achieve anything that you have not always been. NEXTLINE He told me -- he is a very nice heart, very childish and very loving -- "I am disillusioned with money, with power, with love, with relationships..." NEXTLINE I said, "You have to be disillusioned about one thing more." NEXTLINE He looked at me -- "What else is there to be disillusioned about?" NEXTLINE I said to him, "This is the last disillusionment, this striving to become someone. You are it. Now be disillusioned that all your pilgrimage has been an exercise in utter futility. You have been standing in the same place and only dreaming of preparations. And if your years of preparation have not brought you to this disillusionment, they have been in vain." NEXTLINE Everybody enters the world searching, seeking; it is in a way natural. But maturity comes when you realize, "My God, I am the one whom I have been seeking!" So the title of his book will look a little strange to the person when he comes to my conclusion in the end. Years of preparation for what? To know that there was no need of any preparation. NEXTLINE Milarepa, I also told Amrito about a tremendously beautiful pack of cards that existed in China, in the days of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. It has ten cards describing the search, the pilgrimage. Those ten cards are called The Ten Bulls of Zen. In the first picture, the bull is lost. And naturally, the owner is looking all around, thick forest, and he cannot see his lost bull. NEXTLINE In the second picture he finds footprints; now he has some clue. In the third picture he sees the bull -- not completely, but just his tail -- by the side of a huge tree. But now things are becoming more certain. In the fourth picture he sees half of the bull. NEXTLINE In the fifth picture he has found the bull in its completeness. In the sixth picture he holds the bull by the horns. In the seventh picture he is riding home on the bull. In the eighth picture the bull is put in his place, and in the ninth picture the man is sitting outside his house, playing a flute. NEXTLINE When these ten pictures were transferred to Japan, they cut out the last picture. They accepted only nine pictures. What more is there? You have come home, you are playing the flute, everything is beautiful. That which was lost has been found. NEXTLINE But when I looked at the tenth picture I said, "These people got stuck at the ninth. The tenth is the most important." But it went against their ideological, religious, moral training. The tenth picture is: the man is going towards the marketplace with a bottle of wine. The buddha has now really come home. NEXTLINE Unless a buddha becomes absolutely ordinary, it is still an ego trip. To be as ordinary as the trees, as the birds, as the animals, as the mountains -- no bragging about any spirituality, because even the bragging about spirituality is nothing but a very subtle ego trip... NEXTLINE It hurts me to say to you that Gautam Buddha declared, "I am the only enlightened man in the whole history of man. My enlightenment will never be superseded" -- this is the ninth picture. The same was the situation with J. Krishnamurti; he could never get out of the ninth picture. He could not become what he has always been. NEXTLINE Mind's ways are very cunning. It will become the richest man, it will become the most powerful man, it will become the "most" of anything. But it has to be on the top. It will be difficult for you if you find a Buddha in a pub, but that is the right place. He has come home, he has accepted his natural spontaneity. NEXTLINE Don't ask, Milarepa, about total acceptance -- ask rather about more clarity, more spontaneity, more naturalness, and acceptance will come just like a shadow. You don't have to bother about it. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Paddy is a private in the British army during World War II. One day, the general calls him to his tent and says, "Private Murphy, you have been chosen for a very special mission. You will be parachuted at night behind the enemy lines, where you will be met by a jeep. And the driver will give you your orders." NEXTLINE So that night, Paddy goes up in the plane. They are approaching the enemy lines when Paddy turns to his officer and says, "But sir, I have never parachuted. What should I do?" NEXTLINE "Don't worry," replies the officer. "All you do is jump. Then three seconds later look up and you will see your parachute open. If it does not, just pull your emergency cord and your second parachute will open. When you land, the jeep will be there to meet you." NEXTLINE "Okay," says Paddy, and jumps out of the plane. Three seconds later he looks up, but nothing happens. So he pulls the emergency cord and still nothing happens. "My God," says Paddy as he rushes towards the ground. "And I bet that bloody jeep won't be there either!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Life is, intrinsically, a tremendous acceptance without your knowing. Have you accepted your eyes totally? Have you accepted your body totally? Have you accepted your situation in life totally? This idea of total acceptance imposed on you makes you miserable, because it continuously creates comparison. Somebody has more beautiful eyes and somebody has a stronger body. Somebody is more knowledgeable. And you are always feeling inferior and this inferiority goes on eating your heart. You become more and more miserable, but the reason is that you have unnecessarily created it. There is no need to compare, because there is nobody you can be compared with. NEXTLINE You are a unique individual. And whatever you are, that's the way existence wants you to be. Enjoy it. NEXTLINE Change the word `acceptance', because that is not very blissful. Acceptance is something that you have to do, what else to do. There are more beautiful people, there are richer people, there are stronger people, what to do? Accept. NEXTLINE I don't teach you acceptance in that way. My idea of acceptance is totally different from all religions. NEXTLINE I declare your uniqueness. NEXTLINE You are just yourself and there is not a single person -- either in the present or in the past or in the future -- who is exactly like you. NEXTLINE Existence gives you such a unique individuality -- rejoice in it. And out of that rejoicing, acceptance will come; that is not to be bothered about. I have never felt that I have to become somebody. If existence wants me to be nobody, I am immensely happy. NEXTLINE In my childhood, my teachers used to say, "You will end up being nobody." And they were right! I have ended up as nobody. But I am immensely happy, and all those teachers who have been trying to be somebody are all miserable. NEXTLINE Once in a while I used to go to my village and ask them how things were going..."because I am feeling so good being nobody, and you always look miserable." NEXTLINE Once you start rejoicing whatever you are, life takes such psychedelic colors, your each moment becomes so juicy... your whole life becomes a celebration. NEXTLINE Milarepa, drop those ideas of total acceptance. Why should you accept? It is a very depressing idea that "I accept myself." Rejoice! dance! sing! let the whole world know that you are alone and unique and nobody can replace you. To me, this is the way of an authentic search of oneself. There is no comparison -- there is no need. NEXTLINE You may be surprised to know that even the so-called great men of your history were all suffering from inferiority. Napoleon Bonaparte was not tall enough, he was only five feet five. And that tortured him all his life. His guards were taller than him. One day he was fixing a picture in his bedroom but he could not reach it. A bodyguard said, "Wait, I am higher than you, I can fix it." Napoleon Bonaparte was very angry. He said, "Change your word `higher'. Simply say you are taller!" What is the difference? The difference is, "higher" hits hard; you are inferior, lower. Say "taller" -- that takes much of the pain away. NEXTLINE But I have always wondered: I am exactly five-five, and I have never felt any inferiority. You may be seven feet tall -- that does not mean that my feet do not reach to the earth. And as far as the sky is concerned, neither you reach nor I reach! So the only decisive factor is: if your feet can reach to the earth, it is perfectly good. NEXTLINE But it is not only about one man.... Abraham Lincoln was not a very beautiful man; moreover, he stuttered and he was very much conscious of it because a presidential candidate stuttering, not looking beautiful, has not much chance in America. Just a small girl suggested to him, "Uncle, if you grow a little beard that will give a more beautiful shape to your face." According to that small girl's suggestion, he grew the beard. Abraham Lincoln did not succeed in being the president, the beard succeeded! But his whole life he was harassed, haunted by the idea -- "What to do with stuttering?" He felt inferior to ordinary people. NEXTLINE You will find, as a great psychological insight, that all politicians are born out of an inferiority complex. Because that inferiority is such a wound, they want to prove to the world that they are not inferior: "I am the president, I am the prime minister." Any man who is happy with himself will be the last to join the line of politicians in the gutter. NEXTLINE The day humanity is rejoicing in itself politicians will disappear, religions will disappear, saints will disappear, so-called moralists will disappear. These are ugly people who are trying to hide their inferiority by becoming something -- at least pretending something. They are all hypocrites. And a world without saints, without politicians, without priests, without the so-called learned people, will be such a peaceful world -- as peaceful as a garden full of flowers, as peaceful as this morning. There is no need for any war, there is no need for any nations. There is no need for anybody to pretend to be higher, there is no need for anybody to suffer a wound of inferiority. NEXTLINE My whole approach is to make each individual as authentic as he is intended by nature to be, and all the problems of the world will disappear. There is no other way; these problems are created by schizophrenics, neurotics, psychotics... all kinds of madmen are posing as the richest, as the most powerful. NEXTLINE Just see a simple thing: in America, there are thirty million people dying on the streets because they don't have food, they don't have clothes, they don't have shelter. And exactly the same number -- thirty million people -- are dying in hospitals because they eat too much, and they cannot stop stuffing themselves continually. They have been forced to be hospitalized, because in their homes it is impossible to control them. NEXTLINE It is a strange situation. Exactly thirty million people are dying because of starvation and thirty million people are dying because of overeating. Just a small understanding, and sixty million people can be saved. Both are suffering. A hospital is not the place to live nor is the street a place to live. And I take this example from America because America pretends to be the richest country, but I don't see that it has yet become even psychologically normal. The same is being repeated in other countries on a vaster scale. It seems we are dominated by a certain madness. NEXTLINE All that is needed is to drop this madness. NEXTLINE The richest man in the world is in Japan... he has twenty-one billion dollars. The richest man in America has only four and a half billion dollars. But can you understand a man having twenty-one billion dollars -- what is he going to do with it? It is absurd. And millions of people are dying. Ethiopia is facing again another famine which will be greater than the past one. In the past famine one thousand people were dying every day. In the coming one perhaps two thousand, three thousand people will be dying. And in the European Common Market, every six months they go on drowning so much food in the ocean -- mountains of butter -- just the cost of drowning it comes to two billion dollars. It is not the cost of the foodstuff, it is the cost of carrying the food to the ocean. And just by the side, in Ethiopia people don't have water to drink, people don't have food to eat. NEXTLINE The situation has fallen so low that in Palestine the government was forced by the people to agree that they should be allowed to eat human bodies -- of course of those who had died naturally. But this is the beginning... what is the problem if somebody has not died naturally, but has committed suicide, has hanged himself? The difference is not much. And what is the problem if you can get hold of some Israeli? It is a simple question, whether to eat the dead man first or to first make him dead and then eat. For the first time in history, a government has accepted that it is no longer a crime. And this is about human beings eating human beings. What about animals? NEXTLINE If you look around the world it seems to be a madhouse. But the mad people are in the majority, and the maddest of them are chosen to be the presidents, to be the prime ministers, naturally. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE It happened in a madhouse. The old superintendent doctor was retiring and the new doctor was going to take charge. They celebrated the occasion in order to give a farewell to the retiring doctor and to give a welcome to the person who was coming in. When the old doctor was speaking, everybody was silent -- no emotions, no expression, no clapping, no laughter, as if no one was there. But when the new doctor started speaking, a tremendous change happened. People were clapping, shouting, jumping, laughing. The new doctor could not understand -- what is the matter? He asked his assistant, "What is happening?" NEXTLINE He said, "I should not say it but I cannot hide it either. The mad people think you look more like them. You are the right person; the older one was a little too sane." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE If man accepts whatever he is and uses his capacities for creativity -- and everybody is born with certain capacities, certain talents, a certain creativity -- he will be immensely happy in being nobody. You don't have to be happy only if you become the richest man or the most powerful man. These are the childish ways of primitive man which we have carried up to now. NEXTLINE Milarepa, I would like to say to you: drop the words "total acceptance." Instead, replace them with the simple words, rejoicing in yourself. And the moment you rejoice in yourself, the whole existence rejoices in you. You have fallen in tune with the harmonious dance that is going on all around. NEXTLINE Only man has fallen apart, and the reason he has fallen apart is because he wants to be somebody special. If you want to be special, you will have to accept some kind of madness. NEXTLINE A psychoanalyst was asked, "I have heard many times these words `neurotic'... `psychotic'... but I don't see what is the difference?" NEXTLINE The psychoanalyst said, "The difference is very delicate. The psychotic thinks that two and two make five, and he is fanatically determined about it. Nobody can change his mind." NEXTLINE The man asked, "What about the neurotic?" NEXTLINE He said, "The neurotic is one who knows that two and two are four, but is very uneasy about it." NEXTLINE Delicate differences.... Unless you rejoice in whatever you are, wherever you are, whoever you are, you are not sane. According to me the definition of sanity is a man rejoicing in his nature. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Just not to leave you serious.... NEXTLINE NEXTLINE A Chinese laundryman living in San Francisco opens a savings account at the bank and goes regularly to deposit his profits. NEXTLINE After several months he has saved up a considerable sum. One day, he comes into the bank and says that he wants to withdraw all his money. The clerk is surprised, so the Chinaman explains that he is about to get married and go on his honeymoon. The manager is called and tries to persuade the man to just withdraw enough for his immediate requirements. He also explains that if he takes out all his money, he will lose the interest. But the Chinaman will not be persuaded and so eventually he walks out with all his money. NEXTLINE A few weeks later, the bank manager meets the Chinaman on the street and asks him about his honeymoon and married life. The Chinaman has only this to say: NEXTLINE "No good. Honeymoon and married life are just like banking -- put in, take out, lose interest." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 7Time to be completely disillusioned24 December 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE IT SEEMS THAT AN AUTOMATIC PROCESS, MORE LIKE A PREGNANCY, HAS TAKEN OVER THE STEERING WHEEL. I DON'T HAVE TO DO A THING, THOUGH I CAN'T STOP LISTENING. INSIGHTS PRESENT THEMSELVES EVEN IF NOT ASKED FOR. IS THIS THE MEANING OF THE EXPRESSION "A GOOD SADHANA IS EFFORTLESS"? PLEASE COMMENT. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Deva Amrito, it is the right time for you to see the truth in its utter nudity. Many ears may not be ready for it. But even though they are not ready for it, they are on the way to being ready one day. Let this be a seed in them: The truth about a good sadhana is that it is no longer a sadhana at all. A "good sadhana" is still a bad sadhana. NEXTLINE The word sadhana has to be understood. It comes from the root sadhan; sadhan means methods, paths, ways, techniques. The so-called sadhanas of all the religions are just spiritual games people like to play. The word `spiritual' makes them more piously egoistic. NEXTLINE Somebody is interested in football, somebody else is interested in playing cards -- these are thought to be worldly games. But as I see it, there are no otherworldly games; all games are worldly. Somebody is trying to achieve more success, somebody else is trying to become richer, somebody is trying to be more powerful, and all these have been condemned by so-called religions without any exception. NEXTLINE But when somebody starts moving towards higher planes of being then you forget completely that it is the same game, only the label has changed. It is the same ego trying to prove itself special, higher than others, better than others. It is still the same comparative mind, and the comparative mind is a mind in confusion, in a mess. NEXTLINE A comparative mind is an insane mind. NEXTLINE Amrito, if you simply allow things to happen -- not even choosing; whatever comes to you is deeply, respectfully and gratefully accepted as a gift from the great existence -- then you have become effortless. Even a slight choice on your part..."if it would have been just a little bit different"... and you have missed the point. NEXTLINE To see existence as it is, choicelessly, is what is meant by effortlessness. It does not mean that you don't have to do anything.... NEXTLINE Misunderstandings are so great, and particularly in the world of seekers, that they can make an effort to be choiceless. They can make an effort to be effortless, and they will not see what they are doing. NEXTLINE The people who have known reality not as a knowledge but as an experience, have emphasized one point tremendously: that you are already what you can ever be. Your essential reality has already been given to you. It is not going to happen in the future. It is possible you may not realize it in the present -- that does not mean that it is not present, it simply means your eyes are closed. You can stand with closed eyes before a sunrise and you will remain in darkness; that does not deny the existence of the sun. It simply shows your stupidity. Just open your eyes... and in fact all that you need is already given to you. NEXTLINE I am reminded, Amrito, of a Sufi story. A very strange mystic, Junnaid, used to pray and every time he would pray -- in the morning, in the evening, in the night -- he would end up his prayer with a deep gratitude towards existence: "Your compassion and your abundance of gifts to me is so much that I feel embarrassed. How am I going to repay it? Except my empty gratefulness and my tears, I don't have anything to give to you." NEXTLINE They were on a pilgrimage. He had many disciples with him. It happened that one time, for three days continuously, they passed through villages where there were fanatic Mohammedans. They would not give Junnaid and his disciples food, not even water. There was no question of shelter either. For three days in the desert without food, without water, without shelter... but the prayer continued to be the same and the gratefulness towards existence did not change even a little bit. NEXTLINE This was too much for the disciples. When days were good, it was perfectly okay to be grateful, but for three days they have been starving, thirsty, in the cold nights of the desert -- no shelter, and there is no hope that tomorrow things are going to be better. Finally, they encountered their master Junnaid and said, "There is a limit to everything. We have listened to your prayer for years, and we thought it was perfectly in tune with existence. Existence was giving us everything. But these three days we have waited, thinking that perhaps you will stop being grateful or maybe you will even complain, but you seem to be the same. Again the same gratitude, the same tears -- we can't understand it. For what are you being so full of gratitude?" NEXTLINE Junnaid laughed and he said, "These three days were the most important in my life. These three days showed me whether I have any gratitude or not. Is my gratitude simply a bargain, a persuasion, or is my gratitude something that has grown in my heart? It doesn't matter -- as far as I am concerned, I don't have a choice. Whatever existence gives to me is needed by me. These three days of starvation were absolutely needed by me; for it to be otherwise is not possible. These three days of thirst, coldness in the night, almost facing death, were absolutely my intrinsic needs. I don't know about you -- my gratitude is not conditional. My gratitude is unconditional, it is not because God is good to me. It has no reason at all; it is simply my joy, my blissfulness, my prayerfulness to existence. I don't have a choice." NEXTLINE A choiceless awareness simply means whatever happens to you is perfectly the right thing to have happened. You don't have any judgment about it. It does not mean that you will stop doing things; you will continue doing things but your doing things will be more like a man flowing in the current of the river, not swimming, not swimming against the current. NEXTLINE The effort comes when you are against the current, so that existence wants you to move north and you want to move towards the south. There comes the struggle, there comes your effort, there comes your separate existence as an ego. But if you are simply flowing with the river wherever it is going, you don't have a goal, because a man with a goal cannot be choiceless. You don't have a destination, because a man with a destination cannot relax and cannot be choiceless. He has already chosen. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE There were two temples in Japan that were traditionally antagonistic to each other. For centuries they had been fighting, arguing against each other's theology. Both the temples had two old priests, and two young boys to serve their small needs. Both the old monks had told the boys, "You should not talk with the other boy. We are not on talking terms; we are traditional enemies." But boys are boys. They wanted to play with each other. In that lonely forest, far away from the nearest village, they were the only two persons who could have some communication with each other. NEXTLINE One day, one boy dared to disobey the old monk. He stood by the road. He knew that every day the other boy would also come out of the temple to go to the market to fetch vegetables and other things. The boy came. The first boy asked him -- very friendly -- "Where are you going?" NEXTLINE But the other boy said, "Wherever the winds take me." NEXTLINE The answer was not a friendly one; the answer was not to start a conversation. The boy just said this and moved away. The first boy felt very bad and he thought that his master was right: "These people are very ugly. I was asking a simple question and he is talking metaphysics." NEXTLINE He went to the temple and said to the master, "Please forgive me, I disobeyed you and I have been punished already." NEXTLINE The master listened and he said, "Don't be worried. Tomorrow you stand at the same place and when the boy answers you by saying `Wherever the winds take me' ask him: `If the winds are not blowing, then?' You have to stop him, you have to defeat him. It is a question of our prestige." NEXTLINE Early in the morning the boy was ready -- he had repeated many times what he had to say -- and then he asked, as the boy was approaching near, "Where are you going?" NEXTLINE And the boy said, "Wherever my legs take me." NEXTLINE Now this was too much! He had crammed his answer the whole night, and now the answer is absolutely irrelevant! With great anger he went to the master and he said, "Those people are really cunning. They are not people to be relied upon, they change their answers." NEXTLINE The master said, "I had told you before, but now you have started an unnecessary trouble. Tomorrow you stand there again, and when he says, `Wherever my legs take me' you ask him, `If you had no legs, then?'" NEXTLINE Ready with the answer, again the same situation; the boy asked, "Where are you going?" and the other boy said, "To fetch some vegetables from the market." NEXTLINE Now, what to do with these unreliable people? NEXTLINE Whenever you have something fixed in your mind, you are going to be disappointed by existence. The old proverb has some truth in it: "Man proposes and God disposes." But it is not that there is a God who disposes you. In your very proposition you have disposed yourself. NEXTLINE Don't propose and there is no possibility of anybody disposing you. Don't have a goal and you will never be a failure. Don't make a destination and you will never go wrong. NEXTLINE But to understand it simply means you will have to go on floating with the river -- whether it leads anywhere or not is not your concern. You are enjoying the moment. This very moment, with the sun shining and the birds singing and the trees around the river, is enough unto itself. NEXTLINE But a tremendous calamity has happened to humanity, and the calamity has been brought by your so-called religious founders, by your so-called great moral leaders, your politicians, your priests, your professors; because for centuries these people have been telling you that as you are, you are not worthy enough. Condensed, their whole teaching is that you have to become worthy, that you have to deserve some respectability, some prestigiousness. As you are, you are empty. NEXTLINE They had their own vested interest in it. The moralist goes on telling you that you are immoral; you are born in sin. He creates a certain psychology of guilt. It is a strategy. Once a man starts feeling guilty, he becomes sick. He loses his dignity, he loses his individuality, he loses his courage. He starts looking up to someone else to lead him, to guide him, because as far as he is concerned, he is born in sin and whatever he does is going to be wrong. He has lost his guts. NEXTLINE And all your leaders are living by destroying you. They are leaders because you need someone to lead you, and to make you so condemned in your own eyes that you cannot ever think that you can stand on your own feet, that you can declare to the world that, "I am alone and as I am, I am absolutely right. This is the way existence has created me." NEXTLINE A tremendous revolution is needed in the world where each individual declares his individuality. But you declare yourself a Christian and you have lost your individuality; you declare yourself an Indian and you have lost your individuality. You declare yourself part of any organized ideology and you have moved into a miserable situation, out of which it is very difficult to find a way. You will be getting more and more, deeper and deeper, into the mess. Because all those people are enjoying their greatness by making you small. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I am reminded of one of the great emperors of India, Akbar. He had a great joy in accumulating all kinds of geniuses in his court from all over the country, and he loved to ask questions and to listen to their discussions. NEXTLINE One day he asked a very strange question. He came to the court, and on a blackboard he drew a straight line and asked the people of his court: "Without touching this line, can you make it smaller? There is a great prize waiting for you..." and he had a very beautiful diamond in his hand as a prize. Everybody started thinking... without touching it, how can you make it smaller? NEXTLINE He had a man in his court who was a man with a great sense of humor. Since nobody else was standing up he went to the board and drew a bigger line underneath the smaller line. Without touching it he made it small. NEXTLINE The emperor Akbar remembers the incident in his autobiography, AKBARHNAMA: "Even I had not thought about it, I had just looked into small children's books and found the puzzle. I thought, this is great! Because I could not figure out myself how you could make it small without touching it." But in this small incident is hidden the whole misery of humanity. You have been made small without touching. NEXTLINE Great stories have been propounded about Mahavira, that he does not perspire. Now only a man who has no skin and is made of plastic can manage not to perspire, and certainly plastic was not available twenty-five centuries ago. But why create such a story? Just to make you small -- you perspire, you are ordinary mortals. Mahavira belongs to immortality, he does not perspire. NEXTLINE I have inquired as deeply as possible... neither Krishna ever becomes old nor Buddha ever becomes old nor Mahavira ever becomes old. There is not a single statue, not a single picture, not a single description; they are always young. Just go into any Buddhist temple, any Jaina temple, any Hindu temple -- it is strange. These people don't grow. They seem to be like old gramophone records which get stuck and go on repeating the same line again and again and again. NEXTLINE But they are kept young just to make you realize that they belong to a separate category, a higher category. They don't belong to you. A snake bites Mahavira, and instead of blood, milk comes out.... NEXTLINE Some thirty years ago, I had come to Bombay for the first time, invited by a conference celebrating Mahavira's birthday. Just before me, the most prominent Jaina monk described exactly this incident to prove that Mahavira is no ordinary mortal; he has come from the beyond to save you, to save humanity. NEXTLINE Just by coincidence I was the second speaker and I asked the monk, "Have you ever thought about it? If the milk comes from the feet, then the whole body of Mahavira must be filled with milk because Mahavira cannot know where the snake is going to bite. And milk in a man's body for forty years must have turned into curd, into butter. It cannot remain milk. NEXTLINE "It is true that the human body is capable, particularly the female human body, but even a woman cannot produce milk from the feet. These are only simple conclusions: either Mahavira was just breasts all over the body, or he must be stinking! And the conclusion that you have drawn is that this proves him to be immortal, that he has come to save humanity..." NEXTLINE But humanity does not seem to be saved. NEXTLINE I have been wondering -- so many saviors! Jesus is saving humanity, Buddha is saving humanity, Mahavira is saving humanity. Where is this humanity? We never come across the saved humanity, only these people who are bragging that they are going to save. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I was sitting by the side of Christian College in Allahabad, on the bank of the Ganges. I was alone, it was getting darker, the sun was setting, and a man jumped in the river. I had no idea why he had jumped; it was not my business. And then he started shouting, "Help!" Only we two were there, and there was not time enough to inquire, "Why have you jumped? If you want to be saved, you were already saved..." But there was no time so I jumped, pulled him out -- against his will, and that felt even more strange, that he was fighting with me. NEXTLINE But somehow I pulled him out of the river and he said, "What kind of man are you? I was trying to commit suicide." NEXTLINE I said, "If you were committing suicide, then why were you shouting `Help, save me'?" NEXTLINE He said, "It is human nature. I was determined to kill myself but when the cold water ... and I realized that I don't know swimming. I forgot all about the miseries which have driven me to commit suicide." NEXTLINE I said, "There is no problem." NEXTLINE He said, "What do you mean?" NEXTLINE I said, "I don't have to say anything." I simply pushed him back into the river. NEXTLINE He started shouting again. I said, "No more. It is your business. The first time I got trapped because I could not understand that a man who wants to commit suicide will shout for help, but now I know." NEXTLINE He came up one time, two times, and he said, "Save me, please, I don't want to commit suicide!" NEXTLINE I said, "Neither do I want to jump into that cold water again! I am happy where I am, you be happy wherever you are." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE All these people are first forcing you to be sinners, immoral, unvirtuous, and then they are ready to save you. First they make you convinced that you are sick and then they hospitalize you. They run the hospital. NEXTLINE All these people together, however differing in their philosophies, are absolutely in agreement on one point: that man has to be proved unworthy, undignified, undeserving. Only a humanity which has been forced into a state of having deep feelings of guilt can be enslaved -- by the politicians, by the priests, by the pedagogues, but the basic strategy is the same. NEXTLINE I am fighting against the whole human past, and I am fighting against all those who have been trying to save you. You are perfectly saved. There is no need for anybody to make unnecessary effort to save you. NEXTLINE You are as good as existence needs you to be. In this moment, in this place, nobody else can replace you. You are irreplaceable. You are not a machine where parts can be replaced. That is your dignity. NEXTLINE I was telling Amrito just the other night that there have been people like J. Krishnamurti who will not even create a disciple, and my effort is just the opposite. To me, the disciple is only the beginning of a master. My effort is to give you the dignity of being a master. And unless each of my sannyasins is a master unto himself, he is going to remain in different kinds of slaveries, consciously or unconsciously. NEXTLINE Nobody in the whole history of man has tried to give man his dignity. Yes, Jesus says to people, "You are my sheep, I am your shepherd." And I sometimes wonder: not a single man stood up to say, "Shut up, please! I am also a shepherd." NEXTLINE Gautam Buddha's story is that he was born while his mother was standing under a saal tree. It is a strange way of being born, and not only that, he stood directly on the earth coming out of the womb. Ordinarily the head comes first. Once in a while the feet also come first, but nobody has ever heard that a just-born child stands on the earth and walks seven feet and declares to the world, "I am the most enlightened person in the whole existence." NEXTLINE My problem is that for twenty-five centuries nobody has criticized this man, what kind of nonsense... we have become so enslaved that we have lost the courage. Even when we see absolutely patent nonsense, we don't raise a question. We simply accept it. We are left in such a situation that we have lost all our intelligence. And the profit goes certainly to the vested interests; they would like you to remain in the same situation. NEXTLINE I would like you, Amrito, just to forget all about spiritual growth. Forget all about spiritual goals. Existence has no goal; existence is simply a tremendous playfulness of energy, not going anywhere. Rejoice in this dance, be part of this dance, and flowers of tremendous bliss will shower on you. NEXTLINE Nobody has to lead you and nobody has to save you. All those people were nothing but very subtle egoists. They have dominated humanity up to now, and this is the result that we see all over the world -- just misery. People go on living, because what else to do. They go on dragging themselves knowing perfectly well that in the end is the grave. Hoping, dreaming, imagining, but not living. NEXTLINE I teach you life, and life is now and here. NEXTLINE It is always now and always here and except drowning yourself into life in all its dimensions, in all its colors, there is no paradise. There is nothing else but this sheer dance. NEXTLINE People go on changing their illusions. When they are young somebody has the illusion of love; perhaps love will open the doors of all the mysteries. It opens the doors, not of the mysteries, but of the miseries. Somebody is running after money. And a man like Henry Ford, when asked, "You have earned more money than anybody else in the world. Now, at the top, how do you feel?" said, "Utterly frustrated, because at the top there is nothing. All that I have learned in my whole life is climbing ladders. I went on climbing hoping that on the next rung may be the fulfillment... but the fulfillment never comes." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I have said to Amrito that when people are finished with their worldly hopes, illusions, dreams, then they change and they start hoping about spiritual growth, about God, about paradise. These are the same people and this is the same mind which has not learned anything at all. NEXTLINE Unless you are completely disillusioned -- that means now you don't think of tomorrow at all -- you will not know the pure truth of existence, which just exists in this moment. You will not fall in tune with it. You are always moving away, postponing. You are going, you are always on the go. NEXTLINE It is time for you to be completely disillusioned -- of worldly illusions, of otherworldly illusions, of love, of money, of enlightenment. Just simply be whatever you are, and you have arrived home. NEXTLINE In fact you have never left it. NEXTLINE You have always been here. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Just to bring you back to your senses.... NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Grandma Faginbaum, out walking her dog, goes into the local supermarket and leaves the dog tied to the railing outside. NEXTLINE Immediately, the dog is surrounded by all the neighborhood dogs who come to sniff. NEXTLINE A cop, standing close by, watches this and calls to the old woman, "Lady, you can't leave your dog alone like that, she's in heat." NEXTLINE "Eat?" says Grandma Faginbaum. "She'll eat anything." NEXTLINE "No, no!" shouts the cop. "The dog should be bred." NEXTLINE "Bread, cake, biscuits," calls out Grandma, "she'll eat anything you give her." NEXTLINE Becoming frustrated, the cop yells out, "Your dog should be screwed!" NEXTLINE "So screw her," calls back Grandma. "I always wanted a police dog." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 8Aha!25 December 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE A FEW WEEKS AGO, I WAS AWAKE, AND SUDDENLY THERE WAS ONLY TALKING. THERE WAS NO TALKER. FOR YEARS I HAD LISTENED TO THE STATEMENT THAT THE OBSERVER AND THE OBSERVED WERE ONE. I SAW THERE WAS NO ROOM, NO NECESSITY FOR A THINKER; ONLY CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE ARISING OF PHENOMENA. INSTEAD OF JUMPING OUT OF BED, I TURNED AROUND AND SLEPT. NEXTLINE INSIGHT SEEMS TO BE LIKE A GENTLE BREEZE, A WHISPER. WILL YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE NON-DRAMATIC QUALITY OF REAL INSIGHT? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Deva Amrito, J. Krishnamurti has made it known worldwide that "the observer is the observed." I want to refute him completely. The moment there is no observer, there is nothing to be observed. The observer and the observed disappear simultaneously -- and there is only silence; neither the knower nor the known. NEXTLINE This is something very complex to understand, because the mind always wants duality. With the two the mind is absolutely at ease. The knower and the known... and the two always create the third, the knowledge. The observer and the observed are bound to create the third, the observation. And then there is no end to this infinite regress. NEXTLINE My own silence is, that there is no observer and there is no observed. Hence nothing can be said about it. The moment you say it, you lie. NEXTLINE It is one of the reasons Lao Tzu never said anything, never wrote anything. He had a great following, but a very strange following. Every disciple had come to listen, to understand, to know, but Lao Tzu insistently, his whole life long, refused to say anything about truth, or to write anything about truth. He was ready to talk about anything else -- but the people had come to know about the truth.... NEXTLINE Finally the day came. Lao Tzu left for the Himalayas to enter into the eternal peace of those beautiful mountains. But the emperor of China was also interested to know what Lao Tzu had been hiding and not telling, not even giving a hint about what truth is. He ordered all the borders to be closed to Lao Tzu: "He cannot leave China unless he writes something about truth." NEXTLINE Lao Tzu was caught crossing the border towards the Himalayas -- respectfully, lovingly; the emperor was not an enemy but a disciple. NEXTLINE The emperor himself was present there, because that was the route they assumed he would take towards the Himalayas. A beautiful house was made for him so that he could rest and write down his experience of truth. Unless he did it, the doors would not be open for him, and he was guarded continuously. This was a strange situation -- perhaps no other master has ever encountered such a situation -- loaded guns in the hands of the disciples! NEXTLINE And we can understand the situation of the disciples: they wanted to preserve the most important experience of truth for future generations. Under compulsion, Lao Tzu closed himself in the house and wrote a small book. The first sentence in that book says, "That which can be said cannot be true. That which can be written is bound to be a lie. Remember these two statements while you read my book." NEXTLINE Even loaded guns cannot force a master to say something which cannot be said. When the emperor got the book, Lao Tzu was released. But he had deceived them. If you remember these statements, that truth said becomes untrue, truth expressed loses the quality of being true -- if these conditions have to be remembered while reading the book, in fact there is no point in reading it! But Lao Tzu was gone. NEXTLINE What had been the difficulty for Lao Tzu? because every Tom, Dick, and Harry is talking about truth. Only Toms, Dicks and Harrys can talk about truth because they know nothing about it. To enter that silence where the two disappear.... NEXTLINE Krishnamurti has chosen to say that when the two disappear only one remains. But that goes against all the mystic experiences of the world. Because if one remains, the other is just around the corner; you cannot conceive what one means if you do not have some idea of the two. NEXTLINE A great mystic, Shankara from India, instead of using one tried a different way. It makes not much difference, but it is certainly better than J. Krishnamurti's idea. Shankara says a nonduality remains. He does not say one remains, because one reminds you of two. He reverses the process. He says the two are no more -- that will remind you of the one. But even reminding you in an indirect way is still the same. NEXTLINE Perhaps Gautam Buddha comes very close to saying the unsayable, but I am saying "very close." I am not saying that he has said it -- almost. He denies rather than affirms. Krishnamurti affirms: "the observer is the observed." Gautam Buddha says, "Neither is there an observer nor is there the observed." In the whole history of mankind, perhaps he comes closest. He simply denies, and his denial is such that it does not provoke the idea of one; neither the observer nor the observed. And he keeps silent about what remains. Just pure silence, nobody even to experience it, nobody even to express it. NEXTLINE I repeat that J. Krishnamurti has been confusing thousands of people in his long life of ninety years. If you ask me, Amrito, I will say just be quiet about it. NEXTLINE Let it be. NEXTLINE Don't try to describe what it is. NEXTLINE This is a deep itch in the mind, to describe everything. Unless the mind describes it, the itch remains. It is a kind of sickness. When everything has come to a standstill, when you are not, who is going to experience? Who is going to observe, and what is going to be observed? Just a stillness... you have disappeared in it and the observed has also disappeared in it. NEXTLINE This is unsayable and will remain unsayable. Howsoever close you come to it, you are still far away. My own understanding is just to avoid talking about it. Don't mention it. Experience, but there should be no experiencer. NEXTLINE In ordinary human life, there is nothing which can be compared to this experience -- that creates great difficulty. Otherwise some indications, some hints... and all kinds of ways have been tried: NEXTLINE "It is one." NEXTLINE "It is not two." NEXTLINE "It is neither this nor that." NEXTLINE Just one thing has been left, which I am trying: NEXTLINE It is that neither are you an observer nor is there an observed. A pure oceanic vastness, an utter silence which cannot be reduced into language in any way.... NEXTLINE But the mind is more cunning than you understand it to be. I will read your question to show you how the mind brings everything from the back door. "A few weeks ago I was awake..." You were there, and you were also experiencing that you were awake. The observer was there, the observed was there. The duality was perfectly following you. NEXTLINE "... and suddenly saw there was only talking..." Still the duality -- who saw the talking? You were still there, listening to the talking. Because you were listening, you thought there was only talking, but the talking cannot exist without a listener. This is something to be understood. NEXTLINE The moment you leave your room and lock it, do you think your clothes in the room continue to remain the same color? The white remains white, the blue remains blue, the green remains green? You are wrong. The moment you are out of the room and there is nobody to see, colors disappear. For a color to exist, the eyes are absolutely necessary. Who is going to see the color? Ordinarily we don't think so -- that the moment you leave your room everything changes -- but the fact is scientific, that every color disappears with you. And the moment you look through the keyhole they all come back! It looks strange, but the whole of life is such. NEXTLINE You stand and look at the sun. There is light, tremendous beauty. But close your eyes: for you, the sun is no more a light, and it creates no more colors. For you, all flowers lose their colorfulness. NEXTLINE It is not a new question. For almost five thousand years in India the philosophers have discussed it, and the discussion still continues even in this century. One British philosopher, Bradley, and his colleague, Bosanquet, insisted that if a man is deaf no sounds exist for him, and if all people become deaf there will be no sounds. If all people become blind there will be no colors, no flowers, no rainbows, no stars. It looks very illogical, because the flower has its own color... It does not have. NEXTLINE This strange experiment has finally come to the conclusion that when you see a color as red, it is all colors except red. Why does it look red? Because the sun rays fall on your bodies, on your flowers, on your trees; every flower absorbs rays from among the seven colors of the rainbow. Perhaps if all colors are absorbed, then the flower will look black. But if the flower resists and does not allow the red to be absorbed, the flower will look red. The red is the rejected ray of the sun that reaches your eye. And if the flower rejects the whole range of seven colors then it will look white. NEXTLINE It is not coincidental that in all the traditions of the world white has always been thought to be something pure -- without knowing exactly why; the reasonings that science has produced are very new. But white somehow represented purity, innocence, cleanliness. And every religion has depicted the devil as black. These are symbolic. The devil is nothing but greed. He goes on absorbing everything; he never rejects anything. The white is non-greed. It never accumulates anything, it goes on reflecting it back to its source. The devil is a beggar; hence he has been depicted as black. But the white is utter simplicity. These symbols have persisted for thousands of years, but their implications and their scientific reasons have become available only now. NEXTLINE When you say, Amrito, "Suddenly I saw there was only talking," you forgot the seer, the listener. You became so much focused on listening that you forgot who is listening. This is what I call mind's very subtle cunningness. It was still two, but it managed to deceive you as one: "There was no talker." These are the rationalizations of the mind. It said, "Look, there is only talking, no talker!" But what about the listener? NEXTLINE Wherever there are two, there are three. And you became impressed by the fact that there is no talker and the talking is going on, and you forgot -- who is being aware that there is no talker? And who is being aware of the talking? You were there, perfectly there, and the duality had not disappeared. NEXTLINE "For years I had listened to the statement that the observer and the observed were one." You have listened to that statement by J. Krishnamurti. But sometimes I feel so strange that J. Krishnamurti perhaps talked more than anybody else before him... I am saying before him, not after him -- I am still alive; that poor fellow is dead! When he said the observer and the observed were one, who was making this decision? Who was being aware that the observer and the observed are one? Who was the witness? NEXTLINE And not a single person throughout his fifty years of continuous teaching ever raised the question, that "I can understand the observer is the observed, but who is the witness?" Certainly a witness is needed, somebody who is standing behind and seeing that the observer and the observed are one. Again he has fallen into the same fallacy. That's why I said I am going to refute it completely. NEXTLINE You say, "I saw there was no room." Then where were you? NEXTLINE The word `room' is very meaningful. It simply means space. People have completely forgotten the root meaning of the word `room'. When you take out all the furniture from your room, all the bookshelves, everything out, you say, "Now the room looks roomier." All those things were obstructing the room. They were filling the space. If you say, "I saw there was no room" you were there, and your very presence needs a certain space. That is your room. There may not be walls to your room. Even if you make the whole sky your room -- it does not matter how big the room is; if you are there, you will be surrounded by space. Without space you cannot be there. And that space is the real room. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I used to stay in a very rich man's house. He was so rich that he used to collect all kinds of junk, and in the guest house where I used to stay, he had put everything you can possibly conceive. When he took me for the first time to the guest house he said, "This is going to be your room." NEXTLINE I looked inside and I said, "But where is the room?" A big, beautiful piano, radios, very costly furniture, many paintings and even though television had not come to that city at that time, he had a beautiful television set. Some day, television will come. I said, "I can see so many things, they have destroyed the room completely! If you want me to stay in this place, I refuse. You take all this junk so that I can have some room." NEXTLINE He could not understand me. He said, "What do you mean by room?" NEXTLINE I mean that "room" simply means spaciousness. The room can be bigger, can be smaller, but if you are there, your very presence creates a room around you. As far as you can see -- that is the wall of your room. They will both disappear together. But then there will be no one to say, "The room has disappeared. I have also disappeared." You cannot say that "I have also disappeared." There will be nobody to say anything. NEXTLINE No room, no you, no observer, no observed. NEXTLINE Just a pure silence without any ripples. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE A famous Sufi story about Mulla Nasruddin... He was always bragging in the town's cafeteria that he is a very generous man, very compassionate. People were getting tired of it. They said, "We have listened to this so many times, but we have never seen a single act of compassion, generosity, friendliness. Prove it!" NEXTLINE He said, "Okay, you are all invited" -- a group of a hundred people from the cafeteria -- "to come to my house for dinner today. Just follow me and you will see the act." NEXTLINE In the heat of discussion he said this, but as he started approaching closer to the house he realized what he had done. In the morning his wife had sent him to fetch some vegetables from the market, and the whole day he had been wandering here and there. He had not come back all day to the house. And he knew perfectly well, as every husband knows, that there is only one kind of husband in the world: they are all henpecked. NEXTLINE He was also aware that there was nothing in the house for one hundred people -- and he has invited them for dinner! He cooled down, slowed down, and then finally he said, "Listen, you are all husbands and we all know the real situation. I don't have to explain it to you. You please wait outside the door. First let me go in and find a way to tell my wife that without informing her, I have invited one hundred guests for dinner." NEXTLINE It was understandable. Everybody was a husband, so there was no question of not understanding it. They remained outside. Mulla Nasruddin went in, closed the door... and the wife was furious! The whole day she had been waiting, hungry because there was no food, no vegetables, nothing in the house. Mulla Nasruddin said, "That is a secondary problem. I am in a more troublesome state. First help me." NEXTLINE The wife said, "What is the trouble?" NEXTLINE Mulla Nasruddin said, "In the heat of discussion, I have invited one hundred people for dinner. They are standing outside the house." NEXTLINE The wife said, "My God, are you mad? There is no food even for two of us! Now what do you want me to do?" NEXTLINE He said, "Just a simple thing. You go out and ask them why they are standing there. Naturally they will say, `Mulla Nasruddin has invited us for dinner.' Tell them that there must have been some misunderstanding because since the morning he has not been seen: `Where did you see him? I am waiting for him.'" NEXTLINE The wife also felt a little weird, because Mulla was standing inside the house... but there was no other way. Finally, hesitantly, she went to the door, just opened the door a little bit and asked, "Why this crowd? What are you doing here?" NEXTLINE They said, "We are not a crowd. We are friends of Mulla Nasruddin, your husband. And he has invited us for dinner." NEXTLINE The wife said, "He left the house in the morning and since then he has not returned. There must be some misunderstanding." NEXTLINE They said, "There is no misunderstanding. A hundred people are witnesses: he came with us and he entered this door." NEXTLINE The wife was at a loss what to do because the Mulla was inside. Mulla was also listening. He went upstairs and from the window he said, "Listen you fellows! Can't you understand a single thing, that Mulla may have come with you and may have gone out from the back door. And feel ashamed! Arguing with a poor woman!" NEXTLINE Sufis have used the story for centuries. These stories are so simple and so beautiful, but so pregnant with meaning. NEXTLINE You say, Amrito, "I saw there was no room." It is impossible. You will have to understand Mulla Nasruddin's situation. He is denying that he is in the house. His very denial is a proof that he is in the house. NEXTLINE You cannot say, "I am not." Then who is saying it? In saying "I am not," you have proved that you are. NEXTLINE You go on saying, "... no necessity for a thinker..." Who is thinking this no necessity for a thinker? It is certainly a thought. The necessity or no necessity are both thoughts. "Only consciousness"... but that is again a thought -- "and the arising of phenomena." So everything has come back from the back door! "Arising of phenomena" -- certainly you are the observer and the phenomena is the observed. The mind has come back, saying to you, "There is no necessity of thinking." But this is thinking. If you are, you cannot get rid of the other. The other will follow you just like your shadow. You may become oblivious to it, you may not see it. Mind knows very cunning ways. NEXTLINE And I am analyzing your question for a certain reason, because it is going to be everybody's problem sooner or later. A man comes to me and says, "I experienced bliss." It is nonsense. Either you can be or bliss can be. Both cannot be together. And if there is only bliss, who is going to report it? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Lao Tzu's greatest disciple was Chuang Tzu. He was moving on the path. He was reporting every day his experiences -- arising of spiritual phenomena, experiences of light, lotuses flowering -- but Lao Tzu never paid any attention to what he was saying. The only thing that he could see from Lao Tzu's face was, "Don't waste my time. Just go, start meditating again." But one day Chuang Tzu never came -- he used to come early in the morning. Lao Tzu waited for him. It was time for sunset and he inquired, "Where is Chuang Tzu?" NEXTLINE They said, "He is sitting under a tree. From the morning he has been sitting there." NEXTLINE Lao Tzu said, "It seems I will have to go and see what is happening. Something is certainly happening for the first time." And he went, shook the body of Chuang Tzu and said, "Aha! But keep your mouth shut! Now there is no need every day to come to me to describe all that rubbish." NEXTLINE And Chuang Tzu fell at the feet of Lao Tzu with tears of joy and he said, "Your compassion is great. How many years have I tortured you? And your compassion was so great, you never said anything. You simply said, `Continue.' You never denied. And today you have come to me just to say, `Aha!'" NEXTLINE Nothing more can be said. NEXTLINE "I saw," you are saying, Amrito, "there was no room, no necessity for a thinker; only consciousness." Why are you putting the word only? Unconsciously you are also aware that if there is only consciousness, there is no need for the adjective "only." You know perfectly well you were there, and with you all the luggage that you have been preserving in the mind was there. NEXTLINE "... and the arising of phenomena. Instead of jumping out of bed, I turned around and slept." That is the only good thing that you did! And if ever again such stupid things happen to you, remember -- don't jump out of the bed, just take a turn and go to sleep. Sleep is far better than dreaming. Your experiences were nothing but dreams, soap bubbles, with no validity of their own. NEXTLINE "Insight seems to be like a gentle breeze." Insight does not "seem to be" like a gentle breeze. It is. And the difference is great. Do you say to someone, "It seems I love you... it almost seems I love you"? Either you love or you don't. NEXTLINE Again you have started dreaming, because just turning on your side does not make much difference. You can dream facing to one side, you can dream facing to another side and there are dreamers who are dreaming with open eyes walking in the streets. Dreaming is possible in every situation. "Insight seems to be like a gentle breeze, a whisper." No. When the insight opens there is no way to describe it, you cannot say it "seems like a gentle breeze" or "a whisper." It is absolute silence. A whisper is too loud, and a gentle breeze is far below. NEXTLINE In our ordinary experiences nothing exists that can be compared to the flowering of your insight. Those who have come to the insight have suddenly become utterly silent because they cannot find how to say it, what to say about it, whom to say it to. Who is going to understand? NEXTLINE Gautam Buddha became enlightened one full-moon night and for seven days he did not utter a single word. The story is so beautiful. It needs to be understood from different angles, because it brings new meanings, new implications. Why did he remain silent for seven days? NEXTLINE First, he was so overwhelmed there was no question of doing anything about it. Everything was HAPPENING.... NEXTLINE Later on... he had five disciples. He thought, "At least I should say something to those five disciples. I was ignorant, but I pretended to be a master." And there are many who are doing the same all over the world, because it is easier to be a master than to be a disciple. The disciple has to go through such a transformation. NEXTLINE He felt compassion for those five who had followed him, but what to say to them? Will they understand? He knew perfectly well that if he himself had not been overwhelmed with the explosion, nobody could have explained it to him. He would have laughed. And he does not want to become a laughingstock, but the compassion is there... which is intrinsic as you become more and more centered, more and more yourself, more and more inseparable from existence. Compassion simply comes to you. It is not something to be cultivated, not something to be disciplined. Just as the spring comes and the flowers start blossoming, the morning comes and the trees start awakening, something spontaneous... so is compassion. NEXTLINE He tried hard -- in what way to convey it? But all words were empty. All words were contaminated. And the problem was more complicated: he will speak the word, and something of the truth will be lost in speaking. Then the person will hear it, and whatever is left will be lost in his hearing, because he is going to interpret it in his own way according to his own prejudices. NEXTLINE On the seventh day he decided not to speak at all. Those seven days were a continuous anguish -- "I know it now, but I am absolutely helpless." The story is that five gods... in Buddhism there is not one god, there are as many gods as there are living beings, because every living being ultimately has to flower into a god. As far as the question of gods is concerned, Mohammedanism, Judaism, Christianity, are very dictatorial. Their gods resemble Ronald Reagan more than anybody else. Buddhism has a very democratic idea about god. Everybody has the potential. It is up to you when you realize it. And there is no hurry either, because eternity is available. NEXTLINE Five gods came to Gautam Buddha, prayed to him, "It happens very rarely, in millions of years, that a man comes to this state, to this space, to this blissfulness, to this truth. And the whole existence waits that now your fragrance will raise the consciousness of all those who are ready to move, who are ready to transform, and you have decided not to speak! We have come to pray to you, please speak." NEXTLINE They had to argue with Gautam Buddha for many days, because each argument was refuted by him. And the gods also felt that he was right: nobody is going to understand, everybody is going to misunderstand. Rather than helping people, the greater possibility is that the people will stone him to death! NEXTLINE But they were adamant. They went aloof into the forest to prepare for the final argument with Buddha..."Whatever he is saying, he is right and we cannot convince him to speak. First, the truth is unspeakable. Second, it is not understandable. Thirdly, it goes against people's ideas of truth, and that creates enmity." NEXTLINE I can say it from my own experience.... NEXTLINE Dale Carnegie wrote a book, HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE. My own experience is in how to influence people and create enemies! I have created so many enemies around the world, perhaps nobody can be a competitor to me. Twenty-five countries have passed laws in their parliaments that I cannot enter their countries. Not only can I not enter, I cannot even land my airplane at their international airports to be refueled. It takes not more than fifteen minutes. In fifteen minutes at the international airport -- and I will not be coming out of the plane -- their whole morality is in danger. Their thousands-of-years-old tradition is in danger. Their church is in danger. Their whole new generation can be corrupted just by me sitting in an airplane at an international airport! NEXTLINE The gods worked hard -- how to persuade Gautam Buddha? Arguments don't seem to lead anywhere. Finally they came the last time and they said, "Whatever you have been saying to us is true. Just one point more: there are millions of people who will not understand you, and there are millions who will become antagonistic to you because your truth is going to destroy their lies. And their lies are their comforts, their consolations, their only hope. Your truth is too dangerous. We are convinced of your arguments; just one simple point: amongst millions of people, there may be one person... You cannot deny the possibility of one person who is just on the boundary line and needs only a little push. Are you not going to help that man to cross the boundary line?" NEXTLINE Gautam Buddha agreed: "There is a possibility of someone, somewhere, who is just at that point but is clinging because he is afraid of moving into the unknown. A little push, and even before he realizes it, he has opened his wings and flown into the unknown. I will speak. I will speak to the last of my breath." And he spoke for forty-two years. He was a man of immense commitment to his promise. To the very last, he continued -- an impossible task. To stand for truth is to stand against the whole history of mankind. To stand for truth is to stand absolutely alone against the whole world. And I am saying this from my own experience. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Just the other day I received a letter from a man who works for TIME magazine in America. He has asked two questions -- one is important for you. He says, "Your effort is to save humanity; then why have you spoken against Jesus?" NEXTLINE In the first place, I am not making any effort to save anyone. And I have spoken against Jesus because he was giving consolations to people..."I will save you." That is the most dangerous and poisonous statement. It makes you relaxed -- you need not worry, you simply believe in Jesus and he will save you. On the last day of judgment, Jesus will sort out his sheep and tell God, "These are my people." They will enter into paradise, and the remaining humanity will fall into the abysmal darkness of hell for eternity. I am against such consolations. NEXTLINE And the man seems to be a Jesus freak. He cannot even understand what question he is asking. Who is saved by Jesus? He could not save himself, and at the last moment on the cross he became utterly disillusioned. Very few people have lived in such deep illusions as Jesus Christ, because he believed he is the only begotten son of God. What happened? -- God started using birth control methods? Why only one begotten son? The reality is, Jesus was not the son of his own father, Joseph. Some hooligan has played a trick on the poor innocent Mary. That hooligan has become the Holy Ghost. NEXTLINE If such things are holy, then what is unholy? Making other people's wives pregnant without their permission -- if this is holy then there is nothing unholy in the world. But he remained with this idea that he is the only begotten son of God and he has come to save humanity. NEXTLINE On the cross... because people finally got too bored; Judea was a very small place and he was roaming around Judea saying the same thing; "I have come to save you." And everybody knew he was uneducated, uncultured. He knows nothing of the scriptures, he is not even a rabbi, he has been working with his so-called father Joseph in his carpentry workshop, and suddenly he has become the only begotten son of God. Naturally he irritated people, annoyed people. If you don't want to be saved you will be annoyed if somebody comes every day knocking on your door to say that he has come to save you. NEXTLINE Jesus was crucified for different reasons than Socrates was poisoned. Socrates was poisoned because he had a truth which made the consolations of people absolutely absurd. Jesus, on the contrary, is giving consolations. Who were the people who gathered around him? He had twelve apostles. All were fishermen, farmers, gardeners. Except Judas, nobody was educated. And naturally they thought, "This is a good chance. On our own we cannot hope to be saved. And this man is so authoritative, let us cling to him. There is nothing to lose." NEXTLINE But on the cross, even Jesus became suspicious. Because he was waiting -- God will come sitting on a white cloud, create a miracle, save his only begotten son and prove to the Jews that "You have been wrong, you have mistreated my son." But nothing happened, not even a white cloud. He looked again and again towards the sky. There was no indication of any miracle, not even a rehearsal. Everything was silent and finally he blurted out, "Father, have you forsaken me? Have you forgotten me?" But still there was no answer. NEXTLINE There is no father in the sky and the skies don't answer anybody. NEXTLINE This man from TIME magazine says to me, "You have come to save humanity..." Who gave him that idea? I don't want to save anybody. It is your business, why should I interfere in your life? even if the interference is for the good. I can explain my own experiences, I can indicate possible ways, but I am not going to save anybody. You have to walk the path alone, without any illusions. NEXTLINE Yes, certainly if I find someone just on the borderline, I will push him. I am lazy, but that much I can do. I am trying to push Amrito; he is just on the borderline, but there is always a nostalgia to look backwards... the beautiful experiences of the mind, and ahead is an open sky with no limits. It creates fear and trembling. But Amrito has come closer and closer to me so I am going to take the risk and push him into the unknown. NEXTLINE He is saying, "Will you say something about the non-dramatic quality of real insight?" In real insight there is no drama; it is absolutely ordinary. People like drama, although they know it is only a drama. All the religions are creating dramas for people's entertainment. People love to be entertained. But Amrito, now there is not going to be any dramatic experience -- just a push and a sound following you, "Aha!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Milarepa has asked, "Why do you like the childlike quality?" The reason is very simple. Because they are such innocent people, so nonserious, unaware of all kinds of games people play -- mundane, sacred, human, superhuman. I will give you a few examples so that you can forget Amrito and what happened to him. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE The Goldberg family is on a picnic. Hymie is standing near the edge of a high cliff, admiring the sea crashing on the rocks far below. NEXTLINE Little Herschel comes up to him and says, "Hey Dad, Mom says it is not safe here. So either you stand back or give me the sandwiches." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Little Ernie is at the seashore when a pretty blond comes out of the surf and finds that she has lost the top half of her bathing suit. NEXTLINE Embarrassed, she crosses her arms in front of her chest and hurries across the beach. NEXTLINE She almost reaches to where she has left her towel when little Ernie asks, "Lady, if you are giving away those puppies, could I have the one with the pink nose?" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Miss Goodbody, the teacher, is approaching her classroom when little Ernie comes towards her from the other direction, deliberately winking his left eye. NEXTLINE "Ernest," says Miss Goodbody, quite shocked. "Are you winking at me?" NEXTLINE "No," says Ernie, making a left turn into the classroom, "I have just got my turn signal on." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 9These games keep you retarded25 December 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE YOU HAVE NOW BEEN ENLIGHTENED FOR ALMOST THIRTY-SIX YEARS. HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE BEYOND THE BEYOND THE BEYOND? NEXTLINE P.S. CAN I MEET YOU IN THE PUB AFTERWARDS? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Vimal, it seems you have taken too much drink, because we are in the pub! This place can only be described as belonging to those who are drunk with the divine... so drunk that they have forgotten their nationality, forgotten their church, forgotten even who they are. NEXTLINE Vimal is asking me if I can meet him afterwards in the pub, but beyond this pub there is no other place so drunk with the divine dance and song. What I am teaching you is to find a source within yourself which can make you a drunkard. NEXTLINE The joy of this life, the bliss, the ecstasy, belongs only to those whose wine is not coming from the outside -- that is very ephemeral, very temporal, made of the same stuff as dreams are made of. There is another wine which grows within you. The moment you start moving inwards, there is no need for anything else to make you oblivious to all the misery that surrounds you. There is no need for any other drug. NEXTLINE A few idiots in the West have started calling a drug "ecstasy." Now that is absolutely against all the laws of the world, because ecstasy has been for centuries copyrighted by my people! And it is not an outside drug, it flows in the very juices of your life. You don't have to move even an inch; wherever you are you can be surrounded by all possibilities of blissfulness. And these possibilities of blissfulness are not temporal; it is not that tomorrow morning you will have a hangover. The more you drink, the more sober, the more sane, the more alert, the more conscious you become. NEXTLINE Unless a drug is found within your being, you are bound to look for it somewhere else. It raises a tremendously significant question. As long as we can remember in human history ... the oldest, ancientmost scripture is the RIG VEDA of the Hindus, and the RIG VEDA talks about a certain drug, somrasa. NEXTLINE One of the most intelligent men of our century, Aldous Huxley, became very interested in searching for what this somrasa was, because the seers of the RIG VEDA used to drink it and dance around the fire. Certainly it seems it must have been a drug, and particularly to the Western objective thinker it cannot be anything else than a drug. NEXTLINE Aldous Huxley experimented with all kinds of drugs and finally he decided that LSD seems to come very close to the description of somrasa. In the hope that in the future LSD will be more refined -- because it is a synthetic drug, manufactured; hence there is every possibility to improve upon it, to take away all the ingredients which can be harmful and leave only that which brings health, wholeness, awareness, and a tremendous insight into the mysteries of existence... Hoping that some day scientists were going to discover it, Huxley had already named it soma, just to pay respect to the ancient seers of the RIG VEDA. NEXTLINE But Aldous Huxley was in a deep misunderstanding. The somrasa that is being described in the RIG VEDA is certainly a drug just like marijuana which used to grow in the Himalayas. Perhaps it still grows there but we have not been able to find the place where it grows. NEXTLINE And the fire they were dancing around has nothing to do with the inner fire of life. I have looked into the RIG VEDA as deeply, as sympathetically as possible. The people who are talking about the somrasa and the fire ritual were even sacrificing human beings, not to mention sacrificing other animals. The Hindus, who go on continuously making trouble in this country because of their insistence that cow slaughter should be stopped, should read their ancientmost scriptures. All their priests were slaughtering cows as a sacrifice to the fire god, and they were all eating the meat of the cows. Now, these people cannot be said to be meditative. NEXTLINE I absolutely deny the RIG VEDA and the prestige that it has in the minds of men, because people don't read it and people don't analyze it and people don't see its stupidities and all kinds of inhumanities. NEXTLINE In the RIG VEDA women are just a commodity. You can purchase women in the marketplace in any auction. Even the so-called seers had many wives, and they were not even satisfied by that. That is an absolutely ugly state, that any human being reduces so many women into cattle. Over and above all that, they were continually purchasing beautiful girls in auctions. NEXTLINE People have forgotten -- times change, words take on new colors. Now in India the word wadu simply means the newly-married woman. But in the times of RIG VEDA, wadu meant a woman who has newly been purchased from the market. Every so-called seer had two kinds of women: one group were his wives and the other were wadus. The word wadu is not respectable; it simply means a prostitute, purchased -- a commodity, not a human being. It can be sold at any moment. NEXTLINE And the miracle was that the children from the married wife would be the legitimate children, and the children from the purchased wife would not be legitimate. Man has done so much inhumanity to other human beings that it is incalculable. How can a child be illegitimate? Parents can be illegitimate, but a child cannot be. Every child is as innocent as any other child. It does not matter whether the child is born to a prostitute or to a purchased woman or to a married woman. In all cases the child is absolutely legitimate. But people are very cunning in throwing their responsibilities on others. Parents are never called illegitimate. Children are called illegitimate. NEXTLINE These seers accumulated immense wealth, had many slaves, used to eat meat -- I cannot conceive that they had found the inner ecstasy I am talking about. All the circumstantial evidence goes against them. And look at their prayers -- their prayers are so stupid that one feels embarrassed that these people were called great seers. Their prayers are in the RIG VEDA, and the RIG VEDA consists ninety-eight percent of prayers. Only two percent can be sorted out, cleaned, interpreted in a way that makes some sense. Otherwise, ninety-eight percent of it consists of such prayers that you will not believe.... NEXTLINE One seer is praying to God, drinking that ancient LSD of Aldous Huxley, "This time, my God, listen to my prayer: your clouds should rain only on my fields, not on the fields of my enemies. You have never listened to me but this time I am sacrificing so many cows, so many horses, and you have to listen. Give more children to me, and don't give a single child to my enemies." And who are the enemies? -- other seers, and they are also praying! Prayers which look so stupid... "If you are compassionate, give a proof to me: the milk in the breasts of my enemy's cows should dry up." NEXTLINE These are religious people? "Give victory to me, to my friends, and defeat to my enemies and their friends." I cannot think of these people as meditative. Aldous Huxley was absolutely wrong. Somrasa was nothing but some horrible drug; perhaps it may have been marijuana, because it still grows in Kulu Manali and in other parts of the Himalayas. There is no need to cultivate it, it simply grows naturally. Those are the places where the RIG VEDA was composed. NEXTLINE As far as I am concerned, my interest is that all the governments of the world and all the religions of the world, all the moral teachers of the world have been against drugs; still drugs are more predominant today than they have ever been. The more they have been condemned, prohibited, made illegal, the more attractive they have become. People used to drink and take drugs at a certain stage, but the latest information from California is that school children are taking drugs, and small boys and girls are suffering in jails because they have been found taking drugs. NEXTLINE It is a strange story -- all the religions are against drugs, all the governments are against drugs, all the teachers, all the moralists are against drugs, and the influence of drugs goes on growing. There must be something deeper in it than people have looked into. NEXTLINE My understanding is that unless man finds a drug within himself, which I call ecstasy, he will go on finding some kind of drug as a substitute in the outside world. Only meditation can stop a person from taking drugs. No law can prohibit them -- all laws have failed. It only creates hypocrites. NEXTLINE I am not against ecstasy, but when I say ecstasy I don't mean the drug that is available in the market. I mean the ecstasy that you are born with, that you are still holding inside you, and you have not touched. Just a little taste of it and everything else on the outside immediately becomes meaningless. NEXTLINE You have the source of the infinite ecstasy within you. NEXTLINE Yes, I teach you to be drunkards, but your drink has to come from your own innermost center. And the difference can be very easily understood: every outer drug will make you unconscious, addicted, and every time you will need more and more of it because your body will become immune to it. NEXTLINE Still, in India, there are a few ancient traditions which have fallen into the same fallacy as Aldous Huxley. But they have gone farther than Aldous Huxley; they drink all kinds of alcoholic beverages, they use all kinds of drugs. A moment comes when no drug can make them unconscious, no drug can bring them what they have been trying to find -- a way to forget themselves, to forget this miserable world, to forget all these people. The last resort is that there are ashrams in Assam; they are the only remnants of a very longstanding tradition. They keep cobra snakes as a last resort -- when no drug affects you, the cobra is allowed to bite you on your tongue. Only then do you feel a little shaken, but the miracle is that the cobra dies! The man is so full of poison... but the poor cobra was not aware; otherwise he would have escaped. NEXTLINE I have been concerned about why man has remained so much interested in poisons. The reason is not too far away to see; you just need a clarity. Man is so miserable that he cannot live consciously with this misery. He needs a few gaps, at least a few holidays from this miserable anguish, anxiety, and all kinds of tortures. Drugs have been a tremendous help. But not only the chemical drugs -- Karl Marx is right when he says that the religions of the world are nothing but opium for the people. These religions have also proved to be consolations. They have also given hope, they have also given a certain future and taken away your consciousness from the present and its misery. That's the function of any drug. NEXTLINE My effort here, Vimal, is to make you drop all future, all hope, all illusion, and just relax in the moment knowing perfectly well that this is the only moment which exists. All else is either memory or imagination. NEXTLINE One who is in the present immediately drowns in his own well... of something which is not poisonous, but it is certainly ecstatic. And once you have known your own source, there is no need to go anywhere, to any pub or to any church or to any temple. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE The young doctor, inexperienced with operations, is instructed to stand at the head of the patient so that without getting in the way, he can watch the expert do an abdominal operation. He is also instructed not to speak, but after a while he can't resist: "How's your end, sir?" says the young man. "All right," says the expert, looking up, "why?" NEXTLINE "I only wondered, sir," says the young man, "because my end's been dead for ten minutes." NEXTLINE Because he was told not to speak, he remained silent! The man is dead and the surgeon goes on operating.... NEXTLINE There are a few things which all traditions have prohibited people to speak, and it needs immense courage to go against the whole tradition of mankind. For example, everybody has been told not to support any kind of drug in any way, and people have remained silent. I have not come across a single statement in which somebody has dared to say that the predominance of drugs shows something immensely significant, and it cannot be simply outlawed; it cannot be simply prohibited. But I want to say it. NEXTLINE Let it be on record that unless man finds the authentic drug which is in his own being, there is no force on the earth which can prohibit alcohol, which can prohibit marijuana, which can prohibit hashish, which can prohibit LSD. More and more drugs will be coming in, and the miracle is that the people who are trying to prohibit these things -- ninety percent of them are themselves using them. NEXTLINE Just a few days ago in America there was an international conference of homosexuals, and one MP from England represented the homosexuals of England. He is a member of the parliament, and certainly he is a homosexual; otherwise why should he be their representative? And in the conference he said, "You must be thinking that I am a strange person, being a member of parliament and representing the homosexuals, but I want you to know that at least fifty-six members of the parliament in England are homosexuals." They may not have the courage to come out... and these people will make laws against homosexuality! NEXTLINE Perhaps you have never thought about it that Jesus continued to drink alcohol, but no Christian has the guts to say that a man with the qualities of Jesus should not drink alcohol. Only if he has not found the alcohol within is there a possibility to search for alcohol without. Every night it was party time -- and it is strange that even after two thousand years, people drink alcohol in the name of Jesus. Naturally, if Jesus can be an alcoholic then why make it a prohibition? If even Jesus needs it then I don't think anybody can be in a position who does not need it. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I have heard about a strange ritual that happens every year in the Vatican. The pope comes out in all his regalia, with the cardinals following, and the rabbi from Rome comes with a big scroll. He hands over the scroll to the pope, the pope looks at the scroll, gives it back to the rabbi and everybody wonders what is the matter. What is written on the scroll? Finally one young man dared to ask, "It has been going on for two thousand years; now we should at least know the content of the scroll. The whole ritual... and there seems to be no meaning." NEXTLINE The scroll was opened for the first time, and it was found that it was the bill for the Last Supper! And the question is, who is going to pay it? Obviously, Jesus was a Jew -- the rabbis should pay it, but the rabbis had denied Jesus, they crucified him. They don't accept him as one of them; the pope should pay it. But the discussion is such that there is no way to decide. Jesus is a Jew -- of course his followers are Christians -- and why should Christians pay for a Jewish party? So every year the bill comes, the bill goes back. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Vimal, the way to understand me is to always remember that I am insisting -- from every corner, in every possible way -- only on a single target, and that is your innermost being. Whatever I may have said... never be too much concerned with what is said. Be concerned about what it indicates. NEXTLINE I want you to drop all games -- worldly games, spiritual games, games that the whole of humanity has played up to now. These games keep you retarded. These games hinder you from growing into consciousness, into your own ultimate flowering. I want to cut away all this rubbish that prevents you. NEXTLINE I want to leave you alone, absolutely alone, so that you cannot take anybody's help, so you cannot cling to any prophet, so that you cannot think that Gautam Buddha is going to save you. Left alone -- utterly alone -- you are bound to find your innermost center. NEXTLINE There is no way, nowhere to go, no advisor, no teacher, no master. It seems hard, it seems harsh, but I am doing it because I love you, and the people who have not done it have not loved you at all. They loved themselves and they loved to have a big crowd around themselves -- the bigger the crowd, the more they feel nourished in their egos. NEXTLINE That's why I called even enlightenment the last game. The sooner you drop it, the better. Why not just simply be? Why unnecessarily hurry here and there? You are what existence wants you to be. Just relax. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Farmer Giles is worried about the performance of his prize bull; he doesn't seem to be interested in the cows. So he goes to the vet who prescribes a course of pills for the bull. NEXTLINE A few weeks later, a friend comes by and asks Farmer Giles how the bull is getting on. NEXTLINE "Just great!" says Giles. "The vet gave me these pills for the bull and from the first day the old fellow has been unstoppable! In fact, I am making a fortune; the local farmers can't get their cows 'round here fast enough!" NEXTLINE "Great!" says his friend. "And what are these pills then?" NEXTLINE "Well," says Farmer Giles, "they are great big green ones -- and they taste just like peppermints." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Question 2 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE HAS JESUS EVER LAUGHED? NEXTLINE IRVEN N. RESNICH REPORTS ON THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY ABOUT LAUGHTER: NEXTLINE ARISTOTLE, IN HIS SECOND BOOK OF POETICS, RAISED LAUGHTER TO THE STANDARD OF AN ART, WHEREAS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY HAS BEEN AGAINST LAUGHTER SINCE THE DAYS OF THE BIBLE. FOR MONKS, A LIFE OF PENANCE DOES NOT ALLOW LAUGHTER. BASILIUS CAESAREA AND HUGO OF ST. VICTOR TOTALLY CONDEMNED LAUGHTER; IN SOME MONASTERIES IT WAS ONLY TOLERATED IF IT DID NOT SPREAD. NEXTLINE THE QUESTION CAME UP OF WHETHER LAUGHTER DARKENED THE HUMAN NATURE OF JESUS. ACCORDING TO CHRISTIAN TRADITION, JESUS HIMSELF NEVER LAUGHED, ALTHOUGH THE PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS OF ARISTOTLE, QUINTILLIAN, PORPHYRY AND BOETHIUS, EMPHASIZE THAT LAUGHTER IS A TYPICALLY HUMAN ABILITY. THE CLERGYMEN GAVE VARIOUS ANSWERS, BUT MANY OF THEM POINTED OUT THAT A LOT OF SAINTS HAD NEVER LAUGHED EITHER, AND THAT JESUS, AS A HUMAN BEING, WAS OF COURSE ABLE TO LAUGH, BUT HE VOLUNTARILY RENOUNCED IT. NOT A THEOLOGICALLY SATISFYING SOLUTION. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Doctor Amrito, only on one point do I agree with Christian tradition: Jesus certainly never laughed. As far as I can see, he had nothing to laugh at. NEXTLINE First, he is a bastard. Others may have laughed, but you cannot expect Jesus to laugh. Jesus was a poor carpenter, undernourished -- laughter needs some overflowing energy. And to look at Jesus' statements -- he seems to be a crackpot. Crackpots never laugh. They have to keep their seriousness. Laughter brings you down to the status of ordinary humanity. Those who want to pretend to be special -- how can they laugh? Such a mundane activity. NEXTLINE All these controversies are absolutely futile. I will give you a few reasons to contemplate which will make you clear why he did not laugh: NEXTLINE "An ancient tradition says: before Jesus Christ, nobody knew what a headache looked like." NEXTLINE "True misery for a man is when there are no more problems to be solved." NEXTLINE And Jesus had no more problems to be solved. He was the only begotten son of God. He knew everything. Not a single time in his whole life -- which was not very long, just thirty-three years -- did he ever say about anything, "I don't know." He knew everything, and whenever a person is so knowledgeable, laughter becomes impossible. NEXTLINE "Women do have a sense of humor -- look at their boyfriends!" NEXTLINE Poor Jesus was never chosen by a woman as a boyfriend. And still you want him to laugh? You are expecting too much from a poor carpenter. NEXTLINE His teaching life was only three years, from thirty to thirty-three. And in these three years his whole effort was to frighten humanity as much as he could, because his whole business depended on people becoming afraid of hell. That was the fundamental psychology he was working on. But when you are teaching people about hell, laughter will not fit in. NEXTLINE "There is always more hell that needs raising." NEXTLINE And in three years how much hell can you raise? You may not be aware, it is an unrecorded fact but passed on by word of mouth, from generation to generation, that when Jesus used to threaten people with hellfire, particularly women used to faint. Men started trembling, perspiring. Now this is not a situation for anybody to laugh, and particularly Jesus himself. NEXTLINE "A man can learn much by imitating the behavior of a duck -- keep calm and unruffled on the surface, and paddle like crazy underneath." NEXTLINE Jesus managed it perfectly well. All that unruffledness, all that seriousness is just on the surface -- underneath he is also paddling like crazy, but you cannot see it. So nobody has ever observed him laughing. NEXTLINE "It is said, a change of trouble is as good as a vacation." NEXTLINE He never changed anything. In those three years of his teaching, he continuously insisted on the same thing.... NEXTLINE There is a contemporary parallel -- J. Krishnamurti. He managed for a longer time than Jesus. He started teaching when he was twenty-five, and he went on teaching till he died at the age of ninety. Nobody has ever seen him laughing. In fact, if you are laughing and by chance you come across him, you will stop. Just his face... NEXTLINE He used to come to India once or twice a year, and he used to speak only in three or four places -- Delhi, Bombay, Varanasi, Adyar. I had told my sannyasins everywhere to always sit in the front row, and the moment he would see my sannyasins with their red clothes and malas, he would completely forget what he had come to teach about. He would become so angry... his people came to me to say that "This is not right; he is getting old, he may have a heart attack. And you are making it such a trouble for him that wherever he goes, he finds sannyasins sitting in the front row. Then he forgets everybody else. Then he forgets for what he has come, what was the subject that he was going to teach -- furious, so furious that he starts hitting his own head!" Now seeing such a man, can you laugh? NEXTLINE "The happiest time in anyone's life is just after their divorce." NEXTLINE But that time never came into Jesus' life. I have tried to find something the poor fellow might have laughed at, but there was nothing in his life. Sitting on a donkey, moving with twelve fools -- you are a laughingstock, you cannot laugh. NEXTLINE And it is not only true about Jesus. It is true about almost all your saints -- Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, it doesn't matter to what church they belong. The saint is not supposed to laugh. The reason is simple: the saint is supposed to be working hard, moving towards the ultimate goal of life. There is no time for laughing. The whole thing is too serious. And because ordinary human beings laugh, obviously, the logic is clear: if you want to prove that you are extraordinary, you have to stop laughing. You have to stop doing many things which ordinary people do. You may even start doing things which are absolutely stupid and idiotic, but you have to be certain only about one thing -- that ordinary people don't do those kind of things. NEXTLINE You will see saints standing on their heads. Now, if existence wanted you to stand on your head, the feet would have grown out of your head. But any kind of nonsense... Mahavira used to pull out his hair. He would not allow a small razor to shave his head -- every ordinary human being is doing that. And because he was pulling out his hair, thousands of people would gather to see this tremendously sacred event. NEXTLINE If you look at your saints and their histories, you are bound to come to the conclusion that almost a hundred percent of them needed psychiatric treatment. But we have lived under their influence, and they have such a long tradition that its burden is heavy on our hearts, too. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE He has been warned that Paddy is a bit of a fool, but the postmaster decides to hire him anyway, because the post office is really short-staffed. His first day on the job, Paddy is given the work of sorting letters, and to everyone's surprise, he separates the letters so fast that his motions are literally a blur. NEXTLINE Very pleased about this, the postmaster approaches him at the end of the day. NEXTLINE "I want you to know," he says, "that we're all very proud of you. You're one of the fastest workers we've ever had." NEXTLINE "Thanks a lot," replies Paddy, "and tomorrow, I'll try and do even better." NEXTLINE "Better?" asks the postmaster, astonished. "How could you possibly do better?" NEXTLINE "Well," says Paddy, "tomorrow I'm going to read the addresses." NEXTLINE All kinds of idiots have become your saints. In fact, a man who is intelligent is not going to become one of your saints, because to be a saint literally means to be a slave of the crowd. The crowd dictates. The crowd tells the saint how he has to live, what he has to eat, where he has to sleep. The saint is simply the slave of a vast crowd and because he obeys, the crowd pays him with deep respect. NEXTLINE And remember one thing: in life everything needs a certain qualification, except being a saint. Nobody is asked for any qualification, no interview. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Pope the Polack goes to the optician for an examination. "I want to make a few tests," says the optician, "so cup your hand and put it over your right eye." NEXTLINE The pope cups his left hand and places it on his forehead. NEXTLINE "No!" says the optician. "Cup your hand and cover your eye." This time the pope cups his right hand and covers his forehead. NEXTLINE In desperation, the optician takes a large paper bag and places it over the pope's head. NEXTLINE Then, he cuts out a hole in the bag over his left eye. Before he can ask the pope to read the chart, he sees his eye is full of tears. The optician immediately cuts a hole in the bag over his right eye, and tears fall from both the pope's eyes. NEXTLINE "For God's sake!" shouts the optician. "Why are you crying?" NEXTLINE "Ah!" sobs Pope the Polack, "I was really hoping for something more stylish." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 10We disown our past26 December 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE ARE IDIOTS BORN OR TRAINED? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Nirupa, it is a complicated question. Almost ninety percent of idiots are trained. Ten percent are born. And the ten percent are born because of those ninety percent who have been trained. NEXTLINE Man from his very beginning has lived a very weird life -- weird in the sense that it needs idiots. If you don't have idiots you will not have wise men; if you don't have the idiots, you will not have the so-called giants of intellect. It is almost a necessity that the category of idiots should remain. NEXTLINE Nobody has looked into the deeper layers of how the society has functioned up to now. But the way it has functioned can only be described as utterly criminal. The society needs categories, hierarchies. It has been up to now a competitive society, and the very idea of competition is dangerous to human beings. You call one man an idiot only in comparison -- in comparison to someone who seems to be intelligent. NEXTLINE A small boy told me -- I was a guest in his house; I was sitting in the garden in the evening and he was the only child of the family. He was not more than six years old. I asked him, "What is your name?" NEXTLINE He said, "As far as my name is concerned, up to now I used to think that my name was `Don't!' Now I have started going to school, and there I discovered that that is not my name." NEXTLINE He is saying something tremendously important. Whatever a child is doing, the adults are there to say, "Don't do it!" Nobody is allowed to blossom according to his own intrinsic nature. And that is the fundamental cause of creating so many idiots in the world. But they are serving a certain purpose. If people were allowed to blossom according to their nature, without any comparison and without any ideals and without enforced discipline, do you think anybody in the whole world would have accepted Adolf Hitler as a leader? Just look at your leaders.... NEXTLINE In America, the average American is sitting glued to his chair in front of the television set. The television has become his whole life. Now television can be used in a dangerous way, and it is being used. Ronald Reagan would not have been able to become the president of America if there were no television. The television has changed the whole structure of the American mind. Now, the leader need not be wise, but he has to be photogenic. Now what has being photogenic to do with being a president? He has to be a good showman, an actor. Ronald Reagan understood the situation. He was a third-rate actor in Hollywood, a cowboy actor. I don't think any society would have chosen him to be the president, but television changed the whole situation. He could act on television and fulfill a new desire in the people that the president should look strong, should look authoritative, should be able to look at least handsome. NEXTLINE And this he learned when Richard Nixon was defeated by Kennedy, because Nixon was not aware that now the contest is not one of intelligence; the whole area of contest has changed. Kennedy looked younger -- well dressed, well spoken, although some ghost writer had written his speeches and he had rehearsed them. With both men on the television screen, the comparison was very simple: Nixon looked lousy, his clothes were not up to date. He had never thought about it, that these things matter. He had not rehearsed what he was going to say. That used to be the way, always -- a more spontaneous person was thought to be more intelligent. To be photogenic is one thing; to encounter the people directly is a totally different thing. NEXTLINE Nixon was defeated and his advisors suggested to him that he would have to change a few things. He had to become a little more photogenic, with a better hairstyle, better clothes. And spontaneous speeches won't do; you will have to rehearse them. There is no need for you to create your own speeches, there are far better writers -- let them write the speech. And the second time, he came on television as a totally different personality. The same Nixon appeared now to be matured, capable, and he was chosen. NEXTLINE When Nixon was chosen as president, Ronald Reagan tried to be the governor of California. And he was immediately chosen, because the other contestants had no idea that you have to be a showman, that you have to be an actor. These have never been the qualities of leaders. Once he was governor, he knew that the presidentship was not far away. And he became the president. NEXTLINE The people who are continuously watching television... and seven and a half hours average per day is not a small amount of time, it is one third of your life. You are being imposed on by ideas, by personalities, continuously repeated. People have forgotten to read; there is no time. In America people read only trashy novels -- that too when they are traveling in the trains or in the airplane. NEXTLINE In America, the beautiful hardbound book has disappeared. Who is going to purchase it? Cheap literature cannot create a Leo Tolstoy, or a Dostoevsky or a Maxim Gorky. In a certain way, television has introduced a new kind of primitiveness, because the primitive man depended only on his eyes -- whatever he saw, that was his only knowledge. NEXTLINE If you look into small things you will be surprised.... Before the fountain pen came into existence, people had beautiful handwriting. Tremendous effort was made to write beautifully, because it was signifying your personality, your intelligence, your aesthetic sense. But the moment the fountain pen came in, beautiful handwriting disappeared. NEXTLINE Right now you still have memories; soon you won't have. Everybody will be carrying his own computer, which can be carried in the pocket and which can contain all the knowledge contained in all the libraries of the world -- you just have to know how to make it function. Man will fall tremendously as far as intelligence is concerned, memory is concerned. Everything that comes into existence brings changes so silently that you don't see them. NEXTLINE The idiots have been an absolute necessity for a few people to proclaim their egos, for a few people to rise high and become Nobel Prize winners. NEXTLINE Just think for a moment -- if everybody were living according to his own nature, not trying to be somebody else, a tremendous intelligence would explode within you. It is something of the fundamental law of life and existence. It is good that flowers don't listen to your teachers and your leaders and your politicians. Otherwise they would say to the roses, "What are you doing? Become a lotus!" Roses are not so foolish. But if, just for the argument's sake, roses start trying to become lotuses, what is going to happen? Two things are certain: there will be no roses, because their whole energy will be involved in becoming lotuses, and the second thing, a rosebush cannot produce a lotus. It is not in the inbuilt program of its seed. NEXTLINE Have you ever come across a tree that you can say is an idiot? Or that it is very intelligent, a great giant, deserves a Nobel Prize? Man has been distracted. Everybody from your parents to your teachers, the school, the college, the university, your religion, your preachers, your neighbors -- everybody is trying to make you somebody else whom you cannot become. You can only become yourself, or you can miss becoming -- just an idiot. NEXTLINE I call this whole history of mankind a long, unjustified crime against every human individual. It has served the vested interests: the people who are in power, the people who are scholars, which is another kind of power, the people who are rich, which is another kind of power. They would not like everybody to be centered in himself because a man centered in himself cannot be exploited, cannot be enslaved, cannot be humiliated, cannot be forced to grow a cancerous sense of guilt. These are the reasons humanity has not been allowed its growth. NEXTLINE In Japan they have very ancient trees, four hundred years old... and they think that it is an art because the tree's height is only six inches and it shows signs of old age. But a special strategy has been used, the same that has been used against humanity. They are rooted in pots, but the pots don't have any bottom. So their roots are continually cut, and if the roots cannot go deep the tree cannot go high. There is a certain balance. The highest tree needs very deep roots to stand; otherwise it will fall. And if you go on cutting the roots, the tree goes on becoming old but it does not grow higher, to its natural intrinsic capacity. I don't consider this an art, it is a crime against poor trees. NEXTLINE But the same crime has been committed against man. Your roots are being continuously cut. And that creates a retarded humanity. NEXTLINE Turgenev has a beautiful story, THE FOOL. A sage comes to a village, and a man comes to him with tears in his eyes and he says, "I don't know how to get out of this suffering. My whole village thinks I am an idiot. If I say something, they immediately condemn me, criticize me. If I don't say anything they laugh and they say, `What can he say? He is an idiot.' I am in such a fix. Hearing that you are a sage I have come for some advice." NEXTLINE The sage said, "Don't be worried. A very simple technique will change the whole situation within a month. And after one month I am coming back again on the same route, so I will be able to see whether the change has happened or not." And he gave a very simple technique to the man. NEXTLINE The technique was, "Don't make any statement on your own. Just wait for somebody else to make the statement. Somebody says, `How beautiful is the sunset!' That is the point -- immediately jump and ask him, `What is beautiful in it? Define it! Explain! Do you know what beauty is? And if you don't know what beauty is, how can you say that the sunset is beautiful? Before anything can be called beautiful, beauty has to be defined.'" NEXTLINE But even the greatest poets, philosophers -- particularly those philosophers like Croce who have been dedicated to a single object, aesthetics -- have not been able to define what is beauty. Although everybody knows... but to know is not enough. NEXTLINE Everybody knows what is good, but if the question is raised... define it! And one English philosopher, perhaps one of the most intelligent Englishmen of this century, G.E. Moore, has written a book, PRINCIPIA ETHICA. The whole book is devoted to a single question: what is good? And in two hundred and fifty pages of very arduous, very subtle, logical argumentation, the concluding remark is that good is indefinable. NEXTLINE Naturally, when after one month the sage came back, the idiot had already become the wisest man in the village, because he had stopped everybody. You say something and he would criticize it and ask for fundamental definitions. You could say a woman is beautiful and he would ask, "What is beautiful in that woman? Bones? A long nose? Stinking perspiration? What do you consider beauty?" There was no way to answer, and when people saw that they could not answer, they immediately started thinking that the man had been absolutely misunderstood. "He is not an idiot, he is a great thinker, a wise man, more intelligent than anybody else." NEXTLINE The sage was very happy; he said, "Are you happy now?" NEXTLINE The man said, "I am absolutely happy." NEXTLINE The sage said, "Remember always, never make a statement on your own. Just wait; somebody is going to say something -- criticize. Somebody talks about God -- criticize, ask for the evidence, ask for proofs. And there are no proofs and no evidence. Just remember one thing: never make a statement on your own; otherwise they will immediately jump on you and you will be an idiot again." NEXTLINE From the very childhood, everybody is condemned -- whatever he says, whatever he does, it is never right. Naturally he becomes afraid of saying anything, of doing anything on his own. He is appreciated if he is obedient, he is appreciated if he follows the rules and the regulations made by others. Everybody appreciates him. This is the strategy: condemn the man if he is trying to stand on his own feet and appreciate the man if he is just an imitator. Naturally his inner seed, his potentiality, will never have a chance to grow. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I am reminded of my own childhood. The thing has become so ancient that nobody even questions it.... If I was sitting silently, somebody -- and in India there are still big families, joint families; in my family there were at least fifty people -- somebody was bound to come by and ask, "Why are you sitting silently?" Strange, I cannot sit silently, and if I make noise and jump around the house... "Are you mad? Why are you jumping around the house?" Seeing the situation I decided that it would be better to begin the fight from the very beginning. Because once you get caught with these people it will be very difficult to come out of the crowd. NEXTLINE My father was very much amazed; he said, "You never answer the question. On the contrary, you ask another question." NEXTLINE I said, "I have figured it out: When I am sitting silently and you ask, `Why are you sitting silently?' I will not answer. I will ask, `Why should I not sit silently? You have to answer. You are a grown-up man, experienced -- I am just a child. You answer me -- why should I not sit silently?'" The whole family by and by understood... "You cannot get any statement from this boy. He immediately turns the question around and you are in trouble." They stopped asking me anything. NEXTLINE The situation came to the point that I might be sitting, and my mother would say, "I don't see anybody in the house" -- and I was sitting in front of her! "I need vegetables; somebody should go and fetch vegetables." NEXTLINE I would say, "If I come to see somebody, I will inform you." I was taken as almost absent. And I proved it -- because unless you prove it, it is very difficult. In the beginning they used to send me: "Go to the market. It is the season of beautiful mangoes -- bring mangoes." NEXTLINE I would go to the shop with the worst mangoes and ask, "Just give me the worst ones and charge me for the best ones." NEXTLINE Even those shopkeepers were amazed -- "What kind of customer are you?" NEXTLINE I said, "What kind of customer? You have seen many customers... I am a unique customer." NEXTLINE And the man was perfectly happy to give me the rotten and charge the price for the best. I would come home and give those rotten mangoes and say, "These are the best, and I have paid for them." And they were stinking. My mother would say, "Just throw them out!" NEXTLINE I said, "Why throw them out? There is a beggar woman, I can go and give them to her." Even the beggar woman would not accept them. She would say, "Never come to me, because whenever you come you bring something rotten. Throw them to the dogs." NEXTLINE And I was very much surprised that even dogs were afraid of me. If I would throw something towards them, they would escape! NEXTLINE Slowly they settled that "It is better to let him be, whatever he is. One thing is certain, that he is going to be nobody special in life." NEXTLINE They were right. I have proved their prophecy. NEXTLINE I am nobody special in life. NEXTLINE But who cares about being special? I am myself and that's enough, more than enough. Each moment of my life I had to struggle to protect myself; otherwise everybody is ready to cut your roots. NEXTLINE In the schools, in the colleges, in the universities, I was expelled so many times. From the very first day I entered my high school... and the first period was history. The man, the teacher -- very senior, very experienced -- started talking about history. I said to him, "Please wait for one moment. Have you made any history?" NEXTLINE He said, "What kind of question is this? I teach history." NEXTLINE I said, "I have not come to learn about idiots like Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadirshah. If you can teach me how to create history, only then I can be your student. But you don't have any idea how to create history. You are simply a parrot repeating all kinds of rubbish -- which is not to be repeated to children, because it will get stuck in their minds. You are an enemy." NEXTLINE He said, "This is strange. I cannot tolerate your presence in my class." NEXTLINE I said, "You will not have it -- I will stand outside the class, which is not your domain, and from the window I will create as much trouble as possible." NEXTLINE He came out, tried to persuade me, "Join some other subject. Why harass me? I am an old man. Can't you find somebody else?" NEXTLINE I said, "This is not the first time. When I went to the geography class the same thing happened. What concern have I to know where Constantinople is? And why should I bother about it? If you cannot teach something sensible, at least sit silently and let everybody else also sit silently." NEXTLINE The geography teacher said, "Then who is going to give the examination?" NEXTLINE I said, "The examination about what?" NEXTLINE He immediately took me to the principal and said, "I cannot accept this student." NEXTLINE The principal was very much in difficulty. He said, "No teacher is ready to accept you. Where should I send you?" NEXTLINE I said, "You are not doing much, just sitting in your principal's office. I can also sit here and if you have something sensible to say, you can say it. Or if I happen to discover something sensible, I will say it. Otherwise, silence is perfectly good." NEXTLINE The principal said, "Have you come here to learn something?" NEXTLINE I said, "No, I have come here to be myself. If you teach me and help me and support me and nourish me to be myself, then I can remain in this school; otherwise I will find some other school." NEXTLINE But that went on.... In colleges I was expelled and the principals said to me, "We feel guilty for expelling you, because you have not done anything wrong. But you are a little strange." NEXTLINE The first college I entered, I wanted to learn logic. And the old professor, with many honorary degrees, with many books published in his name, started talking about the father of Western logic, Aristotle. NEXTLINE I said, "Wait a minute. Do you know that Aristotle writes in his book that women have less teeth than men?" NEXTLINE He said, "My God, what kind of question is this? What has it to do with logic?" NEXTLINE I said, "It has something very fundamental to do with the whole process of logic. Are you aware that Aristotle had two wives?" NEXTLINE He said, "I don't know... from where are you getting these facts?" NEXTLINE But in Greece it was traditionally known for centuries that women were bound to have everything less than men. Naturally, they couldn't have the same number of teeth as men. NEXTLINE I said, "And you call this man Aristotle the father of logic? He could have at least counted -- and he had two wives available, but he did not count. His statement is illogical. He has simply taken it from the tradition, and I cannot trust in a man who has two wives and writes that women have less teeth than men. This is a male chauvinistic attitude. A logician has to be beyond prejudices." NEXTLINE Seeing the situation, the professor threatened the principal that either I should be expelled from the college or he was going to resign. And he stopped coming to the college. He said, "I will wait three days." NEXTLINE The principal could not lose an experienced professor. He called me into his office to say, "There has never been any trouble with that man, he is a very nice man. Just on the first day... what have you done?" NEXTLINE I told him the whole story and I said, "Do you think it deserves expulsion from college? I was asking absolutely relevant questions, and if a professor of logic cannot answer, who is going to answer?" NEXTLINE The principal was a good man. He said, "I will not expel you, because I don't see that you have done anything wrong. But I cannot afford to lose the professor either, so I will make arrangements for you in another college." NEXTLINE But the rumor about me had spread in all the colleges. The city I was in had almost twenty colleges and finally it became a very prestigious university just by combining those twenty colleges. He sent me to another principal with a letter of recommendation, but he must have phoned him to say, "Don't believe in the letter of recommendation. I had to write it because I have to get rid of that student. He is not wrong, but he is absolutely individualistic and that is going to create trouble." NEXTLINE I went to see the other principal, and he was waiting. He said, "I can admit you only on one condition: that you will never attend the college." NEXTLINE I said, "Then what is going to happen when it is time for my examination?" NEXTLINE He said, "I will give you the necessary percentage for being present in the college, but this is a secret pact between me and you." NEXTLINE I said, "It is perfectly good -- anyway your professors are out of date. But can I enter the library?" NEXTLINE He said, "The library is perfectly okay, but never attend any class because I don't want to hear from any professor the complaint that you are creating trouble." NEXTLINE And I have never created any trouble! I was simply asking questions which... if they were really gentlemen they would have said, "I will find out. For the time being, I don't know." NEXTLINE But this is the most difficult thing in the world to say, "I don't know." NEXTLINE As I approached the university, strangely enough, my first encounter was with the vice-chancellor. He was speaking -- a series on Gautam Buddha -- it was the first day, and he said, "I always feel a sadness in me that I was not born in the times of Gautam Buddha; otherwise I would have gone to him and sat at his feet." And he was an old man. He had been the head of the history department at Oxford. Retired from there, he was chosen to be the vice-chancellor of this university. NEXTLINE I stood up and I said, "You will have to consider again." NEXTLINE He said, "What do you mean?" NEXTLINE I said, "In your own time, there have been J. Krishnamurti, Sri Aurobindo, Raman Maharshi... Can I ask, have you gone and learned anything from these people? And if you have not gone to these people, on what authority are you saying that you feel a certain sadness that you were not born in the times of Buddha? I can say with an absolute guarantee: you would not have gone to Gautam Buddha either." NEXTLINE In the auditorium there was utter silence. NEXTLINE But the vice-chancellor was certainly a gentleman. He said, "I understand your point and I take my words back. I know Sri Aurobindo, but I have never gone to him. I know Raman Maharshi and I have not gone to him. I know J. Krishnamurti, but I have not gone to him. You are right. You see me afterwards..." NEXTLINE I went to see him. He said, "It was perfectly good that you encountered me, but don't do this thing to any other professor because people are not courageous enough to accept their ignorance. They don't have guts to say, `I don't know.' As far as I am concerned, I am immensely grateful to you because it must have been an unconscious thing in me. I was not lying, I was just feeling that when Gautam Buddha was alive I would have gone to be showered by his blessings, by his presence. But you have put me right. I would not have gone." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE It is very difficult to find human beings in society who will allow you the freedom to be yourself. That has created a retardedness all over the world. NEXTLINE Nations need idiots -- otherwise, who is going to fight the wars? The world needs idiots -- otherwise, how are people going to become richer and richer on the labor, on the blood of others? This civilization needs as many unintelligent people as possible -- otherwise, who is going to be a Catholic, who is going to be a Protestant, who is going to be a Hindu, who is going to be a Mohammedan? NEXTLINE The whole structure of the society has been managed in such a way that very few people exploit millions of people. And they have given consolations to those who have been exploited: "It is because of your past life's evil acts." You don't know anything about your past life; now this is a good consolation -- "What can I do?" Or they say, "This is a fire test of your faith in God. Be contented as you are and you will be rewarded a thousandfold beyond death." Either religions have taken refuge in the past... Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism; they are all past-oriented. Or the other three religions -- Christianity, Mohammedanism, Judaism -- have taken refuge beyond death. NEXTLINE There is not much difference. All that is happening is happening in life and they are postponing it. Either before birth or after death, the strategy is the same. The whole point is that you should allow people to exploit you, you should allow people to drink your blood, with the deep contentment that "this is how things are." NEXTLINE I want to say to you very emphatically that all these religions have played into the hands of the vested interests. All your priests are nothing but in the service of your politicians. NEXTLINE The whole history of mankind has been a disaster. And unless we start revolting as individuals, dropping all nationalities, all religions, all races, and declare that this whole globe belongs to us and all the lines of the map are bogus and false; unless individuals start changing the whole educational system... NEXTLINE The educational system should teach you the art of living, it should teach you the art of loving, it should teach you the art of meditation, it should teach you finally the art of dying gloriously. Your education system is not educational. It only creates clerks, stationmasters, postmen, soldiers, and you call it education. You have been deceived. But the deception has been going on so long that you have completely forgotten. And you are still going on in the same old rut. NEXTLINE I raise my hand against the whole past of mankind. It has not been civilized, it has not been human. It has not been in any way helpful for people to blossom; it has not been a spring. NEXTLINE It has been a calamity, a crime committed on such a vast scale... But somebody has to stand against it, and somebody has to make the point: We disown our past. And we will start living according to our own inner being and create our own future. We will not allow the past to create our future. NEXTLINE Nirupa... NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Hymie Goldberg buys himself a fancy pair of Italian shoes in a Beverly Hills boutique, and wears them home to show them off to Becky. NEXTLINE Becky does not appear even to notice the new shoes, so Hymie waits until she is in bed and then walks in, stark naked except for the shoes. NEXTLINE Posing, he exclaims, "It is about time you paid some attention to what my prick is pointing at!" NEXTLINE Looking down at the shoes, Becky replies, "It is too bad you didn't buy a hat!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE In the middle of his sermon the priest stops, sniffs the air, and then holding his nose, calls the head usher to the front. NEXTLINE "Please go through the church," says the priest, "and see if some stray dog stole in, stooled, and then stole out again." NEXTLINE The usher immediately begins his inspection and after some minutes comes back to make his report. NEXTLINE "No, Father," he says, "I did not see where some stray dog stole in, stooled, and stole out again. But I did see some very positive signs where some creeping cat crept into the crypt, crapped, and crept out again." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I would like you to accept only one prayer, and that is laughter, because when you are totally laughing you are in the present. You cannot laugh in the future and you cannot laugh in the past. All those people who have created this retarded humanity have taken away all juice, all laughter, all smiles, and dragged everybody into being inauthentic. And if you are inauthentic, insincere, you can never grow the seed that has been given to you by this great compassionate universe. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE An unshaven, dirty, bedraggled panhandler, with bloodshot eyes and teeth half gone, asks Paddy for a dime. NEXTLINE "Do you drink, smoke, or gamble?" asks Paddy. NEXTLINE "Mister," says the bum, "I don't touch a drop, or smoke the filthy weed, or bother with evil gambling." NEXTLINE "Okay," says Paddy, "if you will come home with me I will give you a dollar." NEXTLINE As they enter the house, Maureen takes Paddy aside and hisses, "How dare you bring that terrible looking specimen into our home!?" NEXTLINE "Darling," says Paddy, "I just wanted you to see what a man looks like who doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, and doesn't gamble." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Life should be not a serious thing. It should be a deep playfulness, a fun. And every individual should be allowed absolute freedom to be himself. The only restriction will be that you cannot interfere in another individual's life sphere -- it may be your wife, it may be your husband, it may be your child, it does not matter. A tremendous respect for the individual is to me the essential core of being truly religious. Be yourself and let others be themselves and this life, this planet, can become the lotus paradise herenow. NEXTLINE But something has to be done and done very soon, because all those idiots are preparing for a global suicide. Unless you revolt against the past, and the whole heritage of the past, you cannot save humanity, these beautiful trees, these birds singing, this small planet which has just developed to the stage of being conscious. Scientists guess that there may be millions of other planets in the universe, but there is not even a single piece of evidence yet... NEXTLINE The only evidence of life growing to this stage of consciousness -- of love, of silence, of experiencing the cosmos -- has happened on this small earth. At any cost, this earth and the people of this earth have to be saved from the calamity that is coming from your whole past. NEXTLINE An absolute discontinuity is needed; all history books should be burnt. The whole educational system should be centered on playfulness, on love, on freedom, on consciousness, and a tremendous respect for everything that is alive. This is my vision. NEXTLINE The time is very short. Those idiots have been working for thousands of years and they have come to a point where they are capable of destroying this earth seven times. So much destructive force is accumulating that unless a few individuals gather courage and revolt against all that is past... I am not telling you to choose, to choose that which is good and leave that which is bad. They are altogether; you cannot do that. The past has to be simply erased, as if we are for the first time on the earth and there has been no history. That is the only possibility to create a beautiful world full of love, full of fragrance, with deep respect for everybody. The past has lived centered on hate. The future can live only if it is centered on love. The past has been unconscious. The future can only be conscious. NEXTLINE To many this may seem almost an impossible dream. But remember, whatever you are is not because of the politicians, is not because of the priests. Whatever you are, if some flame is still alive in you it is because of the poets, the dreamers, the mystics. NEXTLINE We can either die with the past or we can be reborn with a new future. NEXTLINE Revolutions have failed; hence I talk about revolt. Revolution means a crowd, a class, fighting against the ruling class. But they have failed because of an intrinsic necessity: if you fight with the ruling class you will have to use the same means to fight, and the moment you are in power you will start doing the same nasty things to humanity as your predecessors. NEXTLINE Revolt has a beauty because it is individual. And there is nothing to fight with -- one has simply to throw the whole past from one's consciousness. Clean yourself and become Adam and Eve again. Disobey God again. Only then is there a possibility for this vision to become a reality. NEXTLINE Don't be concerned about the whole world. If we can create the idea of revolt in a small minority in the world, that will do. A single seed can make the whole earth green, and a single man in revolt can create a totally new world, a totally new humanity. NEXTLINE I am not in favor of any organized revolution because all organizations basically destroy the individual. I am in favor of the individual and his dignity. There is nobody above the individual. We have to take this tremendous quantum leap, from organized living to individual flowering. It is possible. If it is possible for me -- because I don't belong to any religion and I don't belong to any nation and I don't belong to any kind of organization -- it is possible for you too. And if this fire of individuality spreads, it can become a wildfire, because deep down every individual is suffering. He wants to revolt against all that has been repressed, all that has been imposed on him. NEXTLINE You will not find a better moment. This century is coming to its end -- one thing is certain, the old world cannot continue to live. All the prophets have been declaring the end of the world with the year 2000. None of them has said a single word about what happens beyond this century. NEXTLINE I want it to be clear to you, to my people around the earth, that the old world does not mean the planet. The old world means the old structure of humanity -- it is going to die. But if we can save a few individuals, a new beginning is very close. Rather than being concerned with the old, rejoice for the new. NEXTLINE As far as I am concerned, I am absolutely certain that in moments of crisis -- and this is the greatest crisis man has ever faced -- people gather courage and take a quantum leap into something absolutely unknown. You are here from different lands, from different races, from different organizations; you will be spreading all over the world. NEXTLINE You are going to be my ambassadors. NEXTLINE They can prevent me from entering their countries, but they cannot prevent my ambassadors. So I am going to declare soon, in all the countries, my ambassadors -- propagating the birth of a new man and a new world. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 11The very nature of things26 December 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE IS ENLIGHTENMENT BEYOND THE NATURE OF THINGS? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Milarepa, enlightenment is the very nature of things. But it has never been said that way; on the contrary, people's minds have been corrupted by creating a goal against nature, giving it beautiful names, "supernature." And man was caught in this because of a very simple reason: NEXTLINE The nature of things is already where you are. NEXTLINE It is not an excitement and it is not a challenge and it does not call on you to prove your ego. It is not a faraway star. Mind wants for its nourishment something very difficult, something almost impossible. Only if you can achieve the impossible can you feel you are somebody special. NEXTLINE Enlightenment is not a talent. It is not like somebody being born a painter or a poet or a scientist -- those are talents. Enlightenment is simply everybody's very source of life. You have not even to go out of your house to look for it. To go out of your house to look for it, you have missed it, and nobody knows when you will be able to come back home. NEXTLINE Enlightenment is nothing but realizing the fact that "I am that which I have always wanted to be, and I have never been anything else and I cannot be anything else, ever." The very definition of nature is that you cannot go beyond it. You can make the effort and create misery, anxiety, anguish, but you cannot go beyond it. NEXTLINE It is you. NEXTLINE How can you go beyond yourself? NEXTLINE It is your very life source, your very existence. Wherever you will go, you will be it. NEXTLINE There have been records of people whose first experience of themselves was just a belly laughter. Seeing the absurdity of what they were trying to do... they were trying to be themselves! That is the only impossible thing in the world, because you are already it -- how can you try to be it? NEXTLINE But the priests, so-called religious leaders, and all those who have wanted you to be enslaved have given you ideals. They have told you, "Unless you behave in a certain way, you are wrong." Unless you do the things that they prescribe, you are not good. NEXTLINE Nobody ever asked these people, "Who has given you the authority to decide for others? If you think something is good, do it, but you have no right to tell anybody else to follow you." NEXTLINE The great corrupters, the great poisoners are the people who have created following, because following simply means you are being put into an absurdity against yourself: you are being told that you have to be somebody else that you can never be. This has created the whole world of tremendous misery. NEXTLINE Unless we see the roots, this misery cannot disappear. We can go on increasing our gadgets, our technology, but the misery continues. It is not that only the poor man is miserable; my own experience is that the poor man is less miserable than the rich man -- the poor man at least has a hope. The rich man is living hopelessly. Now he knows that he has done all he could, and his life is as empty as ever -- perhaps more empty. And death is coming closer; life is becoming every moment shorter and he has wasted it in accumulating money, power, prestige. He has wasted his life in being a saint, praying before man-manufactured gods. NEXTLINE And all this has been done so that you can never simply be just yourself. NEXTLINE I teach you only a simple morality, and that is: never go against your nature. Even if all the buddhas of all the ages are standing against it, don't pay any attention. They have nothing to do with you. They did what they felt was right for them, you have to do what you feel is right for yourself. And what is right? It cannot be defined by any scripture. It cannot be defined by any outer criterion. NEXTLINE There is an intrinsic criterion to be understood: NEXTLINE That which makes you happier is good. NEXTLINE That which makes you blissful is the only morality. That which makes you miserable is the only sin. That which takes you away from yourself is the only thing to be avoided. NEXTLINE Just rejoice in yourself and you are enlightened. You have always been enlightened, there is no way to be unenlightened. NEXTLINE I have tried in many ways, but I have to concede to you that I have failed: I could not become unenlightened. In whatever position, doing whatever kinds of things, I was surprised: whether I go north or I go south, I remain enlightened! NEXTLINE NEXTLINE In Japan, they have a very beautiful doll... perhaps they are the people who make the most beautiful dolls. And this doll is no ordinary doll. In Japan its name is daruma, but it is the Japanese distortion of the name of Bodhidharma -- the doll is made according to Bodhidharma's insight. NEXTLINE The doll is heavy in the legs and very light towards the head. So you can throw it anywhere you like, but it always gets into the lotus posture. You cannot do anything to it. People may have forgotten; it has become just a doll for children to play with. But it represents what I am saying and what Bodhidharma was saying, that there is no way for you to be unenlightened. NEXTLINE Who has put this idea in your mind that you have to become enlightened? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Miss Prim, the elderly spinster, is giving an introductory talk at the girl's college. "Now, girls," she says, "whenever you go out, remember: no smoking in the streets, no bad conduct in public and when the men bother you, ask yourself: Is an hour's pleasure worth a lifetime of disgrace? Now, girls, are there any questions?" NEXTLINE A voice from the back of the hall cries, "How do you make it last an hour?" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE There are people around you driving you crazy. Otherwise everything is perfectly as it should be. This is the most perfect world, nothing is missing. But a few crackpots cannot sit at ease unless they drive a few other people into running after shadows which can never be realized. NEXTLINE And the more they feel they cannot be realized, the more meaninglessness, the more hopelessness, the more the feeling of utter emptiness... and a sadness settles and becomes thicker as time passes by. NEXTLINE Never accept any criterion that makes you miserable. Never accept any morality that makes you feel guilty. Never accept anything that is trying to enforce something upon you against your simple nature. NEXTLINE Just be yourself and you are perfect. NEXTLINE Move away from yourself and you are in for great trouble. Everybody is in trouble. My own experience of coming in contact with thousands of people is that I have never seen a man who is really miserable. On the contrary -- I have seen people enjoying their misery, exaggerating their misery. One feels immensely compassionate that people who could have blossomed into beautiful flowers are shrunken. They have lost the way to their own home, and everybody is trying to help them to go somewhere else -- "become a Buddha, become a Jesus, become a Moses." But nobody ever says to you, "Just be yourself." NEXTLINE What connection exists between you and Moses? What are the ties between you and Jesus Christ? But people are worshipping, praying, hoping that some day they will become the ideals of their imagination. Naturally they are always failures. You are a roseflower and you are going to be a roseflower. Let the whole world condemn or appreciate -- it does not matter. NEXTLINE Once a man takes this stand that "I am going to assert myself" -- it has nothing to do with ego, it is simply protecting yourself against a criminal world, corrupted for thousands of years. You have every right to protect yourself, not to be poisoned. And there will not be any need in you for any god, for any religion, for any moral code, for any methodology, for any effort to become enlightened. Just being natural is more than you can ever imagine. NEXTLINE Except man, the whole of existence is enlightened. Nobody is trying for anything else; everybody is at ease, at home with the universe. NEXTLINE One of the great scientists, Julian Huxley, has a certain hypothesis -- there is no way to prove it, but it seems to have certain significance. After his whole life's research he concludes that, "It seems something has gone wrong in the very mechanism of man. Because no tree seems to be in anxiety, no animal commits suicide in the wild, no animal becomes a homosexual in the wild." But something strange happens in the zoos. When animals are kept in a zoo, they start getting some great qualities of your humanity: they become homosexuals. Animals have even been found to commit suicide in zoos. They become perverted, they start doing things which none of their ancestors have ever done, in millennia. What happens in the zoo? They become part of the human society. They start imitating human beings. They become distorted, they become unnatural. NEXTLINE As far as I am concerned, except man, the whole existence is perfectly healthy, perfectly at ease. Julian Huxley's idea has some pragmatic value. It may not be possible to prove what has gone wrong, because man is a very complex mechanism. But something certainly has gone wrong. NEXTLINE In my vision, it is not something hereditary that has gone wrong. It is something that happens to every child again and again, because every child is born in a society which is not sane. And he has to learn the ways of the people who are insane. By the time he is capable of some intelligence, he is already poisoned. It is already too late, he has become an imitator. NEXTLINE Children are innocent. They come into the world without any idea of what is going to happen. Naturally, finding themselves surrounded by people, they start imitating them. That is their way of learning. But in this very process of imitation and learning happens the great mistake which Julian Huxley thinks is genetic. It is not genetic, it is cultural. It is because of the grown-ups. The child has no other way; he has to learn from people who are sick. And these sick people will not tolerate anybody who is not sick. NEXTLINE Anybody who is healthy, anybody who is sane is going to be hated, is going to be poisoned, is going to be stoned to death, because the crowd has to choose between two things: either the single individual is right -- then the whole crowd and its whole history is wrong. Or if the whole crowd and its long past, which it calls its "golden past," is right, then this man has to be erased; otherwise it is a constant question mark. NEXTLINE It is not without reason that Socrates is poisoned. Socrates is intolerable. His very presence hurts you because his height, his intelligence, his honesty, all prove you to be hypocrites. Certainly the crowd is not willing to accept a single man's standard against the whole history of mankind. It is better to destroy this man, to get rid of this man. He is a constant nagging; he is telling you that you are dishonest, that you are living in lies, that your gods are false, that your hopes are nothing but consolations, that you are trying to hide your nudity. NEXTLINE You know perfectly well that behind your clothes, you are a totally different person. These people are reminders, and it hurts to be reminded of your dishonesty to yourself. It hurts to know that your love is not love but jealousy; it is a diluted form of hate. It hurts to know that your gods are absolutely bogus, your own creation; your holy scriptures are as unholy as a book can be. The easier thing seems to be to remove any man like Socrates and be at ease with your misery and again start making efforts to become enlightened. NEXTLINE It is a very strange situation. Whenever somebody is natural and is enlightened, you destroy him and then you try to find out how to become enlightened. Perhaps your quest of how to become enlightened is nothing but a cunning strategy to postpone enlightenment. NEXTLINE In fact, even to say postponement is not right. You are enlightened and you are trying not to be enlightened. Your whole effort of being a Catholic, being a Protestant, being a Hindu, being a Mohammedan, is nothing but a device not to recognize your enlightenment. NEXTLINE When Socrates was poisoned, Athens was a city state, a direct democracy. Every citizen except the slaves had the right to vote and every decision had to be made by the whole city. The chief justice who was going to decide whether the majority of Athenians were in favor of poisoning Socrates or in favor of saving him, was very much puzzled. He must have been a man of some intelligence. He saw that Socrates was a simple, innocent, almost childlike person. He had not committed any crime, he had not done any harm to anybody. And that's what Socrates had appealed to the court -- "Just tell me, what is my crime?" NEXTLINE There was no crime, there was no charge against him. The chief justice whispered in his ear that "Your crime is that you are a natural being. I cannot say it aloud, because I know if they cannot forgive you, they cannot forgive me either. But I have immense respect for your innocence and I don't want a man like you to be destroyed. You are an exception, but you prove the rule that every man can be so innocent and so sincere and so alive and so joyous. I give you three alternatives.... NEXTLINE "First is that Athens is a city state; its laws are not applicable outside the boundary of the city. The simple thing is for you to move outside the city. You can open your school, your academy, and those who love you will be coming there. And I know for certain that the younger generation is immensely impressed by you. It is the older generation..." NEXTLINE But in the past, the older generation was always the majority, because out of ten children, nine used to die within two years after their birth. Now the situation has reversed: out of ten children only one child dies, nine go on living. It is for the first time that young people are the majority in the world. Never in the past were the young people in the majority. They were always a minority group. NEXTLINE The chief justice said, "You simply move out of the city." Socrates said, "That will be cowardly. As far as death is concerned, it is going to come sooner or later. I am already old enough. But I don't want the future generations to remember that Socrates moved out of Athens because of the fear of death. Please forgive me, I cannot go out of Athens." NEXTLINE The chief justice said, "Then the second simple thing will be that you stop teaching. Live in Athens, but don't talk about your truth. And don't talk about people being sincere and authentic." NEXTLINE Socrates said, "You are asking me to do things which I cannot do. What is the purpose of my living if I cannot blossom into my absolute potential? When a tree blossoms, flowers are bound to be there and the fragrance is going to reach those who are receptive. I will continue to speak and I will continue to talk about truth and I will continue to provoke people to be natural and not to become hypocrites according to the so-called religions." NEXTLINE The chief justice said, "Then I am helpless. Then the third alternative is that you have to accept poison. Because the majority, although they have no evidence against you, simply say that your very presence is corruptive. Your very presence is destroying the youth; your very presence is taking the youth away from the old path trodden by the ancients. Your presence is making individuals assertive, giving them courage to be free and to stand alone even if it comes to be against the whole society." NEXTLINE Socrates said, "There is no problem about poison. That I can accept. I am dying for a beautiful cause. I lived in absolute glory and I am dying with a crescendo." NEXTLINE And while he was lying in the bed and the poison was being prepared, the man -- who had prepared poison for many other prisoners -- was trying to delay, because he also felt, "The man is absolutely innocent. If I can give him a few minutes more to live... I am a poor man, I cannot do anything more." So he was preparing the poison as slowly as possible. NEXTLINE But Socrates would come to the door and say to the man, "You are not being sincere, you are cheating. The orders are that as the sun sets, the poison should be given to me. And the sun has set and you have not prepared the poison. I feel you are trying to give me a few more minutes, but there is no point. I am ready to go into the unknown. Life I have known enough. Don't delay; let me go into the unknown mysteries of death." NEXTLINE He was one of the most sincere men in the sense that he never said anything about what happens beyond death. He always said, "First let me die. Unless I know, I cannot say anything about beyond death. Those who have said something are all lying, deceiving, cheating, because they are still alive and they don't know anything about death. Don't force me to be in the same company. I will say only that which is my experience." NEXTLINE He told the man who was preparing the poison, "Be quick, because my disciples are waiting. Perhaps I can give them a few indications about death as it is experienced." The poison was given -- and this is when Socrates comes into his purest awareness. He said to his disciples, "Up to my knees, I don't feel." He pinched and he said, "Up to my knees, the poison has worked. But one thing you should remember: the knees are gone, but I am as complete and entire as I have been before. Nothing has been taken away from me." And then the whole legs, and then the hands... and then the breathing started slowing. And Socrates said, "Perhaps I may not be able to say anything more. I want you to know that almost my whole body is dead. Just the last few breaths more... and I will be gone. But I am as entire and as total and as whole as I have ever been. My awareness is crystal clear." NEXTLINE This shows the sincerity of the man. Only such a man can say that your sources of life belong to eternity, they don't die with your bodies. They only change houses. You have been here always, and you will be here always. You are part, an essential part, inseparable part of this immensely beautiful dancing existence. NEXTLINE Just be natural so that you can remain in tune with existence. So that you can dance in the rain and you can dance in the sun and you can dance with the trees, and you can have a communion even with the rocks, with the mountains, with the stars. NEXTLINE Except this, there is no enlightenment. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Let me define it: Enlightenment is to be in tune with existence. NEXTLINE To be in tune with nature -- the very nature of things -- is enlightenment. Against nature there is only misery -- and misery created by yourself. Nobody else is responsible for it. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Two Irish leprechauns arrive at the convent door and ask to speak to the Mother Superior. They are led to her office, where one of them respectfully asks, "Excuse me, your holiness, but are there any leprechaun nuns at this convent?" NEXTLINE The Mother Superior looks shocked and assures him that there are not. The little guy then asks if there are any leprechaun nuns in the neighborhood. Again the reply is no. NEXTLINE The leprechaun then asks, "Begging your pardon, Holy Mother, but would you know of any leprechaun nuns anywhere?" NEXTLINE The nun shakes her head, at which the little man turns and shakes his friend by the shoulders. "You see! You see!" he cries, "I told you, you fucked a penguin!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE This is prayer time. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Old man Finkelstein tells Ruthie that he is going into town to apply for an old age pension. Ruthie says, "Sam, you don't have a birth certificate; how are you going to prove your age?" NEXTLINE "Don't worry Ruthie," says old man Fink and he leaves for town. NEXTLINE Sure enough, he is back in a few hours and reports that he will get his first check on Monday. "So how did you prove your age?" asks Ruthie. NEXTLINE "Easy," says Fink, smiling, "I just unbuttoned my shirt and showed them all the gray hairs on my chest." NEXTLINE "Well, while you were at it," snaps Ruthie, "why didn't you drop your pants and apply for total disability?" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE At a doctor's convention, a conversation is taking place in the pub at the end of the day's activities. NEXTLINE An Israeli doctor says, "Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take an eyeball out of one person and put it in another and have him looking for work in six weeks." NEXTLINE A German doctor says, "Ja, that's nothing. In Germany, we can take a lung out of one person and put it in someone else and have him looking for work in a month." NEXTLINE A Russian doctor says, "In my country, medicine is so advanced that we can take half a heart from one person, put it in another, and have them both looking for work in two weeks." NEXTLINE An American doctor, not wanting to be outdone, says, "That's nothing. We can take an asshole out of Hollywood, put him in the White House, and have half the nation looking for work the next day!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 12Existence has its own ways27 December 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE I CAN RELATE TO THE TASTE OF GOOD GERMAN CHOCOLATE, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TASTE OF ENLIGHTENMENT? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Devageet, mind has an incurable disease: the name of the disease is duality. It does not matter what the mind is focused on, it immediately creates a division -- in the knower and in the known, in the observer and in the observed, in the subject and in the object; in short, between I and thou. NEXTLINE One of the most prominent thinkers of the twentieth century was Martin Buber, and his contribution is of great importance. His whole philosophy he has condensed into a book called I AND THOU. And he has given the philosophy the name, "dialogue." NEXTLINE As far as the mind is concerned, what he is saying is true and relevant. But mind is not the ultimate judge of existence. I had written a letter to Martin Buber when he was alive. I was very young, but I pointed out to him that a real dialogue is not between I and thou, the real dialogue begins when the I and the thou start merging and melting. The dialogue can even be silent, but its basic requirement is that the division should not be there. He did not reply. I wrote him again and I told him, "Your not replying to me shows that you yourself are not convinced of what you are saying." NEXTLINE You are asking, what is the taste of enlightenment? There is no taste, because you are alone. At the most, in language we can say there is a certain sensitivity, a fragrance, but it is not separate from you. It is you yourself. The taste and the taster need to be separate, and in enlightenment the only barrier is separation. NEXTLINE Just the other day I received, from the same insane Catholic man from the staff of TIME magazine, another question: "You teach love, you teach compassion; then why did the people of Oregon in America become enemies to you?" I don't ordinarily reply to people if I see that they are basically insane, and the question shows insanity absolutely clearly. If he were intelligent enough, first he should have asked, "Jesus has also preached love, has preached compassion, has preached forgiveness -- then why was he crucified by the Jews?" If his question were relevant and had not come from a Catholic prejudice, he would have seen the contradiction. And certainly the people of Oregon have not crucified me yet. NEXTLINE Moreover, I was only a tourist in America. Jesus was a Jew, belonged to the same people, was born amongst them, was brought up by them. And whatever he was saying was not contradictory to the Jewish scriptures. In fact, he was trying to argue for the Jewish tradition; still the people of Judea crucified him. And this fellow, after two thousand years, has the guts to ask me, "If you teach love, if you teach compassion, then why were the people of Oregon not friendly to you?" The fact is that we have lived a past so insane, so insecure, that we are afraid of strangers. And America could not find a stranger man than me. I was not part of their world, I did not believe in their values. I was really making a commune absolutely against all American tradition and pride. NEXTLINE I am basically against marriage; obviously the question of divorce does not arise. I am against the accidental birth of people, because that is the basic cause for the earth being burdened with the retarded. I am in absolute agreement that love should be just play; the moment you start producing children it becomes business. And I cannot agree to produce this kind of humanity. I was teaching that whenever a couple... of course unmarried, because the law has nothing to do with your love. Love should be a freedom between two persons, and if from even one person love disappears they have to separate, as friends, with gratitude for all the beautiful moments they lived together. Loving affairs ending in the courts are absolutely ugly. NEXTLINE And when a couple wants more than love, wants a child, the decision has to be made by medical science, not by them. Because neither the father knows nor the mother, what is going to be the outcome. Adolf Hitler, Ronald Reagan? These idiots could have been avoided. NEXTLINE In a single lovemaking the man releases almost one million sperm, and from that point starts your ugly civilization. All those one million sperm have a life span only of two hours; within two hours they have to reach the mother's egg. You have seen marathon races, but you don't understand that the real marathon race is for the poor sperm. It is so small you cannot see it with your bare eyes. In relation to its size, the track that it has to pass to reach the mother's egg has been calculated as almost two miles. In these two miles, one million people are struggling for survival. It is absolutely understandable that the wiser ones will stand by the side, and the idiots will do everything to reach the mother's egg. It is not a coincidence that the world is full of retarded people. And once a single sperm reaches the mother's egg, the egg closes; the remaining one million people are defeated. They have to die, there is no way for them to be alive. NEXTLINE It is almost amazing that a few wise people have also reached the mother's egg. It seems just accidental. A Gautam Buddha or a Bertrand Russell -- perhaps they got into the crowd and could not get out of it. The crowd is not small. And they were simply pushed by the crowd; perhaps some idiot was pushing them from behind. I cannot conceive them to be so competitive that they would have reached on their own. Some accident, perhaps just chance that they entered the track first, because one million people cannot enter the track simultaneously. And there is no referee to give them a signal -- Go on! So a few enter first, a few later. It seems to be just chance. NEXTLINE If you look at humanity, how many people of any worth have you created? And how many people have lived without any dignity, without any joy? NEXTLINE I am in absolute agreement with the idea of a scientific determination, and not to leave it -- because this is the most important thing -- to the idiots themselves. They can be eliminated, but then we will have to think in a totally new way. We will have to manage our lives not according to the old, which was not management but an absolute chaos. NEXTLINE It is not necessary that your sperm will have an Albert Einstein, a Rabindranath Tagore, or a Picasso. I don't see any reason why we cannot have banks in the hospitals, medical colleges, where people can contribute their sperm just as they contribute blood. Now science is ready to read the intrinsic program of the sperm: how long it will live, whether it will be strong or weak, whether it will suffer diseases, whether it will be intelligent, whether it will have a certain genius. This is an old stupidity that your child should be only from your sperm. From the sperm bank you can choose. If you want a scientist, if you want a poet of the qualities which only very few people have attained in the whole of history, if you want a painter, if you want an absolutely healthy human being, intelligent, beautiful, you can choose. NEXTLINE And rather than you injecting it, let medical science inject a single sperm so there is no possibility for any Ronald Reagan to reach the mother's egg. These people have to be eliminated completely. They don't have a place in the future vision of mankind. NEXTLINE Just think of a world of utterly talented people, healthy, with a longer life span, creative, sensitive. We can make this world really a garden where every plant blossoms, releases its fragrance, joins the dance that is existence. NEXTLINE This man's question reminded me how blind people can be and never be aware of their blindness. Jesus is crucified -- that is perfect -- and after Jesus, the Christianity that he unknowingly produced has burned thousands of living beings alive. No other religion is so criminal as Christianity, but this man cannot see that. He can see only enough to ask why I was not liked by the people of Oregon. It simply shows that the people of Oregon are the most retarded people in the world. After Oregon I have been trying to find someone who can defeat them, but I have not been able to find anyone. They are absolute idiots. NEXTLINE Just because they were afraid of me and my people -- afraid, because things happened when we purchased the land in Oregon. The land was for sale for almost forty years and nobody had purchased it, at any price, because it was only a desert. What are you going to do with a desert, one hundred twenty-six square miles? NEXTLINE I wanted to make the point that the people who surrounded that desert were not inventive, not intelligent -- we changed that same desert into an oasis, and that hurt the Oregonians. Because when we had purchased the land they laughed. They used to come and say, "What are you doing? You can pour in millions of dollars; this desert is not going to produce anything." And we made the desert one of the most beautiful places you can conceive. That became a wound in the hearts of the Oregonians. NEXTLINE And the United States Attorney blurted out after deporting me... he was asked by a reporter in a press conference, "Why have you not jailed Shree Rajneesh?" NEXTLINE He said, "There are three reasons. One, our priority was to destroy the commune..." NEXTLINE That shows the reason -- why should they destroy the commune? We had created a desert into a living place. Five thousand sannyasins were living there; we made roads, we made dams, we had grown sufficient food for ourselves. We made all kinds of arrangements -- a small oasis. We had fifteen thousand specially-made tents which could be air-conditioned, which could be heated so that they could be used around the year. Each celebration day -- and the celebrations used to last for three weeks -- there were twenty thousand people from all over the world. Oregon was shocked, they could not believe it. NEXTLINE We had every facility. There was not a single beggar -- and the people who come to me are, of necessity, bound to be the most intelligent ones. The unintelligent cannot even conceive of what I am saying. NEXTLINE There was a heart surgeon who was known all over the country. We had our own hospital, the most qualified doctors, nurses. We had our own school, and I had made it a point that the children should not be part of the family, they should be part of the commune. Their fathers and mothers could meet them, could invite them for a visit, but they could not prejudice their minds. Those children were growing -- for the first time in the whole of history -- without being conditioned that they were Christian, that they were Hindu, that they were communist. No conditioning -- we were allowing them to grow to whatever their inner potential is. NEXTLINE I don't believe in poverty. And the man from TIME magazine has asked, "If you love people, you are compassionate, then why did you have ninety-three Rolls Royces?" But he is not aware that I don't have a single cent. Those ninety-three Rolls Royces had come from people who loved the commune. Of course, nobody can use ninety-three Rolls Royces simultaneously, and they were all the latest model, the same model. I am not mad! It was just because of the gratitude of my sannyasins that they did not want to use a car that I was using. But they had their own cars. NEXTLINE The commune had two hundred cars of its own, one hundred buses of its own, four airplanes and a small airport of its own. We changed the whole shape of the desert, and everybody was working not as a laborer but out of love, out of creativity. And even after working the whole day, people were dancing in the evening; late in the night you could hear the flutes, the guitars. This was the pain in the neck of Oregonians, that "We have been living here for three hundred years and we could not make any use of this land. These people within five years have changed the whole face of it." We created the most luxurious commune that has been ever created. The whole commune was centrally air-conditioned.... NEXTLINE And we were not at all concerned with America or with Oregon. The nearest Oregon town was twenty miles away from us and people were so happy in the commune, nobody wanted to go anywhere. Finally we had to get rid of so many cars, airplanes, because what is the point? Nobody wants to go anywhere. NEXTLINE And the poor fellow is still haunted by my ninety-three Rolls Royces. He does not think for a moment that I have not kept any Rolls Royce from those ninety-three; I have not even looked back towards them. I never went to the garage. They were not mine. NEXTLINE But he is asking the question, "When the whole world is poor, how could you manage a commune to live comfortably?" What do you mean? If the whole world is sick, do we also have to be sick? If the whole hospital is filled with sick people, do you want the doctors and nurses also in the beds? NEXTLINE I am absolutely against poverty. That became the problem, that I had abolished poverty in the commune. And what can be done in one place can be done in every place, because it is the same earth -- better earth. The commune became their priority -- to destroy it so nobody could compare, and nobody could ask why America has thirty million beggars. NEXTLINE We had absorbed three hundred beggars from America into the commune. And the beggars themselves told me, "For the first time we have recognized that we are human beings, because nobody here treats us the way we have been treated our whole life, like stray dogs. We have felt for the first time that we are also human beings, and a tremendous dignity and self-respect has arisen in us." NEXTLINE Now this was the problem: if the commune was going to become well known all over America, the American politicians would have been in tremendous difficulty. Hence the Attorney General -- who is a close friend of Ronald Reagan; they have been educated in the same schools, same colleges, and they were also working in Hollywood together. And as Ronald Reagan became the president immediately he called his friend to be the Attorney General of America.... NEXTLINE The second reason the United States Attorney gave was: "We did not want Shree Rajneesh to remain in jail because we were afraid that would make him a martyr." You can see the meaning hidden in it -- the desire was there, but because of the fear that if they kept me in jail, then sannyasins all over the world were going to protest, were going to become stronger, were going to be in every way against the American domination of the world.... NEXTLINE And the third thing is really hilarious. He said, "And moreover, the third thing is that we don't have any evidence for the charge that Shree Rajneesh has committed any crime." Now the U.S. Attorney says he doesn't have any evidence against me! Then why am I being punished with a fine of almost half a million dollars? Why have I been harassed into six jails unnecessarily? Why was I arrested in the first place without any arrest warrant, just under the threat of loaded guns? Why was I not allowed bail? NEXTLINE And the woman magistrate who did not allow me bail behaved so strangely... I had never expected a woman to behave that way. The government attorney for three days continuously tried and failed to prove that there was any reason for my arrest. The question of bail does not arise -- in fact the people who arrested me should have been punished! And the government attorney accepted in his final statement, the concluding line was, "We have not been able to prove anything against Shree Rajneesh." But the magistrate... and that was such a surprise to me; she said, "You may not have been able to prove anything, but I have reasons of my own and I am not going to give him bail." NEXTLINE I have respected women more than any man in history, but unfortunately I have to exclude this magistrate in Carolina from my respect. And she must have suffered a deep guilt, because what was she doing? I was told by my jailer, because he could not believe it either. He was on the point of retirement, he had a lifetime of experience, and he said, "I have never seen such a case. When you cannot produce any evidence and still you refuse to give bail, this is unheard of!" And he told me that the reason was that the woman was being bribed from the White House. She was just a magistrate, and she had been bribed that if she refused bail to me, she would be made a federal judge. NEXTLINE For this promotion, she must have felt deep guilt. Just the other day I came to know that she is suffering from cancer, is on her deathbed. That guilt must have created the cancer; otherwise the woman was perfectly healthy, in fact more healthy than ordinarily you expect women to be. I feel sorry for her. She got the promotion, but in a wrong direction. NEXTLINE And my chief attorney Niren is here -- he is my sannyasin. He has been going through all the jails where they mistreated me in every possible way. And they are lying -- I have to speak with Niren about the points where they are absolutely lying. I have an inner, intuitive guarantee that in the Oklahoma jail I was poisoned, poisoned with thallium, which has shown its effects over the last two years. It remains deposited in the body and becomes active over a period of time. But it has to be given in small doses; if you give it in a big dose, then the effects will be immediate. This was the reason why the bail was refused and I was dragged for twelve days from one jail to another jail. NEXTLINE And in Oklahoma -- Niren has been there -- they simply denied that I have been in that jail. I knew that's what they were going to say. I reached Oklahoma in the middle of the night; it was purposefully arranged so that the whole airport was dark and there was no traffic, and still they were afraid that somebody might see me. They took me out through a secret door, out of the airport. NEXTLINE At the airport the man who was giving my charge to the U.S. Marshall who was driving the car whispered in his ear... but I was sitting just behind him, and what he whispered made me certain about my intuitive feeling. The man said, "Remember one thing: this guy is world famous and all the world media are focused on him, so don't do anything directly. Be very cautious whatever you do." Now these words indicate with absolute certainty that they were ready to do something, and the instruction was given: it has to be done in such an indirect way that nobody will ever be able to find.... NEXTLINE But I was not alone in the car. Another prisoner, a woman, was also sitting by my side. I told her, "Listen carefully to what is being said." Niren has to find that woman, because all records have disappeared -- records about me, records about that woman, because she will be the witness. When Niren reached there he found that on their computer there is no record. They have made their records on the computer since 1986. He had to force his way, insist that "I have an absolute guarantee that he has been in this jail and I want to look into the records in your basement." NEXTLINE In the middle of the night they took me through the back door into the jail. There was nobody else, they eliminated any kind of witness, but existence has its own ways.... And the U.S. Marshall who brought me insisted that I could not write my own name, I had to write the name of David Washington. I should be called David Washington while I am in the jail, and I have to respond to this name. NEXTLINE I said, "I am not going to write anybody's name. You are forcing me to do something illegal and unconstitutional, for which you will suffer one day." NEXTLINE He was also tired, in the middle of the night; half an hour we struggled. He said, "You are a strange person, I want to go home!" NEXTLINE I said, "You can go to hell! But I am not going to write David Washington." NEXTLINE Then he said, "I will fill in the form." And he filled in the form -- my understanding was that this would be an absolute proof. He filled in the form and I signed my own signature. He looked at my signature... of course he could not understand; nobody can understand what I write. NEXTLINE He asked me, "What have you written?" NEXTLINE I said, "It seems it is David Washington." NEXTLINE Niren found the document and he has brought a photocopy of the document, but my signature is missing. Still, that document indicates one thing: "David Washington, Rajneeshpuram, Oregon." And that is in the handwriting of the U.S. Marshall of that jail. My feeling is they have simply destroyed the form on which I have signed, knowing that it will create difficulty, and they have filled in another form. I would like Niren to go back to Oklahoma, because the question is very simple, that on this form there is no signature, either of Shree Rajneesh or at least of David Washington. Some signature is needed; otherwise what is the value of this record? NEXTLINE I entered the jail, that is certain now. That "Rajneeshpuram" they have forgotten is enough proof. Niren has to take whatever he has managed to get to the experts. Whose handwriting is that? And he has to insist on getting the signature, because I have signed it, so either they are hiding the original and they have managed another, or they have destroyed it. But the man has to be caught. NEXTLINE And these people go on lying. He said to Niren, "I treated Shree Rajneesh the best. In no other jail he was treated the way I treated him." In fact the truth is that I was treated the worst in Oklahoma. And I have witnesses. Just by chance they put me in an isolation cell with a small window -- and the glass of the window was completely dark, so dirty you could not figure out what was beyond the window. But just across from me there was another person. I don't know him, but one thing is certain: he was an orthodox Hindu sannyasin, because he had orange robes. And his face... I tried in every way to clean the window and to see that man, and just a few days ago that man was here -- perhaps he may still be here -- and he told Anando, "I am a witness that Shree Rajneesh was brought to Oklahoma and was put into the cell just across from me." NEXTLINE Niren has to find the girl, who was released that very night. She is a fat girl, nearabout thirty years of age -- but a courageous one; almost a jailbird. The way she was behaving in the jail was as if it were almost her home. Niren has just to advertise in Oklahoma and the girl will respond. NEXTLINE Niren has also to ask the pilot of the plane, because there is only one U.S. Marshall's plane -- that makes things simple. They all became very friendly to me -- the pilot, the co-pilot, and a woman who was serving food to people. And they all felt that this was strange: "From North Carolina it is only five or six hours' flight to Oregon, and you are being tortured unnecessarily for twelve days! There is no rationality in it." So he has to interview those people about whether they had dropped me in the middle of the night at the Oklahoma airport. And particularly the woman, because she was very much concerned about my well-being. There was no vegetarian food but she managed some fruits, some juices, and she was sorry..."We never thought that in America such uncivilized behavior, such undemocratic behavior, is still prevalent." NEXTLINE And when these government people say things to you -- I have to listen to Niren's interviews; he has brought all the tapes -- don't trust them. Because in those twelve days they were all lying to me. Every time I was taken from one jail to another jail they would say, "You are going to Oregon," and I would end up somewhere else. It continued for twelve days -- free travel all over America! I enjoyed it. And I became convinced that if this is the situation of the country proclaimed to be the most democratic, what will be the situation of other countries? NEXTLINE Just by chance Niren met Judge Leavy, who finally gave me the punishment of four hundred thousand dollars, deportation for five years from America... and for fifteen years if I come back to America and commit any crime, then there will be no trial for it; I will be jailed. It will be enough that somebody has complained against me. NEXTLINE Niren met him on the plane and for two hours they were together. Niren asked him, "You were watching Shree Rajneesh for three days; millions of people see something in his eyes -- have you looked into his eyes?" And Judge Leavy was lying, because I was looking into his eyes and he was avoiding; he has not looked into my eyes. And even if he had looked into my eyes, he would not find anything. He has lived with criminals his whole life. He knows the eyes of crime, he does not know the eyes of innocence. NEXTLINE I had my cap, and he said to Niren, "I hesitated whether to tell him to remove the cap or not" -- because this stupid idea exists in America that to wear a cap in the courtroom is insulting to the court. My own understanding is that to cover your head is a respectful gesture. A court has to be a temple of justice. But he said, "Finally I asked him to remove his cap." I removed the cap and with the removal of the cap I removed all my respect for American courts and the American constitution. NEXTLINE I am not fussy about small things. But from that moment, whatever I have heard about Judge Leavy became absolutely absurd. He is not a man of justice. He knew perfectly well that I have not committed any crime, and he punished me. Four hundred thousand dollars, knowing perfectly well that I don't have a single cent, and he deported me without any reason. I looked at the man... he will suffer for it; perhaps he has also been bribed in the same way, because now he has moved to a higher court. Just one step more and he can move to the Supreme Court. If he is a man of any guts, he should admit that he was not concerned with justice, he was concerned with his own promotion. NEXTLINE I can understand Niren's difficulty, but you have to gather courage and you have to encounter these people. When Judge Leavy said, "I did not see anything in his eyes," you should not have remained silent. Because if a blind man cannot see the sun, that does not mean the sun is not there, or if a man who is interested in climbing ladders cannot see the roses, it is not the fault of the roses. To see the sublime, to see the divine you have to be unprejudiced, you have to be open and receptive. NEXTLINE For three days I also watched him. Just a dead man with no guts, hoping for perhaps just one more promotion. He may not have seen anything in my eyes but I have seen even into his soul. NEXTLINE According to me, our judges are greater criminals than our criminals. Moving from one jail to another jail I have seen such innocent people. But I have not seen in the courts, in the officers, in the marshalls, in the judges, anybody who can be called innocent. They are all playing into the hands of those who can give them a little more prestige, a little more respectability. I would like Niren to tell Judge Leavy that what I have seen in him is just a dead soul -- utterly ugly, criminal, without any guts; just a greedy person and nothing else. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Devageet, enlightenment is not something separate from you. What is the taste of innocence? What is the taste of silence? What is the taste of purity? You cannot taste them because they are not objects. NEXTLINE You are the taste! NEXTLINE And when everything else has disappeared in your utter aloneness, a merger, a meeting with the cosmos happens. You cannot call it a taste, the word `taste' is too small. It certainly creates a dance in every cell of your being, in every fiber of your being. It transforms you from base metal into gold. But it is not a taste, it is a transformation. NEXTLINE You cannot describe it, you can only enjoy it. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Now it is time for prayer.... NEXTLINE NEXTLINE "How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you are on." NEXTLINE This is the whole philosophy of relativity of Albert Einstein! NEXTLINE "When you read a biography, remember that the truth is never fit for publication." NEXTLINE Truth is so simple, there is no sensation in it. No publisher is going to waste money in publishing truth. These thousands of papers, magazines, weeklies, are full of untruth. The more untruth, the greater is their subscription rate, the more they are read. But remember it: for this untruth we are destroying beautiful trees around the world. NEXTLINE "The quickest way to make anti-freeze is to hide her nightdress." NEXTLINE "Prepare for eternity: tidy up your room." NEXTLINE "To live to be a hundred, first you have to live to be ninety-nine and then be very careful for a year." NEXTLINE "When a woman steals your boyfriend, the best revenge is to let her live with him." NEXTLINE "If you are not confused, you are not paying attention." NEXTLINE "There is only one way to handle a woman. The trouble is, nobody knows what it is." NEXTLINE "If you are single, all the good men are married. If you are married, all the good men are single. If you are over sixty-five, all the good men are dead." NEXTLINE "Misery to a woman is an alive secret and a dead telephone." NEXTLINE "There is nothing like good food, good wine and a bad woman." NEXTLINE "Love may be blind, but it knows its way around in the dark." NEXTLINE "You have not lived until you die in California." NEXTLINE "A wedding is a ceremony where a man loses control of himself." NEXTLINE "Success is relative. The more success, the more relatives." NEXTLINE "It is better for a woman to be beautiful rather than intelligent, because men's eyes function better than their brains." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE A sexy blonde with a stunning figure boards a bus and finding no empty seats, asks a gentleman for his, explaining that she is pregnant. NEXTLINE The man stands up at once and gives her his seat, but can't help commenting that she does not look pregnant. NEXTLINE "Well," she replies with a smile, "it has only been about half an hour, and it really makes me very tired!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Paddy is obsessed by golf -- it has become his only topic of conversation. NEXTLINE Maureen is slowly going bananas with the constant discussion of birdies, drivers and sand traps, of his golf clubs, his caddies and his scores. NEXTLINE Finally at dinner she snaps, "I am tired of you talking about golf twenty-four hours a day! I don't want to hear about it at this meal!" NEXTLINE "But what shall I talk about then?" asks Paddy. NEXTLINE "About anything," says Maureen. "Talk about sex for goodness' sake!" NEXTLINE "Okay," says Paddy, "I wonder who my caddy is screwing these days?" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE After the prison riot, the head warden calls the three ringleaders into his office and says, "Now then, I would like to know two things: First, why did you revolt? And second, how did you get out of your cell?" NEXTLINE One of the men steps forward and says, "Warden, we rebelled because the prison food is so awful." NEXTLINE "I see," replies the warden. "And the cell, what did you use to break the bars?" NEXTLINE The prisoner steps back in disgust and says, "This morning's toast!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 13Reality is indivisible27 December 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE IN THE WEST, CELEBRATION IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE AMERICAN IDEA OF HAVING A GOOD TIME WHICH IS SYNONYMOUS WITH NOISE, LOUD MUSIC, WATCHING MOVIES, SMOKING, SEX, AND RELEASE OF ENERGY AS SUCH, WHILE SILENCE AND SERENITY ARE AUTOMATICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH BOREDOM AND EXCESSIVE ACCUMULATION OF ENERGY WHICH RESULTS IN TENSION AND ANXIETY. COULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT SILENCE AND CELEBRATION AND LIFE? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Chidananda, the question you have asked has many implications. It is not a single question; it is one question consisting of many questions of importance. I would like to go into each dimension of the question; only then you may be able to find the answer. NEXTLINE The first thing to remember is that man consists of two worlds, one that leads outward and one that leads inward. Man is a duality: he is a body and a soul. And because of this tremendous duality, all the problems of the world have arisen. The duality is not a simple one. It is what I have called a "gestalt duality." In a gestalt duality you can never see both worlds together; if you choose to see one you have to forget about the other. As an example I have told you about a small children's book where they have a picture made of simple lines, but in those lines there are two possibilities: if you fix your eyes on the picture, either you can see an old woman or you can see a beautiful young girl. You can see each separately. If you go on staring at the old woman, suddenly you will find a strange change: the old woman has disappeared and a beautiful young girl is in front of you. NEXTLINE If you still persist in staring... because the eyes are not meant to stare; naturally they are continuously moving. Movement is intrinsic to your eyes. They get tired of staring at a thing, they are always in search of something new. Because of this, soon you will find the young woman disappearing and the old woman replaced again. They are both made of the same lines, just different combinations, but you cannot see both together. That is impossible. Because if you see the young woman, where will you find the lines that make the old woman? If you see the old woman, you don't have extra lines to create the young woman. You can see each separately, but you can never see them together. This is gestalt duality, and this is the reality of man. NEXTLINE The East has seen man only as a soul, as a consciousness, as an introvert being. But because it has chosen one gestalt, it has to deny the other. That's why in the East for centuries the mystics have consistently been denying the reality of the world. They say it is just a dream, it is maya, it is illusion. It is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of. It is not really there, it is only a mirage, only an appearance. The East has denied the outside -- has to deny, because of the inner necessity of the gestalt duality. NEXTLINE The West has chosen the outside world and has to deny the inner world. Man is only a body. Physiology, biology, chemistry, but not a consciousness, not a soul; the soul is only an epiphenomenon. And because only the outside is considered to be real, it was possible for science to develop in the West. Technology, thousands of gadgets -- possibilities to land on the moon, and the vast universe that surrounds you. But knowing all this, there has been a deep emptiness in the Western mind: something is missing. NEXTLINE It is difficult for the Western logic to pinpoint what is missing, but it is absolutely certain that something is missing. The house is full of guests but the host is missing. You have all the things of the world, but you are not. A tremendous misery is the outcome. You have all the pleasures, all the money, all that man has ever dreamt of and in the end of centuries of effort, suddenly you find you don't exist. Your inside is hollow, there is nobody. NEXTLINE The East has also faced its own misery. Thinking that the outside is unreal, there is no possibility of scientific progress. Science has to be objective -- but if objects are only appearances, illusions, there is no point in dissecting illusions and trying to find out the secrets of nature. Hence the East had to remain poor, had to remain hungry, had to remain under all kinds of slaveries for centuries. NEXTLINE These two thousand years of slavery are not just an accident. The East was prepared for it. It has accepted it -- what does it matter, in a dream, whether you are a master or a slave? What does it matter if in dream you are being served with delicious food or you are hungry? The moment you wake up, both dreams will prove invalid. The East has consented to remain starved, hungry, enslaved, and the reason is that it has chosen a different gestalt: the real is the inner. NEXTLINE The East has learned ways to be silent, to be peaceful, to enjoy the bliss that arises as you drown deeper into your interiority. But you cannot share it with anybody else; it is absolutely individual. At the most you can talk about it. So the whole East for thousands of years has been talking about spirituality, consciousness, enlightenment, meditation, and on the outside has remained a beggar, sick, hungry, enslaved. NEXTLINE Who is going to listen to these slaves and their great philosophies? The West has simply laughed. But the laughter has not been only on one side. The East has also laughed, seeing that people are accumulating things and losing themselves. NEXTLINE We have lived in a very strange, schizophrenic state of mind for thousands of years. NEXTLINE Chidananda, you are saying, "In the West, celebration is associated with the American idea of having a good time." That brings me to another implication. Only a miserable man needs a good time. Just as a sick man needs medicine, a miserable man needs a good time; it is a very cunning strategy to avoid your misery. NEXTLINE The misery is not avoided; you only forget for the time being that you are miserable. Under the influence of drugs or under the influence of sex or under the influence of your so-called having a good time, what are you actually doing? You are escaping from your inner emptiness. You are getting involved in any kind of thing. One thing you are afraid of is your own self. NEXTLINE It has created a certain madness, but because everybody in the West is in the same boat, it becomes very difficult to recognize. Millions of people are watching football -- and you call these people intelligent? Then who are you going to call retarded? And not only are these people immensely involved in games like football, they are jumping, they are shouting, they are fighting. And because there are no stadiums big enough to accommodate the whole country, everybody is sitting glued to his chair in front of the television. And they are doing the same stupid acts -- sitting in their chairs, shouting.... NEXTLINE I know one man -- because his team was losing, he became so mad he destroyed his television! I was staying with the man and I asked him, "Are you ready to go into an insane asylum? In the first place, football should be for children. You have passed that age long before, but mentally your age is not more than twelve or thirteen years. And what you have done with the television makes me suspect that not only are you retarded, you are insane too." NEXTLINE Just last year in California, the University of California made a survey, a whole year's survey about boxing matches. Each time there are boxing matches -- which are ugly, inhuman, animalistic -- the rate of crime in the whole state of California rises by thirteen or fourteen percent. And that rise remains after the matches are finished; it goes on lingering for at least one week. Slowly, slowly it comes back to normal. NEXTLINE People start murdering, people start committing suicide, people start raping; all kinds of crimes suddenly start growing. Still, boxing is not condemned by any country as a criminal game which should be stopped immediately. And if any government tries, the whole country will stand up against the parliament and will protest, because boxing is such a "good time." Two idiots are doing things on your behalf. You also wanted to do the same things, but you kept yourself in control. Now it is "having a good time" because somebody else is doing it and your own repressed energies are expressed. NEXTLINE It is something to be understood: why should you be interested in two persons behaving barbariously, harming each other? Certainly you also have the same desires. Perhaps you don't have the guts.... NEXTLINE But it is something much more complicated: the whole West has become slowly slowly just an observer. Somebody else makes love in the film, somebody else fights in the boxing matches, somebody else plays football, and deep down you get identified with these people. It is good that in movie houses it is kept dark, because I have watched people crying in a movie house, knowing perfectly well that it is an empty screen and a film is being projected. I have seen people laughing, I have seen people standing up, thrilled, and I have always wondered... it seems that man has left everything to the professionals and he has become just a watcher. NEXTLINE Obviously the professional can do the thing better than you can. But remember: things are not going to stop here. In one existentialist novel, the writer has a very definite clarity about the future, that soon only servants will be making love. Why should you bother? -- you can pay the servant. But why should your wife bother? She can also pay another servant. NEXTLINE I am reminded of a very rich man who was bothering and torturing his psychoanalyst. The psychoanalyst in the West is one of most the highly paid professionals; hundreds of dollars per hour. Very few people can afford to be mad. But this man used to talk two hours, three hours.... The patient talks on the couch and the psychoanalyst listens, but there is a limit. The man was driving the psychoanalyst mad, every day the same story. And he could not even stop him because he was paying so much; he was his best client. NEXTLINE Finally he thought of a plan and he told the man, "Because of you, I cannot see my other patients. A simple device will be very helpful: I will leave my tape recorder. You talk to my tape recorder as long as you want, and in the night I will listen to whatever you have said to the tape recorder more silently, more attentively than I can in the office, because I am worried about other patients who are waiting." The rich man immediately agreed. NEXTLINE The psychoanalyst was not thinking that he would agree so easily. The next day when the psychoanalyst was entering the office, the rich man was coming out. He said, "What is the matter? Where are you going? What about your session today?" NEXTLINE He said, "The session is over, because I have also worked out a plan: in the dark night, in the silence, without any disturbance of you and your presence, I talk to my tape recorder. Now my tape recorder is on the couch talking to your tape recorder. Why should I waste my time?" NEXTLINE People have become so outward that they cannot even for a single moment sit silently; that is the most difficult thing in the world. People are fidgeting. What is the fear? The fear is, you may encounter your emptiness and once you encounter your emptiness, your life will lose all interest, all juice, all meaningfulness, all significance. NEXTLINE Everybody is running from himself. And this running from themselves people call "having a good time." NEXTLINE Western man's life can be divided in two parts -- and I have moved around the earth and watched all kinds of idiots. These are the two parts: first is having a good time and second is having a hangover. By the time the hangover is over the time comes for having a good time. In a vicious circle, they go on between these two, wasting their lives and reaching nowhere. NEXTLINE Reaching to the grave cannot be called reaching somewhere. It simply means that now the wheel is so tired and so bored with having a good time and suffering hangovers that it wants to rest inside a grave. NEXTLINE People rest only in their graves. NEXTLINE Out of the grave, there is no time to rest. NEXTLINE In the East, we chose the opposite gestalt. We found treasures and mysteries and secrets, but the difficulty with the inner is that you cannot materialize it. You cannot prove it in a court; you cannot even have a witness. Except you, you cannot allow anybody else into your inner world. Naturally, the East slowly slowly created isolated individuals. These isolated individuals were constantly harassed by the crowd, by the marketplace. They wanted their inner silence, their inner serenity, their calmness, undisturbed. The conclusion was: renounce the world, move to the Himalayas or deep into the forest where you can be absolutely yourself. NEXTLINE But both the alternatives are choosing half the man. And the moment you choose half the man, you are going to fall into some kind of misery. The miseries may be different, but misery is absolutely guaranteed. The East is miserable because of its Gautam Buddhas, Mahaviras, Bodhidharmas, Kabirs. It is in misery because of its greatest inner explorers. And the West is in misery because of Galileo, Copernicus, Columbus, Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell. These are the great people of the West and the East, and all these great people have chosen man in his half. To choose man in his half has been the root cause of human misery up to now. NEXTLINE I teach you the whole man. The inner is real -- as real as the outer. And the outer is as significant as the spiritual. You have to attain to a certain balance, a balance in which neither the inner predominates nor the outer but both are equally complementary to each other. This has not happened up to now. But unless this happens, there is no possibility for any humanity to exist in the world. NEXTLINE The West is dying of its own success. The East has already died of its success. It is a very strange story that people have died because of their victories -- choosing the half is dangerous. But choosing the whole needs courage, insight and overwhelming understanding. And a mobility... just as you come out of your home and go back inside the home, your coming out of your being and going into your being should be as simple as that. NEXTLINE Whenever you are needed in the market, you should be in the market with your totality. The market cannot destroy your soul. And anybody who has preached to the world to renounce it, was against humanity. Neither does going inwards, being in a meditative silence, take away anything from the outside world. You don't have to condemn it, and you don't have to declare it illusory. It should have been so simple to see, that I am amazed why thousands of years have passed, and still it is not a recognized fact around the whole world. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I am reminded of a great Indian mystic, Adi Shankara. He is one of the proponents of the philosophy that the world is absolutely illusory. One morning he is coming out of the Ganges, after taking his early bath before going into prayer. The sun has not risen yet. It is dark. He is coming up the stone steps in Varanasi and a man touches him. It would not have been much of a trouble, but the man simply said, "Forgive me. I am not supposed even to come close to you. I am a sudra, an untouchable. Even my shadow is evil." NEXTLINE Shankara was very angry. He said, "I will have to take another bath to purify myself." But he was not aware who the man was. NEXTLINE The man said, "Before you take another bath, you will have to answer a few questions. One is, if the outside is unreal, do you believe me to be a reality? I am certainly outside you. And if the outside is unreal, then what is the reality of the pure River Ganges of the Hindus? It is also outside. And what do you think about your own skin? Is it inside or outside? Unless you explain it to me, I am going to remain here. You can take as many baths as you want; I will touch you again and again." NEXTLINE Hindus don't like to talk about the incident. And Shankara does not seem to be an honest man, because after this incident he continued to preach that the outside is illusory. Every day you need the outside food and every day you need the outside water, and still the outside is illusory? It is such pure nonsense that it is time to condemn all these people who have renounced the world and who have been teaching the world that the outside is nothing but a dream. NEXTLINE I cannot believe it -- if the outside is unreal, whom are you teaching? If the outside world is unreal then what are you renouncing, where are you going? To the Himalayas? The Himalayas are as much outside as M.G. Market! NEXTLINE And the same kind of stupidity has been dominating the Western mind. A scientist is perfectly rational when he is working in his lab on objects, but the moment you ask him about himself, he starts saying that there is nobody inside. He cannot see what an irrational statement he is making: if there is nobody inside, who is working in the lab? If there is nobody inside, then who is watching, calculating, coming to conclusions? The science is true and the scientist himself is saying that he is not true. NEXTLINE These two idiotic ideologies have destroyed the whole of humanity -- its peace, its love, its grandeur, its dignity. It has to be restored. I deny Adi Shankara and I also deny Karl Marx in the same breath; I am against the atheist and I am against the theist because both are trying to divide reality, which is indivisible. The outer cannot exist without the inner. Neither can the inner exist without the outer. They are both two sides of the same coin. NEXTLINE But believe it or not, there is not a single statement in the whole history of man declaring that man is one, that the outer and the inner are not contradictory but complementary, that they cannot exist in separation, that they are supported by each other and they should be used together. Only then man can rise to his real heights and blossom into his ultimate flowering. NEXTLINE Chidananda, you are asking, "... associated with the American idea of having a good time which is synonymous with noise, loud music, watching movies, smoking, sex, and release of energy as such." This is the half side -- the people who have chosen to be extroverts and have forgotten their own inner center. But they are getting fed up with it. Now the greatest philosophers in the West like Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Marcel, Jean Paul Sartre, all are in absolute agreement that life is meaningless, that it is nothing but boredom. And the only conclusion out of all these philosophies is a very simple one: except suicide, there is no way. But there are wonders and wonders: of all these great philosophers I have named, none have committed suicide. NEXTLINE It reminds me of a great Greek philosopher, Zeno, who was teaching the same thing two thousand years ago. He lived a long life, he died when he was ninety, but he was such a convincing, impressive personality that thousands of people committed suicide because they could not prove what is the meaning of life. If there is no meaning, then you are simply a coward and you go on dragging yourself -- gather courage and commit suicide! When he was dying, one man asked him: "Zeno -- following you, thousands of young people have committed suicide. A question arises: why did you not follow your own philosophy?" NEXTLINE But philosophers are basically very clever people. Zeno said, "I had to suffer life just to teach people the truth." He has been a martyr, because he lived for ninety years! You should worship him, because he lived so you could commit suicide. NEXTLINE All these five great philosophers of the West -- and these are the topmost -- are not interested in committing suicide, they are only interested in writing about boredom, meaninglessness, anguish, angst. They all come to the conclusion that suicide seems to be the only way out, but nobody gets out of the way. NEXTLINE The West has reached, by its own success, to the ultimate failure. And this failure of nerve is very dangerous, because they are in control of enormous destructive power, nuclear weapons. They can destroy the whole planet not only one time, but as many times as you want. Ordinarily every human being dies only once, except Jesus Christ. But the politicians and the scientists of the West have been making arrangements for everybody to die seventy times. NEXTLINE I don't think anybody is going to have seventy resurrections. One time will do -- perhaps once in a while, somewhere, some Jesus Christ... but even Jesus Christ cannot survive seventy times. There are people who suspect -- and I am one of them -- whether he even survived one time. I have been to his grave -- his grave is in India, in Srinagar in a small village, Pahalgam. NEXTLINE In the Kashmiri language pahalgam means the village of the shepherd. Jesus used to call himself the shepherd. He escaped; it was not resurrection. He had never died in the first place. NEXTLINE The Jewish cross is a very crude instrument for killing a person. For a healthy young man like Jesus -- he was only thirty-three -- it will take at least forty-eight hours of being on the cross before he will die. It is because the Jewish cross slowly takes out your blood; it does not kill you immediately. NEXTLINE There was a conspiracy between the disciples of Jesus and Pontius Pilate, who was not a Jew. The land of Jesus, Judea, was under the Roman Empire; it was a slave country. Pontius Pilate was the governor, the Roman governor. He had no interest in killing Jesus. In fact, he could not conceive why Jews were so insistent to kill this innocent young man who had not committed any crime at all. He was a politician; he could not arouse the whole of Judea against the Roman Empire just because of a young man. But he managed an agreement with the disciples that Jesus would be crucified on Friday -- as late as possible, because as the sun sets on Friday, Jews stop every kind of work. Certainly Jesus would have to be taken down from the cross before sunset. He was only on the cross for six hours, and then he was put in a cave which was guarded by Roman soldiers. NEXTLINE The conspiracy worked perfectly well. In the night, Jesus was removed and as he became healed, he was taken out of Judea. Because the Jews would have crucified him again. NEXTLINE The only place where he could find people who would understand his language, people who belonged to his race, was Kashmir. Kashmir is basically Jewish, and you will be surprised to know that when Moses had taken the Jews out of Egypt, one of the tribes of the Jews got lost in the desert. It took forty years for Moses to find the promised land, which is nothing but a desert land and Jews have never been able to forgive Moses. He gave them Israel, which is not in any way like the promise he made to them. They were torturing him continuously -- "Where have you brought us?" In forty years of wandering in the desert, almost ninety percent of the original people had died -- the third generation was now with Moses. And Moses had lost every contact with his own people, because these new people had no idea what Moses had done. They had only complaints against him. NEXTLINE Somehow he managed to convince them: "This is the promised land. You remain here and I will go back to find the tribe that has been lost in the desert." That tribe reached Kashmir... and Kashmir seems to be far closer to the promised land Moses was talking about, because there is no place on the earth which is more beautiful than Kashmir. And Kashmir has both the graves of Moses and Jesus, because Moses came in search of the tribe and found it in Kashmir, and after Judea, there was only one place -- Kashmir -- where Jesus could have been welcome. NEXTLINE He remained there -- a long life, one hundred and twelve years. And you can see the Kashmiris: you can see Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi... just look at their noses and you will be convinced that these are Jews. Mohammedans converted the Jews, but because they also accepted Moses and Jesus as prophets, they left those two graves without destroying them. They also left a family of caretakers, which is still Jewish. NEXTLINE Those are the only two graves in the whole of India on which there is an inscription in Hebrew. The family that has been taking care of those two graves is the only family Mohammedans have left unconverted. They are still Jews, for so long a time. And on the graves the inscription is so clear: it says "Joshua" which is the name of Jesus in Hebrew. NEXTLINE Jesus never knew that he would be known to the world as Jesus. His parents, his friends, his followers knew him as Joshua. The inscription says, "Joshua, the Messiah, lived in this place with his followers, a long life of one hundred and twelve years." And because of him, the village is still called Pahalgam. NEXTLINE But the politicians are ready to destroy the whole planet seventy times. This is the success of the Western approach of taking the outside man as the whole reality. And nothing better has happened in the East. Almost fifty percent of the people in the East are hungry, starved, undernourished. And by the end of this century at least five hundred million people will die, only in this land; I am not counting people who are going to die in China, in Taiwan, in Korea, in Japan. Just in this country five hundred million people are going to die within ten years. The earth cannot support this huge humanity which goes on growing, unless we also start being scientific, being technological. NEXTLINE Science is capable even now to support a humanity seven times bigger than the present one. Right now, there are five billion people in the world. Science has the capacity now for seven times more people to live comfortably -- but science cannot do it on its own. It needs scientific minds, it needs people who are technologically expert. NEXTLINE My own understanding about the East is that even if people come from the West, well-educated in science and technology, their old stupidities continue inside their being. I have seen D.Sc.'s worshipping before a monkey god, Hanuman. I cannot believe my eyes! Sometimes I think it would have been better to be blind. These people who are worshipping monkey gods, elephant gods -- these people don't have scientific minds. They may have had a scientific education, which is a totally different thing. NEXTLINE To know about science is one thing and to be creative about science is another thing. To know about meditation is one thing and to meditate is totally different. The West needs a more meditative mind and the East needs a more scientific mind. Then we will be able to create a humanity which can live without poverty, without hunger -- a healthier, longer life, which you cannot even think of. NEXTLINE The scientific calculation is that the present body that we have is capable of living at least three hundred years -- just the right food, right medical care, right ecological environment and these people can live for three hundred years. I cannot conceive what treasures will be revealed if a Gautam Buddha can live three hundred years, if Albert Einstein can live three hundred years, if Bertrand Russell can live three hundred years. NEXTLINE Up to now the way we have lived is such a sheer wastage. People who are trained, educated, cultured, become old, die at the age of seventy. And new visitors, absolutely uneducated, barbarious, go on coming from the wombs. This is not a very scientific way of arranging the world. You have to force people to retire, and these are the people who know. And you have to employ people who know nothing. NEXTLINE Men's lives should be made longer and birth control should be more strict. A child should be born only when we are ready to allow a Bertrand Russell to leave the world -- only a replacement, and unless we can find a better replacement we are not going to allow Bertrand Russell to leave the world. And there is every possibility to find a replacement, because we can read the whole program in the genes, all the possibilities that a person is going to pass through -- whether he is going to be a painter of the quality of Picasso or he is going to be a poet of the genius of Rabindranath Tagore; how long he is going to live, whether he will be healthy or sick. And not only can we read the future program of the genes, we can change the program also. The sick person can be made from the very beginning to live a healthier life and the idiots can be avoided, the retarded can be avoided. NEXTLINE Existence gives everything with such abundance that if you don't choose, things are going to be a chaos. Every single human being ... a male, if he has not been corrupted by religions, will have at least four thousand times an opportunity to give birth to a child. And each time he releases one million sperm. That means each human male can create a whole India! Such abundance simply means you have to be very choosy. Naturally, in this crowd you cannot find many Rabindranaths. Rabindranath himself was the thirteenth child of his parents; before him, the parents had given birth to twelve children not of any value. They could have been avoided. Rabindranath could have been their first child. And who knows how many other Rabindranaths are not making their way into the world? We need a very scientific approach about the outside and a very meditative approach about the inside. NEXTLINE Chidananda, you are saying, "... while silence and serenity are automatically associated with boredom and excessive accumulation of energy which results in tension and anxiety." If things remain the same then this is a truth. If you don't exert your energy... with your food, your continuous breathing, your drinking water, you are generating energy. It has to be used; otherwise it is going to become a tension, and finally it is going to become anxiety. But if my idea is understood... I am saying you are half outside, half inside. NEXTLINE Use your energy in the outside world in creative activities, not in football. There is so much to create, so much to discover, such a vast universe is standing there as a challenge to explore. Use your energies to make the world more beautiful, more poetic, more healthy. NEXTLINE And when you feel that you are exhausted, tired, move withinwards. Rest. And your rest will become your meditation, because meditation does not need any exertion of energy. On the contrary -- it conserves, it preserves; it makes you a pool of great energy. When you feel that your serenity and your silence and your joy inside wants to dance outside, both are yours: then sing, then dance, then create. And if your creativity comes from your silences of heart, it will have a different quality, a different flavor. NEXTLINE It is only a question of a little intelligence and balance. Inside is the source of your energies; outside is the world, to let that energy create -- be a creator. NEXTLINE But you cannot be a creator unless you are a meditator. NEXTLINE My sannyasin has a new definition; it is not the definition of the old. In the old definition sannyas meant renouncing the world. My sannyas means rejoicing in the world. But before you can rejoice, you should accumulate energy so much that you start overflowing with love, sensitivity, creativity, poetry, song, dance.... NEXTLINE And certainly these things will have a very compassionate quality. They will not be violent. I cannot conceive of a meditator playing football. I cannot conceive a Gautam Buddha having a boxing match. But a Gautam Buddha can create a beautiful garden of roses. A Gautam Buddha can paint. And his paintings will be far superior to the paintings of Picasso, because Picasso is almost insane. If you look at the paintings of Picasso, you will feel a kind of sickness to throw out. Just keep a Picasso painting in your bedroom and you will have nightmares, because those paintings have come from nightmares of Picasso -- air-conditioned nightmares. NEXTLINE There have been meditators who have created. You can see the Taj Mahal... that has been created by the Sufi mystics. Just watching it in the full-moon night, you can suddenly fall into a deep silence which you have never touched within yourself. If you can sit silently by the side in the deep night, the beauty of Taj Mahal starts changing something within you. The Taj Mahal does not remain just there outside, it starts becoming a part of your own being. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I used to live in Jabalpur for twenty years. I had a professor, I loved him very much. He was an old man; he had taught me in my post-graduation classes and I had asked him many times to come to Jabalpur, because Jabalpur has something which is unique and is nowhere to be found on this earth. NEXTLINE But the old professor was very stubborn in the sense that he had been around the world, he had seen everything... he had been a professor in many countries. And he could just not believe that there was something which he would be surprised to know. But I am also very stubborn. I made that old fellow agree: "You remember, I am going to take you to my place. You think you are stubborn? I am going to prove to you that although you are stubborn, you are number two." NEXTLINE And one day while I was driving him to his home, rather than going to his home... he started shouting, "Where are you going?" NEXTLINE I said, "I am going to the place I have been telling you about for almost two years." NEXTLINE He said, "This is strange. It is my car, you stop it!" NEXTLINE I said, "Nobody can stop this car. And you sit silently; otherwise I will take the car up to its full speed." NEXTLINE Of speed, he was very much afraid, and when he saw that the car was going a hundred miles per hour, he closed his eyes and remained silent -- because the car could go to one hundred and forty miles. NEXTLINE I took him to the famous marble rocks in Jabalpur. They are thirteen miles away from Jabalpur, and even when you have reached the point, you don't know that just within two minutes you are entering into another world. A beautiful river, Narmada, flows for two miles continuously between two mountains of white marble. In the full-moon night, if anything defeats Taj Mahal it is the marble rocks of Jabalpur. For two miles continuously, high rocks of white marble, reflected into the river. Absolute silence prevails, not even a bird. I took him in a small boat without an engine, because that engine creates a disturbance. As he entered, he looked at me, he could not believe.... NEXTLINE He said, "My God! If I had died without knowing this place, I would have lived without meaning. But please take me close to the rocks -- I want to touch them, to feel that they really exist, because it is so dreamlike." NEXTLINE I had to take the boat close to the rocks. He touched the rocks, he felt the rocks, and he said, "Now I am convinced that you have not created some delusion, that you have not given me some drug, that I am perfectly in my senses." And he pinched himself to see whether he was in his consciousness or not. NEXTLINE There are temples in China, in Japan, in India, created by meditators. Just sitting there and you will find that what has been so difficult for you, to stop your thinking, stops itself. The whole atmosphere of the temple, the fragrance, the incense, the statues... they are all creating a certain space within you. NEXTLINE Once humanity learns both things together -- meditativeness and a scientific approach about the world -- we will have entered into a new phase, into a totally new phase discontinuous with the ugly, unhealthy, sick and insane past. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I don't want to leave you in this silence.... NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Mendel Kravitz is a fitness freak; he lifts weights and jogs five miles a day. One day, he is admiring his body in the mirror. He notices that he is really suntanned all over, except on his prick, so he decides to do something about it. NEXTLINE He goes to the beach, undresses, and buries himself in the sand, except for his prick which he leaves sticking out. NEXTLINE Two little old ladies are strolling along the beach, and one looks down and says, "There really is no justice in this world!" NEXTLINE "What do you mean?" her friend asks. NEXTLINE The first old lady says, "Look at that! When I was ten years old, I was afraid of it. When I was twenty years old, I was curious about it. When I was thirty, I enjoyed it. When I was forty, I asked for it. When I was fifty, I paid for it. When I was sixty, I prayed for it. When I was seventy, I forgot all about it. NEXTLINE "And now that I'm eighty, the damn thing is growing all over wild!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 14A rock among the waves28 December 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE AS YOU GREET US, AND AGAIN AS YOU LEAVE, YOU ARE POURING YOUR ENERGY ON US. HOW COME MY BODY DOESN'T GRACEFULLY BOW DOWN TO YOU? I KNOW MY HEART DOES! AM I A ROCK AMONG THE WAVES? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Deva Ashu, I myself have been watching. On your face there is some stoniness, and you stand out because everybody is bowing down and you remain stiff. Now you yourself have asked the question. NEXTLINE The first thing: it is very difficult to know your heart, and it is very easy to say anything about your heart. It is something invisible, non-objective. But your face, your eyes, your body, give indications of your heart. So please, don't be deluded that your heart is full of grace and the body seems like a rock in the river. NEXTLINE The heart is part of your body. If the heart is graceful, the body is a very obedient servant. It simply follows the heart. But you have not mentioned anything about your face, naturally, because you cannot see it. I have seen your face. NEXTLINE You have been deeply connected with me. Deva Ashu has been my personal dental nurse. That's where the problem is -- you must have come with unconscious expectations that you would be received in the same way as you have been received for many years. But life stops for no one; now somebody else is functioning in your place, and that must be the basic wound in your being. NEXTLINE I know you love me, but your love is not unconditional. It is not just a pure gift. Unconsciously it wants to be replied to, recognized -- you have been important in the sense that Devageet, my dental surgeon, was working and you were participating. That closeness you are not finding anymore; you are feeling as if you are no longer significant or important. This is how the mind creates stupid expectations and then suffers from them. NEXTLINE Looking at you, I have remembered all these days you have been here. You are showing the face of a martyr. And there must be some jealousy too because now another nurse has replaced you. If your love is unconditional then your concern is not who is helping me to remain in the body -- your concern should be that it is more than enough that I am in the body. NEXTLINE It may look hard to you, but there was no other way. You will be surprised to know that when Nityamo replaced you, because you were not here, the first thing I told Nityamo was, "For years I have been accustomed of Ashu, and when I am in the dentist's chair I may use the name `Ashu' for you. Don't feel offended, because my dentist chair is not just a dental affair...." NEXTLINE With me everything is a little strange. From the dental chair, I have created three books! It must be absolutely unprecedented, because people are so afraid of the dental chair and the dentist. I have enjoyed it so much -- but it created difficulties for poor Devageet, because you cannot work on the teeth while I am talking. What he could have done in ten minutes would take two hours! NEXTLINE You are missing that privacy, that intimacy, when I was talking to only two persons, Devageet and you. And I have my own games to play. I had put you against Devageet -- you are his dental nurse. I can experience whatever is happening, even under a high dose of laughing gas, and I used to remind Ashu again and again: "Don't listen to Devageet. As far as this dental room is concerned, I am still your master." Even with closed eyes... because they tried that too. They blindfolded me so I could not see what was going on, but I could see that the gas was not at the maximum. And I was beating Ashu continuously -- "You are listening to Devageet!" Devageet stopped talking. He managed to give messages by signal. NEXTLINE It was a beautiful time, and many things that I would have never bothered to talk about, I talked about in the dental chair. I was creating difficulty for them -- because how can you work inside the mouth when I am speaking? But my sensitivity is such that just a lower degree of gas and I would hit Ashu immediately. She was in a great difficulty... she has to listen to the doctor, but as far as I am concerned the doctor and the nurse both are my disciples. I have beaten Devageet so much that sometimes I feel sad about the poor fellow. He has been doing his best, but he was doing it according to his medical understanding. With me, things cannot be in any way ordinary. NEXTLINE Ashu has been here -- as far as I am concerned there is no change. My love is as available to you, but because you are no more in that intimacy, where you were even put in charge of the doctor to take care that he did not interfere in whatever I wanted to do... It is against medical practice; the doctor should not listen to the patient. But here the situation is totally different -- I am the doctor and you are the patient, it does not matter! NEXTLINE So just a little understanding, Ashu, and your stoniness will melt. I know you have a graceful heart, but because of your mind you are feeling almost a foreigner here. Drop all this nonsense. You are the same to me. NEXTLINE Even if people have betrayed me, my love for them remains the same because I had not given my love with any condition. People have lied about me, have written books with complete fictions, but my love for them still remains the same. All that I know is that they are unconscious people, and they don't know what they are doing. NEXTLINE You have to be a little conscious. It is good that you asked the question. There is something more you have made part of your question which needs a totally different dimension of answer. You are saying, "As you greet us and again as you leave, you are pouring your energy on us. How come my body does not gracefully bow down to you? I know my heart does. Am I a rock among the waves?" NEXTLINE As for your own psychology, I have said everything that you needed. Relax -- you will remain in my heart just as any sannyasin, with the same love, with the same compassion, because I don't ask anything from you. I have such an abundance flowing that I don't know what to do with it. I have to share. NEXTLINE But the second part of the question takes a totally different dimension. In a flowing river, a few rocks have their own beauty. A river without rocks loses sound. A river with rocks is a singing and dancing river. If your heart feels graceful, flowing, don't be worried about a certain stony feeling in your body. That too has its own place. Rather than fighting with it, rejoice in it. You are not an ordinary river but a river that sings, a river that dances. Without rocks, rivers are very poor. NEXTLINE I loved the place where I stayed in Kulu Manali for the simple reason that the river passing by was so full of rocks... day in, day out, there was music, there was dance. But as you know about me, even in my own country I am a foreigner. The government to which Kulu Manali belongs started freaking out. They had made a law that a man who is not born in their state cannot purchase any land -- just to prevent me. But I needed a vast land for my commune, and it is as retarded a part of the country as you can conceive -- uneducated, poor, completely in the grip of the politicians. NEXTLINE You will be surprised that the day I left Kulu Manali, the arrangement was that they were going to arrest me on a very fictitious, absurd account. To them it may have looked like very solid ground.... As I left Kulu Manali, just within one hour the arrest warrant reached the place I had been living in. The arrest warrant was hilarious -- and makes me feel about our experts that they are donkeys loaded with knowledge. NEXTLINE The reason for arrest was that I had paid four hundred thousand dollars in fines in America, so I have to pay tax and I have to explain from where I got the money. I have never paid any fine anywhere in the world. I don't know even the names of the people who paid the fine. Even my jailer was surprised, because they were not expecting it, knowing perfectly well that I don't have a single cent to pay. And imposing four hundred thousand dollars... it is nearabout sixty lakh rupees. From where am I going to pay it? NEXTLINE But I am not a man who worries about anything. Not for a single moment did the idea even arise in me that this could be a strategy -- to keep me in jail until the fine was paid. NEXTLINE And I never think of the tomorrow. Today is too beautiful and too fulfilling -- who cares about tomorrows which never come? NEXTLINE As I was fined... it is a strange thing but it has to be stated publicly to the whole world. They had thirty-four charges against me, all fictitious, and they agreed with my attorneys that if two of the crimes were accepted, I would be freed. NEXTLINE My problem is, what about the other thirty-two crimes that I have committed? The government of America is deceiving their own nation. If I have really committed those thirty-two crimes, then there is no other way; I should be punished. But for the first time I realized that in America, justice is part of business. Accept two crimes and the other thirty-two crimes disappear -- and any two crimes; they were not even insistent about what crimes. And the two crimes were so stupid that nobody can think that a person should be fined even if he has committed them. NEXTLINE Four hundred thousand dollars... and to ask a man, knowing perfectly well that he has not touched money for almost thirty years -- I had been in America for five years, and I don't know how the dollar bill looks. But I have thousands of people who managed immediately, within ten minutes. Even Judge Leavy was surprised that they paid the fine. And the crimes, if you look into it, are not even worth paying two rupees. NEXTLINE One crime was that I had inside myself an intention to become a resident of America. I never thought that people had yet found any way to know the intentions, the dreams, the imaginations of people's minds -- and when I am saying that I don't have any intention to live in this most ugly and obscene society. NEXTLINE And the second crime was that I have arranged thousands of marriages. I was for three and a half years silent, not speaking, not meeting any sannyasins except my secretary, to be informed how the commune was going. I have not told anybody to get married because fundamentally I am against marriage. And if I can manage one thousand, or thousands of marriages, why can I not manage a marriage for myself? If that is the way to get residence, I could have married as many American women as they want! But I am absolutely against marriage, and the man who was making all these charges said such a hilarious thing -- that I have arranged thousands of marriages which are fake, but certainly at least one marriage I have arranged.... NEXTLINE Now the man is only certain about one marriage. On what logical grounds does he stretch it to thousands of marriages? He himself admits that he is certain only about one marriage. And strangely enough, all the other marriages were not recognized -- only that marriage was recognized, given a green card for employment and residence. This is strange. This is bribery -- they have purchased those two persons, and neither of them has ever talked to me. And as far as marriage is concerned, not even the word had been uttered by those two persons or by me. They had no way to meet me. NEXTLINE On these two flimsy grounds, four hundred thousand dollars as a punishment! I don't know who paid those four hundred thousand dollars, because hundreds of sannyasins were there in the court. The court was almost my court. Strangely enough when I entered the court people stood up, and when the judge entered it was announced: "Stand up; the judge is coming in." Sometimes I wonder... who is the judge? NEXTLINE And now the government of the state of Kulu Manali wants to arrest me. I don't even know the names of those who paid the fine. I have nothing to do with it, I have never paid a single rupee to anybody. In the first place I don't have it -- and a very logical thing has to be understood.... NEXTLINE I always left in the right time. That's what I say: existence manages things if you leave it to existence. I left Rajneeshpuram in America. The next day they were going to bring four helicopters -- their helicopters were coming every day to find my house, and from the helicopters they were going to drop paratroopers to arrest me. Just a few hours before, I left Rajneeshpuram to go to a beautiful mountain resort that belonged to my sannyasins. They had been insisting for two years -- it is strange that on that day I decided that okay, two years were enough. They had prepared the place; they just wanted me to rest there. And the government was in shock -- their whole program had failed. NEXTLINE I left Kulu Manali just one hour before -- I was still at the airport when they reached the hut where I had been living near the river. And now again the Indian government is continuously sending letters saying that I have to pay taxes. It is such a stupid and illogical step -- in logic they call it infinite regression -- if I pay the tax, then I have to pay tax on the money that I am paying as tax. Naturally... where is it going to end? Whenever I pay tax, I owned that money -- on that money I have to pay the tax again. And it will go on infinitely. Either you stop at the first step or there is no way to stop. And they know perfectly well that I don't have any money, I don't have any possessions. Everything the people who love me allow me to use, belongs to them. NEXTLINE But governments are always stupid. In fact, if you are not stupid you are not qualified to be in the government. Can't they see the point? If somebody else has paid the fine, and I don't even know their names, how can I be asked to pay tax? NEXTLINE But the same foolishness prevails over the whole world in all the bureaucracies. It seems the moment they become bureaucrats their minds stop functioning. NEXTLINE I have heard about a politician who was going through mind surgery. But when the doctors opened his mind, it was so full of crap that it needed a dry cleaning, so they took out the whole brain and brought it into the other room. While they were cleaning his mind, a man came rushing in and said to the politician, "What are you doing here lying in the hospital? You have been chosen president!" And the politician disappeared. NEXTLINE When the doctors had finished cleaning they could not find the man. They came to know from the newspapers that he had become the president, so they approached him: "You have left your brain with us." NEXTLINE The president said, "To be a president, the brain is no longer needed. You keep it. When I am defeated or when I am no more in power, perhaps I may need it." NEXTLINE There is a law, which is a very significant law, that all our bureaucracies and governments function in such a way that the most inefficient, inadequate person finally reaches to the top. NEXTLINE Hearing it for the first time it seems, how can it be? But if you see the whole process... A clerk is doing perfectly well. Because he is doing perfectly well as a clerk, he becomes the head clerk. He knows nothing about being the head clerk, but if he still has some sense left he will function better than other head clerks. He will become the superintendent. NEXTLINE You are moving people from places where they are efficient because of their efficiency, but you don't understand a simple thing, that to be efficient as a clerk does not mean that you will be efficient as a corporation commissioner. So all the heads of the bureaucracy are absolutely inefficient. They had been efficient in some area, and that has taken them to higher posts. The higher they go, the less efficient -- until they reach to the ultimate inefficiency. Then they become the presidents, the vice-presidents, prime ministers -- the whole world is being dominated by all kinds of idiots. NEXTLINE Deva Ashu, you should not feel at all tense; my love is not the love that disappears. It goes on growing -- whether you are close to me or far away, it does not matter. And remember that your body is a very significant signal. To know about the heart is a difficult job. Your body indicates that your heart is no longer graceful, no longer loving -- listen to the body first because that is the most visible sign. And then move inwards... the body has to be graceful, the body has to be beautiful, the body has to be deeply alive, and then only can you find the grace of the heart and ultimately, the grace of your being. NEXTLINE But start from the door and then enter into the temple. Don't be disturbed because you have recognized that the body is not so graceful, is not so receptive -- it is a great insight. Look around at all the causes that have made it so, and immediately the ungracefulness will disappear. NEXTLINE And whenever you can manage here, you can be my dental nurse, because Nityamo was very graceful when I told her, "If I sometimes call you Ashu, don't feel offended." She said to me, "Ashu is my friend, and if you call me Ashu it is perfectly good." Nityamo is not your competitor. Here, nobody is a competitor. Only once in a while some idiot enters. NEXTLINE One German has written a letter to me. Only a German can do it..."You have been pouring so much juice over Deva Amrito, why don't you declare him your ambassador?" But he is not aware: there are three Amritos here. And as far as his suggestion is concerned, although it is coming out of jealousy the suggestion is perfectly right. Even before receiving his letter I had told Deva Amrito that he is going to be my ambassador in Holland. NEXTLINE Once in awhile somebody brings the outside world into this oasis of different consciousnesses. Certainly he is not aware that he has become jealous, but I have my own reasons why I have answered Amrito's questions. He is writing a book. I don't have time to answer all his questions, because he wants it to be his whole pilgrimage, the seeking and the search, and he wants to end it by finding me. He has already written eight books on me and he thinks this book is going to be very comprehensive -- answering everything, destroying all lies that have been spread by governments, by politicians, by journalists, by all kinds of criminal people who are around. NEXTLINE It was because of this reason that I took his questions and answered them, and his questions were significant for you too. But the German mind becomes tense. Don't be worried. Meditate so that you are no more a German. The day I see that you are no more a German, I will also make you the ambassador for Germany. NEXTLINE In fact, every sannyasin is my ambassador. To make a certain man responsible is not making him a dictator for you. It is making him a help, a contact center, because the fight is going to be all over the world. Twenty-five countries have prevented me from entering them. Now I have to find my own ways to enter. And in each country I am going to have my embassy. NEXTLINE For the first time, a single individual is going to have embassies around the world. NEXTLINE And those embassies will be your meeting places, because the fight is going to become more and more intense. Because I cannot enter, in every country sannyasins have to fight their own governments and their stupidity. NEXTLINE And the fight is so total that I disagree with the past on every point. It is not a question of choice -- it is a question of breaking away with the past completely and creating a new man. I can see the new man arising in you on the horizon. And with this new man will be born a new humanity, a new vision, and a new way of life. NEXTLINE I am not interested in creating a religion, which is a very simple affair. I am interested to create as many religious people as possible -- an atmosphere of religiousness, with no organized church but every individual having his own individuality as his religion. NEXTLINE Man has never been given that freedom. I want every individual to have his own religion -- in other words his own lifestyle, his own philosophy -- and to live according to his own deepening insight. NEXTLINE You have to be alert of a tremendous responsibility that I am handing over to you: NEXTLINE You have to be the harbingers, you have to be the dawn of a new, totally new humanity, completely discontinuous with the past. NEXTLINE The past has played tricks with you to keep you encaged. Every religion condemns jealousy and every religion creates jealousy. I am surprised that for thousands of years nobody has seen the connection. If you are competitive you cannot drop jealousy. Jealousy is the energy in you -- ugly, stinking, but it keeps you competitive. And every religion teaches you to be competitive, to be more "good," to be a greater saint, to be a more moral person. But then when you come across a person who is a bigger saint than you, jealousy will be the by-product. And they all condemn jealousy. NEXTLINE All the religions have condemned stealing, but no religion has condemned people accumulating riches. And these are two sides of the same thing. If people go on accumulating riches, they are forcing people to be poor, to such an extent that the poor has only one choice if he wants to survive -- he has to become a thief. NEXTLINE All the religions are against sex, but they all preach celibacy. And celibacy makes sex unnatural, perverted. NEXTLINE The responsibility that I am giving to you is to see clearly how the past has destroyed man -- beautiful names hiding ugly realities. And unless you drop those beautiful names, you cannot discover those ugly realities. They live together, they are part of one another. NEXTLINE Each sannyasin has to be a revolt in himself -- transforming his own being, cleaning his own mind, and spreading the message of freedom. Not of Christianity, not of Hinduism, but simply the dignity of the individual and his total freedom. NEXTLINE Unless we can create this planet consisting of free individuals, we cannot survive anymore. The old, the past, has come to its very end. It can only manage a global suicide. I am fighting against the global suicide of a beautiful planet which has evolved more than any other planet in the world, which has come to some consciousness that can be increased very easily. NEXTLINE My teaching is very simple: the whole man, inside a meditator and outside a creator. NEXTLINE But if you get into small jealousies that you have been carrying from your heritage... rather than making it a problem simply drop it. It has not helped you, it has only made you more miserable. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Paddy is on his deathbed, groaning, when his wife Maureen walks into the room and asks if he has any last requests. NEXTLINE "Yes dear," says Paddy, "there is one thing I really would like before I go off to that great shamrock patch in the sky." And then he whispers, "A piece of that wonderful chocolate cake of yours." NEXTLINE "Ah, Patrick," says Maureen, "have a potato instead. I am saving the cake for the party after the funeral." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Five of the most important men in a woman's life are, NEXTLINE THE DOCTOR: He says, "Take off your clothes." NEXTLINE THE DENTIST: He says, "Open wide." NEXTLINE THE HAIRDRESSER: He says: "Do you want it teased or blown?" NEXTLINE THE INTERIOR DECORATOR: He says, "You will like it once it is in." NEXTLINE And, THE MILKMAN: He says, "Do you want it in front or in the back?" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Paddy and Sean are watching Molly being chatted up in the pub. When she leaves with the man, Sean turns to Paddy and says, "I can't understand it. Molly is one of the ugliest girls around, and yet all the men seem to find her attractive." NEXTLINE "It's because of her speech impediment," says Paddy, sagely. NEXTLINE "Her speech impediment?" asks Sean astonished. NEXTLINE "Yes," says Paddy, "she can't say `no'." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Ashu, you have to learn to say yes. Yes to the rocks, yes to the flowing river, yes to your totality as you are. And your song and your dance will return to you. In my vision there is no greater word than yes. Yes to existence without any conditions. And you will find relaxation and you will find a communion and you will find both the worlds, the inner and the outer. NEXTLINE You can call my approach the philosophy of yes. All other philosophies and all other religions are more interested in teaching you no's. I teach you, without any conditions, to say yes to yourself in whatever situation you find. And each situation is changed miraculously the moment you are capable to say yes. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE This silence is immense... but I always like you, when I leave you, to be in as hilarious a mood as possible. I know the trees also understand the jokes, and I have a deep compassion for them because they cannot laugh. NEXTLINE Man is the only being on the earth who has come to the understanding of laughter. Buffaloes don't laugh -- they are very saintly. Donkeys don't laugh -- they are too philosophic. Idiots don't laugh because they are afraid of being caught doing something that they don't understand. NEXTLINE The Englishman laughs only once, not to let anybody understand that he has not understood. The Frenchman laughs twice -- once to accompany other people out of courtesy and then, in the middle of the night when he gets it. Germans simply don't laugh. On the contrary, they are worried -- why are people laughing? They inquire of others -- what was the matter? Jews don't laugh; on the contrary they say, "Shut up, it is an old joke and moreover you are telling it all wrong." NEXTLINE But I want my people to understand that because only man is capable to laugh, that means laughter is the highest point of consciousness, the highest point of understanding, the highest point of evolution. That's why I have started calling laughter "the prayer time." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Waking up with a terrible hangover after the office party, Paddy turns to his wife Maureen and says, "Jesus! Would you believe, I can't remember a thing that happened last night!" NEXTLINE "It's just as well," replies Maureen. "You got into an argument with the boss and he fired you." NEXTLINE "He did?" shouts Paddy. "After all I've done for him? Well, screw the bastard!" NEXTLINE "I did," says Maureen. "You go back to work tomorrow." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Moishe Finkelstein is walking down the street one night in New York. Suddenly a man jumps out from the side alley and puts a gun to Moishe's head. NEXTLINE "Give me your money," he threatens, "or I'll blow out your brains!" NEXTLINE "Blow away," says Moishe. "In America you can live without brains, but you can't live without money." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 15For no reason at all28 December 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE THE MORE I TRUST IN MEDITATION THE MORE I FEEL MY HEART OPENING AND VASTLY PRESENT. AT THE SAME TIME I LOSE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT WHO I AM, WHY I AM HERE AND FOR WHAT. I CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT EXCEPT WATCH, CRY, LAUGH, SING, GIGGLE. SOMETHING IS HAPPENING FOR WHICH I HAVE NO NAME. IT IS JUST THROBBING. THE OTHER NIGHT I WOKE UP SUDDENLY KNOWING, OH, I AM JUST HUMAN, A HUMAN BEING. IT SOUNDS FUNNY, BELOVED MASTER, BUT IT'S BEEN SUCH A JOY FEELING SO ACCEPTED. WOULD YOU PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Arunima, the question you have put is not coming from your mind; that's why it looks a little strange. Mind is very clever -- it knows how to ask a question. It does not know any answer as such. NEXTLINE Whenever such a thing happens to a meditator -- which is bound to happen if you don't stop before reaching your inner being -- that you suddenly feel a change of climate; the questioning mind is no longer there and you are standing before the answer, it certainly feels very weird. You don't have a question -- what is this answer all about? Our very training is that the question should come first and then the answer. NEXTLINE But existence is absolutely, fortunately, uneducated. It brings the answer first and then you have to start questioning: What is happening? Where am I? You see things are happening: there are tears of joy, there is a song in the heart, there is a rejoicing which cannot be named but can certainly be experienced. And you are surrounded by all these mysteries without any explanation. One thing certainly you can see: that the knowledge about who I am, why I am here and for what, has completely disappeared. It is for the first time, so you are still looking for it. But trust me -- you will never come to know. NEXTLINE I myself don't know. Just think about these questions -- "Who am I?" Do you think you can know it? The very process of knowing involves a duality between the knower and the known. And you are the knower, you can never be the known. It takes a little time to relax and accept the fact that "I am" without ever bothering about "who am I?" NEXTLINE Why am I here? Why are the trees here? And why is this whole sky with the stars here? Why is anything in this universe here? Because people could not relax in this innocence, they manufactured fictitious answers. "God made the world; that's why it is here." But they forgot that sooner or later somebody is going to ask, "Why is this God here?" NEXTLINE The ultimate -- and the ultimate is the immediate -- is simply here for no reason at all. The day you can accept it without any kind of effort you will find a tremendous opening, of a totally new vision and perception, in which everything is accepted. NEXTLINE The question is really a way of not accepting things as they are. First you want to know why they are here -- you may not have thought that this urge to know why is a kind of mental scratching. The more you scratch, the better it feels, but finally it starts bleeding. In the beginning it gives a sweet feeling. You can try -- scratch. But don't scratch too much. That sweet feeling is leading you in a wrong direction. NEXTLINE The relaxed approach towards life is not to be worried about why I am here, who I am, and for what. If you can drop these "What, Why, Who"... these three are the Christian God, Holy Ghost and Jesus Christ. They are haunting you. They have haunted the whole humanity's past. All your philosophies and all your theologies are born out of these three. NEXTLINE I am not a philosopher. Neither am I a theologian nor am I interested in any kind of stupid mind gymnastics. I simply want you to know I am here, you are here. There is no reason why we are here and there is no purpose, and this is the beauty of existence. Now you can laugh and nobody can ask why you are laughing. You can dance and nobody has the right to ask why you are dancing. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I am reminded of Pablo Picasso; he was painting a beautiful flower growing by the side of a rose bush and a man was watching very intensely, knowing perfectly well that Pablo Picasso is not an ordinary man. But he could not contain his curiosity and finally he asked Picasso, "Forgive me; I should not interfere, but I am helpless. I can't understand what you are painting and why you are painting -- what is the purpose of it?" NEXTLINE Picasso looked at him and said, "Do you think I know?" NEXTLINE The man was even more surprised. He said, "If you don't know, then why are you doing it?" NEXTLINE Picasso said, "Knowing has nothing to do with doing. Look at the rose bush -- nobody asks these flowers, `Why are you here? What is the purpose?' And if you were not here, nobody would have felt your absence. Nobody asks the trees, nobody asks the clouds, and yet all the idiots are after me. Wherever I go they start asking me, `What is it?' If the whole existence has no answer, from where can a poor Pablo Picasso find the answer?" NEXTLINE It looks absurd. But it looks absurd because we are looking for the meaning. NEXTLINE The moment you drop the whole process of asking the meaning of things, everything is perfectly beautiful in its absolute absurdity. NEXTLINE A very rich woman asked Pablo Picasso, "I have never seen a portrait made by you and I am ready to pay any amount you ask. I want my portrait to be painted by you." NEXTLINE Picasso said, "I have not painted portraits because then I will have to answer so many questions for which I don't have any answer. If you promise me that you won't ask any question after the portrait is made, and simply give me the check, then I can do a portrait for you. This will be my first and last portrait." NEXTLINE The woman was very proud, having the only portrait by Pablo Picasso in the whole world. She was ready to pay any amount and she said, "You need not be worried about the check; I will give it to you in advance and I promise not to ask any question." Ten million dollars, and the woman gave him the check immediately. NEXTLINE Pablo Picasso painted her portrait for almost a whole week, every day a two or three-hour session, and the woman forgot the condition. In fact anybody would have forgotten the condition, seeing the situation of the portrait. She could not find any relationship either to her face or to her clothes or to her body, and the man was painting madly. But she must have been a very controlled and disciplined woman. She waited... at least let him finish first. NEXTLINE The seventh day he said, "The portrait is complete." NEXTLINE The woman said, "I have just a very small question." NEXTLINE Pablo Picasso said, "You have forgotten the condition! That's why I never made any portrait. What is your question?" NEXTLINE She said, "It is not a big question. I simply want to know, where is my nose? Because if I can find my nose in the portrait, I will start figuring out where are my eyes, where is my mouth. But I don't see my nose anywhere." NEXTLINE Picasso simply returned the check and he said, "You get out of my house. I had made it clear from the very beginning. Why should I paint your nose? What purpose is the nose going to serve in the portrait? The portrait is not going to breathe." NEXTLINE Never again in his life was he asked for a portrait. It was good -- he could go on doing any kind of painting; at least if he is painting the clouds you cannot ask him stupid questions like "Where is the nose of the cloud?" NEXTLINE I am in absolute agreement with Pablo Picasso. He was one of the most existential geniuses mankind has produced. He does not paint for any purpose. Painting is his dance with colors. Painting is his joy expressed with colors. You never ask when you see the sunset and the beautiful colors on the horizon -- Picasso's paintings belong to the same category. They are immensely beautiful but absolutely irrational. Existence is irrational, it is not Pablo Picasso's fault. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE You had entered into a beautiful space but you carried your old habits with you. You are saying, "I can't do anything about it." There is no need to do anything about it. Doing anything will be a great disturbance; the whole beautiful space will disappear. NEXTLINE Yes, you are allowed to watch it. You are allowed to cry, you are allowed to laugh, you are allowed to sing, you are allowed to giggle, you are allowed to do anything that happens in the moment without ever bothering the rationality of it, the relevance of it. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Bodhidharma entered China fourteen hundred years ago. Emperor Wu had come to receive him at the border... it was an extraordinary situation. China has remained up to now the biggest land in the world. The Chinese empire was the most vast empire you can conceive, and for the emperor to come to receive a beggar... because in Buddhism the sannyasin's name is bhikkshu. Bhikkshu means the beggar. It does not have the condemnatory tone which it has in English; it has, on the contrary, tremendous respectfulness. A bhikshu is not one who has nothing, a bhikshu is one who has renounced everything because what he has inside himself is so valuable he cannot carry unnecessary luggage with him. NEXTLINE The emperor had heard so many strange stories about Bodhidharma that finally he became so excited that he could not wait for him to enter the capital. On the contrary, he traveled hundreds of miles to receive him on the borders of China. But he could not believe his eyes. He remembered those stories..."They were right! I should have believed those stories rather than traveling so far, taking unnecessary risks." NEXTLINE Bodhidharma was coming with one shoe on his head, and one shoe on his foot. Obviously curiosity arises, although the Chinese emperor and the whole Chinese culture is based on Confucian etiquette. Wu tried to avoid seeing the shoe on his head, because it is not mannerly for a man like him to point to the shoe. But it is very difficult. He remembered that even Confucius in his ANALECTS has no mention of it, that if you see a man with a shoe on his head.... NEXTLINE You should not ask because it is unmannerly; it might make the other man feel embarrassed, and it is not right for a man who is cultured. But the shoe was so prominent that everything else that he had thought about on the way... he was going to ask Bodhidharma about the lotus paradise, what is enlightenment, what is the essential teaching of Gautam Buddha -- everything became secondary and the shoe became primary. In spite of himself he blurted, "Why are you carrying the shoe on your head?" NEXTLINE Bodhidharma said, "I will not enter into the territory of your empire. If a man is not even free to have his own shoe on his own head, this is not the place for me. This shoe was simply to check you out." NEXTLINE He never crossed the Chinese boundary. He remained outside in a mountain cave. Wu was very much disturbed. Certainly he was right; the shoe was his, the head was his, and who are you to ask? This is interfering. He had to go to offer an apology: "I am absolutely sorry and I will never be able to forgive myself for interfering in your freedom." NEXTLINE But Bodhidharma said, "I am not very far away from your boundary. Whenever you have any essential question to ask, you can come to me." NEXTLINE He said, "I have an essential question. So many Buddhist monks have arrived before you and I have opened many monasteries, many temples. I have put the whole empire's treasure into translating all the Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. Thousands of scholars are working. What will be my reward for all these virtuous acts?" NEXTLINE Bodhidharma said, "It is better you do not come near me because your question has not changed, it is still the shoe. You think you are doing anything virtuous? The very idea that you are doing something virtuous and you are asking what reward you are going to get shows the mind not of an emperor, but the mind of an ordinary businessman. You are trying to do business with existence, and existence is not available to the businessman's mind. The businessman is always trying to have more by giving less. That is simply the whole economics of business. Give less and get more -- that is the profit." NEXTLINE Bodhidharma said, "Existence is not for people like you. Existence is for those who can give everything without asking for anything in return, knowing perfectly well that what they are giving already belongs to existence, it is not theirs." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Do you think you have anything that has not been given by existence to you? And in returning it, you want some reward? You want some respectability, some prestige, some power? You have not understood even the ABC of the communion with nature. When you know that as a separate entity you don't exist, then there is no question of giving and taking. You are in existence, you have been in existence, you will be in existence. And this very understanding that "I am an essential part of this vast beautiful universe" will make you dance, will make you celebrate. NEXTLINE There is no need for any reason for dancing, for singing, for celebration. Just to be is enough. Out of this being will flow all your joy, all your laughter, all your gratitude, all your prayers. NEXTLINE I teach you this simple religiousness which has no doctrine, which has no reward for virtue and which has no punishment for sin. All those are fictions created by cunning priests and cunning founders of your religions. I want to erase the whole insane past of humanity completely, as if we are here for the first time. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE You had touched a beautiful space, but because of old habits... it happens to everybody. Old habits follow you just like a shadow. You could not enjoy laughing, because your old habit was standing by the corner asking, "What are you doing? Have you gone mad? I don't see anything, any reason to laugh, and you are laughing. Why are you crying? There seems to be no reason for tears." Old habits have to be understood and renounced. All the world religions have taught you to renounce the world. I teach you to renounce your old habits. NEXTLINE And then you say, "In the night I woke up suddenly knowing, oh, I am just human, a human being. It sounds funny..." It does not sound funny, it is funny! You and a human being! Still the old categorization that you are human beings, others are animals, and there are others which are trees. Why make these categories? NEXTLINE Can't you simply experience being, in its purity, without putting a label on it? NEXTLINE I am making it emphatically clear to you, because one label will follow another label. Labels have that habit. First you will say "human being" and then you will say, "Human being? I am an American, I am not an African Black. And I am Catholic Christian, I am not a Hindu. And particularly, I am a woman, I am not a man." And there is no end to this long process. NEXTLINE Simply accept that you are. This pure isness without any labels is the inner unfolding of your potential. There is nothing more that you can aspire to. NEXTLINE It is all in all. NEXTLINE And it is so much that it is difficult to contain it; one starts sharing the joy.... NEXTLINE NEXTLINE A drunk is standing at the bar one day, when he turns to the man on his right and says, "Did you pour beer in my trouser pocket?" NEXTLINE The man says, "I certainly did not." NEXTLINE Then the drunk turns to the man on his left, and says, "Did you pour beer in my trouser pocket?" NEXTLINE The man says, "I most certainly did not pour beer in your trouser pocket." NEXTLINE "Just as I thought," says the drunk, "an inside job." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Arunima, you are asking me what is happening? It is an inside job. Enjoy! NEXTLINE It is our mental training always to look for some cause somewhere outside. Our whole training is meant to be for outer exploration. Even if the stars are so far away that there seems to be no possibility ever to be in contact with those faraway stars, billions of light years away, still there are thousands of scientists around the world who are wasting their lives finding out some way to have contact with other planetary beings. NEXTLINE In America -- I have just remembered what I am going to say to you -- sitting in the court, listening to the government attorney... He had a list of thirty-four crimes that I had committed. The truth is, I cannot even remember those thirty-four crimes. In fact many times I forget whether there were thirty-four or thirty-five. One time I even reached the number sixty-five! NEXTLINE The man was very seriously insisting to the judge, and finally he said the first crime was that I had come to America as a tourist, but with an inner intention to remain there forever. I wondered, in what way can anybody know my inner intention? And if my inner intention is a crime, then what about the dreams in which you have killed people, raped women? There is no way to prove what my inner intentions are. NEXTLINE And the second thing he said was that I had arranged thousands of marriages in America. For three and a half years I was silent and I was not meeting people; I was living in isolation. I wondered, from where is he getting these figures? Thousands of marriages I have arranged and I have not been able even to arrange my own marriage? This man seems to be absolutely mad! A man who has failed even to arrange his own marriage is being charged with arranging thousands of marriages. NEXTLINE I looked at the man, and he realized the fact that he had exaggerated the thing. If I should ask him for the evidence, he would have to produce thousands of husbands and thousands of wives in the court. So he immediately said, "At least this man has arranged one marriage, certainly." Now I wondered... from one "certain" marriage, this government attorney can go on creating a fiction of thousands of marriages! And even about that one marriage I had no knowledge. NEXTLINE In fact, I am the only person in the world who is against marriage. I don't want a single marriage in the world. Because to me, unless marriages disappear, prostitutes will remain; you cannot get rid of them. Homosexuals will remain; you cannot get rid of them. All kinds of sexual perverts will remain -- and psychoanalysts say almost ninety percent of their patients are psychopaths, but their psychopathology is rooted in their sexual perversion. NEXTLINE And there are millions of divorces. Children become, unnecessarily, orphans. Their mothers are alive, their fathers are alive, but because of the divorce they have become orphans. And the root cause is marriage. Just remove marriage and you will have removed almost half the miseries of humanity. It is not a small percentage. NEXTLINE There will not be any need of prostitutes, there will not be any need for every husband and wife to fight every day. There will be no need for children to learn from their fathers and mothers the behavior of a married life. There will not be homosexuals and there will not be any need of diseases like AIDS. NEXTLINE Strangely enough, a man who is preaching against marriage is being charged with arranging thousands of marriages. Sitting there... I was not allowed by my attorneys to say anything because they were worried about me. Every day they tried to convince me, "You should not speak, because a single word from you and the case will become very complicated. It will take twenty or thirty years to solve it, so you simply remain silent." NEXTLINE There were moments when I had to tell them, "It is going very hard, because such stupid charges are put against me and I have to remain silent. And you don't have any courage to stand up and say something." I said, "I have thought many times in these twelve days that it would be better to be thirty years fighting in the court. These courts of which America is very proud have to be put right." NEXTLINE Even the judges were sitting wrongly. A judge has to sit facing both the parties. And I told my attorneys, "Don't stop me. It is intolerable for me to sit there the whole day, seeing the judge changing the position of his chair and just looking at the government attorney. Is he a judge or just part of the same government? He should not behave as part of the government; otherwise there is no question of justice." Those judges were not even looking at my attorneys, they were not even listening to their arguments. Even if they stood and wanted to raise an objection, the judge would not listen to their whole sentence. Just in the middle of a sentence he would say, "Overruled!" NEXTLINE I said, "It will be better for me to suffer thirty years in jails, or a crucifixion, but seeing such unjust behavior... you are asking me to do the impossible. I would put that judge immediately right. He will have to turn his chair, because he cannot sit this way and he cannot behave this way." NEXTLINE But slowly I felt the problem was, my attorneys were also Americans. Perhaps deep down they were also wanting the commune to be destroyed, that I should not by any chance be victorious in the case. I am not saying that they were intentionally or consciously doing that, but the unconscious plays so many games. They were paid, highly paid, so they were fighting for me, but they were fighting for money. They were not fighting for truth. They believed that they were fighting for truth, but I did not see a single instance... except my own sannyasin, Niren, who is also an attorney. He was my attorney, but he is a younger man and some of those attorneys were his professors, some were nationally famous people. So obviously he could not fight against them. NEXTLINE But there came a moment when even he felt... because once a person is a sannyasin, he is no more an American, he is no more an Indian. He came to me in the jail to say that one of our most important attorneys -- and he had been Niren's professor; he is the head of the law department of the University of California, Peter Schey -- was not ready to make a statement under the oath of truth. Without the oath he was ready, but if the oath had to be taken then he would not make a certain statement. NEXTLINE I cannot conceive that an oath can make any difference to any man of understanding. This was simply a strategy not to make the statement, because that statement would have changed the whole course of things. I told Niren, "Pull Peter Schey back and you go on the stand and you make the statement." NEXTLINE And what is an oath? In fact an honest man will refuse to take the oath. I myself have refused to take the oath. The reason is clear: if you ask me to take the oath you are certainly insulting me; you are telling me that without the oath I cannot speak the truth. You are telling me that only under oath am I reliable. And that means my whole life is a life of lies. Nobody is taking an oath every moment -- before making a statement, first he takes the oath, touches the Bible and says, "It is nine o'clock." NEXTLINE The first time I appeared in an Indian court, I refused. The magistrate was shocked. He said, "Why are you refusing?" NEXTLINE I said, "There are many reasons. First, on what book do you want me to put my hand? The Bible? Even the contemporaries of Jesus did not believe him, and the man was put on the cross. He was considered a greater criminal than any other criminal by his whole contemporary world. And you want me to put my hand on his book?" NEXTLINE He said, "No, you can put your hand on Bhagavad Gita." NEXTLINE I said, "Then you are going from bad to worse, because this man Krishna has stolen sixteen hundred wives from people, married women, and he himself was not a man of his word or promise. He has broken his promises, he has gone against his own word, and you want me to put my hand on his book? Then I will have to wash my hands!" NEXTLINE The magistrate said, "Then forget about the books. You simply say yourself that whatever you say will be true." NEXTLINE I said, "You don't understand even simple logic. If I am a man of lies, what is the problem for me to say that whatever I say will be true? It is still going to be a lie. Either you accept me as a man of truth... but don't ask for an oath." NEXTLINE This is the world that we have created -- where in the name of justice all kinds of injustices will be done, where in the name of truth all kinds of fictions will be invented, imposed, conditioned. And you are carrying the whole past, so whenever you really touch an original space in your being, your whole past will try to distract you. You have to be very alert and very conscious not to be corrupted by your own past, not to be corrupted by your own scriptures, not to be corrupted by your own history. Unless this awareness is there, you may come around the right point many times and again you will go astray, far away. NEXTLINE It is very rare to come to such moments, but you went very easily satisfied, feeling that, "I am a human being." NEXTLINE Do you think that has solved the question of who you are? If you had felt that "I am a monkey" would that make any difference? Because the monkey also has consciousness, just as you have.... NEXTLINE No -- no answer is to be accepted, because any answer is going to come from your past conditioning. It is better to remain without the answer, utterly silent, and learn a totally new perception that is without labels. Just pure joy, pure consciousness, a communion with existence and a dance for no reason at all -- a dance simply as a prayer of gratitude. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Pope the Polack is working on a crossword puzzle one Sunday afternoon. He stops for a moment or two, scratches his forehead and turns to one of the cardinals. NEXTLINE "Can you think of a four letter word for `woman'," he asks, "which ends in u-n-t?" NEXTLINE "Aunt," replies the cardinal. NEXTLINE "Ah, thanks," says the pope. "Do you have an eraser?" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Just old habits. You may become the pope, it does not matter. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE The priest and the rabbi are sitting next to each other on a flight from New York to Chicago, when the captain announces that there is some engine trouble. Then he announces that they are going to fly through some rough weather. NEXTLINE Finally he suggests that anyone on board who feels religiously inclined should say their last prayers. NEXTLINE The priest falls on his knees in the aisle and starts kissing his crucifix. And then he notices that the rabbi is crossing himself. NEXTLINE As it happens, the plane levels off and things begin to look more hopeful. The priest turns to the rabbi. "So," he says, looking smug, "when you truly fear death, you turn to Almighty Jesus for help!" NEXTLINE "Not at all," says the rabbi, crossing himself again, "just the usual check: spectacles, testicles, money and cigars." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE It does not matter who you are. Only one thing has to be remembered, that every impression on your being left by the past -- and the past is very long, millions of years of experiences and they are all present in you, and your own space has become smaller and smaller because the junk goes on gathering every generation, more and more. For the meditator, the greatest problem is to cross the boundary of the past and to enter into the present moment, in your purity of consciousness, without asking any question. Because the answer will come from the past. NEXTLINE Just wait. Let your present experience itself become the answer. NEXTLINE It will take time. Just a little patience on your part, and a tremendous explosion... your whole being becomes free from all chains, from all prisons, from all conditionings, and you are for the first time yourself. And strangely, the moment you are yourself you are the whole existence. NEXTLINE Then you are flowering in the roses. NEXTLINE Then you are dancing in the trees. NEXTLINE Then you are singing in the rivers. NEXTLINE Then you are roaring in the oceans. NEXTLINE Then the silence is yours and the beauty of sound is yours. NEXTLINE Once you are finished with your past the whole of existence suddenly becomes your own kingdom. NEXTLINE I call this the kingdom of god. NEXTLINE There is no God -- you are the god of this kingdom. NEXTLINE And no effort is big enough. If you are an honest seeker you will be able to pass all these hindrances and relax into the silent pool of your being. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 16The psychology of the buddhas29 December 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE WHAT IS THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BUDDHAS? IT SOUNDS LIKE A SCIENCE ONLY FOR ENLIGHTENED BEINGS WHO NEED TO PULL, PUSH, SEDUCE, HIT OR KISS THEIR DISCIPLES AT THE RIGHT MOMENT, SO THAT THEY DON'T WOBBLE, GET STUCK OR FALL INTO TRAPS. CAN YOU PLEASE REVEAL SOME OF YOUR FINDINGS OF THE PAST THIRTY YEARS? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Tilo, the question you have asked is fundamentally unanswerable. But a few indications, a few hints can certainly be made available to you -- with absolute certainty that you will not be able to get the point, but that is not my problem. I will try my best. NEXTLINE On your part, if you can be just a passive, silent mind, simply listening as if you are listening to the sound of the birds, not interpreting them, perhaps a certain door may open for you. It all depends on you. The process is not very difficult. It is just an old addiction -- we cannot simply listen the way we listen to music; we immediately start reacting, interpreting, trying to find the meaning of it. We get lost into our own minds and the music passes by. NEXTLINE The first thing... I have used the term "the psychology of the buddhas" not to mean what it means. The man of enlightenment has gone beyond mind. In fact, the mind has faded just like dreams fade away. All the psychologies in the West are concerned with figuring out the functioning of the mind, how it works, why it sometimes works right and sometimes wrong. They have accepted one basic hypothesis which is not true: the hypothesis is that you are no more than mind; you are a structure of body-mind. Naturally, physiology looks into your body and its functioning and psychology looks into your mind and its functioning. NEXTLINE The first point to be noted is about those who have come to know a different space in themselves which cannot be confined by the mind and which cannot be defined as part of the functioning of it. That silent space with no thoughts, no ripples, is the beginning of the psychology of the buddhas. NEXTLINE The word `psychology' is being used all over the world absolutely wrongly, but when something becomes conventional we forget. Even the very word psychology indicates not something about the mind but about the psyche. The root meaning of psychology is "the science of the soul." It is not the science of the mind. And if people are honest, they should change the name, because it is a wrong name and takes people on wrong paths. There exists no psychology in the world in the sense of a science of the soul. NEXTLINE You are, for arbitrary reasons -- just to be able to understand -- divided into three parts. But remember, the division is only arbitrary. You are an indivisible unit. NEXTLINE The body is your outer part. It is an immensely valuable instrument that existence has given to you. You have never thanked existence for your body. You are not even aware what it goes on doing for you, for seventy years, eighty years, in some places one hundred and fifty years -- and in a few faraway parts of the Soviet Union, even up to one hundred and eighty years. That leads me to make the statement that the ordinary conception that the body dies at the age of seventy is not a fact but a fiction that has become so prevalent that the body simply follows it. NEXTLINE It happened... before George Bernard Shaw reached the age of ninety years -- his friends were very much puzzled -- he started looking for a place outside London, where he had lived his whole life. They asked, "What is the point? You have a beautiful house, all the facilities; why are you looking for a new place to live? And in a very strange way -- a few people think you have gone senile." Because he would go around to the villages, not into the towns but into the cemeteries, and he would read what was written on the stones of the graves. Finally he decided to live in a village where he found a gravestone where it was written that "This man died a very untimely death -- he was only one hundred and twelve." NEXTLINE He said to his friends, "As far as I am concerned, it is a worldwide hypnosis. Because the idea of seventy years has been insisted on for so many thousands of years, man's body simply follows it. If there is a village where a man dies at a hundred and twelve and the villagers think he died `very untimely,' that this was not the time for him to die..." He lived in that village during his last years, and he completed the century. NEXTLINE In Kashmir, the part that is being occupied by Pakistan, people live up to a hundred and fifty without any problem. It is just that the idea of seventy years has not poisoned their minds. In Azarbaydzhan, in Uzbekistan, faraway corners of the Soviet Union, people live at least one hundred and eighty years, and not just a few people -- thousands of people have reached to that point and they are still young. They are still not retired, they are working in the fields, in the gardens. NEXTLINE I had told this to one of my professors -- he did not believe me. He said, "I am a professor of philosophy and psychology, and I cannot agree with your idea that the whole humanity is dying because of a psychological conditioning." NEXTLINE I said, "I will show you." NEXTLINE He said, "What do you mean?" NEXTLINE I said, "Just wait a few days, because no argument will prove it. You will need evidence." NEXTLINE One day... he used to live almost one mile away from the philosophy department in the university campus. He was perfectly healthy; he used to walk every day to the department and back to his home. I went to his wife and told her, "You have to do a favor to me. Next morning when Professor S.S. Roy wakes up you just say, `What happened? Could you not sleep well? You look so pale, do you have some fever?'" NEXTLINE And he simply refused to listen. "What kind of nonsense are you talking? I am perfectly okay. There is no fever and I have slept well. I am feeling perfectly well." I had told his wife to write down exactly what he said in a note and later on I would collect those notes. NEXTLINE I told his gardener, "When he comes out you simply say, `What has happened to you? You look so sick.' And remember to write down what he says." And to the gardener he said, "It seems that I could not sleep well in the night." NEXTLINE After his house was the post office, which he had to pass. The postmaster was a friend to him, and I told the postmaster, "You have to do this..." NEXTLINE He said, "But what are you trying to do?" NEXTLINE I said, "It is an argument between me and Professor S.S. Roy, and I am going to prove something to him. I will tell you later on, the whole story. You just do one thing: when Professor Roy passes the post office, you come out. Just hold him and tell him, `You are bobbly, don't go to the university today. I will inform the vice-chancellor that you are not well.'" NEXTLINE And the professor said, "I was also thinking not to go. Something certainly seems to be wrong with the body." NEXTLINE And finally I had to persuade the peon of the philosophy department, because he used to sit in front of the department. It was very difficult to convince him, but he knew that Professor S.S. Roy loved me so much, I could not mean any harm. I told him, "The moment he comes, you simply jump up -- take hold of him. Even if he resists, don't bother; make him lie down on the bench and tell him, `This is not the time for you to walk a mile, you are absolutely sick.'" NEXTLINE He said, "But I am a peon, a poor man..." NEXTLINE I said, "You don't be worried. For that I give the guarantee that you will not be disturbed. Just remember to write what he says, and remember also whether he resists or not." NEXTLINE He did not resist. He simply followed the peon's idea, lay down on the bench and told the peon, "If you can bring the departmental car and tell the driver to take me home... because I don't think I will be able to manage walking one long mile again. I am utterly sick." NEXTLINE Then I collected all those notes. S.S. Roy was lying down on a couch like the ones psychoanalysts use for patients, looking as if he had been sick for months. Even his voice showed that he could only whisper. I told him, "You are certainly very sick, but how have you managed just in one night to be so sick that you look as if you have been sick for months? Just last evening when I left you, you were perfectly okay." NEXTLINE He said, "I am also puzzled." NEXTLINE I said, "There is no need to be puzzled, read these notes!" NEXTLINE Reading the notes -- from the wife to the peon -- he suddenly became perfectly okay. He said, "You are such a fellow that it is better not to get in an argument with you! You could have killed me. I was already thinking to make my will." NEXTLINE I said, "This is the answer to what I have been talking about with you a few days ago -- that the body follows the ideas the mind gets." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Seventy years has become a fixed point, almost all over the world. But it is not the truth of the body. It is a corruption of the body by the mind. And strangely enough, all the religions are against the body -- and the body is your life, the body is your communion with existence. NEXTLINE It is the body that breathes, it is the body that keeps you alive, it is the body that does almost miracles. Do you have any idea how to change a loaf of bread into blood and sort it out into its different constituents and send those constituents where they are needed? How much oxygen your brain needs -- have you any idea? Just in six minutes, if your brain does not get oxygen, you will fall into a coma. For such a long time the body continues to supply the exact amount of oxygen to your brain. NEXTLINE How do you explain the process of breathing? Certainly you are not breathing, it is the body that goes on breathing. If you were breathing, you would not have been here. There are so many worries, you could have forgotten to breathe, and particularly in the night -- either you can breathe or you can sleep. And it is not a simple process, because the air the body takes in consists of many elements which are dangerous to you. It sorts out only those which are nourishing to life and breathes out all that is dangerous to you, particularly carbon dioxide. NEXTLINE The wisdom of the body has not been appreciated by any religion of the world. Your wisest people were no wiser than your body. Its functioning is so perfect -- its understanding has been kept completely out of your control because your control could have been destructive. NEXTLINE So the first part of your life and being is your body. The body is real, authentic, sincere. There is no way to corrupt it, although all the religions have been trying to corrupt it -- they teach you fasting which is against nature and against the needs of the body, and a man who can fast longer becomes a great saint. I will call him the greatest fool who has been dominated by the foolishness of the crowd. NEXTLINE The religions have been teaching you to be celibate, without understanding the mechanism of the body. You eat food, you drink water, you breathe oxygen. Just as blood is created in you, your sexual energy is also created -- it is beyond you. There has not been a single celibate in the whole world. And I challenge all the religions who pretend that their monks are celibates to have them examined by scientists. They will find that they have the same glands and they have the same energy as anybody else. NEXTLINE Celibacy is a crime -- it creates perversions -- just as fasting is a crime. Eating too much is a crime; not eating enough is also a crime. If you listen to the body and simply follow the body, you don't need Gautam Buddhas to teach you, or Mahaviras or Jesus Christs to teach you what you have to do with the body. The body has an inbuilt program, and that inbuilt program you cannot change. You can pervert it.... NEXTLINE I have come across so many saints of different religions, but I have not come across a single saint who seems to be intelligent. He cannot be. His whole discipline destroys all intelligence. NEXTLINE There are thousands of people in this country -- and now the disease is spreading to the outside world -- who are standing on their heads. And they don't know that too much blood reaching the head destroys the very subtle nervous system that creates your intelligence. Hence you will not find a yogi intelligent -- it is impossible. He has destroyed the very possibility. NEXTLINE Man became intelligent because he was not moving like other animals, horizontally. When the animal moves horizontally, as all the animals move, then the blood is circulated all over the body, including the head, in the same amount. If you stand on two feet, because of the gravitation of the earth the head is the last place where the blood will reach, fighting against gravitation. This is the reason why man became intelligent, started being poetic, creative... painters, dancers, mystics. But you are not aware of it. It has been kept outside of your control; otherwise there is every danger you will destroy yourself. NEXTLINE So I teach you, first, a deep respect, love and gratitude for your body. That will be the fundamental of the psychology of the buddhas, of the psychology of the awakened ones. NEXTLINE The second thing after the body is your mind. Mind is simply a fiction. It has been used, in fact used too much, by all kinds of parasites. These are the people who will teach you to be against the body and for the mind. NEXTLINE There is a mechanism called the brain. The brain is part of the body, but the brain has no inbuilt program. Nature is so compassionate -- leaving your brain without any inbuilt program means existence is giving you freedom. Whatever you want to make of your brain, you can make. But what was compassionate on the part of nature has been exploited by your priests, your politicians, your so-called great men. They found a great opportunity to stuff the mind with all kinds of nonsense. NEXTLINE Mind is a clean slate -- whatever you write on the mind becomes your theology, your religion, your political ideology. And every parent, every society is so alert not to leave your brain in your own hands, they immediately start writing the Holy Koran, the Holy Bible, Bhagavadgita -- and by the time they call you adult, capable to participate in the affairs of the world, you are no more yourself. NEXTLINE This is so cunning, so criminal, that I am surprised that nobody has pointed it out. No parent has the right to force the child to be a Catholic or a Hindu or a Jaina. The children are born through you but they don't belong to you. You cannot be the possessors of living beings. You can love them, and if you really love them you will give them freedom to grow according to their own nature, without any persuasion, without any punishment, without any effort by anybody else. NEXTLINE The brain is perfectly right -- it is the freedom given by nature to you, a space to grow. But the society, before you can grow that space, stuffs it with all kinds of nonsense. NEXTLINE There was a man I knew, Professor Rungar -- he lived in Mahatma Gandhi's ashram. It is not much of an ashram, just a few widows and a few weirdos, and not more than twenty. But free food, free clothing, free shelter, and all they have to do are some stupid things. They call it worship, they call it prayer. NEXTLINE Professor Rungar was an educated man, but it does not matter. Before your education you are already contaminated, polluted. He went on eating cow dung for six months, drinking cow's urine -- that was his whole food, and this made him a great saint. Even Mahatma Gandhi declared that he had attained enlightenment. If enlightenment is to be attained by eating cow dung, then better enlightenment will be attained by eating bullshit, obviously! And when Mahatma Gandhi says about him that he has become enlightened, the whole country simply believes it. I have not found a single man criticizing it. NEXTLINE I told Professor Rungar, "As far as I am concerned, you are the most stupid man in this country." It is a very difficult competition, but look at all your religions, what they have stuffed in your mind.... NEXTLINE Every Hindu when he goes to urinate has a thread around his body... that thread ceremony is almost like Jews circumcising their children. And will you believe that I have come across a statement by a rabbi that the reason Jews are so intelligent is because of the circumcision. Mohammedans do the same but at a later age. NEXTLINE Jews have their own baptism. Hindus have their way of introducing the child into the Hindu society with a thread ceremony. Just a thread is put around his neck, and he is surrounded by people chanting from holy scriptures. And every Hindu is expected, when he goes to urinate, to take the thread out of his shirt and wrap the thread around his ear. I have seen professors, vice-chancellors doing the same stupid act. NEXTLINE One vice-chancellor, Dr. Tripathi... I caught him red-handed. I threatened him that, "Either you take this thread off your ear, or I will not allow you to urinate." NEXTLINE "But," he said, "it is my religion." And he was a well-educated man. NEXTLINE I said, "Can you give me any rationalization for it?" NEXTLINE He said, "Certainly. If you put the thread around your ear, it keeps you away from sexual ideas, sexual dreams. It protects your celibacy." NEXTLINE I said, "You are a man, perfectly educated in the West" -- and he had been teaching in the West -- "you will have to come with me to the medical center." NEXTLINE He said, "What do you mean?" NEXTLINE I said, "I want it to be confirmed by medical scientists that putting the thread around the ear protects a person from becoming sexual." NEXTLINE He said, "You always come with strange ideas." NEXTLINE The simple proof was that he had thirteen children. I said, "With this thread, you have produced thirteen children; without the thread you would have threatened the whole humanity! And still you have the nerve to say that it protects your celibacy?" NEXTLINE But the same kind of ideas everywhere you will find forced into the brain. I want it to be clearly understood: the brain is natural; mind is what is stuffed into the brain. So the brain is not Christian, but mind can be; the brain is not Hindu, but the mind can be. NEXTLINE The mind is the creation of the society, not a gift of nature. The first thing the psychology of the buddhas will do is to take away this whole junk that you call mind and leave your brain silent, pure, innocent, the way you were born. NEXTLINE Modern psychology all around the world is doing something stupid: analyzing the brain, analyzing all the thoughts which constitute your mind. In the East we have looked into the innermost parts of humanity and our understanding is, the mind needs no analysis. It is analyzing junk. It needs simply to be erased. The moment the mind is erased -- and the method is meditation -- you are left with a body which is absolutely beautiful, you are left with a silent brain with no noise. The moment the brain is freed from the mind, the innocence of the brain becomes aware of a new space which we have called the soul. NEXTLINE Once you have found your soul, you have found your home. You have found your love, you have found your inexhaustible ecstasy, you have found that the whole existence is ready for you to dance, to rejoice, to sing -- to live intensely and die blissfully. These things happen on their own accord. NEXTLINE The mind is the barrier between your brain, your body and your soul. You can see the difference: the psychology born in the West is concerned with the most non-essential part of you; it goes round and round analyzing the mind. The psychology of the buddhas, in a single hit, will drop the mind and accept only that which existence has given to you, not the society you were unfortunate to be born in. NEXTLINE But every society is unfortunate, every religion is unfortunate. This is the greatest calamity under which humanity has lived up to now. What is the difference between a Mohammedan and a Christian, except the mind? What is the difference between a communist and a spiritualist? -- just the difference of the mind. Each has been cultivated differently. NEXTLINE So the first and the most basic thing is, the psychology of the buddhas has evolved methods of meditation which are really nothing but surgical methods so that the mind can be removed -- it is the worst cancerous growth in you. Other than the mind, everything is absolutely beautiful. It is because only the mind is man-manufactured; everything else comes from the eternal sources of life. NEXTLINE You are asking, Tilo, "It sounds like a science only for enlightened beings who need to pull, push, seduce, hit or kiss their disciples at the right moment so that they don't wobble, get stuck or fall into traps." NEXTLINE It does not appear as a science to the enlightened person, but just like a spring cleaning. For the unenlightened it appears to be what you are describing: "To pull, to push, to seduce, to hit, to kiss their disciples in the right moment." This is how it appears from the outside. As far as the master is concerned, every moment is the right moment. NEXTLINE There are no wrong moments in the world. NEXTLINE And certainly it is not a science in the sense you understand, because science remains confined to the mind. It is more like an art. The master watches the disciple, goes on making every possible effort to wake the disciple. The moment the disciple is awake there is no difference between the master and the disciple -- and he can use any kind of arbitrary method. But the methods are arbitrary, they are not scientific. NEXTLINE I will give you an example to show that science is a very much lower phenomenon.... NEXTLINE One morning Chuang Tzu sat up in his bed -- which was strange, because he used to get up and get out of his bed. Why is he sitting and looking so sad? He was not a man of sadness. NEXTLINE In fact I have not found anybody else in the whole world of literature who has written such beautiful absurd stories. They don't make any sense, but they are beautiful. NEXTLINE He was again creating a situation. NEXTLINE The disciples were worried; they came and they asked, "What is the matter?" NEXTLINE Chuang Tzu said, "I am in a very great fix: last night I slept, and I knew perfectly well that I was Chuang Tzu. But in the night I had a dream that I had become a butterfly." NEXTLINE The disciples laughed. He said, "Shut up! It is not a matter to laugh about, my whole life is at risk!" NEXTLINE They said, "Master, it was only a dream!" NEXTLINE He said, "First you should listen to the whole thing. Then in the morning I woke up and the idea arose in me that if Chuang Tzu can become a butterfly in dream, what is the guarantee that a butterfly cannot become Chuang Tzu in a dream? And now the question is, who am I? The butterfly dreaming, or...?" NEXTLINE Certainly the situation he has created is almost insoluble. Do you think there can be any rational solution to it? His question is very pertinent: if Chuang Tzu can become a butterfly in a dream, perhaps the butterfly has gone to sleep and has become Chuang Tzu. The problem is that Chuang Tzu is losing his identity. He told the disciples, "Meditate and find a solution. Unless you find a solution I am going to sit in my bed without eating, because it is a question of life and death." NEXTLINE They went out, they discussed it..."This is absolutely absurd! We have also dreamt, but this idea..." But the idea is such that there is no way out of it! NEXTLINE Then came Lieh Tzu, Chuang Tzu's chief disciple, and all the disciples asked him what to do. He said, "Don't be worried," and rather than going to Chuang Tzu, he went to the water well. They said, "Where are you going?" NEXTLINE He said, "You just wait. I know my master." He pulled out a bucket of water -- it was a cold winter morning -- and he brought the bucket of water and poured it on Chuang Tzu! NEXTLINE Chuang Tzu laughed and he said, "If you had not come, my life was at risk. You saved me!" NEXTLINE Lieh Tzu said, "Just get out of the bed, or I am going to bring another bucket of water. All that you need is to be brought out of your dream. You are still dreaming." NEXTLINE He said, "No, I am going to get out!" NEXTLINE The masters cannot create a science, because science can only be objective. At the most you can call it an art, because the art has more flexibility, more different approaches.... NEXTLINE Now what do you call Lieh Tzu's bringing a bucket of water? A scientific method? Just a clear insight, and out of that clear insight arises an arbitrary, artful, but intelligent method. NEXTLINE In fact, Chuang Tzu was waiting for some disciple to do something -- it was not a question to be solved by sitting and pondering over it. It was a question that somebody has to do something and show by his act, his clarity. This was the moment Chuang Tzu declared Lieh Tzu to be his successor. All the other disciples could not understand what had happened -- what kind of solution is this? NEXTLINE The psychology of the buddhas is not a science, is not a philosophy. At the most we can call it a very flexible art. Hence, there are no fixed answers for anything. NEXTLINE I will give you another example. NEXTLINE One morning, it must have been such a beautiful morning, a man comes to Gautam Buddha and asks him, "Does God exist?" Everybody is curious to know what Buddha answers. NEXTLINE Buddha said to the man, "There is no God -- not only now, there has never been. It is simply a fiction to exploit the fools." The man was very much shocked. NEXTLINE In the afternoon, another man came and he asked, "What do you think about the existence of God?" Again the same question.... NEXTLINE Buddha looked at the man and said, "Yes, there is a God and there has always been." NEXTLINE And in the evening, another man came and said, "I don't know anything about God. I am absolutely ignorant. Knowing that you are here, I have come to be enlightened about the subject." NEXTLINE Buddha looked at him and then closed his eyes. No answer -- and strangely, the disciples saw that the other man also closed his eyes. One hour must have passed when the man opened his eyes, touched Gautam Buddha's feet and said, "You have answered it, and I am immensely grateful." NEXTLINE Ananda, who used to be the attendant of Gautam Buddha twenty-four hours a day, became very much confused. Anybody could have become confused -- in the morning he says one thing, in the afternoon he says just the opposite, and in the evening he says nothing and the man gets the answer, touches his feet with tears of joy and leaves! When everybody was gone, Ananda said, "I cannot sleep tonight until you tell me which one is the true answer." NEXTLINE Gautam Buddha said, "The first thing you have to remember -- none of the questions were yours. Why should you be worried about the answers? You have been with me for forty years. If you had any question, you could have asked. Those were questions of three different people." NEXTLINE Ananda said, "I am sorry, it is true. None of them was my question, but I have ears and I heard. And all three questions and the three answers are so contradictory that it has become a turmoil in me." NEXTLINE Buddha said, "You don't understand another thing. The first man who had come to see me was a believer in God. He was a theist, and all he wanted was not an answer but a support to his belief. I cannot support anybody's belief. My function is to destroy all beliefs, so that you yourself can see what is the truth. That's why I denied absolutely that there is any God and said there has never been any God. NEXTLINE "The man who came in the afternoon was just the opposite; he was an atheist. He did not believe in God and he had also come to be supported so that he could tell people that `not only I am an atheist -- Gautam Buddha himself is an atheist.' But this was also a belief, not an experience, because the experience never asks questions. It is always the belief that goes on creating questions." NEXTLINE Your mind is full of beliefs, with no experience at all. That's why Gautam Buddha said, "I had to be very strict with the fellow, and I told him there is a God and there has always been a God." NEXTLINE These are arbitrary methods to destroy different kinds of beliefs. But the basic purpose is to destroy belief so that you can find your own heart, your own trust. NEXTLINE "And the third man was a very innocent man because he accepted his ignorance, and he did not propose any belief. He had not come to be supported, he had come to be really helped. And there is a difference in being supported and being helped. NEXTLINE "Because he had no question, there was no need to answer. I closed my eyes, and he understood that he had also to close his eyes: perhaps this is the way Gautam Buddha is going to answer him. And he was right -- innocence is always right. In that one hour, my silence infiltrated his being. My presence surrounded his being. He was immensely fulfilled, contented. NEXTLINE "God is nobody's concern -- certainly it was not the concern of that man. All he wanted was a certain communion with existence, whatever name is given to existence. I gave him the taste, I gave him the experience; I shared myself with him -- that's why he was so grateful. You are puzzled that the man said, `I have received the answer' although I had not answered in words. And in gratitude, he touched my feet, with tears of joy. But in each case I had to use a different, arbitrary method because those three persons had three different minds." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE The psychology of the buddhas cannot be a science. Science is always objective, it is about the other. It is never about your own being. It is extrovert, it is never introvert. NEXTLINE But the man who has become awakened finds ways to shake you from your sleep, to wake you from your mind, which is your coma, which is your blindness. That's why different masters in different countries have used different methods. No method is scientific. It depends on the person who has to be operated upon. The surgery cannot be a definite science. As far as the psychology of the buddhas is concerned, it is going to be very flexible. NEXTLINE Yes, sometimes the master may hit you and sometimes the master may hug you. But it all depends on what kind of mind he is working on, and he is working on different kinds of minds. You don't have the same minds; otherwise the same method would have been enough. NEXTLINE Traditionally there are one hundred and eight methods of meditation. I have gone through all those methods -- not just by reading them; I have tried every method. My search was to find what is the essential core of all those one hundred and eight methods, because there is bound to be something essential. And my experience is that the essential of all meditations is the art of witnessing. NEXTLINE And then I created my own methods because I had found the essential core. Those one hundred and eight methods have become, in a way, out of date. They were created by different masters for different kinds of people, to transform different minds. The contemporary mind did not yet exist; the contemporary mind needs new methods. The methods will differ only in non-essentials. The essential core, the very soul of the method, is going to be the same. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE This silence is beautiful, but each laughter makes the silence go deeper. Have you observed it or not? After each laughter, there is a deeper layer of silence revealing itself to you. It is almost like being on a road, and a car passes with its headlights on. Suddenly there is light where there was darkness. But once the car has gone, the darkness becomes darker. NEXTLINE Something almost similar happens; hence I have started calling my jokes "the time for prayer." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Herman Levinsky is standing in front of the gorilla's cage in the zoo one day, when the wind blows a piece of grit into his eye. NEXTLINE As Herman pulls down his eyelid to remove the particle, the gorilla goes crazy, bends open the bars and beats the poor fellow senseless. NEXTLINE When Herman regains consciousness, he explains to the anxious zookeeper what happened. The zookeeper nods sagely and explains that in gorilla language, pulling down the eyelid means, "Fuck you!" NEXTLINE This explanation doesn't make Herman feel any better, and he swears revenge. NEXTLINE The next day, Herman arrives at the zoo with two large knives, two hats, two whistles and a large sausage. Putting the sausage in his pants, he hurries to the gorilla's cage, into which he throws a knife, a hat and a whistle. NEXTLINE Then Herman puts on his hat. The gorilla looks at him, looks at the hat, and puts it on. NEXTLINE Next, Herman picks up the whistle and blows it. The gorilla looks at him, looks at the whistle, and then picks it up and blows it. NEXTLINE Then Herman picks up the knife, whips the sausage out of his pants, and slices it neatly in two. The gorilla looks at the knife in his cage, looks at his prick, looks up, and pulls down his eyelid. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 17Immediate and ultimate ordinariness29 December 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE I HEARD YOU SAYING THAT WE ARE ALL ENLIGHTENED. IF SO, WHY AM I WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN? IS IT AN OLD HABIT? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Veet Vigyanam, it is one thing to hear; it is another thing to understand. You certainly heard me saying that we are all enlightened, but you did not trust it -- at least you excluded yourself. "Perhaps everybody else is, but I am enlightened?" This was too much for you to accept; hence the question. NEXTLINE Your question shows your innermost turmoil. You are saying, "If so..." I had not said that your enlightenment is some probability -- perhaps you are enlightened, perhaps you are not. There were no ifs and no buts; it was a simple statement. I repeat again: NEXTLINE You are enlightened and you cannot be anything else. NEXTLINE But I can understand your difficulty. You have been told you are ignorant and you have accepted it. You have been told you are unworthy and you have accepted it. You have been told you are not beautiful and you have accepted it. NEXTLINE Just look at how many things you have accepted without creating ifs and buts, without even asking a question. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE When I was a student in the university, my philosophy class consisted only of three persons. Two were girls and I was the third. And a certain Professor Bhattacharya -- a little cynical, as is almost expected from professors of philosophy -- had a certain idea of celibacy. He used to teach the class with closed eyes. When I saw this on the first day, I could not figure it out -- what is the problem? After the class I approached him and asked him. NEXTLINE He said, "I cannot see women." NEXTLINE I said, "If you cannot see women, why do you close your eyes?" NEXTLINE He said, "You don't understand me. I don't want to see women." NEXTLINE I said, "Even then, you have seen them; it does not matter whether you want to or not. Women are all around. Just by closing your eyes, do you think you are not seeing women? Then what are people doing in their dreams? I insist on the point that if you are keeping your eyes closed because of the women, you will be consistently reminded only of women. And remember that no woman is so beautiful with open eyes as she becomes when your eyes are closed. Then the woman becomes a romantic dream. Reality is not so romantic. With your eyes closed you are taking a very dangerous step." NEXTLINE The next day I also closed my eyes. He looked at me and thought perhaps I had also become convinced of his ideology of celibacy. After the class he asked me, "So it seems you are also convinced." NEXTLINE I said, "The reality is that I slept the whole hour. And now I will sleep every day: if you are free to close your eyes, I am also free to close my eyes. It does not matter what happens with closed eyes -- you dream, I sleep." NEXTLINE He said, "But then what is the point of attending the class?" NEXTLINE I said, "There is no point at all, it is just that one has to be somewhere. Do you mean to say that wherever I am I have to answer the question why I am here?" NEXTLINE And I told him an old story, that a man comes home, finds his wife naked on the bed, sees the shoes of his friend by the side of the bed, looks all around, suspects he must be in the cupboard. He opens the cupboard; certainly the naked friend is standing there. He is really angry and he says, "I used to think you were my best friend." NEXTLINE He said, "I am." NEXTLINE He said, "Then why are you standing here in the cupboard?" NEXTLINE The man said, "This is strange -- everybody has to be somewhere, and this cupboard of yours is very cozy. And this is not the first time that I am standing here. It is my usual habit." NEXTLINE I told Professor Bhattacharya, "Never again ask me about any reason, because I don't believe in rationality. I mean, things simply are and there is no reason for them to prove why they are, where they are, who they are." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE But from your very childhood, you have not been given the right vision. You have always been pushed and pulled this way and that way: "Become this, become that." Nobody ever thought that if existence wanted only Gautam Buddhas it could have manufactured Gautam Buddhas just the way a Ford factory produces Ford cars, on an assembly line, all exactly alike, with tremendous efficiency. Each minute a single car comes out of the assembly line, twenty-four hours around the clock. NEXTLINE But existence does not believe in a situation where everybody is like everybody else. The enlightenment of Gautam Buddha is going to be his enlightenment. Your enlightenment is going to be your enlightenment. NEXTLINE The problem arises out of comparison. You started thinking that "If I am enlightened, then why am I not a Gautam Buddha or a Jesus Christ or a Bodhidharma? I am just Veet Vigyanam. Nobody worships me. I go around, nobody even takes any note of me. What kind of enlightenment is this? Certainly I have yet to achieve it. Certainly it has not happened yet, it has to happen." NEXTLINE The idea has been propagated with such consistency, for so many thousands of years, that enlightenment is an achievement. I say unto you, enlightenment is not an achievement, it is your very nature. If you are missing it, the reason is not that you have not achieved it, the reason is that you are looking for it all around in every place excluding yourself. Going to every temple, reading every holy scripture, visiting all kinds of stupid people who are pretending to be masters. NEXTLINE I want you to declare this very moment that you are enlightened. It does not matter, it is not needed that everybody should worship you. Why should anybody worship you? You are making unnecessary conditions for enlightenment. NEXTLINE This is not only your problem, it has been a problem for many. The Buddhists cannot accept Mahavira as enlightened, because he is naked and Gautam Buddha is not naked. Because Gautam Buddha has beautiful hair and Mahavira pulls out his hair, how can both these men be enlightened? NEXTLINE We have, without contemplating, accepted an idea that every enlightened person is going to be the same. It is absolute nonsense. In existence, variety is the beauty of it. NEXTLINE I would also like everybody to be enlightened in his own way and express his enlightenment in his own way. Otherwise this whole life will become a boredom. Just think -- as Jesus says to his disciples -- "everybody has to carry his own cross." Just look around, imagine everybody carrying his own cross... there are not even people to crucify them, because they are carrying their own crosses! The whole thing would be so hilarious. NEXTLINE Existence never produces the same person again. Similarity is not the rule of this beautiful universe, but uniqueness. And the moment you accept uniqueness, you accept a tremendous respect for others as they are. NEXTLINE Let me say it in a different way. The moment you respect yourself as enlightened, you cannot do anything other than respect everybody as enlightened, as they are. There is no need for everybody to fit into a certain category. Enlightenment is not a category such that you have to eat the same kind of food. If there was a certain rule like this, rather than eating spaghetti I would have renounced enlightenment. It is good that no holy scripture says that spaghetti is absolutely the characteristic of an enlightened man. NEXTLINE If you understand me, what I am saying, I am saying that in your very ordinariness you are perfectly good. Nothing needs to be added to you. And if you can relax in this ordinariness, this very ordinariness, because of your relaxation, will become radiant, will start blossoming. Your acceptance, your self respect will be a nourishment, will bring the spring to your being, and the flowers will start opening their petals. NEXTLINE But you are never at home. You are looking into other people's homes. Somebody is in Gautam Buddha's, somebody in Lao Tzu's, somebody in Jesus Christ's, somebody in Moses'... it is a very strange situation that you have been diverted in such a way that everybody is somewhere else, where he is not expected to be, and he is not where existence wants him to be. NEXTLINE I teach the immediate and ultimate ordinariness. It is the most beautiful experience, because now there is no desire, no tension, no search, no inquiry, nowhere to go. You are already where you wanted to be. NEXTLINE And you are asking, "If so, why am I waiting for something to happen?" Now, do I have to answer this? Perhaps this is your unique enlightenment, that even though you are enlightened, still you are looking for some happening. A little crazy, but that does not destroy your enlightenment. And a few crazy people are also needed. They bring salt to existence. Existence without crazy people will lose something very interesting. NEXTLINE But you cannot even accept that. You go on, asking, "Is it an old habit?" Just trying to console yourself, that although you are enlightened, just because of the old habit you go on looking here and there. But the more you will look here and there, the more you will be nourishing the old habit. You will be practicing the old habit. NEXTLINE It is very difficult to see that eating your food silently and joyously, sleeping with as much blissfulness as you can contain, having an ordinary life of being a carpenter or being a shoemaker, or being a painter or a poet or a dancer and relaxing in whatever you are without making ideals.... NEXTLINE But man cannot be destroyed without ideals, and he cannot be enslaved without ideals. He cannot be condemned, he cannot be made to feel guilty if there is not an ideal that he has to become. And nobody ever becomes the ideal that he has tried his whole life to become. NEXTLINE Have you ever seen any Christian becoming a Christ? Almost half the humanity is Christian and for two thousand years these people have been trying hard to fulfill the ideal of being a Christ. Why do they go on failing? And it is not only the Christians -- the Jainas, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Mohammedans, nobody has been successful. NEXTLINE The reason is so fundamental that you cannot go against it. NEXTLINE You can either be yourself or just a wastage. NEXTLINE These are the only two alternatives. NEXTLINE Love Gautam Buddha for his uniqueness, but never imitate him. He himself never imitated anybody, that's why he is enlightened. It is strange that a simple fact has not been recognized. Mahavira never imitated anybody and that's why he's enlightened. You show me a single enlightened being who has ever imitated anybody. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE I am reminded of a very beautiful man, Kabir. In India, Hindus believe that the Ganges is a holy river, and if you die near the Ganges then your paradise is absolutely guaranteed. Then it does not matter what crimes you committed, what sins you committed, what immoralities; everything is washed out by the Ganges. NEXTLINE Naturally, all the Hindus cannot live by the side of the Ganges. That will be too much of a crowd. Those who live there are fortunate; those who cannot live there at least go in their old age to live there, when they see death is coming. In cities like Varanasi, you will be surprised to see -- why are there so many old people, old women? No other city can compete in that respect. All these people have come there to die and now they are waiting for their death; it may come any moment. NEXTLINE Sometimes it happens that some nearby village... Varanasi is costly, it is available only for rich people to live there to die; the poor people live in nearby villages. Naturally it happens that they die in their villages, but immediately their friends and their relatives take their dead bodies to the Ganges. It doesn't matter, just a few minutes or half an hour or one hour... God cannot be so cruel. He will forgive even these people also. NEXTLINE Kabir lived all his life in Varanasi, the holiest city of the Hindus. Just on the other side of the Ganges, there is a small village called Magahar. I don't know how the idea became prevalent that anybody who dies in Varanasi goes to paradise and anybody who dies in Magahar becomes a donkey. And Magahar is just on the other side of the Ganges. NEXTLINE Before Kabir felt that now his time had come, he told his friends, "Take me to Magahar." NEXTLINE They said, "Are you mad? Nobody wants to die in Magahar. People who are living there are continuously afraid -- before death they have to escape from there. And you have lived your whole life in Varanasi and now, when the right moment has come, you want to go to Magahar? You know perfectly well that people who die in Magahar become donkeys." NEXTLINE Kabir said, "If you don't listen to me, I will have to walk down to Magahar. But I don't want any obligation, either to the Ganges or to any God. If I am enlightened, I am enlightened in Varanasi; I am enlightened in Magahar. Let me set the precedent, because the poor people of Magahar have been condemned for centuries. Let me die in Magahar, because after me it will be difficult for anybody to say that anybody who dies in Magahar becomes a donkey. At least about Kabir that cannot be said." NEXTLINE Kabir died in Magahar. He changed it; now nobody says that if you die in Magahar you will become a donkey. On the contrary, many people who love Kabir live in Magahar; Magahar has become a holy place for the followers of Kabir. NEXTLINE It happened that Meera, another woman mystic, had come to Varanasi just on a pilgrimage. And Varanasi has the highest council of Hindu scholars, the so-called wise, and the saints. There was trouble because many of those people wanted Kabir to be invited to their annual conference but Kabir was a weaver; not only that, it was suspicious whether he was a Hindu or a Mohammedan. His name was Mohammedan -- Kabir in Arabic means Allah, another name of God. And he was found on the bank of the Ganges by a Hindu monk, Ramananda -- left by his parents, a small child. And the story is very beautiful.... NEXTLINE It was dark, early morning, when Hindus take their bath before their worship of the sun. As Ramananda was coming down the steps, the small child took hold of his robe. Surprised -- who is there? -- he looked: a small child, not more than four years old, sitting on the steps. What to do with this child? There was nobody else around; the parents had abandoned the child there. NEXTLINE Ramananda was a man of courage. He took the child, although all his disciples said to him, "You are taking an unnecessary risk. You will be denounced by the Hindus, by the same people who worship you. You are not supposed to do such things. Moreover, on the hand of the child is written in Arabic `Kabir', his name, which is an absolute proof that he is a Mohammedan. And a Hindu monk is not supposed to have children, he has renounced life." NEXTLINE But Ramananda said, "I have not done anything in respect to gaining worshippers, followers. If they have come, they have come on their own. If they go, they go on their own. Nobody dictates to me what I am to do, because I have never dictated to anybody what he has to do." So Kabir was brought up by Ramananda. Because of Ramananda people think he must be Hindu, and because of his name people think he must be Mohammedan. NEXTLINE And now, because he has become known as the wisest man of his times, a few people wanted him to come to the holy conference of the Hindus. He was a weaver. There was great opposition. But they did not want any split in their council, so finally they came to the agreement that they would invite him. NEXTLINE But when they went to invite Kabir he had a condition: "You have to invite Meera also, because she is staying with me. You can leave me out. In my place, invite Meera." NEXTLINE But that was even more difficult. She was a woman. Never was a woman invited into the wisest council of the Hindus. A woman is not accepted as pure; basically she is impure and unless by arduous disciplines she becomes born as a man, she will not be able to reach paradise. There is no direct way from the woman to paradise. She has to go via man. Now Kabir was making a condition which was even more difficult. NEXTLINE They told him, "It has been very difficult for us even to invite you, and you are making an even more difficult condition." NEXTLINE He said, "I never change what I say. If Meera is not respected by you then you don't understand anything, and I don't want to mix with ignorant people." NEXTLINE Kabir's followers told him, "It is a great opportunity. No weaver" -- weavers are the lowest Hindu class -- "has ever been accepted by the brahmins as wise. Don't miss this opportunity." NEXTLINE And Kabir said, "I am wise or unwise on my own accord. I don't depend on anybody else's acceptance. But I am making this condition because for centuries Hindus have behaved with women with such ugliness that the time has come to change it." NEXTLINE Because of Kabir's insistence, Meera was the only woman -- for the first time -- who entered the Hindu council of wise people. It was a very uneasy conference. One Mohammedan was there, one woman was there. The whole Hindu idea of their purity and their superiority was absolutely destroyed. NEXTLINE Kabir continued to be a weaver his whole life. Even kings were his disciples and they asked him, "We feel ashamed that you go on continuously weaving in your old age and then you go to sell your cloth in the market. We can manage everything that you want. There is no need." NEXTLINE Kabir said, "That is not the question. I want the future humanity to remember that a weaver can be enlightened, and even with his enlightenment he can continue to weave. The ordinary profession of weaver is not a distraction from enlightenment; on the contrary, his weaving becomes his prayer. Whatever he does is his prayer; whatever he does is his meditation. Whatever he does is his expression of gratitude to existence. He is not just a burden on the earth, he is doing whatever he can do. NEXTLINE "I cannot be a sculptor, I cannot be a great painter, but I can certainly say that nobody can weave the way I weave. I weave with each breath full of prayer and gratitude. And the cloth that I make is made not just to sell but to serve God, to serve existence in the way in which I can serve it the best." NEXTLINE The Hindu word for God is Ram. And Kabir used to address every customer who came to his shop by the same name, "Ram." He would say, "Ram, I have been weaving for you. Take care, this is no ordinary cloth. Each fiber in it is vibrating with my gratitude, my love, my compassion, my prayer. Be respectful to it." NEXTLINE Sometimes it would happen... he would wait, late, when the market was closing. People would ask, "For whom are you waiting? The market is closing." NEXTLINE And he would say, "I am waiting for my Ram, who has not come, and for whom I have made the cloth." A certain man had asked him and he might not have been available on that day, or might have thought that he would go on the next market day. But Kabir was waiting there. NEXTLINE People would inform the man -- "What are you doing? It is getting late and Kabir alone is sitting in the marketplace waiting for you because he says, `I cannot accept the fact that Ram would have forgotten or that Ram could have given me his word and go against it. I have to wait even if I have to wait for seven days.'" Because in India, in villages, the market day is only once a week, four times a month. "I will wait for seven days; perhaps he is in difficulty, perhaps he is sick. But I cannot move from this place. If he comes and finds that I am not here it will be sheer ingratitude on my part." NEXTLINE Now Gautam Buddha lived in a totally different way. Meera lived in a totally different way. Meera danced all over the country, and she reached Mathura, where stands the greatest Krishna temple. The priest of the temple was a fanatic celibate. I used to tell Professor Bhattacharya, "You are an incarnation of that fanatic, and unless you drop this fanaticism you are not going to be relaxed and relieved from the wheel of life. You will have to born again and again and again." NEXTLINE In the temple of Krishna, no woman was allowed. They could worship only from the outside. The priest had not seen a woman for thirty years -- he never used to go outside, and inside the temple no woman was allowed. When he heard about Meera he was worried, because she would certainly come to the greatest temple of Krishna. He had put two guards at the gate: "Prevent that woman if she comes dancing here." NEXTLINE But when Meera came dancing, those guards completely forgot their purpose, why they were standing there. The dance was so beautiful and Meera was so beautiful, so radiant, that without anybody noticing she entered the door, dancing. NEXTLINE The priest was in the middle of his worship. The plate that he was holding in his hand, a golden plate full of roseflowers... seeing Meera dancing and entering into the temple, the plate fell from his hands. He was very angry and he said to Meera, "It is against the rules of this temple -- no woman can enter here!" NEXTLINE And you will be surprised to know the answer of Meera, which stands out in the whole history of the mystics with a strange flavor, an aliveness. She said, "My God! I used to think that only Krishna was the man and everybody else is a woman, a lover to Krishna. Today I have found two men. You are also a man!" And the way she spoke to the priest, the priest trembled. Perhaps she was right. NEXTLINE There are only two ways for the devotees to conceive of God. Either God is conceived, like the Sufis, as a woman -- she is the beloved and the mystic is the lover -- or God is conceived, like the Indian mystics, that they are women and God is the man. He is the lover and they are the beloveds. NEXTLINE Meera said, "The thing has to be decided here now: either you have to declare yourself a man or you have to declare yourself also a woman." NEXTLINE Under the impact of Meera that poor priest had to accept, "I am also a woman." NEXTLINE Meera said, "Then from now onwards the rule is changed. Only women can enter this temple. Those who think they are male, cannot enter." NEXTLINE If you look into the lives of these mystics, these enlightened people, you will not find any similarity. You will find only utter uniqueness. Sometimes they are so ordinary that you may not even recognize them. Sometimes they are so radiant that even those who are blind will see their light. But there is no general rule and there are no fixed characteristics. You don't have to fulfill certain ideals. NEXTLINE My own approach is to take away all ideals from you and to take away the very idea that enlightenment is going to happen to you in the future. Future does not exist! In fact the idea that it is going to happen in the future is simply to avoid the self respect that you can have only in the present. NEXTLINE There have been teachers -- they were not masters, they were as unconscious as you are. They were not aware of their own enlightenment. They were teaching morality, discipline, methods, how to become enlightened. But do you understand the inner logic? If you can become enlightened then there is every possibility you can also become again unenlightened. If there are methods to become enlightened there can be methods to make you unenlightened. This is a simple thing. If you can become sick, you can become healthy, and you can also become sick again. NEXTLINE Enlightenment is not something that you have to attain, because that which is attained can be stolen. That which is attained can be robbed. That which is attained can be lost. NEXTLINE I say unto you, you are enlightenment itself. NEXTLINE I don't want you to attain enlightenment, I want you to live it. From this very moment, whatever you do, do it in the way enlightenment is bound to do it. NEXTLINE I love one statement of one of the most important people of the West, Alan Watts. He was a drunkard, but he was the man who introduced to the West the most essential parts of Zen and enlightenment. He wrote not as a scholar, but as a master. Before he was dying, he was still drinking and a disciple asked him, "Have you ever thought... if Buddha had seen you drinking alcohol, what do you think he would have thought about it?" NEXTLINE Alan Watts said, "There is no problem. I always drink in an enlightened way." NEXTLINE The question is not what you do, the question is how you do it. Yes, I accept Alan Watts' statement. There is a possibility of a man to drink alcohol in an enlightened way. Enlightenment should not have any limits. And it should not have a particular formula, a particular pattern that you have to follow. NEXTLINE Enlightenment should be an individual experience -- the most individual experience, incomparable and unique to everybody. Once this is understood, all the clouds that surround you with darkness start dispersing. NEXTLINE Veet Vigyanam, I will go on repeating again and again, until it sinks into you, that you are enlightened. And you are not to do anything special for it; you have just to be as you are, totally relaxed, at ease with existence. Not going anywhere, no achievement, no goal. All goal-orientation is what is making people miserable. NEXTLINE Disperse all the goals and you will start dancing this very moment -- because you have so much energy involved in your process of achieving. Moving far away in your imagination, you don't have time, you don't have space, you don't have energy to be here. If you can gather all your energy in this very moment, just the accumulation of that energy will become a dance in your heart. And that dance transforms everything, not your efforts. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE A Polack walks into the travel agent and books for a special sea cruise to Hawaii. The travel agent directs him to the next room to fill out some forms. Just as the Polack walks through the door, someone hits him over the head, throws him into the corner and mugs him. NEXTLINE Later in the same day, an Italian enters the travel agency to book for the special Hawaiian sea cruise. As he is directed to the next room, he too gets hit over the head and mugged. NEXTLINE When the two of them wake up, they find themselves floating in the middle of the ocean on a small raft. The Italian looks over at the Polack and says, "I wonder if they will fly us back?" NEXTLINE "I doubt it," replies the Polack. "They didn't last year." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Father Murphy is chosen to do some missionary work for the Catholic church, and is sent to a remote part of the Arctic. NEXTLINE After a few months, a bishop comes to visit. NEXTLINE "How do you like it here," asks the bishop, "among the ice and polar bears?" NEXTLINE "Just fine," says Father Murphy. "The Eskimos are very friendly people." NEXTLINE "And what about the weather?" asks the bishop. NEXTLINE "Ah," says the priest, "as long as I have my rosary and my whiskey, I don't care a bit about the weather." NEXTLINE "I am glad to hear of it," says the bishop. "Speaking of whiskey, how about a glass or two?" NEXTLINE "Great idea!" says Father Murphy. "Rosary! Can you bring us the whiskey?" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Hymie is a little drunk when he comes home. "Becky," he calls to his wife in the bedroom, "start nagging, or else I won't be able to find the bed!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Just enjoy your life. NEXTLINE It is perfect as it is. NEXTLINE The whole idea of perfectionism creates only neurosis, pathology and a derangement of the mind. I teach you the ordinary. I teach you the simple, I teach you the natural, I teach you that you are where you have been trying to reach, exactly at home. Don't waste your time running here and there. NEXTLINE But you have been told always to become something, someone -- that's why every religion is against me, all the moralists are against me. I can understand, because if I am right then all the traditions and all the teachings that have been driving humanity towards some faraway goal are proven absolutely criminal. Because they have taken away people's chance to live, chance to love, chance to sing, chance to dance. And in the ultimate sense, the very opportunity to feel the divine in the herenow. Unless you can feel the divine in the mundane, you are not an intelligent person. If you cannot manage in your small things an expression of gratitude, joy, awareness, then you are bound to remain miserable -- not only in this life but perhaps for many lives. NEXTLINE I can't see much opportunity for you to find a man like me again. You will meet all those religious teachers, missionaries... try to find one and you will find a thousand. But I am absolutely respectful to your ordinariness. My reverence for the mundane is absolute; I don't want to improve on anything. For centuries people have been improving and improving and improving, and nothing is improved. NEXTLINE Just give me a chance. Stop improving. NEXTLINE And you will be surprised to know that the energy that was involved in improving becomes your dance, your celebration. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 18Personality: the false disease30 December 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE AS YOU GLIDE INTO BUDDHA HALL, SLOWLY TURNING TOWARDS WHERE I SIT WAITING FOR YOUR GAZE TO TOUCH ME, A STRANGE OVERWHELMING FEAR GRIPS ME. I SAY TO MYSELF, "DARSHAN, AFTER ALL THESE YEARS OF BEING WITH HIM, WHY THIS FEAR?" THEN AS YOUR EYES CARESS ME, THE FEAR MELTS IMMEDIATELY, I MELT AND SOMETHING LOVELY STARTS DANCING WITHIN ME. NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, PLEASE SPEAK A LITTLE ABOUT THIS CRAZY PARTNERSHIP OF FEAR AND LOVE THAT TAKES ME SO COMPLETELY BY SURPRISE AGAIN AND AGAIN. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Deva Darshan, your question is much more comprehensive and complex than you may have realized. Man is an organic unity. And the moment I say an organic unity, I mean you are love, you are fear, you are anger ... the whole panorama, all the colors of the rainbow. NEXTLINE But it is very rarely realized, because our minds try to dissect things, divide things, arrange things. They are very clever and intelligent in a way, as far as parts are concerned. The moment the whole arises in your view, the mind freaks out. It cannot understand that even in fear, all the rainbows of your being are involved. NEXTLINE To explain a simple fact, in the schools they use a device. They make a fan with seven wings of all seven different colors. When the fan is not moving you can see what is red and what is blue and what is green. Just two colors you will not find in those seven colors: the black and the white, because they are not really colors. It is just from long usage that we have grown accustomed to calling the white and black also colors. NEXTLINE Then they plug the fan into the electricity, and the wings start moving as fast as possible. A strange phenomenon -- you can see that all those different colors disappear. There remains only white. NEXTLINE When you see the white color, it means all the rays that create colors are being reflected back, so you cannot find any color. White is an absence of all colors. Black is just the opposite of white; the black absorbs all the rays of color, not allowing a single ray to go back. Hence you cannot see the color because your eyes can only see reflected rays. NEXTLINE The black became -- strangely enough, even before it was discovered by science -- the symbol of greed, the symbol of the devil, the symbol of all that has to be avoided. And the white became a symbol, around the world, representing renunciation -- because it rejects all the rays. It has also become the symbol of compassion, because it is no longer greed but only sharing. It does not take anything in, but only gives you back everything. White also became the symbol of innocence. NEXTLINE Perhaps poets became aware of it centuries ahead of the scientific research. It has been happening all the time, although nobody gives the credit to the poets because by their own contemporaries they were thought crazy. They could not produce any scientific argument for what they were saying. But centuries afterwards, science was amazed: without using any instruments, without any scientific facilities, how did these people come to certain conclusions? It is very mystifying.... NEXTLINE I have told you about Van Gogh that he always painted his stars as spirals. No other painter in the world has made stars as spirals; naturally even the painters, his own colleagues, told him, "You are not aware of the fact that stars are not spirals." NEXTLINE But Van Gogh said, "What can I do? My innermost intuition is that they are, and I believe more in my intuition than in my physical eyes." A hundred years after Van Gogh, just recently, it has been found by science that he was right and everybody else was wrong. Stars only appear not to be spirals because of the distance. And the distance is vast. But now with more accurate instruments, they can see that the stars are spirals. NEXTLINE A strange question arises: How did Van Gogh, a man who was not only thought to be crazy but was forced to live in a madhouse...? And his best paintings are those which he painted in the insane asylum. Seeing that he was a harmless fellow... it doesn't matter if he paints things which are not according to the common-sense view of things. It harms nobody. You need not agree with him, but to force him to live in a madhouse is going a little too far. He was released from the madhouse -- he was only thirty-three -- and he committed suicide. NEXTLINE His suicide stands as an indictment of the common humanity and their stubborn insistence that every individual should agree with their conceptions. He wrote a small letter to his brother before committing suicide, saying, "I am not committing suicide out of any depression, I am simply committing suicide because perhaps the society in which I can live as a sane man is yet to come." NEXTLINE Your question makes it clear that in your mind you go on dividing things into categories: this is love, this is fear, this is anger.... NEXTLINE Just for a change, don't divide. NEXTLINE Whatever arises in you is part of your total individuality. NEXTLINE The division has come into existence because parts of you have been condemned and parts of you have been praised. Naturally, the condemned parts should be repressed -- at least should not be allowed to surface -- and only the appreciated, the valued, the respectable parts of your being should become your personality. This has created such a split in you that with this split you can neither love nor can you sing nor can you dance. For all that celebration, your whole being is needed. NEXTLINE Let me tell you the truth, with absolute frankness -- because it has not been told to you even by courageous people like Gautam Buddha or Jesus Christ, or even Socrates, Pythagoras, Chuang Tzu. They all went a little beyond the crowd, but not far away. They always remained on the boundary line -- any moment they could slip back into the crowd. NEXTLINE The most difficult problem is not that your fear is against your love -- your fear is simply an indication that love is going to absorb you and your ego starts trembling. What you are calling fear is not the authentic fear but just a phony American fear. The ego is afraid that again you will fall into an unknown space. Naturally, the mind asks, "Are you aware that you are moving into the unknown? Is it possible for you to find the way back to your own identity?" NEXTLINE Love dissolves identity. NEXTLINE In love, I am not and you are not; only love is. NEXTLINE Love does not happen between two persons. Between two persons what happens is only fight, in different names. It may be in the name of love, it may be in the name of something beautiful, but as long as two persons cling to their identities, to their personalities which they have cultivated their whole lives... Naturally, there is great investment. NEXTLINE Love comes like a wild breeze and takes away all your cultivated identity. You are left just a pure silence, a serenity. You cannot even say that "I am." Even that will be a disturbance. NEXTLINE There is tremendous isness, but there is no identity left. NEXTLINE I will read your question: NEXTLINE "As you glide into Buddha Hall, slowly turning towards where I sit, waiting for your gaze to touch me, a strange overwhelming fear grips me..." On the one hand, your innermost core is waiting for the taste of not being, for the immense joy of merging, melting, dissolving into the whole. But your personality is there, which immediately creates a fear, an unknown fear. NEXTLINE You have to understand that this fear is natural, because you have not been left innocent and natural by your society and culture. They have substituted a personality around you. Your whole religion, your whole education, your whole upbringing is involved in a single effort: to create a personality around you. That personality starts trembling and becoming afraid. NEXTLINE It is this personality which is destroying people's love. Everybody says he loves -- husbands say they love their wives, wives say the same thing. Parents say they love their children and force their children also to say that they love their parents. The teachers say they love their students. In every nook and corner of your world... If this were true, that everybody is loved in so many ways by so many people, this world would have been a totally different world. It would not have been a world always preparing for war, it would not have been a world divided into nations.... NEXTLINE To divide the earth into nations is to take away freedom of movement. We ordinarily think we are free, but this idea of being free is created because the jail is so big. Your whole nation is your imprisonment. Just try to get out of the boundaries and suddenly you will realize the freedom was fake. You have been deceived. Even birds are more free, because they don't have to carry their passports; more free because they can go thousands of miles, the whole sky is theirs. But unfortunately the whole world is not ours. The structure, the way a personality is created, needs all these discriminations. NEXTLINE The American has his own pride, the Indian has his own pride. The Indian does not think that anybody else in the world is spiritual; only they have the monopoly on being spiritual. And as far as I know, I have rarely come across an Indian who can be said to be spiritual. They are the most materialistic people in the world. But the personality not only deceives others, it finally deceives you too. NEXTLINE The Americans think they are the richest people in the world. But I created a simple joke with ninety-three Rolls Royces and all their pride was gone. Even the president became jealous, the governors became jealous, the bishops became jealous. The bishop of Wasco County, every Sunday, may have forgotten Jesus Christ completely but he could not forget ninety-three Rolls Royces. He would bring up some way to condemn them. And you will be surprised that when I was bailed out of jail, he wrote a letter to me. He asked, "Now you will be going back to your own land -- what about donating at least one Rolls Royce to my church? It will be a great act of charity." NEXTLINE Now you can see the mind.... I was teaching meditation to thousands of people; America was not interested in it. Thousands of people were coming to the commune; America was not interested in it. Each festival, there were twenty thousand people coming from all over the world; America was not interested in it. The whole of the news media were continuously talking about ninety-three Rolls Royces. NEXTLINE I used to think, perhaps in a poor country this could be expected... but I destroyed the pride of America! I don't need ninety-three Rolls Royces. It was a practical joke, and not even a single so-called intellectual of America could realize the fact that I cannot use ninety-three Rolls Royces simultaneously. And all were of the same model, the latest model; there was no difference between one car and another. Even the president of the Rolls Royce company came to visit, because this was the first time that in a single individual's garage, there were ninety-three Rolls Royces. But I never went to that garage. NEXTLINE The director of the garage, Avesh, is here. I was telling him, "Soon I will be coming." He wanted me to see -- he had made such a beautiful garage, and even the president of Rolls Royce appreciated it and said, "Your cars look in far better condition than our newest cars in our garages." Naturally, Avesh wanted me to come some day. And the garage was not far away, it was in the campus of my own house. I used to pass by the garage every day, but I never went in. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE People have been cultivating all kinds of discriminations: the white man thinks he has something more special than the black man, that he carries the burden of the whole earth. But the black man does not agree about it. He has his own ideas. NEXTLINE Marco Polo went to China in his world travels and in his diary he noted that, "I have always suspected that there is some truth in the theory that man is born out of the monkeys. Seeing the Chinese, I am convinced." But you should also remember, when the Chinese emperor gave an audience to Marco Polo, he could not believe that he was a human being. In his biography, it is stated that he thought that there must be subspecies of human beings around the world -- of course the Chinese is the highest expression. The same kind of stupidity.... NEXTLINE Religions give you the idea that you have the truest religion in the world. But the basic mechanism you are not aware of: all these things are created to nourish your ego and re-place you from your center, which is your authenticity, to a false center which is just an artifact created by all kinds of methods. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Love is a danger to the personality. The personality starts trembling. But the difficulty is, your innermost being is waiting for it. It is imprisoned and it is waiting for a fresh breeze from the outside, fragrant. Perhaps it may bring a few songs of the birds, a few rays of the sun. So you are in a duality: the personality is afraid but your reality is absolutely inviting, waiting, watching for the moment when it happens. NEXTLINE You have to be very decisive to renounce your personality completely. It is your falseness. Being a Hindu, being a Mohammedan, being a Christian -- drop all that nonsense. NEXTLINE Just be a pure consciousness. That is your nature. And then there will not be any conflict. NEXTLINE You are saying, "I say to myself, Darshan, after all these years of being with him, why this fear?" You can be with me for lives -- that is not going to change the fear. But a single instant of understanding, just like a flash of lightning, that you are carrying a load of false ideas about yourself, and the transformation will come. NEXTLINE It is a complex thing. Sometimes it happens to people who are very new. And sometimes it becomes more difficult the more you are with me, because the more you start taking me for granted, it becomes an everyday experience. You know: the fear will come, the love will come, and it has become a routine. You will have to get out of this trap. NEXTLINE And when I say you have to get out of this trap, I don't mean you have to make any effort. Because what has to be dropped is false; it has no roots in you. You can do it in a single moment of awareness. NEXTLINE I am giving you these moments of silence for a single purpose. I don't have a teaching, I have only strategies for transformation. I speak to you not to convey anything in particular, I speak to you so that I can give you a few gaps of silence. NEXTLINE Listening to me, there are two possible ways: the way of the scholar -- he will listen to my words -- and the way of the seeker, who will listen to my silences. NEXTLINE My silences are my communion with you. NEXTLINE My words are only to divide small pieces of silences for you. One word is being used only so that before I utter another word, you can feel a silence sweeping over you. Nobody has used language in this way. Language is just creating possibilities for silence. Alone, your chattering mind does not allow you to be silent. But with me, I am chattering and you are freed at least for a few moments because in those moments you are waiting for what I am going to say. Naturally, a waiting gives you an experience of silence. NEXTLINE As you become more and more aware of the false in you and the real in you, there is no need to make any effort to drop the false. Just being aware that "this is false," the false disappears. But there are stupidities which go on and on.... NEXTLINE Just the other day, Anando brought me a news clipping. Perhaps England is the most ghost-haunted country in the world. It is easy to conceive that in a primitive society, a house is haunted by ghosts. But in England, a ship was found to be haunted, and the ghost was creating continuous trouble. Something was going wrong again and again in the ship, and the people who worked on the ship finally became afraid, because it was not natural. They abandoned the ship; they said their lives were in danger. NEXTLINE The vicar was called to investigate whether the ship was haunted. And do you think it is the twentieth century? The vicar came and he found that it was haunted, but the ghost was not of a man but of a fish. And there was no need to be worried -- he did some ritual with the crucifix and baptized that ship into Christianity. NEXTLINE And the most amazing part is that since then, nothing wrong has been happening. The ship is going perfectly well. Naturally, anybody will conclude logically that whatever the vicar did has helped: the ghost has left the ship. But the reality is that the idea of the ghost was disturbing people. Because they are all believers in Christianity and Jesus Christ, immediately, when they saw that the vicar had done the whole ritual and now their ship was protected with Christianity, by Jesus Christ himself, there was no fear. NEXTLINE Because of false things, religion has existed in the world. NEXTLINE Religion is almost like homeopathy. If you are a hypochondriac -- finding this sickness, that sickness -- then allopathy cannot help you. On the contrary, it may disturb you because if the disease itself is false, you don't need a real medicine for it. The real medicine will create its own effects in your body which are going to be disturbing. If there were a real disease it would have destroyed the disease. It is because of false sicknesses that things like naturopathy, homeopathy, continue to exist. NEXTLINE And in a recent survey it was found that seventy percent of sicknesses are just mind fictions. So all these homeopathic sugar pills, if you believe in them... the question is belief. Homeopathy cannot help me, but homeopathy can help you if you believe in it. Then that false pill, which has no effect, will cure you. NEXTLINE Your personality is a false disease. NEXTLINE It does not need actual methods to destroy it; all that it needs is the awareness that it is false. It is enough -- to know the false is to finish the false. And the moment the false is gone, the real asserts itself without any effort on your part. NEXTLINE So when I say to you, "You are enlightened," I simply mean that you are believing you are not enlightened and that is creating the trouble. That is giving you a false idea of an unenlightened sinner, an ordinary person. And all the religions have been exploiting you on that point. NEXTLINE If you drop the idea of unenlightenment and you simply accept your natural being.... NEXTLINE Relish it, sing it, dance it. You will be surprised that this is what you have been seeking all your life. And it was prevented because of your seeking. NEXTLINE Jesus says, "Seek and the doors shall be opened for you." I say to you, "The doors are always open. There is no need to seek, simply enter." Jesus says, "Ask and the answer will be given to you." And I say to you, "You are the answer. Don't ask; otherwise you will get thousands of answers and you will forget the answer that you are." NEXTLINE Jesus says, "Seek and ye shall find it." And I say to you, "Seek and you will never find it. Why start with seeking? Why not start with finding? Find it and there is no need to seek!" NEXTLINE But all the religions, all the priests... and the greatest exploitation and slavery of man has existed with the small idea that you have to seek, that you have to go somewhere else, that you have to be somebody else. They have distracted every human being from his natural self. NEXTLINE Insist, because unless you insist, the crowd is going to push you here and there. Insist that you are what you are, and you are absolutely happy to enjoy yourself. You are not going to waste time in seeking, searching, and reaching your grave. I want to make your this very moment the explosion. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Darshan, you are saying, "Then as your eyes caress me, the fear melts immediately. I melt and something lovely starts dancing within me." If you have been experiencing it, then why not drop that fear? Because you know already that it melts and you enjoy that melting. Then why go on nourishing the fear again and again? Then it becomes a vicious circle. NEXTLINE Jump out of the circle. NEXTLINE Tomorrow when I come in, you start enjoying even before I have entered the hall. Why should you wait for me? And why create unnecessary diseases, fear -- fear of what? What have you got to lose? NEXTLINE NEXTLINE There is a Sufi story about Mulla Nasruddin. He is traveling in a train and the ticket checker comes, and he looks into all his pockets -- except the pocket on his coat on the left side. He opens all his luggage, looks into every suitcase, perspiring that the ticket is lost. And it is an obvious fact -- all the other passengers are waiting -- the ticket checker says, "You have looked everywhere. Why are you not looking in your left coat pocket? Because I see that is the only place you have not looked." NEXTLINE Mulla said, "Don't mention it." NEXTLINE The ticket checker said, "What do you mean?" He said, "That is my only hope, that perhaps the ticket may be there. I cannot look into it." NEXTLINE NEXTLINE You are searching, you are seeking, you are opening all kinds of luggage. Why don't you look into yourself? That is the only hope. You don't want to destroy even that hope. And I say to you, it is not just a hope, it is a reality. NEXTLINE The ticket is there. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Now a few moments for prayer.... NEXTLINE NEXTLINE An Englishman, an American and a Polack go on safari to Africa together. On the first day, they decide to hunt alone and go off in different directions. That night they meet again back at the camp and exchange hunting stories. NEXTLINE "I had a great day," says the Englishman. "I shot a lion, two elephants and a hippo." NEXTLINE "That's nothing," says the American. "I shot two lions, three rhinos and a giraffe." NEXTLINE "I did better than both of you," says the Polack. "I shot seventy-five no-nos." NEXTLINE The two other men look at each other and then ask the Polack what a no-no looks like. NEXTLINE "Well," says the Polack, "they walk on two legs, have black skin and curly hair and when you point a gun at them, they shout No-no! No-no!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Hamish and Maggie MacTavish are queuing for a movie called "The Miracle." The girl selling the tickets tells Hamish that there are no cheap seats left anymore, only a few of the ones costing six dollars each. Hamish hesitates and consults with Maggie and at length produces two five dollar bills and a handful of loose change. Hymie Goldberg steps out from the queue and says to Becky, "We can go home now, I have just seen the miracle!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE One night, after their owner is asleep, the parts of the body are arguing about which has the toughest job. "I've really got it rough," moan the feet. "He puts me in these smelly sneakers, makes me jog until I have blisters... it's awful!" NEXTLINE "You've got no reason to complain," says the stomach. "Just last night, I got nothing but beer, spaghetti and aspirin. It's a miracle I kept it together." NEXTLINE "Ah, quit bitching, you two," moans the prick. "Every night, he sticks me up a dark tunnel and makes me do push-ups until I throw up!" NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Okay, Maneesha? NEXTLINE Yes, Beloved Master. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE NEXTLINE 19Simply singing my own song30 December 1987 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium NEXTLINE Question 1 NEXTLINE BELOVED MASTER, NEXTLINE THERE IS NOTHING I NEED TO KNOW -- I JUST LOVE THE SOUND OF YOUR VOICE. PLEASE COMMENT. NEXTLINE NEXTLINE Deva Pagalo, it is not a coincidence that I have given you a name which means "the madman." It is a very rare and unique situation to be meditative and to be mad. There have been millions of mad people but their madness is a sickness, their madness means they have fallen below the mind and they have to be brought back at least to the normal state of mind. That's the whole profession of the psychoanalyst, the psychiatrist, the therapist. NEXTLINE But there have also been a very few mad people who have not fallen below mind but who have gone beyond mind. As far as mind is concerned, both are out of the mind. Both are mad, but the man who has gone beyond the mind has come to a state which is the ultimate blessing in this existence. NEXTLINE When I gave you the name Deva Pagalo I had seen the possibility in your eyes that you can be one day a madman of the highest quality, a divine madman. It is not sickness, it is the ultimate in health. NEXTLINE What you are saying actually needs to be understood by everyone. You are saying, "There is nothing I need to know." NEXTLINE Certainly, there is nothing that one needs to know. In a deeper sense, there is no one who can have the need to know. You are an utter emptiness, silence, serenity. NEXTLINE This silence is not ignorance; hence the need for knowledge is not there at all. NEXTLINE Knowledge is needed by ignorant people -- this is so simple -- and the more ignorant they are, the more knowledge they need. It creates a vicious circle. The more knowledgeable they become, the more they become aware of their ignorance. As they advance in knowledge they become aware of a tremendous space which has not been traveled yet, and a vast possibility of knowing more. It is unlimited, they will never come to a point where they can say, "Now I have known all." NEXTLINE These are the scholars, the pundits, the rabbis. These people have dominated humanity simply because they have more information than you have. They have made a tremendous treasure of their information. For centuries, they have been defending the citadel of knowledge and not allowing everybody to enter into their world. NEXTLINE For example in this country, brahmins for ten thousand years have not allowed one fourth of the population of the country to read or to learn writing. It was the greatest crime for these simple, innocent people even to hear a few words of the Hindu Vedas, which are the Hindu ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA. It hurts and it makes me utterly sad to say to you that even a man like Rama, who is being worshipped by the Hindus as an incarnation of God, punished a young poor sudra because the brahmins reported that while they were reading the Vedas he was hiding behind the trees and trying to listen. NEXTLINE In the first place, even if he was trying to listen he could not have understood, because brahmins never allowed their language, Sanskrit, to become the language of the people. It has remained a language monopolized by the brahmins, by the learned, by the scholars. Even though he could not understand, Rama punished that young man by pouring melted, burning hot lead into both his ears. The young man was killed. And nobody has even objected against Rama, that even this single act is enough to prove that he is a murderer -- and murderer of a man who has not committed any crime. NEXTLINE But instead of being condemned as a murde