Ecstasy - The Forgotten Language

Talks on Kabir

Talks given from 11/12/76 am to 20/12/76 am

English Discourse series

CHAPTER 1

Now or never

11 December 1976 am in Buddha Hall

I. 13. mo ko kahan dhunro bande

O FRIEND, WHERE DOST THOU SEEK ME?

LO! I AM BESIDE THEE.

I AM NEITHER IN TEMPLE NOR IN MOSQUE: I AM NEITHER IN KAABA NOR IN KAILASH: NEITHER AM I IN RITES AND CEREMONIES, NOR IN YOGA AND RENUNCIATION.

IF THOU ART A TRUE SEEKER, THOU SHALT AT ONCE SEE ME: THOU SHALT MEET ME IN A MOMENT OF TIME.

KABIR SAYS: ”O FRIEND! GOD IS THE BREATH OF ALL BREATH.”

I. 57. sadho bhai, jivat hi karo asa

O FRIEND! HOPE FOR HIM WHILST YOU LIVE, KNOW WHILST YOU LIVE, UNDERSTAND

WHILST YOU LIVE: FOR IN LIFE DELIVERANCE ABIDES.

IF YOUR BONDS BE NOT BROKEN WHILST LIVING, WHAT HOPE OF DELIVERANCE IN

DEATH?

IT IS BUT AN EMPTY DREAM, THAT THE SOUL SHALL HAVE UNION WITH HIM BECAUSE IT

HAS PASSED FROM THE BODY.

IF HE IS FOUND NOW, HE IS FOUND THEN,

IF NOT, WE DO BUT GO TO DWELL IN THE CITY OF DEATH.

IF YOU HAVE UNION NOW, YOU SHALL HAVE IT HEREAFTER.

BATHE IN THE TRUTH, KNOW THE TRUE GURU, HAVE FAITH IN THE TRUE NAME!

KABIR SAYS: ”IT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE QUEST WHICH HELPS I AM THE SLAVE OF THIS

SPIRIT OF THE QUEST.”

HERE I GO AGAIN – I will sing the same old song. But yet it is not the same old song; it cannot be.

Manu says there is nothing new under the sun. And he is right. And Heraclitus says you cannot step in the same river twice. And he is right too. Existence is old and new, both together, and my song is that of existence itself. I am just a vehicle to sing it to you, to spread it to you. But I am not the singer; I am just a passage. Remember it: it may look the same, but yet it is not the same. Words may be the same, the appearance may be the same, but something vital goes on continuously changing.

Have you ever come across the same morning again? Have you ever seen the same sky again?

And yet the sky is the same and the sun is the same.

Manu and Heraclitus both are true together; taken separately they both are false.

Life is a

contradiction. Life is paradoxical. That’s why it is so charming and so beautiful. It exists through the opposites. It is vast; it contains contradictions. It is new and old both. It is life and death both, together. So I say to you I will sing the same old song and yet it is not going to be the same. Listen attentively.

Before we enter into the words of mystic poet Kabir, it will be good to know something about Kabir.

Much is not known – fortunately – because when you know too much about the person, it creates more complexities in understanding him. When you don’t know anything about the person himself, then there is less complexity. That’s why in the East it has been one of the most cherished old traditions not to say much about the mystics, so that it never hinders people. We don’t know much about Krishna and we don’t know much about Buddha; or all that we know about them is more mythological than historical, not true, fictitious. But about Kabir, even fiction does not exist. And he is not very ancient, yet he lived in such a way that he has effaced himself completely. He has not left any marks.

Only politicians leave marks on time – only politicians are that foolish. The mystics live in the timeless. They don’t leave any marks in time, they don’t leave any signatures on time. They don’t believe in signing on the sand of time. They know it will be effaced, so there is no point in it.

Kabir has not said much about himself, nothing much is known about him. Not even this much is known – whether he was a Hindu or a Mohammedan. The story goes that he was born a Mohammedan but was brought up by a Hindu. And this is beautiful; this is how it should be. Hence his richness. He has the heritage of two rich traditions: Hindu and Mohammedan. If you are just a Hindu, of course, you are poor. If you are just a Mohammedan you are poor.

Look at my richness. I am a Hindu and a Mohammedan and a Christian and a Sikh and a Parsi. Not only that, I am a theist and I am an atheist too. I claim the whole heritage of humanity. I claim all; I don’t reject anything. From Charvakas to Buddhas, I claim all. The whole humanity is yours, the whole evolution of human consciousness is yours, but you are so miserly. Somebody has become a Hindu; he claims only a corner – and lives in that corner, crippled and paralyzed. In fact, the corner is so narrow you cannot move. It is not spacious enough. A religious person will claim all – Buddha, Mahavir, Christ, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Nanak, Kabir, etc., etc. He will claim ALL. They are all part of me; they are all part of you. Whatsoever has happened to human consciousness, you carry the seeds of it in you.

This is the one thing to be understood about Kabir: that he was born as a Mohammedan and brought up by a Hindu. And it never became conclusive to whom he had really belonged. Even at the time when he was dying it was a dispute among his disciples. The Hindus were claiming his body, the Mohammedans were claiming his body, and there is a beautiful parable about it. Kabir had left a message about his death. He knew it was going to happen – people are foolish, they will claim the body and there is going to be conflict – so he had left a message: ”If there is any conflict, just cover my body with a sheet and wait, and the decision will come.” And the story says that the body was covered and the Hindus started praying and the Mohammedans started praying and then the cover was removed, and Kabir had disappeared – only a few flowers were there. Those flowers were divided.

Even disciples are stupid.

This parable is beautiful. I call it a parable, I don’t say it really happened, but it shows something.

A man like Kabir has already disappeared. He is not in his body. He is in his inner flowering. His SAHASRAR, his one-thousand-petaled lotus, has flowered. You are in the body only to a certain extent. The body has a certain function to fulfill; the function is that of consciousness flowering.

Once the consciousness has flowered, the body is nonexistential. It does not matter whether it exists or not. It is simply irrelevant.

The parable is beautiful. When they removed the cover there were only a few flowers left. Kabir is a flowering. Only a few flowers were left. And the stupid disciples even then wouldn’t understand.

They divided the flowers.

Remember one thing: all ideologies are dangerous. They divide people. You become a Hindu, you become a Mohammedan, you become a Jaina, a Christian: you are divided. All ideologies create conflict. All ideologies are violent. A real man of understanding has no ideology; then he is undivided, then he is one with the whole of humanity. Not only that, he is one with the whole of existence. A real man of understanding is a flowering. This flowering we will be discussing.

These songs of Kabir are tremendously beautiful. He is a poet; he is not a philosopher. He has not created a system. He is not a theoretician or a theologian. He is not interested in doctrines, in scriptures. His whole interest is in how to flower and become a god. His whole effort is how to make you more loving, more alert.

It is not a question of learning much. On the contrary, it is a question of unlearning much. In that way he is very rare. Buddha, Mahavir, Krishna, Ram, they are very special people. They were all kings, and they were well-educated, well-cultured. Kabir is a nobody, a man of the masses, very poor, very ordinary, with no education at all, with no culture. And that is his rarity. Why do I call it his rarity? Because to be ordinary in the world is the most extraordinary thing. He was very ordinary –

and he remained ordinary.

The natural desire of the human mind is to become special – to become special in the ways of the world, to have many degrees, to have much political power, to have money, wealth – to be special.

The mind is always ready to go on some ego trip. And if you are fed up with the world, then again the ego starts finding new ways and new means to enhance itself – it becomes spiritual. You become a great mahatma, a great sage, a great scholar, a man of knowledge, a man of renunciation; again you are special.

Unless the desire to be special disappears, you will never be special. Unless you relax into your ordinariness, you will never relax.

The really spiritual person is one who is absolutely ordinary. Kabir is very normal. You would not have been able to find him in a crowd. His speciality is not outward. You cannot just find him by looking at his face. It is difficult. Buddha was special, a very beautiful man, a charismatic personality.

Jesus is very special, throbbing with revolution, rebellion. But Kabir? Kabir is absolutely ordinary, a normal person.

Remember, when I say normal, I don’t mean the average. The average is not the normal. The average is only ”normally” abnormal; he is ”as mad” as all others are. In fact, in the world, normal persons don’t exist.

I have heard:

A famous psychiatrist conducting a university course in psychopathology was asked by a student,

”Doctor, you have told us about the abnormal person and his behavior, but what about the normal person?”

The doctor was a little puzzled, and then he said, ”In my whole life I have never come across a normal person. But if we ever find him, we will cure him!”

Kabir is really that normal person that you never come across in life, with no desire to be special.

When he became enlightened, then too he remained in his ordinary life. He was a weaver; he continued to weave.

His disciples started growing in numbers – hundreds, and then thousands, and then many more thousands were coming to him. And they will always ask him to stop weaving clothes – ”There is no need. We will take care of you.” But he will laugh and he will say, ”It is better to continue as God has willed me. I have no desire to be anything else. Let me be whatsoever I am, whatsoever God wants me to be. If he wants me to be a weaver, that’s why I am a weaver. I was born a weaver, and I will die as a weaver.”

He continued in his ordinary way. He will go to the marketplace to sell his goods. He will carry water from the well. He lived very, very ordinarily. That is one of the most significant things to be understood. He never claimed that he is a man of knowledge – because no man of knowledge ever claims it. To know is to know that to know is not to know and that not to know is to know. A real man of understanding knows that he does not know at all. His ignorance is profound. And out of this ignorance arises innocence. When you know, you become cunning. When you know, you become clever. When you know, you lose that innocence of childhood.

Kabir says he is ignorant, he does not know anything. And this has to be understood, because this will make the background in your mind for his poetry. From where is this poetry coming? It is coming out of his innocence, flowering out of his innocence. He says he does not know.

Have you ever observed the fact that in life we go on claiming that we know, but we don’t know?

What do you know? Have you known anything, ever? If I ask why the trees are green, will you be able to answer it? Yes, the best answer that I have heard is from D.H. Lawrence. A small child was walking with him in a garden and the child asked – as children are prone to ask – ”Why are the trees green?” D.H. Lawrence looked at the trees, looked into the eyes of the child, and said, ”They are green because they are green.” That’s the truest answer ever given. What else can you say?

Whatsoever else you say will be foolish; it will not make any sense. You can say trees are green because of chlorophyll, but why is chlorophyll green? The question remains the same. I ask you one question, you give me an answer, but the question is not really answered.

You have lived with a woman for thirty years, and you call her your wife, or with a man, for fifty years; do you know the man or the woman? A child is born to you; do you know him? Have you looked into his eyes? Can you claim that you know him? What do you know? Do you know a piece of rock? Yes, scientists will give many explanations, but they don’t become knowledge. They will say electrons and protons and neutrons. But what is an electron? And they shrug their shoulders; they say, ”We don’t know.” They say, ”We don’t know YET,” in the hope that someday they will be able to know. No, they will never be able to know, because first they said, ”The rock is made of atoms,”

and when it was asked what is an atom, they said, ”We don’t know yet.” Then they said, ”The atom consists of electrons.” Now we ask what is an electron; they say, ”We don’t know yet.” Someday they will say the electron consists of this and that, X, Y, Z; but that doesn’t make any difference. The ultimate remains irreducible to knowledge. The ultimate remains a mystery.

If the ultimate is a mystery, then life becomes a life of wonder. If the ultimate is not known, then poetry arises. If the ultimate is known – or you THINK that it is known – then philosophy arises. That is the difference between philosophy and poetry.

And Kabir’s approach is that of a poet, of a lover, of one who is absolutely wondering what it is all about. Not knowing it, he sings a song. Not knowing it, he becomes prayerful. Not knowing it, he bows down. The poet’s approach is not that of explanation. It is that of exclamation. He says, ”Aha, Aha! So here is the mystery.”

And wherever you find mystery there is God. The more you know, the less you will be aware of God; the less you know, the closer God will be to you. If you don’t know anything, if you can say with absolute confidence, ”I don’t know,” if this ”I don’t know” comes from the deepest core of your being, then God will be in your very core, in the very beat of your heart. And then poetry arises... then one falls in love with this tremendous mystery that surrounds you.

That love is religion. Religion is not after any explanations. Religion is not a quest for the explanation.

Rather, it is an exploration of love, a nonending journey into love.

I invite you to come with me into the innermost realm of this madman Kabir. Yes, he was a madman

– all religious people are. Mad, because they don’t trust reason. Mad, because they love life. Mad, because they can dance and they can sing. Mad, because to them life is not a question, not a problem to be solved but a mystery into which one has to dissolve oneself.

One thing more about Kabir’s approach. He is life-affirmative. That too is an indication of a real man of understanding. There are two types of people in the world: the people who indulge and the people who renounce. They Look opposite to each other but they are not. They are two aspects of the same coin. The people who indulge are continuously frustrated because no indulgence brings you to joy. You can indulge – you can waste your life, you can waste your opportunity, your energy

– but no enjoyment ever comes out of indulgence. If indulgence could have given joy, then nobody would ever have renounced. People renounce because indulgence fails – but then they are moving to the other extreme. Thinking that indulgence has not helped, they move to the opposite. They become against life, they become antilife, they become life-negative. They start destroying their being; they become suicidal. These are the two types of people you will find. In the market you will find the people who indulge, and in the monasteries you will find the people who renounce.

Kabir belongs to neither. A real man of understanding is a great synthesis. He knows that it is not a question of indulgence or renunciation; it is a question of awareness. Be in the world, but be with awareness. Don’t go anywhere, don’t have antagonistic attitudes towards life. Kabir is tremendously life-affirmative. He loved, he had a wife, he had two children, and he lived the life of a householder...

and yet was one of the greatest seers of the world. He lived in the world and remained untouched.

That’s his beauty. He is a lotus flower.

If you go to your so-called mahatmas, they create antagonism towards life; they make you life-negative. They teach you that life is the enemy, it is evil. They make you feel as if God and life are contraries, you can’t have both. Kabir says you can have both, because life and God are not enemies. Life is God manifest; God is life unmanifest. God and life are one force, one energy, one movement. When God is not visible he is God;when he becomes visible he is Life. And this goes on continuously – he becomes visible, he becomes invisible. It is like breathing: you breathe out, you breathe in.

The old Indian scriptures say that existence is when God breathes out, and when God breathes in there is nonexistence. The whole of existence disappears when he breathes in; when he breathes out, the whole of existence appears. It is one breath going in and out. When God breathes out, you are born; when he breathes in, you disappear in death.

But you never leave God. The outgoing breath is as much his as the ingoing breath. And one has to understand this dynamism, this dialectics. Kabir is neither for the world nor for renunciation.

And his assertions are very simple, down to earth. He is not dramatic. He is not a preacher. And he is not worried whether you are impressed by him or not. He simply relates whatsoever he has experienced. He never exaggerates. He never proves his assertions through any logic. He simply asserts; they are pure statements.

I have heard a beautiful story concerning a young pastor who had dabbled with the theater before entering divinity school, and wanted to give his first sermon in a new church a dramatic send-off.

Noticing that there was a scuttle in the roof above the pulpit, he deliberately chose as his text ”The Holy Ghost descended in the form of a dove,” then arranged to have the sexton open the scuttle at just the right moment, releasing a white dove which the pastor had trained to light on his shoulder.

On the evening of the service, he led carefully up to his climax, intoning, ”And the Holy Ghost descended in the form of a dove” – but nothing happened. Louder – and angrily – he repeated his text – with which the scuttle door opened slightly and the voice of the sexton was heard by the whole congregation, wheezing, ”Your Reverence, the cat ate up the Holy Ghost. Shall I let down the cat?”

Kabir is not dramatic at all. His assertions are simple. His assertions are just from his heart. He is not scholarly either. His poetry is pure, uncontaminated by scripture. His poetry can be understood by anyone who is innocent enough.

So in the beginning of the journey I would like to say to you, be innocent; only then will you be able to understand Kabir. Don’t bring your mind in, don’t start arguing with him, because he is not a logician. When you go to see a painting you don’t argue with the painting. You enjoy it. When you go to listen to a musician playing on his guitar you don’t argue. When you go to a poet you don’t argue. You listen to the poetry; there is no argument in your head.

But about religion, there is difficulty. When you come to listen to a religious person you argue.

And the responsibility lies with the so-called religious people themselves because they have been arguing. There have been foolish people who have even tried to prove God through argument. As if God depends on your argument. As if, if you cannot argue, he will not be able to be there; he will become nonexistential. As if God is a syllogism.

Kabir is not going to give you any argument. His assertions are just like the Upanishads’ or Mohammed’s assertions in the Koran or Jesus’ assertions in the Bible – just statements. He feels...

he sings about his feeling. Please feel him. There is no question of your head. Put your heads aside.

There are people for whom it is very difficult to put their head aside. They have completely forgotten how to put it aside. It is always on top of them – chattering, arguing, choosing, rejecting, accepting, valuing, judging, condemning – ”Yes, this is according to me, and this is not according to me.”

There is no need for God to be according to you. He is not obliged to be according to you. If you want to understand, you will have to silence your mind. Listen to Kabir as one listens to poetry; he is a poet.

I have heard about a lad who was such a mathematical wizard that at the age of twelve he could do calculations in his head that had stumped Albert Einstein when he was forty. Unfortunately, this prodigy was so involved in equations that he had no time for anything else. He was getting, by and by, crazy. The family was very much concerned. In an attempt to divert him, his parents took him to an all-star revival of PETER PAN – and were delighted to note that he was utterly engrossed throughout the first act.

At the intermission, his father said cheerfully, ”Well, son, I see you are enjoying the play.”

”Do you know,” answered the son, ”there were 71,832 words in that act?”

Now this is no way to enjoy.

So don’t listen to the words. Listen to the silence that surrounds the words. Don’t listen to the words. Listen to the poetry that surrounds the words, listen to the rhythm, the song. Listen to Kabir’s celebration. He is not here to preach anything to you. He is like a cherry tree. In the fullmoon night the cherry tree has blossomed. Flowers have no arguments; they are simply there. This is an explosion. Kabir has burst into songs.

And these are the two possibilities: whenever enlightenment happens, either a person becomes absolutely silent or he bursts into song. These are the two possibilities. When Meher Baba attained he became silent. Then his whole life he remained silent. When Meera attained she started dancing and singing. These are the two possibilities: either one becomes absolutely silent or one’s whole life becomes a song. Kabir’s life is that of song.

But remember, in his song there is silence. And always remember also, in Meher Baba or people like that there is song in their silence. If you listen attentively to Meher Baba’s silence, you will be full of a song, you will feel it showering on you. And if you listen to Kabir silently, you will see that his song is nothing but a message for silence.

O FRIEND, WHERE DOST THOU SEEK ME?

LO! I AM BESIDE THEE.

Kabir says don’t seek God somewhere else; he is just beside you. Don’t look for him far away. That will be the way – sure way – to miss him. He is very close by. In fact to say he is close is not right, because ”closeness” also shows distance. He is just within you – he is YOU! You have never departed from him, you cannot depart from him; he is your nature. Right this moment he is inside you. Looking at me, HE is looking at me. Listening to me, HE is listening to me.

Once you relax you will know. Tense, you become an ego; relaxed, the ego disappears. Tense, you become cut off; relaxed again, you are no longer frozen – melting, you dissolve into the ocean.

Right now, these are the two possibilities: either you can be an iceberg, frozen, floating in the ocean, feeling that you are separate; or you can melt and become one with the ocean. That’s all. When you think you ARE, you become frozen, blocked, your energy stops moving – you demark yourself, you create a definition for yourself. That very definition becomes your barrier.

O Friend, where dost thou seek Me?

Lo! I am beside thee.

I AM NEITHER IN TEMPLE NOR IN MOSQUE:

I AM NEITHER IN KAABA NOR IN KAILASH.

So don’t go away for long pilgrimages. God has already happened. You are carrying him from the very beginning; you have never lost track of him. You may have forgotten, you may have become completely oblivious, you may not be able to remember who you are, but still you are God.

I am neither in temple nor in mosque:

I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash:

NEITHER AM I IN RITES AND CEREMONIES,

NOR IN YOGA AND RENUNCIATION.

Neither in rites and ceremonies.... Religion deteriorates into rituals. When a religion is dead, it becomes ritualistic. When a religion is alive, it remains spontaneous. If you want to pray, let it be spontaneous. Don’t repeat rituals; otherwise it is futile, it is meaningless, you are wasting time. If you get up every day – a particular time, a particular prayer, a particular way to do it, and you repeat it in a mechanical way, you will never come to know what prayer is.

Prayer has not really to be done. It has only to be allowed. Sitting silently, looking at the trees, suddenly it is there. Sometimes it comes; sometimes it does not come. It is not within your power to drag it. A prayer dragged is no longer prayer. Prayer is like love: sometimes it is there and sometimes it is not there. And you are helpless, you cannot do anything about it when it is not there.

Or can you do something? You can pretend. You can show that you are very loving and you know deep down there is no love. You will be false, you will not be authentic. And if you get accustomed to this, by and by you will forget what real love is. You will become accustomed to the pseudo, to the pretended, to the false.

If you watch you will see sometimes like a breeze it comes. Right now there is no breeze and the trees are silent. What can they do? They wait. When the breeze comes they will dance. They don’t have a ritual. They don’t say, ”Now it is morning and it is time to dance, and where is the breeze?”

and if it is not coming, ”Then we will try on our own – we will do some yoga posture, we will perform some ritual, we will do some exercises and somehow sway.” No, they don’t bother. They wait. Look, they are waiting. When the breeze comes they will dance. Prayer is like that: it comes. It comes without ever giving you any indication that it is coming.

So remain available. Sometimes sitting in your bed in the night, suddenly it is there – the whole room becomes full of some unknown presence. Not that you can do anything about it. It is there.

You can enjoy, you can be joyful, you can delight in it. You can dance; the breeze has come. You can sway, you can sing a song.

And let that song also be of the heart, of this moment. There is no need to repeat anything from somebody else. There is no need to cram anything. There is no need to repeat the Christian or the Hindu prayer. They are all false. The real prayer simply arises. Sometimes it may be silent. You may not say anything, not even a thank you. And sometimes you may like to talk to God. You may even sometimes like to fight with him. Sometimes one is angry; then what to do? And sometimes one is very, very worshipful, and one bows down. And sometimes one says to God, ”Okay, you are here, but I am not in a mood to talk to you. So as I wait for you, you will have to wait for me.” The ways of love are very mysterious – and God will understand.

Let your prayer be very spontaneous, very real. If anger is there, what else can you offer to him?

Offer anger. If love is there, offer love. But whatsoever is there, offer, and never pretend something which is not there – and God will understand. God is nothing but a tremendous understanding that existence shows towards you. But if you are false, then you are trying to deceive, and you cannot deceive existence. That is not possible. You can deceive only yourself. And you will go on piling up deceptions upon deceptions around you, and you will be choked, suffocated in your own deceptions

– you will die under the burden of your own deceptions.

”I AM NEITHER IN TEMPLE NOR IN MOSQUE: 1AM NEITHER IN KAABA NOR IN KAILASH.

NEITHER AM I IN RITES AND CEREMONIES, NOR IN YOGA AND RENUNCIATION.” SO don’t go anywhere. Just be wherever you are, and be true and be authentic and be spontaneous.

IF THOU ART A TRUE SEEKER, THOU SHALT AT ONCE SEE ME:

”IF THOU ART A TRUE SEEKER....” If the passion is there, if the intensity is there, if the urgency is there, then there is no problem. Try to understand this.

The emphasis of Kabir is on the urgency, on the tremendous desire. It is not a question of rituals.

You can be a perfect ritualist, but you will miss. It is a question of intensity, passion. If passionately you cry for him, immediately you will know he is there. If your passion is fiery, you will never miss him. If you miss him then know only one thing: your passion is not yet enough. You are calling him halfheartedly.

People come to me and they say, ”Where is God? We cannot see him.” I look at them and I inquire,

”Do you really want to seek him, REALLY? Close your eyes,” I say to them, ”and look into your heart.

Are you really in passionate love with God? You really want to see him?” And they say, ”Not really.”

Then how do you suppose to know him?

God – I have seen so many people’s hearts – is the last item on their list. There are other things to do first. When all is done, then comes God. He is always the last in the queue. And, of course, the queue is never going to end. God will never be the first this way, because in the world nothing ever is completed. You do one thing; a thousand and one things arise out of it and you go on getting more and more entangled in the world and the queue becomes bigger and bigger and God is forced farther back, farther back. And then you want to see him. No, it is not possible.

Only the eyes of tremendous intensity can see him. The third eye is not really a third eye. It is just a passionate desire – so passionate that you are ready to sacrifice your life. If God says, ”I can be seen if you sacrifice yourself,” you will not think even for a single moment. You will drop dead. You will say, ”Okay, I am ready to die, but I am not ready to lose you.” This urgency is what makes a religious person.

”IF THOU ART A TRUE SEEKER, THOU SHALT AT ONCE SEE ME.” At once. Immediately. In a split second.

... THOU SHALT MEET ME IN A MOMENT OF TIME.

KABIR SAYS: ”O FRIEND! GOD IS THE BREATH OF ALL BREATH.”

God is life itself. God is not some faraway goal. God is like the ocean and we are like the fish. And Kabir has said in another reference, ”I laugh when I see the fish thirsty in the ocean. I laugh. I cannot believe, I cannot trust how it is possible. The fish is in the ocean, and thirsty? And asking where is the ocean!” We live in the ocean of God. God is life energy. He surrounds you, he surrounds everything. Everything exists in him – exists LIKE him. There is no other way of existing.

But there have been many people who have talked about God without knowing anything about him.

They have created many problems. They have created unnecessary anxieties. There are people who talk about God as an inference, not as an experience. They have not known him; they infer.

They think about it, they feel that God is needed; it is a necessary hypothesis. Without it they find it difficult to explain existence, so they accept it.

But God is not a hypothesis. Please, it is good to be an atheist, not to believe in God, but never believe in the hypothesis of God, because an atheist someday may turn into a theist, but a man who believes in the necessity of God, as a hypothesis, will never become religious. From the very beginning he has taken a wrong step. An atheist who says there is no God at least is interested in God – and cannot rest, because nobody can rest in a no. Nobody can rest in a negative. That’s why an atheist continuously thinks, continuously thinks....

I came across an old man, he is an atheist, and he said, ”I am eighty years old, and at least for sixty years consciously I have been an atheist and I have been denying that there is God.” I said, ”This is foolish – to waste sixty years in denying God. If he is not, he is not. Be finished.” Sixty years of wasting. And he is a very militant atheist. He goes around the country telling people that there is no God. I said, ”Are you mad? If he is not, why are you so worried? Be finished with him. Sixty years continuously, your whole life.... Now you are eighty years old, any day death will come – you wasted your whole life for something which is not.”

He became a little worried about it. He said, ”Yes, but nobody told me. You make me very afraid. Yes, that’s true – sixty years.” I told him, ”Even six minutes of so much intensity would have been enough to know whether God really is or not. Eighty years you have tried. And you are very argumentative, and I am not going to argue with you, there is no point in it. I would like to say only one thing –

one thing is certain about you – that deep in the unconscious you are still seeking and you are not satisfied with your no. If you were satisfied you would have enjoyed, you would have lived your life.

Why bother about a nonentity? But you are not satisfied, because nobody can be satisfied with a no.”

This has to be understood: satisfaction comes only out of yes. Satisfaction comes only out of tremendous positivity. God is nothing but a deep yes towards existence.

But there are people who have logically concluded either God is or God is not. Both are useless.

They don’t have any experience.

I have heard about a lecturer who built up a great reputation as an expert on child education, though he never had married himself. The title of his lectures was ”Ten Commandments for Parents.” Then he met the girl of his dreams, married her, and became a father. Shortly thereafter he changed the title of his talk to ”Ten Hints for Parents.” He was blessed with a second offspring – and his talk was relabeled ”A Few Tentative Suggestions for Parents.”

When his third child arrived, he quit lecturing altogether.

Only experience can be decisive. It is very easy to talk to others about how to be a good parent. It is very difficult to become a good parent. It is very easy to counsel other people how they should manage their marriage....

One day a man came to me from America – he is a marriage counselor – and he said, ”I am a marriage counselor, and I have come here because there are many problems in my married life.” I said, ”You are a marriage counselor?” He said, ”Yes, I am. That’s why I have come here, because in America I am very well-known and I cannot go to any other marriage counselor.”

You will find many psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, amongst my sannyasins. They have been helping other people – not knowing what is what. They have helped too many people.

And when I look into them I see they are in tremendous need of help. Then I become worried about the people they have been helping!

Remember, only experience can be decisive.

Have you heard the famous anecdote about Jalaluddin Rumi, a Sufi mystic? A woman came with a child, and the woman said, ”Maulana, Master, I have tried every way and this child won’t listen.

He eats too much sugar. And I know now only one way is possible: if you say something to him, he will listen, because he respects you. He does not understand what you are and who you are, but he respects you. And when I told him, ’Come with me to Maulana,’ he said, ’Okay, if he says, I will stop.’”

Maulana looked at the child, at his trust. He said, ”Wait, come after three weeks.” The woman was puzzled. Such a simple thing. And Maulana is known all over the world. People come from faraway countries to ask him great problems, and he solves them immediately – and such a silly thing. He could have said, ”Yes, don’t eat,” and the thing would have been closed. Three weeks? After three weeks the mother came with the child, and Maulana said, ”Wait three weeks more.” The mother said, ”What is the matter?” He said, ”Wait, come after three weeks.”

When they came back, he said to the child, ”Okay, listen. Stop eating sugar.” The child said, ”Okay, I will stop.”

The mother said, ”Now one question arises in my heart – and I will not be at rest. Why did you take six weeks for this?”

Maulana said, ”I like sugar myself. So how can I advise this child? That would have been untrue. So for three weeks I tried – and I failed! Then for three weeks I tried again, and now I have succeeded.

Now I can say, ’Please, you can also stop. Look, I am an old man – even I can stop. You are a child, a young child; you can do anything.’”

”Now I can say....” This is the way of the mystics; this has always been their way. They believe in experience. Whatsoever Kabir says is based, rooted, in his experience.

There are people who go on arguing, debating whether God is or not, whether the soul exists after death or not, whether there is heaven or hell or not. These are foolish things, stupid, a wastage of time. Kabir is not interested in such concepts.

I have heard a beautiful story; Cleveland Amory tells it: He tells about the time when Newport, Rhode Island, was the summer mecca of high society. An elegant gentleman and his wife were lounging on the beach when an unfortunate who had ventured too far out in the surf suddenly began to shout ”Sauvez-moi! Sauvez-moi!” ”That fellow,” pronounced the elegant gentleman, ”is either a Frenchman or a snob.” While the two of them debated the proposition, the shouts ceased, for the swimmer obligingly drowned.

Now the two, the couple, debated whether he is a snob or a Frenchman, because only two persons speak French – the French or the snob – and rather than simply saying ”Save me!” he says ”Sauvez-moi!” So who is he? Nobody is bothered about saving him, though who he is can be decided later on.

Buddha used to say to his disciples, ”I have heard about a man who was shot with an arrow and was dying, but he was a philosopher. A physician came, and the physician wanted to pull out the arrow, but the philosopher said, ’Wait. First things first. Who has tried to kill me? I must know whether he is a friend or an enemy, whether the arrow has been deliberately used against me or just by accident, whether the arrow is poisoned or not poisoned.’ The physician said, ’I know you are a great philosopher, but please keep your philosophy away from you right now. Let me pull out the arrow first; otherwise you are creating such problems, they will not be decided, and the arrow will kill you.’ The philosopher said, ’Do you believe in the soul? Does the soul survive after the man dies? First things first!’ The physician said, ’You are a fool! These are not first things! Now the first thing is how to pull out this arrow. These things you can decide later on.’”

Kabir is not interested in doctrines, philosophies. He says this life is divine – don’t bother about heaven and hell. Don’t think about faraway subjects; be realistic; be existential.

O FRIEND! HOPE FOR HIM WHILST YOU LIVE; KNOW WHILST YOU LIVE, UNDERSTAND

WHILST YOU LIVE: FOR IN LIFE DELIVERANCE ABIDES.

Don’t talk about what happens after death and don’t think about a god who sits somewhere in a high throne in the skies: ”... FOR IN LIFE DELIVERANCE ABIDES” – in life there is liberation. Life itself is a liberating experience. If you live totally, it liberates.

IF YOUR BONDS BE NOT BROKEN WHILST LIVING, WHAT HOPE OF DELIVERANCE IN

DEATH?

So be here-now! Do something right now!

IT IS BUT AN EMPTY DREAM, THAT THE SOUL SHALL HAVE UNION

WITH HIM BECAUSE IT HAS PASSED FROM THE BODY:

IF HE IS FOUND NOW, HE IS FOUND THEN,

IF NOT, WE DO BUT GO TO DWELL IN THE CITY OF DEATH.

”IF HE IS FOUND NOW, HE IS FOUND THEN.... ” Now or never. Let this message get roots into your hearts: now or never. God is now-here. Your clever mind tries to postpone. You say, ”We will see; when death comes and when we go and encounter God, we will see. Right now there is no problem.” No, the problem is right now.

Are you living God right now or not? That is the problem. If you are not living him right now, you will never be able to live him, because he is here. He is always in the present – never in the past, never in the future. This moment is his abode. Enjoy him, delight in him this moment. So whatsoever you are doing, let it be worship; whatsoever you are doing, let it be prayerful; whatsoever you are doing, do it lovingly.

IF YOU HAVE UNION NOW, YOU SHALL HAVE IT HEREAFTER.

So Kabir believes in life, not in God. Life is God. And let me say: life with a small ”l” not a capital

”L.” Life is God, with a lowercase ”l” – the very ordinary life – sleeping, aking, eating, walking, loving, serving people. This ordinary life, with a lowercase ”l” is God. If you cannot find him in this ordinary life you will never find him anywhere else.

Love, and love so deeply that you can find God in your lover. Be a friend, and be so friendly that you can find him in your friend. Wherever you can be totally, he will be there. Your being totally in something is the door.

But the mind is ambitious; it lives in the future. The mind is egoistic; it does not relax in the present; it has great plans for the future. The mind always thinks of how to become somebody, and the problem is that you are already that which can satisfy you. You need not become it; you are it. God is your being. It is not a question of becoming. But the mind is political and is interested only in becoming

– become this, become that.

I have heard, once Adolf Hitler went to a very wise old rabbi, and he said to the rabbi, ”I have heard that you are a great mystic. I don’t believe in such nonsense, and I am going to kill you – unless you can help me to have a revelation from God. If you are really a mystic, then do the miracle. Can you help me to have a revelation from God?” The rabbi said, ”Done and done! This very moment it can be done. You just go outside, stand on the street.” Hitler said, ”But it is raining.” The rabbi said,

”Don’t be worried. You stand in the rain for fifteen minutes and look at the sky, and there will be a revelation.”

Unwillingly... but Adolf Hitler thought, ”What is dangerous in this? Let us try. At the most, I may get a cold, that’s all; but let us try.” And Hitler said, ”Remember, if no revelation happens I am going to kill you.” The rabbi said, ”You go. It always happens; it has never failed me.” Hitler did as bidden, and came back soaked through to the skin.

”Look at me,” he wailed. ”I didn’t get any revelation. I only felt like a blithering idiot.”

”Not bad,” chuckled the old rabbi. ”Don’t you think that was quite a revelation for a first try?”

The mind is stupid because the mind is a politician. All politics is stupid because the whole of politics consists of one thing: to become somebody. And the revelation of religion is that you need not become anybody; you are already that – you are the suprememost. You are God himself. What more can you have? What more is possible? You cannot be improved upon.

Just the other night a woman was saying to me, ”If somebody falls in life, what has to be done?” I told her, ”Nobody can fall.” She could not understand it; she thought I had not understood her problem.

She said, ”If somebody falls in life and has committed some sin, then how can he be helped?” I said,

”Nobody can commit a sin.” Sin is not possible. To fall is impossible. Deep down you remain the suprememost. Only on the periphery is there sin and virtue, good and bad, moral and immoral.

Mystics like Kabir don’t come to teach you morality. They teach you religion. And the difference: morality again is politics. You try to improve yourself – in moral ways. Your whole society is immoral, and in an immoral society you follow the society. Whatsoever the society says is moral you try; the immoral society teaches you what morality is. In fact to fit in an immoral society is the greatest immorality possible. A really moral person will be a misfit; it will be very difficult for him to fit in the society. So if you see your so-called moral people, respectable people, fitting in with the society, know well, they are in deep immorality. They are tricky, pretenders, hypocrites.

But one thing: moral or immoral, they are all on the surface. Deep down you remain always in your suprememost state. You are gods and goddesses. To recognize this fact and to start living it is what religion is.

I am not saying to you become immoral. I am saying if you become religious, morality follows like a shadow. And that will be true morality; it will not be just a morality imposed by the immoral society on you. It will be true morality, that flows out of your innermost core. It will not be a character; it will be an overflowing of your being. It will not be a dead structure around you. You will be flowing, you will live moment to moment with awareness, spontaneity. You will be response-able.

Ordinarily, whatsoever you call moral is just repression and nothing else.

I have heard about a lady who was a paragon of virtue on earth, but upon her death was dismayed to find herself in hell. She phoned St. Peter, who begged her to be patient, because heaven was temporarily so overbooked he could not make room for her.

Two weeks later she buzzed St. Peter again, warning him that they were teaching her to drink and smoke – ”These people here are very dangerous and the temptation is great and I am afraid.”

Patience and fortitude, counseled St. Peter; he would soon be able to accommodate her – but not just yet.

A fortnight later, the paragon of virtue made a final call: ”Hi there, Pete? Forget all about it! And if you really want to enjoy, come here. This is the place.”

The people you think are moral are just repressed people, egoistic, carrying all sorts of repressed desires in them. Once an opportunity is given to them, they will explode. Out of fear and out of greed they have repressed themselves. They are not really moral. Only a religious person is moral.

Ordinarily you have been told, ”Become moral if you want to become religious.” I tell you just the contrary: ”Be religious, and you will be moral.” If you try to be moral you may become moral, but you will never be religious – and your morality will be just pseudo. From where will you learn the morality? From the immoral society. From where will it come to you? From the same rotten structure.

No, it cannot be moral. First become religious.

Says Jesus, ”Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and then all else will be added unto you.” The same I say to you, and the same is the teaching of Kabir. Live here-now as totally as possible, as fully alert as possible, and as lovingly as possible; and all else will be added unto you.

If He is found now, He is found then,

If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death.

If you have union now, you shall have it hereafter.

BATHE IN THE TRUTH....

Now. Bathe in the truth now. It is showering.

A handsome but bashful young man from the Bible Belt was recently hired by a firm of certified accountants. Shortly thereafter, he reported to the office manager, ”I must tell you that some of the young ladies in your employ are tempting me sorely.” ”Stand firm, young man,” the startled manager told him, resisting a smile, ”and you will get your reward in heaven.”

A week later the young man came back. ”It is that beautiful redhead, sir. She is pursuing me relentlessly. I don’t think I can resist her – but if I do, what do you think my reward will be in heaven?”

The office manager informed him, ”A bale of hay, you jackass!”

Don’t avoid life. Otherwise in heaven suddenly you will be surprised when you find a bale of hay as your reward. The reward is here. The reward is love. The reward is in totality. The reward is being one with life. Each moment is so precious, and each moment brings such precious rewards, you just enjoy it. Get lost in it. Be drunk with life, and there is reward. Bathe in the truth – now.

... KNOW THE TRUE GURU,

What does he mean by the true guru? Kabir means life itself is the guru, existence itself is the guru.

When life calls you, don’t remain frozen. Listen to the call, be adventurous, and go on the unknown, uncharted ways of life.

... HAVE FAITH IN THE TRUE NAME!

What is the true name of God? Nobody knows. The true name cannot be known – and all the names that are known are coined by man. If you really want to understand, then this whole existence that surrounds you is his true name, his true address. He is spread all over.

Listen to life, listen to its call, listen to its great temptation, listen to its invocation, listen to its challenge and be courageous, and each moment God will be revealed to you. In intense passion, in intense love, in intense awareness, he is always revealed.

KABIR SAYS. ”LT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE QUEST WHICH HELPS.... ”

Nothing else – neither the mosque nor the temple nor the Koran nor the Bible nor the Veda. It is the spirit of the quest which helps. If you are really searching, you will find him. If you are not finding him, don’t blame him. Just look within yourself: you don’t want to seek him. You are playing with the name of God. You are afraid, you are a coward.

Unless a man is religious he remains a coward. Only a religious man is courageous, because he goes on the most uncharted journey – without any maps and without any paths – and nobody to lead you! Nobody is there in front of you to lead you! – only life... and life never shouts, it only whispers. Unless you are very attentive, tuned in, and turned on, you will not be able to understand the little, small, still voice. It is the guru, it is the Master.

If you find a man and you feel that you have found your Master, that simply shows that in his voice, in his being, there is a reflection of that still, small voice of God. The guru outside you is but a mirror.

He reflects you, reflects God. And the real Master will throw you back to yourself. The real guru will not bind you to himself, because the real guru is life itself, the real guru is God himself.

”... I AM THE SLAVE OF THIS SPIRIT OF THE QUEST.”

And Kabir says, ”I worship the man who has this spirit of quest, who is intensely in love with truth and who is ready to sacrifice everything for it.”

A little story about a Zen Master:

A disciple asked the Master, ”What is Buddha’s truth?”

The Master said, ”Why not ask about your own mind or self instead of somebody else’s?”

”What then is my self, O Master?” asked the disciple.

”You have to see what is known as ’the secret act.’”

”What is ’the secret act’? Tell me, Master,” asked the disciple.

The Master opened his eyes and closed them.

This is the secret act. Open your eyes and see him, and close your eyes and see him. He is within and without. Don’t make a distinction between the inner and the outer, because in him there are no distinctions. He is the inner and he is the outer. The Master opened his eyes – very indicative, very Zenlike; Kabir would have liked the story himself. The Master opened his eyes, looked at the world

– he said ”life”; and closed his eyes – and said ”look within.” The innermost and the outer.

If you can love the inner and the outer, if you can be aware of the outer and the inner, you have arrived. And this arrival can happen only now. Don’t postpone it. Don’t say tomorrow, because the tomorrow never comes.

CHAPTER 2

Sannyas: the radical revolution

12 December 1976 am in Buddha Hall

Question 1

WHAT I MEAN BY SANNYAS IS A SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE SO THAT ONE BECOMES A RELIGIOUS PERSON, BUT IT IS NOT HAPPENING TO ME. WHAT TO DO?

MY SANNYAS IS NOT A DISCIPLINE. My sannyas is freedom, freedom from all control – even from self-control. A controlled man is a dead man. Whether you are controlled by others or by yourself does not make much difference.

My sannyas is spontaneity, living moment to moment without any prefabricated discipline, living with the unknown, not exactly knowing where you are going. Because if you know already where you are going you are dead. Then life runs in a mechanical way. A life should be a flow from the known towards the unknown. One should be dying each moment to the known so the unknown can penetrate you. And only the unknown liberates.

Discipline can never be of the unknown. Discipline has to be of the mind. The mind is your past. All that you have learned, all that you have been conditioned for, all that you have experienced, all that you have thought about – this is your mind. Out of this mind comes a planning for the future. That planning for the future will be nothing but a repetition of the past. It comes out of the past; it cannot be anything else. Maybe a little modified here and there, decorated here and there, but there will be no radical revolution in it.

My sannyas is a radical revolution. By giving you sannyas, I give you freedom. I give you courage to live without any planning, to live without mind, to live without past. Of course it is dangerous, but life is dangerous. Only when you are dead, then there is no danger. Then you are safe – safe in your grave. Safety never exists before that. If you want to be safe and secure and perfectly protected, insured against all dangers, then don’t enter into sannyas. Enter into your grave. Then don’t breathe, because breathing is dangerous. One day breathing is going to bring death to you. Breathing iS

dangerous.

Life exists in danger, pulsates in danger. Life exists in the ocean of death. It has to be dangerous; it cannot be safe and secure. You are not a rock. You are a flower, you are fragile – in the morning, laughing with the sun; by the evening, you are gone. How can life be secure? In its frailty, in its fragileness, how can you even conceive of insurance? No, there is no insurance, there cannot be.

And one should not live by the philosophy the insurance companies go on propagating. One should live with the danger, with death hand in hand. Then tremendous dimensions open before you. Then God is revealed.

God is very dangerous. There exists no other dangerous word comparable to God. God means to live a life of spontaneity, of nature. Don’t try to corrupt your future. Let it be. Don’t try to corrupt it, don’t try to manage it. Don’t give it a mold and a form and a pattern.

Of course, if you live the way I teach, many things will disappear from your life. The first thing will be the security – and it is a false thing. Only the false disappears with sannyas, not the real. The real starts appearing. The security will disappear. The marriage will disappear. Love will remain; love is real.

Let it be more clear: love can exist with sannyas, but not marriage, because marriage is an effort to give a pattern to love, to give a discipline to love, to give it a legal, social form. But what are you doing? How can you manage that which has not come yet? You can love a woman or a man, and you can feel in this moment that you will love her always and always, but this is just a feeling of this moment. How can you promise? An authentic man will never promise. How can you promise for the future? How can you say really you will be able to love tomorrow too? If love disappears what will you do? And it appeared on its own accord, you have not brought it in, so when it disappears what will-you do? It comes and goes; it happens and disappears. It is not within your power; it is bigger than you. So when you say, ”I will love you tomorrow too,” what are you going to do? If love disappears you will pretend, you will substitute. That’s what happens in a marriage. Then two dead persons living in a dead relationship go on quarreling, fighting, nagging each other, trying to dominate, manipulate, exploit, destroy. Marriage is an ugly thing. Love is tremendously beautiful.

My sannyas is like love. The older sannyas was. more like marriage. My sannyas is simply a courage to face whatsoever is going to happen, without any rehearsal for it.

How can you prepare? The tomorrow is not known at all. Whatsoever you prepare is going to hinder; it will become a screen on your eyes and you will not be able to see what is. All preparation is dangerous. Remain unprepared. Then you will be excited, then each moment will be a joy and a wonder, and each moment will bring something new to you which has never happened, and you will never be bored.

The life of marriage, the life of all discipline, is the life of boredom – monotonous. Monogamy is monotony. You have to repeat the same. You are not free to explore new ways of being. You are not free to see new things. You are not free to experience new beauty, new truth. If you are disciplined, what does it mean? It simply means now you have a particular standpoint, your eyes are no longer open. You are a Christian; then you have a discipline. You are a Hindu; then you have a discipline –

and a dogma, and your eyes are completely full of that dogma. Then you cannot see that which is.

I would like you to be totally uncontrolled. I would like you to be absolutely a chaos, with no order whatsoever.

And please don’t misunderstand me. There is every possibility, because when I say something I have to use words, and words are very much corrupted – corrupted by you, corrupted by usage, for centuries. When I say ”chaos,” you become afraid. But you don’t know the beauty of chaos, and you don’t know the spontaneous order of a chaos. You don’t know the order that comes out of freedom. Not enforced by your mind, not by your past, but just by your being aware, alert, free, responsive, an order arises. I don’t call it order, because it goes on changing every moment. I don’t call it a discipline, because it has nothing to do with you. In the chaos you are no more, the ego has disappeared.

Who is going to discipline? The ego. The ego says become a better man, improve yourself: you are a sinner, become a saint; you are violent, become nonviolent; you are angry, become more loving.

But who is going to do it, and who is this who is hankering for improvement? The ego wants a few more decorations, wants to become more respectable, wants to become more certain, wants to have a better grounding in the world, wants to feel more solid, wants to become somebody in particular, wants to become special.

No, my sannyas is not going to give you anything of this sort. I don’t deal in dead things, that is not my business. My whole effort here is to give you a taste of freedom. Once you have known the taste, you will never settle for anything else. If it is a question of settling somewhere, you are wrong.

My sannyas is a wandering; it is not a settlement. In my sannyas you can rest, but in the morning you have to go. It is a constant flow, river-like – unless the ocean is achieved. But the ocean comes out of the flowing river, naturally. There is no planning for the ocean; the river does not know. I he maps don’t exist for a river, of where the ocean is.

And the river has no discipline. Sometimes it goes to the south, and sometimes it starts moving to the north, and sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another direction. Have you ever seen the zigzag path of a river? It is not straight. It is not economical. It is not mathematical. It is not the shortcut at all – very zigzag, just goes on, not knowing where it is going, just goes on because the energy is there.to go. And one day the river reaches. If the river is planning, then it will find the shortest route, then it will move in a straight line, then it will never deviate, then it will be very consistent. But then it will not be a river. Maybe a canal, a man-made canal, but it will not be a river.

It won’t have any freedom.

I don’t want you to be canals. Canals are ugly. I want you to be rivers. And life is a hilly track.

Move in freedom, move in total freedom, and each moment remember to drop the past.

It

accumulates like dust.

Each moment you have experienced something, and then it goes on accumulating. Don’t accumulate it. Just go on ceasing as far as the past is concerned, dying as far as the past is concerned, so you are totally alive, throbbing, pulsating, streaming, and, whatsoever comes, you face it with awareness.

You must have a wrong notion about my sannyas.

You say, ”What I mean by sannyas is a spiritual discipline....” Then your meaning is different from my meaning. No, it has nothing to do with discipline – and it has nothing to do with spirituality.

When Bodhidharma reached China and the emperor received him, the emperor asked one thing:

”I have done many meritorious acts. I have made many Buddhist monasteries, thousands of Buddhist monks are fed from my treasure, millions of Chinese have been converted to Buddhism, thousands of temples have been raised for Buddha. What is going to be my merit for all this doing?”

Bodhidharma was very ferocious and he looked into the emperor’s eyes and said, ”Your Majesty, there is no merit in it.”

The emperor was very much shocked, because many Buddhists had come before – monks and missionaries – and they all said to him, ”This will be your merit: you will reach to the seventh paradise. Do more virtuous acts, donate more, make more monasteries, temples, Buddha statues, convert the whole country to Buddhism. Your merit is going to be great, Your Majesty.” And now here comes this Bodhidharma and he says no merit at all?

But the emperor was a very cultured man. He changed the subject; he dropped the subject before so many people. And this man looked dangerous. He said, ”Then tell me something about the holy truth of Buddha.” And Bodhidharma said, ”Nothing can be said about it because it is vast, and, remember, there is nothing holy in it. Holy, unholy, is part of a dual mind. There is nothing holy, nothing unholy; it simply is.”

Now this was too much. The emperor was very much offended. He is denying even Buddha’s truth and saying nothing is holy in it. He became angry. He forgot for a moment all his courteous manner, courtly manner and politeness, and he said, ”Then who is this fellow who is standing before me?”

And Bodhidharma bowed down and said, ”Your Majesty, I don’t know.”

My sannyas is not spiritual, because I don’t divide the world into the material and the spiritual. It is nothing holy, because I don’t divide the world into the unholy and the holy. By becoming a sannyasin you have not become a saint, because I don’t divide people into sinners and saints. People are people. All are beautiful – sinners and saints and all.

In fact, if there are only saints in the world and no sinners, the world would not be worth living in.

Just think of a world which consists only of holy saints. Can you conceive of any worse world than that? No, it cannot be of much value. The sinner and the saint, they are the warp and woof, they are together, they are one – the dark and the light. Death and life are meeting every moment.

So I don’t call it spiritual, because I have no condemnation for matter. In the very word ”spiritual”

you have denied something, you have condemned something, you have judged; you have already declared that ”The material is wrong and I want to be spiritual.”

Can’t you see a simple fact that you exist in the body as the body? Have you ever seen any soul without a body, unembodied? Or have you seen any body alive without a soul? The bifurcation is stupid. The soul is nothing but the dynamism of your body and the body is nothing but the materialization of your soul. The body is your visible soul and the soul is your invisible body.

And I would like you to be as much a materialist as a spiritualist. I don’t make the division. I don’t want to create any split in you. You are already split. Your so-called religions have already done much damage to you. They have created a schizophrenic world in which everybody is split. And of course then there is tension, anxiety, anguish, because you become two. By just calling yourself a spiritual being, you are condemning your body and you are creating a rift between the body and the soul, between God and the world.

You say God created the world? You state it in a very wrong way. I say God IS the world. God has not created it, because he has never been able to become separate from it. It is not like a painter, that he paints something and then he is free of the painting and the painting becomes separate – the painter can die but the painting will live. No, God is not like that. God is more like a dancer. Hence my very great love for dance. God is more like a dancer. You cannot separate the dancer from the dance. He is Nataraj: the dancer of all the dancers, the master of all the dancers. He is dancing in the leaf, in the flower, in the raindrops, in the river, in the peacock. All over is his dance.

He has not created the world; he IS the world. The world is his dance, and the separation does not exist. If the world is not there, he will not be a dancer at all. If the dancer is not there, the world cannot exist. They are not separate; they are inseparably together. In fact to say ”together” is not right, because they are not two; how can they be together? They are one.

And I would like you to remember this unity always and always because you are prone to forget it.

Your minds have been conditioned by dualists – matter and mind, body and soul, God and the world, SAMSAR and nirvana.

My sannyasin is the unity, is the bridge between all duality. That’s why I have not told you to renounce the world, because it is God’s dance. Where are you going to renounce it? Have you gone mad? It is his market, it is his world. The noise is his. Once you recognize it, the noise turns into a beautiful music. In all these relationships only he is there. In your wife he is, in you he is, in your children too.

In your friends he is, in your enemies too. Only he is.

So don’t go anywhere, don’t renounce. Live it as totally as possible – and live it as an integrated being. My emphasis is for an integrated being. You are not in the body: you ARE the body. Drop that nonsense of ”I am in the body.” Hmm? from the very beginning that nonsense makes a distinction, and then you are very far away from the body and a conflict arises. You start manipulating your body, you start controlling your body, you start doing things to your body. You become destructive, you become violent.

Your so-called saints are all violent. Howsoever much they talk about nonviolence, howsoever much, it makes no difference. They are violent people.

There are two types of violent people. The first type is violent with others; the other type is violent with himself. There are sadists and masochists. The sadists torture others; they become Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao. Then there are masochists, they torture themselves; they become Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, Lanza del Vasto, and so on, so forth. But both are violent people.

One tortures himself; another tortures others.

My sannyasin has to drop torturing.

So it is not a discipline and it has nothing to do with spirituality. Yes, Your Majesty, there is nothing holy in it.

And don’t get angry with me and don’t ask who is this fellow sitting here and talking with you. I don’t know.

You say, ”What I mean by sannyas is a spiritual discipline, and through this discipline one becomes a religious man.” If you become a religious man by discipline, you will be a bogus religious man.

What does discipline have to do with religion? If you practice religion you will be false. Ordinarily it has been told to you, whatsoever you preach, practice it. And I say to you, if you practice it, you will become false, because practice means you are creating a character armor around you. Now you will be living according to a certain ideology, and that ideology will function as a barrier. It will become your prejudice. And a religious man is absolutely unprejudiced. He has no outlook, he has no philosophy, he has no ideology. He is very, very natural. He is more like animals, more like small babies, more like trees and rocks... and yet, very, very different from them. But the difference comes from his awareness.

You say if we practice a certain discipline we will become religious. As if religiousness is something like a goal in the future: you have to practice today so tomorrow you become religious. No, religiousness is your nature. You are already that. No practice is needed for it.

The Indian term for religion is very, very beautiful; the Indian term is DHARMA. DHARMA means your intrinsic nature. Whatsoever you want to become, in fact, you are already; it is already the case. It is not a question that you have to practice something and then as a result, as a reward, you become religious. No, you become religious if you just become aware. This very moment you become religious.

Sometimes even without knowing it you become religious. Whenever you are alert, silent, peaceful, you are religious. Whenever you are unalert, tense, worried, you are irreligious. Religion and irreligion continuously change. Sometimes sitting with your friends, listening to music, and you are so quiet and so happy – for no reason at all, just feeling joyful – you are religious. You are in tune with your nature. You may not even be conscious of the fact that in this moment you are religious.

You have gone for a morning walk, the sun is rising, and it is beautiful all around and the air is cool and fragrant and the birds have started singing and there are a few white clouds floating in the sky, and suddenly you are no longer the ordinary, miserable person. You feel good. Suddenly you feel turned on. The vast sky and the clouds and the birds and the morning breeze and the sun rising slowly: something rises in you too, something becomes alert. You have a dance to your feet and a song arises. You would like to sit under a tree and sing a song. You are religious.

When you are in love you are religious. Holding the hand of your friend or your woman or your man, not doing anything, just sitting silently, looking at the stars, you are religious.

Religion is not a result of something that you practice. Religion enters in you any moment you relax.

Religion is a flowering of relaxation, not a result of practicing. Remember the difference because when you practice you become more tense.

You can see the people who practice. They are very tense because every moment they are fighting.

How can they relax? Have you seen a saint relaxing? Impossible. A saint cannot relax, because if he relaxes he is afraid of becoming a sinner. He has to be constantly on guard. He sits upright –

because deep inside he is uptight. You can go and see these saints in India. They are on exhibition everywhere. Upright they sit, with their backbone straight, in a dead yoga posture. Like statues.

They can’t relax.

Saints cannot laugh, because if they laugh there is danger. If you laugh you become ordinary, just an ordinary human being. They have to remain serious! And they have to be continuously on guard.

You don’t understand their misery. They are imprisoned, and their imprisonment is such that they are the prisoner and they are the jailer too. So a prisoner can escape from the prison, there is a possibility, because the jailer is a different person; you can deceive. But a saint cannot, because he himself is the jailer. He goes on whipping himself, torturing, starving. He is very nasty with his body.

But you say, ”He is a great ascetic” – these nasty people. Horrible and hideous. Then, also, they are waiting: in some future there is going to be a result.

No, I don’t teach you the result-oriented life at all. I teach you the relaxed way of life. Here and now you can be religious. You are, this moment, if you are relaxing with me.

Those who have come to feel me, understand me, those who have come to have a taste of my presence, they relax. They are not here for any gain, they are not here for any greed, they are not here to attain something in future life. They are just here to be with me – to laugh a little with me, to have a little fun, to joke a little. And then you are religious. In that moment, if you allow a little relaxation, you are religious. Because religion is your innermost nature. Whenever you are not tense, it is there. When you become tense, you lose contact with it.

And now you ask, ”... but it is not happening to me. What to do?’ If it had happened it would have surprised me. That’s what I am saying: it cannot happen that way. If you want to become a pseudo-religious person, then it is okay, that’s your choice. But never blame me. That is your responsibility.

If you want to be a pseudo-religious person, you can become one – you can practice.

Truth cannot be practiced. You have to dissolve yourself into it. Truth can never become something that you can hold in your hand. It is vast. How can you hold it in your hand? It can never become your property. You have to relax into it, dissolve into it.

When you dissolve into it, it is there, and it takes and possesses your whole being. And then it lives through you. And that is what I call a religious life: when truth starts living through you, when God starts dancing through you and you don’t create any barrier for him and you don’t say no. You become a yea-sayer and you say yes, and your yes is total and your yes is unconditional; then God is very happy in you. And when God is happy in you, suddenly you will find he is happy all around you. Then you are blessed... and then you can bless the whole of existence.

Question 2

SOMETIMES LISTENING TO YOU, AN OVERWHELMING FEELING COMES OVER ME OF HOW

ABSURD AND RIDICULOUS WE ALL ARE AND YET AT THE SAME TIME HOW INCREDIBLY

BEAUTIFUL LIFE IS. IF EEL THERE IS SO MUCH I WANT TO SAY TO YOU, BUT IT CAN’T BE

PUT INTO WORDS, AND I WOULD LIKE TO JUST RUN UP AND HUG YOU.

Good idea – but don’t do it. Because even then you will not be able to say what you want to say, even with a hug. You will be able to show your helplessness, but nothing will be said.

When something overwhelming is happening, it cannot be expressed. It is inexpressible by its very nature. It is intrinsically inexpressible, ineffable. So whenever it happens a very deep helplessness arises. Words seem to be futile, meaningless, trivial, and then one would like to say it in some other way – one would like to hug or kiss or hold the hand – but even then nothing is said. Only your helplessness is shown. One would like to cry or weep, but then too nothing is said. Only your helplessness is expressed.

Rather than trying to express it, my suggestion is, when this happens, remain with it. Don’t make any effort to express or not to express. Because if you become occupied with expression, you will miss it. You are already diverted, distracted. That’s why I say the idea is good but don’t try to do it.

If you feel the benediction around you, the greater, the vaster surrounding you, the infinite just around you, rather than trying to express it, get lost in it. Because now the ego is trying another way: now the ego wants to express it. And if you become too interested in expressing it.... You may become a painter, because the painter is trying to express the inexpressible through colors on the canvas, but who has been able to express it? Or you may become a poet. The poet is trying to express the inexpressible in words, but who has ever been able to express it?

This is the difference between art and religion. When the vast surrounds you, the artist starts making efforts to express it, and the mystic simply gets lost in it. And the mystic comes to know it. The artist misses at the very last moment.

It will be happening to more and more people around here. This is a very crazy place to be. It is really far out. To more and more people it is going to happen, so keep it as a deep remembrance that whenever you feel that something unknown has knocked on your doors, don’t be worried about expression, don’t start thinking how to say it or how to write it. Let it be. Go into it. Be drowned in it.

Be drunk with it. Don’t make any effort.

These are the two efforts. First, people try to find how to achieve it; they miss. I don’t teach you any

”how.” Then when it happens they start thinking how to express it; again the ”how” comes from the back door. Again I would like to remind you, don’t bring the ”how.” It is good as it is. Unexpressed, what is wrong in it? Let it be so. Amen, let it be so.

”Sometimes listening to you, an overwhelming feeling comes over me of how absurd and ridiculous we all are and yet at the same time how incredibly beautiful life is.” There is no contradiction in the absurd and the beautiful. In fact the absurd is the beautiful and the beautiful is always absurd. Don’t see any contradiction.

The mind is always tempted very much to see contradictions because the mind has been trained in a certain logic which does not allow contradictions to be together. The mind has been trained by Aristotelean philosophy, all over the world. Aristotle says A is A and never not A. This is the whole logic of the mind: A is A and never not A; A is A and never B. How can A be B? But in reality A is B

and C and D – and the whole alphabet. In reality things have multidimensional qualities.

You see a man is loving. When the man is loving you think, ”Yes, how beautiful a man.” But the next moment he is angry; then there is a contradiction. You say, ”This man deceived. This man has not heard of Aristotle yet? A is A and never B! You are a loving man! Don’t be angry!” But man is man.

He is angry and loving and jealous and possessive, and sometimes so sharing, and sometimes so mean. Have you not watched it? Sometimes your friend is so sharing and sometimes so mean. This is how reality is. Reality contains all contradictions.

You say, ”... how absurd and ridiculous we all are AND YET how incredibly beautiful life is.” Nothing is contradictory in it. If you were all very, very consistent, life would not be so rich. It would be stale and gray. Life is rich because it is a rainbow, it is psychedelic. It has so many colors and so many changing colors. And it is so unpredictable – that’s why it is absurd.

Why do you call it absurd? Because you cannot contain it in your logic. Your logic falls short; it is bigger than your logic. It destroys your logic. Somehow you make a small part of your mind clear, and life comes and destroys everything.

Have you not seen somebody who for forty years has been absolutely logical and has never allowed anything in his life which is illogical, has said God does not exist because he is not visible, has said prayer is foolish and love is not possible, then one day he comes across a beautiful woman and falls in love? Forty years’ training and logic – and all gone to the dogs! within a single moment. Life is absurd.

But by ”absurd” you simply say one thing: that it is not logical. But why should it be logical? It has no obligation to be logical. It has never pretended to be logical. It is man’s mediocre mind that has been trying to fix it somehow so you can be secure about it. No, it cannot be fixed. It is a constant flux.

And it is ridiculous, yes, because it is not serious. It is ridiculous because it is a play. In India we call it LEELA; it is a play.

God loves children. Can’t you see it? Every day old people are taken away, and he goes on sending babies. How absurd. A person has been trained his whole life, for seventy years. He has become a great philosopher, a professor, a scholar – so many PhD’s and DLits and the DD – and now suddenly this mad God takes him away. What type of economics is this? And instead sends a baby, crying and howling. Again train him. Send him to the school and the college and the university. And by the time he is ready and looks of any use, here comes God and takes him away! It is absurd.

God loves the absurdity. God is not a utilitarian. He does not believe in utility; he believes in play.

At the moment you become too serious, he says, ”Now it is time. You please come back home. I will dismantle you and send you again. Now you need a mind wash: you have become too trained, too disciplined, too much of a commodity. You are no longer a freedom.” That’s why old people are taken away. He destroys them, again creates small babies, and sends them; and again they are there with all the nonsense. And again we are after them to teach them.

Neither we learn anything nor God learns anything. It goes on.

It is ridiculous, but that’s why it is so beautiful. If God was a mathematician – as Vinoba Bhave says.... He says that God is a mathematician. Now this seems to be the most sacrilegious statement ever made. God a mathematician? No, he is not, not at all. The mathematician is an ugly thing.

The mathematician is a computer. The mathematician is clever and cunning, but mechanical.

Mathematics has no poetry in it. Mathematics is the only absolutely fictitious science created by man. In the room you say there are six chairs. There are chairs – but not ”six.” ”Six” is man’s concept. If you go out of the room, chairs will be there, but ”six” has disappeared. Mathematical concepts are human creations. God is not a mathematician. Otherwise such beautiful play will become impossible.

Don’t you see sometimes there are many things man is destroying, thinking that by destroying them the world will be better? God has never destroyed them. The trees have existed. Sometimes you think what is the point of a tree. Make furniture, cut it; make doors and furniture and then it is useful.

Hills are there, the Himalayas are there, and the virgin snow on their tops, nobody has walked on it.

For what? What is the point of it? Why are the Himalayas needed? Make it a plain so people can live there and townships can grow. That’s how man has destroyed the whole of nature.

God is very playful. Many absurd things are there. So many stars, for what? They go on moving. It is not a mathematical arrangement. God is very luxurious. He does not believe in necessity. He is a spendthrift; he is not a miser. He goes on throwing his energy. It is playful energy it is just like a child splashing in water. Don’t ask why. He will not be able to answer. But he is enjoying it. It has no economical value, but life is not economics, nor is it politics. It is a poetry, and the poetry is by its very nature, by its very definition, illogical. The poetry is beautiful because there are sudden leaps and jumps. The prose is not so beautiful, because there are no sudden jumps and leaps. The prose moves on plain ground, in a logical sequence.

Sooner or later, when you are ready, I am going to drop talking in a sequential way. Sooner or later, when my sannyasins are ready, my talks will be more like a collage. You will have to find out what he means. You will have to find out your own meaning. I will say a few things, but I will go on jumping and I will not connect as I connect right now. Once you are ready – more attentive, more aware, more alert – I will not connect with logic, I will drop the logic. The unity will be there, but not on the surface. The unity will be there because they will all be my statements – the unity will consist in ME.

And the unity will be there because they are to be understood by your awareness – the unity will come in your awareness. But taken directly, if a visitor comes, he will think this man is mad. Right now I connect. I connect because I know you will not be able to understand the absurd yet. I am waiting for the day you are ready, so I can be as absurd as God is.

Have you seen anywhere any symmetry in nature?

It is not there.

Man makes things in a

symmetrical way. If he makes a house he makes it symmetrical. But in nature there is no symmetry.

A great pine tree, and just by the side a small rosebush. And you cannot ask what is the connection between the rosebush and the pine tree. God will laugh; he will say, ”Who said that there is any need for any connection? The rosebush is a rosebush and the pine is a pine – and both are happy.

There is no need to bridge them.”

Sooner or later I am going to become just like God. I will say something and then I will forget about it and I will tell a joke which is completely unrelated. Then it is for you to work it out. Then it will be more beautiful, certainly more beautiful, because it will be more playful. That is the meaning of a collage, so many fragments from so many dimensions together. On the surface, no unity; but if you look deep there is an organic unity. That unity exists in the painter, not in the painting.

If you really want to know the meaning of the poetry, you will have to go deep into the heart of the poet. For prose you need not go into the heart. Prose is plain, prose is worldly, prose is of the marketplace, prose is human. Poetry is divine. That’s why all the great scriptures of the world are in poetry – the Upanishads, the Vedas, the Koran, DHAMMA PADA. They are all poetry, beautiful poetry, outpourings of a singing heart. Logic, there is none; love, there iS much.

Question 3

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF SURRENDER? HOW IS SURRENDER?

There are a few things, you have to do them if you want to know them. There is no way to tell anything about them. And surrender is one of those things. It is a dimension of love, let-go.

If you ask me what is surrender and what is the meaning of surrender, yes, something can be told to you, but that won’t carry any meaning. You have to taste it. It is a taste. If you taste it you know it. If you don’t taste it, I can talk about it, but you will not know it. Without your own experience, whatsoever I say will be a tautology. You ask what is surrender. I say surrender is a let-go. But what am I saying? You will ask what is a let-go. It is a tautology; I have not answered you. I say a let-go is falling in love. It is a tautology again; I am not saying anything. You will say,’What is falling in love then?” The question remains the same, and all answers will go round and round and round.

I have heard about a prudish, tight-lipped old maid who would not even allow her pet cat out of the house after dark. Headed for New York on one of her infrequent outings, she paused to remind the maid about locking up that cat each evening.

This time in New York, however, the old maid encountered a handsome old rogue who swept her off her feet. After four nights of blissful romancing she wired her maid, ”Having the time of my life. Let the cat out too!”

Let the cat out. When you know what love is, only then you know. There is no other way to know it.

I am here creating a situation for you to surrender. Don’t ask for the meaning. Do it. Be courageous.

Let it be an experience. Accept my invitation. My doors are open; enter and be my guest. Surrender.

By ”surrender,” in the West, a very wrong idea arises – as if you will be dominated by somebody –

because surrender has a very wrong association. It has become almost a political word in the West.

The Nazis surrendered; that’s how it has become associated with politics. A surrendered one is the one who is defeated. In the East we have a totally different meaning for the term. It has nothing to do with war and nothing to do with defeat. Have you not heard the proverb that in love defeat is the only victory? If you are defeated in love you have become victorious. Yes, that’s how it is in surrender. It has nothing to do with defeat. It is not that you are being dominated by somebody. It is not that now somebody else is going to oppress you, exploit you, that you are becoming a slave.

No, it is nothing of the sort. The surrender in the East is used as a technique.

And the surrender has to be made only to a person who is no more, so he cannot dominate you. So this has to be remembered: don’t surrender to a person who is still there; otherwise he will dominate you and he will give you a discipline and he will start forcing you to do this and not to do that and he will create a prison around you.

That’s why I don’t give you any discipline. Even if you ask, I don’t give. You ask continuously because you want to depend, because you want to be a slave, because you don’t want to take your own responsibility. You want to throw the responsibility on somebody else. You are in search of a father figure; you want somebody to lead you. But I am not going to give you any discipline and I am not going to give you any clear-cut direction to do this and don’t do that. All that I am going to do is to share my awareness with you so you can become a little more aware, to share my love with you so you can become a little more loving. It has nothing to do with any discipline.

Coming closer to me, you will be able to imbibe my spirit. That is the meaning of surrender: that you are ready to come close to me, that you are not afraid, that you will not protect yourself against me, that you will not be defensive, that simply you are ready to come closer to me, that you are attracted, that you have heard my call, that something has clicked in your heart and you will try to know who this man really is, what manner of man. You would like to enter into my emptiness and be surrounded by my emptiness.

Sannyas is the visible effort of surrender. Many people come to me and they say, ”We don’t take sannyas. Can’t you help us?” I say, ”I will try my best, but it won’t be of much help because you will continuously protect yourself. You will be defensive.” Sannyas is just a gesture that ”Now drop my defenses and I am ready to go with you.”

Of course, it is risky. You don’t know me yet. How can you know? If you surrender you will know; you cannot know beforehand. So it is only for very courageous people. The daredevils – it is only for them. And I exist for daredevils, those who are ready to risk their life and to go into the unknown and to see if something happens.

If you are ready to go, it is going to happen; and then you will know the meaning. Then too you will not be able to tell somebody else what the meaning is! The meaning is in the taste, in the experience.

And you ask, ”How is surrender?” Apparently, sannyas is the ”how,” obviously. The deeper ”how” will open its doors when you have entered the porch. Sannyas is the porch; once you enter the porch

– you have accepted me and I have accepted you – then there is a deep agreement, that you trust me. Now I can invite you to deeper realms of my being. You become an initiate.

The second thing happens someday. Sometimes it happens with the sannyas itself. If you are totally surrendered, then in the first moment of contact with me it happens – you become an initiate.

Sometimes it takes time. The outward sannyas happens first; then you wait, then you watch, then you see things, then slowly, slowly you relax, inch by inch you drop your ego, and more and more I penetrate in you. Then one day, without any warning, suddenly it has happened – you suddenly become aware it has happened: now my light exists in you and my heart beats in you. Sometimes it takes years, sometimes days, sometimes minutes, sometimes not a single minute. It depends on you, how much courage you have.

And of course, Westerners are gaining much more from me than the Easterners, because the East has become very cowardly. So by and by you will see more and more Western people around here.

The East is very cowardly. They have become almost corpses. They don’t have the spirit – the spirit that Kabir calls the spirit for the quest of truth – they don’t have it. Either they believe they already know what truth is or they think there is enough time and there is no hurry – if not in this life, then in the next life.

And for them, to be religious has become more a way of being respectable, and of course my sannyas will not appeal to them because if they are respectable, by becoming my sannyasin they will lose all respect. They will not become respectable through my sannyas. Through my sannyas they will become rebellious; they will start falling out of the society. People will start avoiding them.

People will start feeling they are dangerous and infectious, and people will think that they have gone mad or something.

But in the West something new is happening – a new courage, a new spirit of inquiry. It always comes whenever a country becomes materially rich. It always happens. When a country becomes materially poor, it loses spirit. Not only outwardly poor, it becomes inwardly poor. It loses confidence, it loses courage, it loses potentiality. It starts dragging. In the West people have become materially rich; they are well-fed, science has come to a certain point from where religion can be contacted, and people have seen material affluence. Now they would like to see something beyond it. It is not enough.

So if you are ready, don’t ask ”how is surrender?” Surrender.

Once it happened, Jesus was staying with his friends in a house, and the friends said, ”Tell us how to pray.” Jesus said, ”But how to say how to pray? I will pray, and if you are ready you can participate.”

And Jesus started praying. Now the others were standing there and they couldn’t see what to do.

He started moving into some unknown realm. They watched and he prayed; and when he came back from the world of his prayer, they said again, ”But tell us how to pray.” He said, ”I SHOWED you how to pray, and you ask how to pray.”

Remember, maybe the question arises out of your cowardliness. Maybe you want to be certain about everything, what it is, whether it is worth it or not.

I am here surrendered. I am here in prayer. I am here in God. Come closer to me.

And I have made it easier than it has ever been, because I am not putting any conditions on you.

I accept you as you are. It has never been done before. I accept you as you are. I have no condemnation, no evaluation, no judgment. If you are a drunkard, good. If you are a gambler, good, exactly right. Because this is a sort of gamble and this is a way of becoming drunk. Whatsoever you are, you are accepted.

Come closer.

Sannyas will be a visible thing for you to do, and the next thing, leave it to me. I will do it. You do one thing; I will do the other. There is a saying in Arabian countries, ”If you walk one foot towards God, he walks one thousand one feet towards you.” You walk towards me one foot; I will walk one thousand and one feet towards you. You do the first; the second I will do.

But you come and ask, ”But sannyas... just by changing the clothes.... It is too outward. Tell us something inward.”You are not even ready to do the outward and you ask for the inward. And you are an outwardly-oriented man. That’s why I am talking about the outward sannyas – that’s where you are. That’s from where the journey has to start. You arc yet outside yourself; from there the journey has to start. The inward can happen only later on, not right now.

Question 4

IS IT POSSIBLE FOR TWO PEOPLE IN A RELATIONSHIP TO BE BAD FOR EACH OTHER?

DOES IT HAPPEN THAT TWO PEOPLES ENERGY JUST DOES NOT MIX? HOW TO KNOW THE

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE THORNS OF A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP AND AN UNHEALTHY

RELATIONSHIP?

but I have come across couples thousands and thousands of couples who are bad. In fact I have never come across a couple who is not bad. Persons are beautiful and couples are ugly. Something goes wrong somewhere. It should not be so but it is so.

The way love has been understood has been wrong. What you call love is not love; it is something else. Sometimes you are alone and you cannot tolerate your loneliness, and just to fill the gap, the inner hole, you find somebody. It is not love. And of course things are going to be bad. From the very beginning the very base is wrong. Love is a sharing of two individuals. And I call a person

”individual” when he is happy with his aloneness; otherwise he is not an individual, if he cannot be happy alone. Just think. If you cannot be happy alone, how can you be happy together? Two persons are unhappy separately, and you think there is going to be a miracle? – two unhappy persons come together and suddenly happiness arises? Unhappiness is doubled – not only doubled, multiplied.

Out of your unhappiness you seek the other; then the relationship is going to be wrong. Seek the other out of happiness, and then the relationship will never be wrong. Seek out of happiness.

First meditate, first feel your own being, first pray. First grow into love; otherwise what are you going to do when you have found the lover? Then you don’t know what to do.

An anecdote:

His friend was a shy one, but after being told that if he went to the dance all he would have to do would be stand in the corner, he went. The friend shoved him immediately into the arms of a pretty girl on the dance floor.

For an hour or so he lost track of his shy friend, but then spotted him standing happily next to the girl he had been ”shoved” upon. What is more, he had his arm around her waist and she was looking up at him with adoring eyes.

”We are engaged,” the shy one told his friend.

”Good heavens!” said the friend. ”How did that happen?”

”Well,” said the shy one, ”I danced with her six times and I just could not think of anything else to ask her.”

Your love affairs are so stupid. And then you are waiting for something great to happen out of them.

In the first place you don’t have any love in your heart. That’s why everybody wants to be loved. You want to be loved; your woman also wants to be loved. Naturally there is conflict: both are ready to take and nobody is ready to give. And how to give? You don’t have it in the first place. Only a loving person – one who is already loving – can find the right partner.

This is my observation: if you are unhappy you will find somebody who is unhappy. Unhappy people are attracted towards unhappy people. And it is good, it is natural. It is good that the unhappy people are not attracted towards happy people; otherwise they will destroy their happiness. It is perfectly okay. Only happy people are attracted towards happy people. The same attracts the same.

Intelligent people are attracted towards intelligent people; stupid people are attracted towards stupid people.

You will see it. In Poona there are thousands of people, but only a few people will be attracted towards me – only those who are really concerned with knowing who they are. Others won’t be attracted. Even my neighbors, just the next-door neighbors – they have not come to listen. In fact they are very much worried.

It happened, in one town I lived for ten years, and a person used to live just above me, but he never came TO see me. Thousands of people would come and go, but he never came. He was simply puzzled as TO why people came TO me. Then he was transferred – he was a principal in a college

– he was transferred to another town. I visited the other town. I was invited to his college to speak to the students; then he heard me for the first time. He had to because he was the principal! Then he became more puzzled; he said, ”Ten years I lived just on top of you, and I missed. I never came.

And I never knew that you had something to share, that you had something to give to us.” He started crying.

I said, ”Don’t be worried. Just tell me, during these two years you have not been in that town, what has happened?” He said, ”My wife died and I became very miserable. Then I started meditating, thinking maybe it helps. Then really something started happening in me and I started feeling very happy. I was worried I would not be able to be alone without my wife, but now I am so happy that I don’t want to get entangled with anybody.” I told him, ”Maybe that’s why you could understand me.

The meditation that you tried, the happiness that you are feeling – then there is a possibility to have contact with me. There you were on a different plane.”

You meet people of the same plane. So the first thing to remember is: a relationship is bound to be bitter if it has grown out of unhappiness. First be happy, be joyful, be celebrating, and then you will find some other soul celebrating and there will be a meeting of two dancing souls and a great dance will arise out of it.

Don’t ask for a relationship out of loneliness, no. Then you are moving in a wrong direction. Then the other will be used as a means and the other will use you as a means. And nobody wants to be used as a means! Every single individual is an end unto himself. It is immoral to use anybody as a means. First learn how to be alone. Meditation is a way of being alone.

And if you can be happy when you are alone, you have learned the secret of being happy. Now you can be happy together. If you are happy, then you have something to share, to give. And when you give you get; it is not the other way. Then a need arises to love somebody. Ordinarily the need is to be loved by somebody. It is a wrong need. It is a childish need; you are not mature. It is a child’s attitude.

A child is born. Of course, the child cannot love the mother; he does not know what love is and he does not know who is the mother and who is the father. He is totally helpless. His being is still to be integrated; he is not one piece; he is not together yet. He is just a possibility. The mother has to love, the father has to love, the family has to shower love on the child. Now he learns one thing: that everybody has to love him. And he never learns that he has to love. Now the child will grow, and if he remains stuck with this attitude that everybody has to love him, he will suffer his whole life – his body has grown, but his mind has remained immature.

A mature person is one who comes to know the other need: that now I have to love somebody. The need to be loved is childish, immature. The need to love is mature. And when you are ready to love somebody, a beautiful relationship will arise; otherwise not.

”Is it possible for two people in a relationship to be bad for each other?” Yes, that’s what is happening all over the world. To be good is very difficult. You are not good even to yourself. How can you be good to somebody else? You don’t even love yourself! How can you love somebody else? Love yourself, be good to yourself.

And your so-called religious saints have been teaching you never to love yourself, never to be good to yourself. Be hard on yourself! They have been teaching you be soft towards others and hard towards yourself. This is absurd.

I teach you that the first and foremost thing is to be loving towards yourself. Don’t be hard; be soft.

Care about yourself. Learn how to forgive yourself – again and again and again – seven times, seventy-seven times, seven hundred seventy-seven times. Learn how to forgive yourself. Don’t be hard; don’t be antagonistic towards yourself. Then you will flower.

And in that flowering you will attract some other flower. It is natural. Stones attract stones; flowers attract flowers. And then there is a relationship which has grace, which has beauty, which has a benediction in it. And if you can find such a relationship, your relationship will grow into prayer...

your love will become an ecstasy... and through love you will know what God is.

CHAPTER 3

Natural, spontaneous, aware

13 December 1976 am in Buddha Hall

I. 63. avadhu, maya, taji na jay

TELL ME, BROTHER, HOW CAN I RENOUNCE MAYA?

WHEN I GAVE UP THE TYING OF RIBBONS, STILL I TIED MY GARMENT ABOUT ME.

WHEN I GAVE UP TYING MY GARMENT, STILL I COVERED MY BODY IN ITS FOLDS.

SO, WHEN I GIVE UP PASSION, L SEE THAT ANGER REMAINS

AND WHEN I RENOUNCE ANGER, GREED IS WITH ME STILL;

AND WHEN GREED IS VANQUISHED, PRIDE AND VAINGLORY REMAIN; WHEN THE MIND IS DETACHED AND CASTS MAYA AWAY, STILL IT CLINGS TO THE LETTER.

KABIR SAYS. ”LISTEN TO ME, DEAR FRIEND! THE TRUE PATH IS RARELY FOUND.”

I. 83. canda jhalkai yahi ghat mahin

THE MOON SHINES IN MY BODY, BUT MY BLIND EYES CANNOT SEE IT.

THE MOON IS WITHIN ME, AND SO IS THE SUN.

THE UNSTRUCK DRUM OF ETERNITY IS SOUNDED WITHIN ME; BUT MY DEAF EARS

CANNOT HEAR IT.

LIFE IS DIALECTICAL. It is more Hegelian than Aristotelean because it consists of the opposites.

Without the opposites existence is impossible – day and night, life and death, summer and winter.

Life is so vast it can contain contradictions, and yet life in itself is not contradictory. There is harmony in the contradictions; the contradictions are complementary.

This is one of the most fundamental things to be understood. If you miss it you will miss the whole message of Kabir – and you will miss the whole message of religion. And it is very difficult to understand it because our minds have been trained in a simple logic, nondialectical logic. We have been told, we have been taught that the opposites never meet. We have been taught and told that the opposites are REALLY opposites. That is not true. Can you think of love existing without hate?

And can you think there is any possibility for life without death? It is not even conceivable that good can exist without bad. God needs the devil. Without the devil God cannot be.

The opposites only appear to be opposites because our understanding is not very deep yet. You inhale and exhale, and there is a rhythm and a harmony. Your inhalation.is not against exhalation, neither is your exhalation against your inhalation. They are both part of one process. The pendulum swings from inhalation to exhalation. And you exist just between the two – in the balance, in the harmony.

A rich life is the life of harmony. A rich life is the life of a subtle synthesis.

There are two types of poor people in the world. People who know only indulgence are poor because they have not known renunciation. And people who know only renunciation, they are poor; they have not known indulgence. If there is a subtle balance between indulgence and renunciation, in that very balance there is a transcendence; you go beyond the dual.

That’s why I say life is more Hegelian. Hegel’s understanding is truer, closer to life than Aristotle’s.

Hegel says life moves from thesis to antithesis to synthesis; then the synthesis becomes a thesis again. Once the thesis is there, antithesis is created; again they start creating a new balance; a higher synthesis arrives.

That’s how life moves.

In each single detail, life moves through

contradictions, just as the bird has two wings and you have two legs and in your head there are two brains – contradicting each other and complementing each other – the left brain and the right brain, reason and intuition, the feminine and the masculine. And there is a possibility of a synthesis.

This synthesis is the goal of all religion, of all mysticism, of all yoga. Yoga means meeting, meeting of the opposites; it is a union.

We call the world the universe; we don’t call it the MULTIverse. We call it the universe because it is one. Still the oneness has multiplicity in it, variety, distinctions, differences. The oneness is not a monotonous oneness. The oneness is not dead; it is alive. And the oneness is not static; it is dynamic.

Today’s sayings of Kabir have to be understood with this background. They are of tremendous import.

TELL ME, BROTHER, YOU CAN I RENOUNCE MAYA?

He asks one of the most significant question: How can I renounce the world? How can I renounce?

The question is very significant because every seeker, one day or other, comes across it. You have lived in the world – you have known the misery of it, the agony of it, the frustration of it, the anxiety, the anguish. You are torn apart by it, you are fragmented by it, you are no longer a whole, you have lost all your peace; naturally, renunciation becomes very, very attractive. Renounce the world; there is misery, conflict, agony.

But Kabir asks, ”How is it possible to renounce? Who will renounce it?” The renouncer will remain there – and the renouncer is the world because the ego is the world. You can go away, but you will still be there and you will create your world again and again. You are the world. You can move from the marketplace to the monastery: and in the monastery the same politics will enter, and in the monastery the same hierarchy, and in the monastery the same conflict and the same ambition; and you will create the marketplace again.

It is natural, because you can renounce the world, but how can you renounce yourself? You will carry all the seeds of your mind within you. All your ambition, competition, comparison, all your ego trips you will carry with yourself. You were trying to become richer in the world, you wanted to show to the world ”I am the topmost rich man”; or you were trying to achieve a political post and you wanted to prove to the world ”I am something.”

All inferior people go on trying to prove that they are something. All ambition arises out of an inferiority complex. It is very rare to come across a politician who is intelligent. It is very rare to come across a rich person who is intelligent, very, very difficult. Because an intelligent person, by his very intelligence, becomes noncompetitive. Intelligence is noncompetitive. Intelligence can see the whole absurdity of it. Intelligence can see ”I am myself and there is no need to compare myself with anybody else. I am neither higher nor lower. Not that I am just like the others – I am different –

but there is no higher and lower.”

We are all different and unique human beings, but nobody is lower and nobody is higher – and the whole effort to become higher is stupid.

But a man can go to the monastery. Now, he cannot earn money there, but he can earn virtue.

He can become more and more religious – he can meditate more than others, he can become the greatest meditator. He can repress himself more than the others and can become the greatest saint.

Now again an attitude is bound to arise: the attitude of ”holier than thou.” It is the same politics, the same competition, the same ego. Nothing has changed; only the object of competition has changed, but the subject remains the same. Now there will be politics again.

You can see it: from the lowest priest to the pope, a continuous hierarchy. And the lowest priest is trying to reach the higher post. Every bishop is trying to become the archbishop, and they are moving in a hierarchy, the same world. One day they were trying to rise in political power; now they are trying to rise in religious power. But the whole effort is the same.

Kabir says, ” TELL ME, BROTHER, HOW CAN I RENOUNCE MAYA?” – how can I renounce this illusion? – because I am the base, the root cause of all illusion. This ”I” is my world, so wherever I will go, whatsoever I will do, this ”I” will come again from the back door.

The world cannot be renounced. Renunciation is a desperate effort of a person who has indulged too much, but it is not very wise. Indulgence is foolish, renunciation too. The wise man finds the harmony. He neither indulges nor renounces. He simply becomes aware of the whole situation. He does not bother to escape from the world; he starts becoming aware of his ego which projects the world. And just by becoming aware of all the hidden desires of the ego, those desires disappear.

The more light enters in your being, the more aware you become, the less and less competition. Not that you renounce, not that you make any effort to renounce. Just the very understanding becomes a subtle light in your being and you start laughing at all the foolish competitions, comparisons, evaluations that you have been doing – and you have been suffering for.

Remember, renunciation is of the same stupid mind. Nothing has changed. One day you were just seeking more and more indulgence – more and more money, more and more women and men. Now you have become afraid and you start escaping, running away from the world, but your stupidity has not changed. Your inner being remains the same. You are trying to do the impossible.

Unless your innermost core changes, is transformed becomes luminous with a new light and new awareness, it is impossible. The change cannot happen. The change does not happen from the outside; the change has to happen somewhere in the inside. Then the glow spreads all over.

I have heard about a despondent fellow who sought the advice of the city’s most fashionable – and expensive – analyst. ”You have acute melancholia,” the analyst informed him. ”The circus is in town this week. Go to it. It may give you some laughs.”

”Your advice is worthless,” mourned the despondent one. ”I am the top clown there.”

Now, you can even make others laugh, and you may be crying within yourself. You can be the topmost clown in the circus, and yet you can be absolutely depressed.

You can look like something which you are not; it is very easy. You can pretend to be a saint and you can remain the same miserable self inside. You can even pretend that you are very happy – in fact that’s what everybody is doing. You can go on pretending. Others may be befooled, but how can you befool yourself?

Changing outward things won’t be of much help, and by and by you will become more and more pseudo and you will lose contact with your real feelings. For example, an angry man can repress his anger; he can even pretend to become passionate. A man who has no love in his being can show and act and exhibit that he is a very loving person. Maybe somebody else is deceived for a time –

not for long – but how can you deceive yourself? You will know all the time, all the while, that there is anger, there is fire in you and poison. And that poison will go on destroying your peace, destroying your being. That poison will go on killing you.

Your smiles which are painted on the surface are of no help – unless a laughter arises from your heart.

Kabir says renunciation will be of the outside. How can you change the inside through a change of the outside? It is not so easy. You will become a false holy man.

I have heard:

An actress who had received a magnificent diamond necklace as a gift from her admirer – one of those Greek shipping magnates – hit upon what she thought was a foolproof device for safeguarding it. She simply left it conspicuously open on her dressing table when she went out, with a note nearby reading,”This is just an imitation, dear burglar. The original is stashed carefully away in my safe-deposit box.”

One night, however, she returned to find the necklace gone. In its place was this penciled message:

”Thanks, lady – the substitute is just what I wanted. I am a substitute myself. The burglar who usually cases this hotel is away on vacation.”

The people you see in the marketplace are substitutes, and the people you see in your monasteries and ashramas and temples, they are also substitutes. Nobody seems to be real and authentic. It is very difficult to come across a real man. The world has become so false. And why has it become so false? Because we are trying to do something which is not possible. What we are trying to do is: we are trying to be happy by pretending happiness, we are trying to be loving by pretending lovingness, we are trying to be holy by pretending holiness. We are trying to paint our faces and wear masks –

to know our original face. This is impossible. This is more impossible than this story I have heard: A very ugly girl was sitting at the beach, when the waves washed a bottle at her feet. She opened it – and out blew a huge genie in a billow of smoke. ”I have been a prisoner in this bottle for five thousand years,” cried the genie, ”and now you have freed me. As a reward, I will fulfill any wish you make.” Ecstatic, the ugly girl announced, ”I want a figure like Sophia Loren, a face like Elizabeth Taylor, and legs like Ginger Rogers.” The genie looked her over carefully, then sighed, ”Baby, just put me back in the bottle.”

But I say to you, this may be impossible, but humanity has been trying to do the even more impossible. The most impossible thing is to come to the real through the false, to come to the authentic through the pseudo. It is impossible. It cannot be done. And down through the centuries humanity has tried to do it. And your so-called religions have been helping people to become more and more false. The whole world is full of false people.

Hence you are missing the ecstasy that life can give to you, that life is meant to give to you. You are missing all that is beautiful, true, all that is good, and all that is constantly showering on you.

You don’t have your own face on. It is somebody else’s face. And not only one false face, you have many false faces – on top of one, the other, and on top of that, another. And you are completely lost; you don’t know who you are.

The Zen people say, ”Look for your original face; find it out.” When somebody asked Bokuju, ”What do you mean by ’the original face’?” he said, ”The face that you had before you were born – and the face that you will have again when you have died.” Find out that original face. That is truth, or call it God.

Kabir says this is not possible – this whole effort to renounce has not helped.

WHEN I GAVE UP THE TYING OF RIBBONS, STILL I TIED MY GARMENT ABOUT ME: In some other way – if not valuable ribbons, then valueless, cheap ropes – but one has to tie.

WHEN I GAVE UP TYING MY GARMENT, STILL I COVERED MY BODY IN ITS FOLDS.

One has to find some way or other.

SO, WHEN I GIVE UP PASSION, I SEE THAT ANGER REMAINS:

You try to give up passion, and you will become angry. And Kabir’s insight is tremendous. That’s what the whole of modern psychology says: if you give up passion, you will become angry. Hence your saints are so angry. Their anger simply shows that all the energy that was being released through sexuality, passion, is no longer finding any outlet. It is getting stuck inside, and they become angrier and angrier. It is very difficult to find a saint who is not angry, because where will the energy go? You have stopped one outlet; now it is natural for it to find another outlet.

Have you watched it, whenever you are sexually fulfilled you feel less angry, whenever you are sexually unfulfilled you feel more angry? It is the same energy. Unless you have found a new way in your being to absorb this energy, just taking a vow of BRAHMACHARYA, of celibacy, is not going to help. Just deciding ”Now – from now on – I am going to renounce sex” is not going to help. First create a new passage for the energy to move into.

Renunciation is not going to help. It will make you more angry. And if there is a choice between anger and sex, sex is better. At least you will feel more calm and quiet.

Down through the centuries two types of people have not been allowed sex. One is the saint, another is the soldier. The soldier is not allowed sex because the politicians came to know that if he is allowed sex he loses the urge to fight, he becomes less angry. It is difficult to fight when you are sexually satisfied. So many wars are possible because people are sexually very much unsatisfied.

And politicians are very much afraid; they are afraid of what is going to happen to their politics if people become sexually satisfied. The whole of their politics depends on war. If war disappears, politics disappears. Then the government will be just an organization like the post office and the railway. It has some utility, but no power. War gives power, and the politician cannot allow war to disappear. The politician goes on talking about peace and goes on preparing for the war – talks about peace, prepares for the war. And sometimes things move to absurd extremes: he prepares for war so that there should be peace in the world. For peace – to protect peace – he prepares for war.

Politicians cannot allow you to be satisfied in your love. Once you are satisfied in your love you are useless as a soldier. You have to be kept unsatisfied so anger remains burning in you and you are ready to fight – for any excuse – foolish things. People can fight for a piece of cloth they call their national flag. Have you watched this? These national flags seem to be more a symbol of death than of life. When somebody dies they lower it down. And millions of people have died because of national flags. In a better world they should be completely burned and they should disappear. They are ugly.

You have been taught that you belong to this country and you have to die for this country. Nobody belongs to any country. The whole earth is ours – and the earth is undivided. It is divided only on the political maps. The earth is undivided. Where do you suppose India ends and Pakistan begins?

Where do you suppose India ends and China begins? The earth is one.

But politics will not allow you to have that feeling of oneness. Otherwise politics disappears. Politics is needed, the politician is needed, only because there is war. Now this is a vicious circle. And if war is to continue, people have to be starved; they should not become sexually satisfied. They should remain angry, boiling within, ready to burst any moment. Watch people. They are ready to fight. Just anything will do – politics, religion. Any nonsense will do and they are ready to kill each other.

Politics is in the service of death.

And your so-called religions are also in the service of death.

Kabir wants you to love life. All the great mystics want you to love life.

”SO, WHEN I GIVE UP PASSION, I SEE THAT ANGER REMAINS...”so nothing has changed. The energy has moved from one corner to another corner. You remain the same. The total result is the same. In fact it is worse.

AND WHEN I RENOUNCE ANGER, GREED IS WITH ME STILL;

If you renounce anger you will become very, very greedy. In India this has happened. Mahavir taught nonviolence, nonanger; and his followers became very greedy. This is something to be understood, why it happened. Jainas are the richest people in India, and Mahavir taught no anger, no violence, no fight. Why did his followers turn out to be so greedy? Kabir seems to be right. If you drop anger, then what will you do? Then the energy that was moving in anger will start moving into greed.

You will not find miserly people very angry, no. They are using their anger, their energy, for greed.

Miserly people are not very angry; they are very humble. Even if you hit them they will not hit back.

They say, ”We believe in peace.” They say, ”We believe in Jesus’ saying. If somebody slaps us on one side of the face, we give him the other.” Greedy people are less angry.

Rich people are less angry. Watch it. As a person becomes richer, he becomes less and less angry. Anger remains in the poor people. Hence all the revolutionaries depend on the poor people; they cannot depend on the rich. Marx declared, predicted, that the richest country will become communist first. But it didn’t happen. He was wrong. He may have been right about his economic analysis, but he did not know the human mind. A rich person is never angry and cannot become a revolutionary. Only a poor person can be angry, because he has no way to be greedy, he has nothing to be greedy about.

America should have become communist if Marx’s prediction was right, but there is no possibility of any revolution in America. People have enough; they are greedy. Russia became communist, a very poor country. Then China became communist, a very poor country. And now there is every possibility of India becoming communist; it is on the way.

A poor country is very angry. When you have something to be greedy about, your anger takes the form of greed; then you are not angry. Then you are not interested in fighting, because in fighting you may lose. A poor person has nothing to lose – that’s exactly what Marx says in his COMMUNIST

MANIFESTO: proletariat of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains. He is right.

When you don’t have anything to lose, why not fight? Either you gain something or you don’t lose anything. In every way you are going to be the gainer.

Down throughout history you can watch it happening, that same drama again and again. Poor countries are ready to fight. Rich countries become afraid of fighting – anger disappears, becomes greed. Rich countries are not ready to fight. It has happened again and again in world history that poor countries have defeated rich countries. What happened in Vietnam? There seems to be no possibility logically why Americans should not win there. They have everything to win with – better technology, better scientific instruments for killing. They have everything good, and still they could not defeat Vietnam, a very poor country. No, it is very difficult to defeat a poor country.

When India was very rich, it was defeated again and again. For two thousand years India was defeated again and again. A rich country. And those people who were coming as invaders were just starving, barbarians – very poor. Mohammedans, Moguls, Turks, they were all poor people –

desperately in need of fighting. And India was rich – and desperately in need of being greedy about something it had. It was afraid to fight.

I have heard one story that once a donkey challenged a lion, ”Stop saying of yourself that you are the king of the forest. I am the king. And if you don’t believe it, we can have a fight and prove it.” It is said the lion simply disappeared into the forest. A fox was watching; she could not believe what happened. She went to the lion and asked, ”What is the matter?” He said, ”Have you gone crazy? If I fight with the donkey, and if the donkey is defeated, he loses nothing. But donkeys are donkeys –

one cannot say anything. If I am defeated I have something to lose. He has nothing to lose; he can challenge.”

A poor person is always angry and ready to fight. The richer you get, the milder you become, softer you become. Your energy starts moving into greed.

Kabir’s analysis is perfect.

So, when I give up passion, I see that anger remains;

And when I renounce anger, greed is with me still;

AND WHEN GREED IS VANQUISHED, PRIDE AND VAINGLORY REMAIN; And if greed is vanquished if you renounce your riches, your palaces, your kingdoms – then vainglory, ego, that remains. But nothing changes radically. You simply go on changing the paint of your house, the color. Everything remains the same; only the color changes from one to another.

WHEN THE MIND IS DETACHED AND CASTS MAYA AWAY, STILL IT CLINGS TO THE LETTER.

And finally, even if you drop everything, then you start clinging to the Vedas, to the Koran, to the Bible – I am a Hindu, I am a Christian, I am a Mohammedan. You start clinging to the temple, to the mosque, to the GURUDWARA. Now there is nothing visible to cling to; now you create something invisible. You create gods, theologies, scriptures, and you cling to these verbal things.

The word ”God” is not God, but people have been fighting about it. All that you say about God has nothing to do with God because those who have known, they all have said nothing can be said about God. Says Lao Tzu, ”If you say something about truth, it becomes untrue.” The moment you assert, you falsify; truth cannot be said. But people go on discussing, arguing, ”My God is right and your God is wrong.”

One of my friends renounced the world and he became a Jaina monk. After many years I came across him and I asked, ”You have really renounced the world?” He said, ”I have renounced everything. Can’t you see? I am sitting naked. I have renounced the society, I have renounced the world, I have renounced everything.” I asked him, ”But you still think you are a Jaina?” He said,

”Certainly I am a Jaina.” Now it is very subtle.

The society has taught you that you are a Jaina. You were born in a certain society – Jaina, Mohammedan, Christian – and the society has taught you that you are a Jaina. It conditioned your mind. You have left everything, but you cling to the conditioning. You have not left anything at all; you are the same person.

Real renunciation means unconditioning the mind. Real renunciation means you don’t belong to any society, you don’t belong to any religion, you don’t belong to any country – you don’t BELONG, you are alone. You belong to the whole in your aloneness. But that is possible only by tremendous understanding, intelligence, awareness, not by playing this game of renunciation – renouncing one thing, creating another, then renouncing that, still creating another.

And remember, when you renounce one thing and something else is created, the second is more subtle than the first and will be more difficult to conquer. Passion you renounce; anger remains.

Anger is more subtle than sex. Anger you renounce; greed remains. Greed is more subtle than anger. And greed you renounce; then vainglory, ego, remains. Ego is very, very subtle now. And you even try to drop that, but now the theories, the philosophies, the doctrines, they remain. Something or other remains. You go on changing your prison, but you never become a free man.

I have heard:

From the giant redwoods sector of California comes the yarn of a truck farmer who decided to buy a power saw. A logging foreman sold him one that he guaranteed would cut down fifteen trees in a single day. A week later a very unhappy farmer came back to report that the power saw must be a faulty one – it averaged only three trees a day. The foreman grabbed the power saw and plugged it into the nearest outlet. The saw promptly went ”BZZZZZZ.”

”Hey,” demanded the startled farmer, ”what is that noise?”

He was using the power saw without connecting it to any electricity. Then of course a power saw is not a power saw; then it is an ordinary thing.

You can renounce, you can go on renouncing, and you can do so without plugging into your innermost core, into the powerhouse – into your inner power of understanding. If it is not plugged in there, then you will be tired and nothing much is going to happen out of it. It is understanding that makes the difference, all the difference. Rather than renouncing, Kabir would like you to understand how the radical change happens.

KABIR SAYS: ”LISTEN TO ME, DEAR FRIEND! THE TRUE PATH IS RARELY FOUND.”

What is the true path? If renunciation is not the true path, then what is the true path?

Awareness is the true path. Neither indulge nor renounce, but be aware. Do whatsoever you are doing – do it with full awareness. If you move into passion, move with awareness; and passion becomes prayer, and passion has a totally different quality to it. In the East we have called that quality tantra. The same sex is no longer sex – it is no longer sexual at all. Once you move into your passion with awareness, you have changed the very quality of it. It is no longer just physical, it is no longer just a physical release; it is a very deep experience of life. It is a tremendous experience of no-mind. It is a door towards the greatest space possible.

In deep orgasm, if you are aware, you will know for the first time what ecstasy is. Otherwise you have only heard the word; you have not known its meaning. Only in deep orgasm, if you are aware, if your flame of awareness is burning bright, will you be able to know that sex is not just sex. Sex is the outermost layer; deep inside is love; and even deeper is prayer; and deepest is God himself.

Sex can become a cosmic experience; then it is tantra. Sex plus awareness... and something tremendous starts changing.

And the change comes on its own accord. You are not to force it. If you are angry, be alert, and you will be surprised that with alertness anger disappears, it is not possible. And the same energy that was going to be thrown into anger spreads all over your being like a radiance. It becomes your aura, it becomes a light around you – the same energy. It is no longer heat now; it has become light.

Can’t you see it? Heat and light are not two things. Heat becomes light; light can become heat.

Anger is heat. Bring awareness to it and it becomes light. And you will be happy that you could become aware, and you will wait for the next opportunity. When anger arises you can again use the opportunity to create more light around you. Once you have known it you will never be angry, because now you know how to use the energy in a far more creative way. And this is how it happens: with greed, with ego, just one formula, awareness, has to be added to it.

Nothing else is needed to change the outside; only an inner awareness brought to every situation.

This is the rarely found truth, the rarely found way.

THE MOON SHINES IN MY BODY, BUT MY BLIND EYES CANNOT SEE IT.

God is within you, but you are not aware.

” THE MOON SHINES IN MY BODY.... ” Your body is the temple. ”... BUT MY BLIND EYES

CANNOT SEE IT:” Don’t escape anywhere. Just open your eyes, become more aware, start seeing, have more clarity of vision.

THE MOON IS WITHIN ME, AND SO IS THE SUN.

THE UNSTRUCK DRUM OF ETERNITY IS SOUNDED WITHIN ME;

BUT MY DEAF EARS CANNOT HEAR IT.

This has to be understood very carefully. This is the inner chemistry. The moon and the sun are symbols of the inner alchemy. The moon means the feminine inside you, and the sun means the masculine inside you. Moon is intuition; sun is reason. Moon is yin; sun is yang. This is the Indian terminology for yin and yang. Moon is peace, silence; sun is energy, vitality. Moon is death, sleep, dream, imagination;.sun is awakening, life, logic.

When moon and sun meet within you, there is a great experience. That experience is of unity of oneness – UNIO MYSTICA. That is the goal of all the mystics – when the sun and the moon meet within you. This is the real meeting of man and woman.

And once this meeting has happened, then there is BRAHMACHARYA, then there is celibacy, not before it. If your inner woman has not met with your inner man, you will need some outer woman, or outer man. That’s just a substitute. Hence it is never totally satisfying, something always seems missing. You can find the most beautiful woman of the world, or the most beautiful man of the world, and still you will feel something does not fit, something goes on missing. Nothing is wrong with the man or the woman, nothing is wrong. That feeling that something is missing is coming from somewhere else, and you have not been able to understand from where.

When you fall in love with a woman, what actually happens is that you have an inner woman, and the outer woman somehow reflects the inner woman. That’s what falling in love means. For no reason at all. You shrug your shoulders. If somebody asks, ”Why have you fallen in love with this woman?”

you find rationalizations, that her nose is such, or her hair, or the way she walks – all foolish things.

Hmm? what does a nose have to do with love, or the color of the hair or the way she walks? No, these are nothing. But something fits with your inner woman, with your inner moon. She somehow reflects your inner moon, in some way. It can never be a hundred percent, it cannot be. Because your inner woman is your INNER woman, it cannot be found in the outside. Only reflections can be found in the outside.

When you fall in love with a woman or with a man, you have fallen in love with a mirror. Sooner or later you will be frustrated.

You must have heard the story of Narcissus. He looked in a silent pool and he saw his own reflection, and he fell in love with it – and he became so mad. Whenever he would enter the pool, the reflection would disappear. He would search and search and he would not find anybody. He would come to the bank, sit silently, ripples would disappear and the pool would become silent again; and there again would be the object of his love, infatuation. Again he would jump. He went mad, and he died on the bank. In his memory we have the plant narcissus. It grows just by the side of a pond and goes on looking in; you must find the narcissus plant always leaning and looking in the pond. We call it narcissus in memory of that old story; still the plant goes on looking into its own reflection.

Of course, when you see a beautiful woman from far away, the reflection is perfect. Closer you come – you jump into the pool – and everything is disturbed and you don’t find anything. And you are worried, very much worried. Everything was going so well. What happened? Now you have disturbed the placid surface of the pool. And the same has happened to the woman. She had fallen in love with you because her own inner man somehow coincided. Only a few aspects can coincide.

And it is good that no outer woman can fulfill you totally; otherwise you will never go withinwards. It is good and a blessing that no outer man can ever satisfy you totally. It can only give glimpses of satisfaction, a taste – but you become hungrier and hungrier. This is good. That may be the whole purpose of it, so one day you are thrown back into your own self and one day you start looking.

If you ask the brain surgeons, they say there are two brains in your head – the left and the right. The right-side brain is feminine; the left-side brain is masculine. That’s why the left hand has become condemned, because the world, this world at least, up to now, has been dominated by men. The left hand is joined to the right-side brain, the right-side brain is feminine, so the left hand has become the symbol of woman. The right-side hand is joined to the left-side brain, the left-side brain is male, so the right-side hand has become the symbol of man. They say the right is right and, of course, the left is wrong.

One part of your mind functions as reason, intellect, logic, philosophy, science – the left-side brain. The right-side brain functions as intuition, poetry, imagination, reverie, religion. And both are separate, just bridged by a very small bridge. Sometimes it happens that the bridge can be broken by some accident; then the person becomes split; then he is two persons.

In the UNIO MYSTICA, the bridge becomes broader and broader and broader, and a moment comes when the right is no longer right and the left is no longer left; they have come into a deep embrace; they have become one. This is the inner intercourse the tantricas talk about: the inner woman has fallen in love with the inner man. And then there is tremendous grace. Such a man is no longer a man, such a woman is no longer a woman. The transcendence has happened. This man becomes mysterious, this woman becomes mysterious, who has come to the inner meeting, to the inner union.

Human history can be divided into two trends: the moon trend and the sun trend. The politicians, the soldiers, the warriors, they all belong to the sun; and the poets and the mystics and the ”lotus-eaters,”

they all belong to the moon.

In Sanskrit ”moon” is called SOMA. It is your moon side which is psychedelic. And Aldous Huxley was right; he has named the ultimate drug SOMA. In the Vedas they talk much about SOMA. Nobody has yet been able to find what exactly it is. Many people have tried – somebody tries to prove something is SOMA, somebody tries to prove something else IS SOMA. Many mushrooms have been tried in the past, but in fact SOMA IS not a mushroom, it is not marijuana, it is not hash. It is some inner psychedelic. It has nothing to do with the outer chemistry; it is inner alchemy. And the Vedas talk about SOMA as God.

Something outside, something injected from the outside or swallowed from the outside, may create an illusion, but that is an illusion. The same thing: the outer woman can only reflect the inner woman; the outer drug – LSD or psilocybin – can only reflect the inner drug. The inner drug is the real thing.

And what Allen Ginsberg is doing is absolutely wrong. He is trying to prove that the outer drug is the inner drug. It is not so.

Just a few days before, a young man asked me, ”What do you think, Osho, about hash?” I said, ”First thing, don’t be so disrespectful about hash. Show a little respect. To rhyme with ’Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’ you can call it ’Maharishi HASHISH Yogi,’ but be respectful! And if you are not a follower of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, then to rhyme with ’Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’ you can call it ’Bhagwan Shree HASHISH’ – but be respectful!”

In the Vedas they call SOMA God, but they are talking about the inner hash. I am also talking about the inner hash. That which is manufactured outside in a factory may have some reflections of it, but it is not the true thing. The outer is a substitute. When you start moving inside and when the meeting of the sun and moon happens, SOMA is released. Then a very great change happens in your being. You become absolutely calm and quiet... and of course you become tremendously sensitive. Then for the first time your become able to hear and your eyes become able to see and your hands become able to touch. For the first time you become capable of feeling.

The moon shines in my body, but my blind eyes

cannot see it:

The moon is within me, and so is the sun.

The unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me;

but my deaf ears cannot hear it.

We are deaf, blind. That is the real problem, the very crux. It is not a question of renouncing anything or escaping from anything. It is a question of becoming more sensitive, more aware, more full of understanding, more of a witness. And then your witnessing starts flowing into your eyes and into your ears, into your body. So what is needed according to Kabir – and according to me also – is only one thing, and that is stop being sleepy. Don’t live in a slumber-like state. Shake yourself and bring yourself to a little more awareness. Otherwise you are continuously sleepy – sometimes with open eyes, sometimes with closed eyes – but you are sleepy.

And you go on finding rationalizations for your sleep.

I have heard:

Young Rabbi Shmool finally summoned courage to complain to the richest member of his congregation: ”I hesitate to bring this up, but do you always fall asleep while I am preaching?”

”Look,” was the consoling reply, ”would I sleep if I did not trust you?”

There are many people around here also who trust me so much that they sleep. They trust: Osho must be saying the right thing, so why bother? He always says the right thing, so we can sleep.

You are moving like a somnambulist. Just because your eyes are blinking, don’t think you are aware.

Awareness is an intensity. Sometimes you can feel it. Sometimes in a great danger you become aware. Sometimes if you are driving a car and suddenly you feel an accident is going to happen, you become aware. Then you know intensity. In that moment all thinking stops. You are simply alert.

You are no longer functioning as a mind; you function as a consciousness.

One Sufi mystic, Bayazid, used to talk to his disciples about awareness, and they would ask, ”But what is awareness? You go on talking about it.” One day he took them to the river. On this side there was a small hill, and on the other side there was a small hill. He said, ”We are going to put up a long wooden bridge – just one foot wide – from this end to the other, and you will have to walk on it. And then you will know what awareness is.” They said, ”But we have been walking our whole life, and we have never come to know.” He said, ”Wait,” and he did the experiment. Many of them started feeling very afraid, and they said, ”We cannot walk. Just one foot wide?” ”But how much do you need to walk on? When you are walking on the earth, you can walk on a one-foot-wide strip easily. Why, why can’t you walk on a one-foot-wide strip hanging between two hills? Why can’t you walk on it?”

A few people tried. Just two, three feet they went, and they came back, and they said, ”It is dangerous.” Then Bayazid walked and a few followed, and when they reached the other shore, those few who had followed, they fell at his feet and they said, ”Master, now we know what awareness is.

The danger was so much that we could not afford to walk in slumber. We had to be alert. Any moment and we would have been gone forever, so we had to keep alert.”

In some rare, dangerous moments you become aware; otherwise not. Awareness means an intensity, such an intensity of wakefulness that no thought interferes. You are simply conscious without any thought. Try it. You can try it anywhere. Walking on the road, walk as if each moment there is danger. And there is danger! because any moment you can die, any moment death is there.

If you become a little more understanding you will understand. It is impossible not to be aware if you see that death is possible any moment. Then you cannot live like drunkards.

An exhausted businessman gratefully climbed into his bed in a Washington hotel at midnight, looking forward to a solid nine-hour sleep. At 2 a.m., however, a loud banging on his door awakened him.

It was a semi-coherent drunk, angrily declaring, ”This is my room. Get out!” It took the executive twenty minutes to get back to sleep. Once more he was awakened by the same drunk an hour later, who still claimed the room was his.

When the drunk woke him up a third time, the executive literally blew his top – but this time the drunk got in the first words. ”So it is you again!” he screamed. ”Damn it, are you occupying EVERY room in this hotel?”

People are moving drunk, not knowing where they are going, for what they are going – not knowing even whether they are going.

I have heard:

One philosopher was met by a friend at the door of a psychiatrist’s office. The friend asked, ”Are you coming or going?” The philosopher answered, ”If I knew that, I would not be here. Why should I be here at a psychiatrist’s office? What would I be doing here if I knew whether I am coming or going?”

Nobody knows really. We are so fast asleep.

Kabir says become more alert. Walking, walk with awareness. Eating, eat with awareness. Talking, talk with awareness. Listening, listen with awareness. Be more and more attentive. The more attentive you are, the more intensely attentive you are, the more your life will start changing. And this will be a change that you are not bringing to it. It will happen on its own accord; it will be a natural growth, spontaneous.

Kabir’s path is called SAHAJ SAMADHI YOGA – the path of spontaneous ecstasy. SAHAJ means

”spontaneity.” Kabir is not in favor of any cultivated life pattern. Become aware, and out of that awareness, whatsoever form your life takes, let it take it. You just be aware. Then you have changed the very roots.

And by changing the very roots you have changed the whole tree. It is futile to go on changing a single leaf each time, and changing branches – sometimes anger, sometimes sex, sometimes greed, and then there are a thousand and one leaves. Why not change the roots? The root problem is that you are living an unconscious life, and the root change will be that you start living a conscious life.

Kabir is not in favor of any repression. Renunciation will be repressive.

I have heard:

The demonstration turned into a riot. One priest staggered out of the crowd carrying the limp form of a girl. ”Here,” said a cop, ”hand her to me, Father – I will get her out of this.” ”The hell with you,”

said the priest. ”Go and get one of your own.”

The priest, the celibate, the BRAHMACHARI, deep down they are in a mess. You are far better.

At least you are natural; they are perverted. Repression will bring perversion; it will not bring transformation. And renunciation cannot mean anything else other than repression.

No, Kabir is not in favor of any repression. Kabir says live a natural life. Just one thing: make it more alert. And changes will happen – millions of changes will happen – and you will not have to do them; they will happen. And when change happens on its own accord, it has a beauty to it, it has grace, elegance. When you force it upon yourself it is ugly – it cripples, it paralyzes.

And you can change one thing; sooner or later something else will be there. Only the name of the problem will be changed.

Once I was wandering through a toy department of a big store during the holiday rush when the loudspeaker announced: Mrs. Arthur Jones reports that her seven-year-old son, Spike, has been lost. Will Spike Jones please come immediately to the manager’s office?” A small boy inspecting an electric train display alongside me was visibly depressed by this announcement.

”Damn it,” he grumbled, ”I am lost again!”

You can repress one thing. You will be lost again in something else. You can repress that; you will be lost again in something else. This is no way to come home. The only way to come home is that of awareness.

Natural, spontaneous, aware. Let these three words become key words, and you will be surrounded with a great revolution – and you will be a witness to it.

Kabir is not giving you any program to improve yourself. All improvement is silly in a way because you remain the same. Modified a little here and there, decorated here or there, but you remain the same.

Clothes change, ornaments change; you remain the same. Kabir is not giving you any program to improve yourself. Kabir is giving you a radical approach – how to be transformed, transfigured – how to die to the old and be born again – totally new, absolutely new, fresh and virgin.

Be natural, be spontaneous, be aware. Let these three words become your very key. And this is a master key; it can unlock all the doors, all the locks.

Once you have become natural, spontaneous, and aware, the unstruck drum of eternity will be heard. The unstruck drum of eternity, that’s what in Zen they call the sound of one hand clapping.

In India they call it the ANAHAT NAD – the unstruck drum. It is sounding from the very beginning, endlessly sounding; it is eternally there. The world is full of music, melody, harmony, ecstasy. Just if you become natural you will fall in tune with it. If you become spontaneous you will become sensitive and responsive to it. If you become aware you will be able to hear it.

God is all around; it is only that you are not sensitive enough to feel him. God is within and without; you just have to shake yourself and come to your senses. You are in your head too much. Come down to your senses, become more sensitive. When you become more sensitive you are bridged with reality, you start dancing with reality, you start singing with reality... a great benediction arises in you. And only then can you say a thank you to God, never before it. Only then do you feel how grateful you are, how much has been given to you and has not even been appreciated by you.

This existence is fantastic, it is marvelous, it is incredibly beautiful.

CHAPTER 4

The way of religion

14 December 1976 am in Buddha Hall

Question 1

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CRYSTALLIZED SELF AND A BIG, STRONG EGO?

THEY LOOK ALIKE, but they are as different as two things can be. Not only different, they are diametrically opposite. The crystallized self is not a self at all. It is called a crystallized ”self,” but it is not a self at all. And the big, strong ego is neither big nor strong. It is very hollow; how can it be strong? It is very empty; how can it be strong? And how can it be big? It is neither big nor strong, but it has the selfhood in it, the ”I-amness,” the feeling that ”I am.”

The ego is the self. The real self is not a self at all. We develop the ego just to hide the fact that we don’t know who we are. It is very hard to see that we are so ignorant about ourselves, that we don’t know. To hide this ignorance, we create the ego. Ego is a deception. It is a deception that you are giving to yourself. It is really difficult to live without self-knowing, so we create a false ego. It gives a little consolation. One starts feeling that one knows who one is.

It simply hides ignorance; that’s why all the religions insist on dropping the ego. When you drop the ego and you face your inner being, the vastness of it is such that you cannot define it as ”I am.” The vastness is so much that it cannot be contained within any concept. You cannot call it ”I.” It is all; how can you call it ”I”? The real self, the real inner being, is God himself; it is all.

But one has to face it. In the beginning, when you face it, it looks as if it is nothing. That is the fear.

The all looks like nothing in the first encounter. If you get in tune with it, by and by the negativity disappears and you start feeling the positive existence of it. Then it becomes your soul call it ”God,”

”being,” or any word that you want to choose – call it ”enlightenment,” ”awareness.” But one thing is certain: you are not there. Something is there – tremendously vital, infinite – but you are not there.

This will look like a paradox: when you come to know yourself you are not there; when you don’t know yourself you are there. You exist only in your ignorance. When knowledge has happened

– when KNOWING has happened – you disappear. You disappear like darkness – just as when the sun rises the darkness disappears. You disappear like darkness when awareness arises. The awareness does not belong to you; it has nothing to do with you. In fact you are the barrier for it. It is because of you that it is not arising.

People come to me and they say, ”Osho, I would like to become enlightened.” I say to them, ”It is very difficult, it is impossible. I cannot help you.” They say, ”Why? Why can’t you help?” I say, ”From the very beginning you are putting such a condition: you say, ’I want to become enlightened.’ This ’I’

is the barrier. This ’I’ is not allowing you to know your enlightenment – which is already there. The

’I’ never becomes enlightened; the ’I’ is the unenlightened state. The ’I’ is the darkness.”

Enlightenment is possible, but it will be possible only when you are ready to lose yourself. That is the meaning of Jesus’ saying when he says, ”If you lose, you will gain. If you don’t lose, you will lose.” In losing is the gain. In forgetting is the remembrance. In dissolving, you become crystallized.

The crystallized self is a no-self, it is all; and the big, strong ego is very tiny, not big at all. The tiniest thing in the world is the ego, and the hollowest thing in the world is the ego, and the weakest thing in the world is the ego; because it is the falsest thing possible. It exists not; it is a pretension.

Question 2

PLEASE WILL YOU EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT ”THE WAY OF RELIGION” MEANS? I HAVE ALWAYS

BEEN SO STRONGLY AGAINST RELIGION THAT I CANNOT IMAGINE WHAT IT MEANS. BUT, ANYHOW, I SUPPOSE IT IS THE WAY OF TOTAL ALONENESS. AND THIS MAKES ME A LITTLE

UNEASY.

SINCE YOU GAVE ME SANNYAS, I FEEL LIKE I AM IN AN ABYSS. OTHER PEOPLE ARE NOT

REACHABLE FOR ME; I AM ONLY FIXED UP TO THE FIRE OF YOUR EYES – A TREMENDOUS

POONA FICTION STORY.

Right, I am creating a fiction here: the fiction of the Master and the disciple, the fiction of the god and the devotee. It is really a myth, but very alive. And there is no way to come to the truth unless you pass through a great mythology. Man is lost in lies. From lies there is no direct way to truth. Myth is a bridge between the lie and the truth. A myth partakes of something of the lie and something of the truth; it is a bridge.

Yes, you are right. This is a tremendous Poona fiction story. Whatsoever is happening here is very fictitious – these people in orange, and so many crazy things going on, and I am supporting you and leading you towards nowhere and promising you things which cannot be promised.

Man lives in lies, God lives in the truth; but how to bridge both? Man is a lie, God is a truth; how to bridge both? It is very impossible. Myth is the way – fiction, yes, a spiritual fiction. All the religions are fictitious, all the mythologies are fictitious, but they are of tremendous help. A mythology has something of the truth in it – maybe just a reflection – and something of the lie in it. You can move through the myth towards truth.

And if an alive myth is available, don’t miss it, because a dead myth loses all contact with truth.

It becomes a lie. That’s why religion has to be born again and again. When Jesus is alive, the Christian myth is alive. Then people traveled through that myth and reached to truth. Jesus gone: the myth is there but the truth is gone. When myth is there and Jesus is no longer there, the other shore is missing; then it is again just a lie, just a fiction – with no grounding in the truth.

Christianity is a lie; Jesus is a myth.

Krishna is a myth; Hinduism is a lie.

That’s why down through the centuries it has always been emphasized that if you can find an alive Master, don’t miss the opportunity. An alive Master is a myth – something of the untrue and something of the true, both. Something of the untrue means something of the human, and something of the true means something of the divine. That’s why the Gospel says Jesus is the son of man AND the son of God. This is a myth. Being the son of man and the son of God is an impossibility, but that’s what a myth is: God and man meeting, son of God and son of man –

something of the lie and something of the truth.

But Jesus gone, then only lies remain. The Pope is not a myth, neither is the Shankaracharya of Puri – dead. They don’t speak from their own experience; they speak from tradition.

A myth is a very fragile flower, like a rose flower. In the morning it is there in all its glory – even Solomon will feel jealous – and by the evening it is gone. How fragile, and how strong. In the morning breeze, how strong it was and how beautiful. Even the vast sky must have felt jealous, and even the sun himself must have felt jealous. A rose flower is a rose flower – so small, and yet so beautiful; so fragile, and so vital and so alive, so fragrant. By the evening, the petals have fallen into the earth and the flower is gone.

A Jesus is also fragile, a Buddha also.

While I am here, it is a myth – an alive myth with a heart, beating. Use this opportunity. When I am gone, it will be a lie.

And this is the misery: that by the time people come to know, the flower is gone. When the flower is gone, they will worship for centuries and centuries. They will worship the past, the dead, the grave.

When the flower is alive, they will deny, they will escape, they will protect and defend themselves against it. They may even destroy the flower because the very existence of the flower makes them feel very sad. The very existence of the flower makes them aware of their smallness, their ugliness.

The flower creates a contrast.

Hence they crucify Jesus and poison Socrates and kill Mansur. And then they worship. The same people who kill Jesus will worship him. They will even worship the cross, because Jesus died on the cross. And these are the same people. The murderers and the worshipers are not different. The enemies and the believers are not different. These are the same people – the same human mind and the same human stupidity.

Yes, it is a fiction that I am creating here, but it is alive. That is the difference. While I am here, the myth is an alive bridge; you can pass through it towards the unknown.

The questioner has asked: ”What do you mean by ’the way of religion’? I have always been so strongly against religion that I cannot imagine what it means.” True. If you are against religion, how can you understand it? If you are FOR religion, then too you cannot understand it. The people who are for and against can never understand because they have decided a priori – without experiencing they have decided. They are prejudiced.

If you have decided God exists, you will never be able to know him. If you have decided God does not exist, how can you know him?

Be more vulnerable. Don’t be so prejudiced, don’t decide. Experience, and let experience be decisive.

Never decide before the experience – never, never.

Otherwise you will always be

surrounded by your prejudice and your prejudice will become a screen. And that won’t allow you to see that which is.

”The way of religion” is the way of truth, the way of nature. The word ”religion” comes from a root which means ”to tie you together” – RELIGARE. Ordinarily you have fallen apart from existence.

You have forgotten that you are not in rhythm with existence. You have started moving on your own.

You have lost contact with the real. Yon have started living in your imagination. That is what I call the lie. You have started living a private life; you are no longer living an existential life. You have become ”idiots.” The word ”idiot” is beautiful; it comes from a root which means ”one who lives a private life.” One who has his own idiom of life, that is the idiot. The world is going one way and you are going another: then you are an idiot. The whole existence moving in one way and you have your own private goal!

A man who is after money is an idiot, because the sun is not after money, the moon is not after money, trees are not after money, animals are not after money – rivers, mountains, they are not so idiotic. The whole existence lives without money and a man is mad after money. He suffers from idiocy, the greatest disease there is: he has a private goal. If someday he comes to face God and God asks him, ”What were you seeking?” and he says, ”Money,” God will not be able to understand what he means by ”money.” He may not ever have heard the word ”money.” It will be very difficult to explain to him. Some great economist maybe – Adam Smith or Ricardo or Galbraith or somebody –

may be able to explain, but I’m suspicious. God will not be able to understand what money is. The whole existence lives without money. Man has created an idiocy.

Or you say, ”I was after political power.” God will not be able to understand. It will be very difficult to explain it to him, that you wanted to become a minister or a prime minister or a president. He will ask, ”For what? Why in the first place should one ever be mad after power? And I have given you all the power that you need. And I have given you all the possibilities to be blissful that you need.

For what were you wasting these opportunities, life?... and sacrificing everything for some foolish, stupid thing – that you would like to sit on a throne?” Just think of your great emperors. How stupid and foolish. But man has created his idiocies.

”The way of religion” means not to be idiotic – don’t have any private goal. The universal goal is enough. Be in tune with it, be together with it. Don’t fight it; flow with it. Wherever the whole is going, move with it, and you will not have any worry and you will not have any anguish and you will not be split and will not be torn apart. Religion means that which puts you together. You are not torn apart, you are not falling in fragments; you become integrated.

Religion is the science of how to find the forgotten language of ecstasy. Whenever you are in tune with existence, there is ecstasy, there is bliss, there is benediction.

It happens to you too. You may not be aware. Sometimes, looking at the trees, and the greenery fills you: suddenly you are in tune with the trees. You are no longer the observer and the trees are no longer the observed; you are not separate. Something bridges you; suddenly there is a contact, a connectedness, a link. Your mind stops chattering, you are as silent as the tree. You start feeling.

Your heart throbs with a new vitality and a new vibe... and there is bliss. And you are so fulfilled and so contented.

The tree has not given you anything. The tree is very poor in that way. What can a tree give to a human being? It cannot give you money, it cannot give you power. It cannot give anything that you would like to have, but suddenly, just sitting by the side of the tree, leaning against it, feeling it, feeling its shape arising in it, the fragrance that subtly surrounds it; and you were lost, you were ecstatic. You were in tune. By being in tune with the tree, you became in tune with the universe.

Sometime sitting by the side of the river and watching it... and everything becomes quiet and calm.

Not that you do something to become quiet and calm. Not that you do something to become quiet and calm. Nobody can do anything. And if you do, it is absurd. You can sit still like a Buddha statue; that is not going to help.

A disciple came to Bokuju, and to impress him, he sat like Buddha. Bokuju came and the disciple was absolutely still, with closed eyes. Bokuju laughed loudly and hit him hard on the head, and he said, ”Get up, you fool! We already have too many Buddhas in this temple! Get out from here! Can’t you see?” Bokuju used to live in a temple which had one thousand Buddha statues; he said, ”Can’t you see? One thousand Buddhas are here, and you also want to become a Buddha?”

The disciple was very much worried. He wanted to impress the Master; that ”I am a great meditator.”

And Bokuju said, ”Drop all this rubbish. Be alive. Don’t pretend, and don’t enforce.” Yes, one day one sits like Buddha, but that is nothing of your doing. It comes, it happens; it is not a doing at all.

Listening to the sound of water or looking at the floating clouds in the sky, suddenly it is there. It envelops you. You have fallen in tune with existence.

These rare moments by and by make you aware of why you are miserable. You are miserable because you are not with the existence. Somehow you are struggling against it. You are miserable because you are not surrendered to the whole. The part is trying to conquer the whole. See the foolishness of it.

Even a man like Bertrand Russell has written a book, ”Conquest of Nature.” ”Conquest”? You are trying to conquer nature? Who are you? It is as if one of my fingers tries to conquer me. We are part of nature. We ARE nature, expressions of the same nature, of the same vastness. How can we conquer it? How can the part conquer the whole? The part will only be unhappy if it tries to conquer the whole, because defeat is certain – absolutely certain. Frustration is certain – absolutely certain. The part will be miserable. You are miserable, in anguish, in anxiety, in tension, getting almost neurotic because you are trying to conquer nature.

The East has a totally different message. Religion is the Eastern message. All the great religions were born in the East. The West has not given birth to a single religion; it has given birth to great science, great scientific endeavor, but not to religion. Science is a human, idiotic effort to conquer nature. Religion is to fall in tune with nature. Call it religion, call it TAO, call it DHARMA; it means the same: to fall in tune with nature.

But it will be difficult if you have certain ideas implanted in you for or against. A Christian cannot be a religious man, neither can a Hindu be, nor a communist. A theist cannot be religious, an atheist cannot be religious; they are already full of ideas. They have already decided, without experiencing anything.

Here I am not trying to convince you about any ideology. I am trying to help you to drop all ideology so you become empty, pure, virgin, your eyes become unclouded and you attain to a clarity. In that clarity you will understand what religion is. Not through books, not through Bibles and the Koran and the Vedas, no, but through clarity. When the part looks at the whole and understands ”I am part of this whole” and feels happy – ”This vastness is my vastness; I am not separate from it; I am one with it” – and starts dancing in that oneness, religion is born. Religion is not an ideology; it is an experience.

”But, anyhow, I suppose it is the way of total aloneness.” Please, don’t start supposing. Religion is not a supposition. It is not ”if,” ”but,” no. Either you know it or you don’t know it. Please, don’t suppose. How can you suppose? ”But, anyhow I suppose.... ” Why? How can you suppose? If you don’t know, you don’t know. Supposition gives you a notion of false knowledge – AS IF you know.

Stop supposing. Just know that you don’t know, and remain in that pure ignorance. If you can stay in your ignorance – which needs great courage.... Knowledge is cheap. To remain in ignorance is a very courageous act. There are very rare people who can remain ignorant, without supposing anything, because the mind hankers to cling to something, suppose something. It supposes ”There is God” – okay. If it supposes ”There is not God,” then it insists that there is no God – then you cling to the ”no God.” Even a negative concept will do, but no concept? Then you feel empty, so you fill up, you stuff yourself with suppositions.

No, then you will never know what truth is. Truth is not a supposition. When you don’t suppose anything, truth arises.

Whatsoever you suppose will be your supposition. It will reflect your mind – and you don’t know.

Can’t you see the simple fact of it that your supposition will become a China wall? How can you suppose? Just see the fact that ”I don’t know.”

Be an agnostic, and that is the sure step towards religion. Agnosticism is the base of all religion. A religious person is always agnostic. He says, ”I don’t know, this way or that, and I am not so stupid as to suppose anything. I will remain in my ignorance and I will look around. If I come across an experience, I should like to remain open, vulnerable, so nothing is distorted.”

”But, anyhow, I suppose it is the way of total aloneness.” Whatsoever you suppose will be wrong.

Even the word ”aloneness” will be wrong because in fact you mean LONELINESS. You don’t mean aloneness, you cannot. Aloneness is a totally different thing from loneliness. Loneliness is when you miss the other; aloneness is when you enjoy yourself. These are totally different things.

Loneliness is a misery; aloneness is ecstatic. When you are so happy with yourself, when you are in love with yourself, when your own aloneness fills you tremendously like a presence, then... then it is aloneness. When you are empty, blank, dark, and you are missing the other and you want somehow to stuff yourself with something.... When people are left alone, they will go to the fridge and start eating something, or they will put on the tv or the radio, or they will start reading the same newspaper that they have read three times since the morning – again they will start looking at it. Or they will start thinking where to go – to go to see a movie, a concert, or just go shopping; but DO

something.

Loneliness is intolerable – it is a suffering, it is a hell. Aloneness is a beauty. It is such a pristine moment of tremendous happiness that nothing is comparable to it. In this whole life, there is nothing comparable to the beauty and blessedness of aloneness.

When you are alone you are a god. When you are lonely you are just nothing, just empty, hollow, a black hole.

That’s why you say, ”But, anyhow, I suppose it is the way of total aloneness.” You don’t know what aloneness is, and you don’t know what totality is. Because if you know totality, you have known God.

Totality is what God is all about. The sum total of existence is what God is. We can drop the word

”God.” Call it ”totality,” that will do – and will do even better than the word ”God” because ”God” has been used so much by wrong people. Politicians, priests, they all talk about ”God.”

”God” has passed through so many wrong lips, it is almost a dirty word. ”Totality” is better – the total. But you don’t know what ”total” is. You know only yourself – the ego. The ego is against the total, afraid of the total. Surrender brings you to totality, to an experience.

And remember – ”And this makes me a little uneasy”that’s why I say you cannot suppose aloneness, because aloneness never makes anybody uneasy. It makes one so ecstatically happy that you cannot imagine, you have not even dreamed about it. A Buddha is alone, a Mahavir is alone, a Kabir is alone – and they are alone even when they are in the crowd. You cannot destroy their aloneness.

Their aloneness is a crystallized phenomenon.

Try to understand this. You are born alone; you die alone. These two are the greatest moments in life: birth and death. You are born alone; you die alone. The greatest moments of life – the beginning and the end – are in aloneness. When you meditate you again become alone. That’s why meditation is both – a death and a birth. You die to the past and you are born to the new, to the unknown.

Even in love, when you think you are together, you are not together. There are two alonenesses. In real love nothing is lost. When two lovers are sitting – if they are really lovers and they don’t try to possess each other and they don’t try to dominate each other, because that is not love; that is the way of hatred, the way of violence – if they love and if the love is coming out of their aloneness, you will see two beautiful alonenesses together. They are like two Himalayan peaks, high in the sky, but separate. They don’t interfere. In fact deep love only reveals your pure aloneness to you.

All that is true and all that is real will always bring you to aloneness. But you are afraid and you say it makes you a little uneasy.

There are a few things which can only be done alone.

Love, prayer, life, death, aesthetic

experiences, blissful moments – they all come when you are alone. When you are in love you think you are with somebody. Maybe the somebody is just reflecting your aloneness, the somebody is just a mirror in which your aloneness is reflected But the deeper you move in love, the deeper you know that even your lover cannot penetrate there. Your aloneness is absolute – and it is good that it is so; otherwise you will be a public thing. Then you will not have any innermost core where you can be alone. Then you can be violated. But your aloneness is absolute; nobody can violate it.

You can kill me, but you cannot destroy my aloneness. That is my freedom. You can put me in a bondage, but you cannot put my aloneness in a bondage. Even in your jail I will be alone.

Aloneness.is my intrinsic nature. It cannot be destroyed; nobody can take it away.

Let me tell you one anecdote so that it doesn’t become too serious.

Sue met her friend Alice on the street one afternoon and noticed that Alice was well along the road of pregnancy.

”You know,” Sue said, ”I would have given anything to have a baby, but I guess it is hopeless.”

”I know just how you feel,” Alice said. ”My husband was that way too. But everything is fine now; in fact I am eight months pregnant.”

”What did you do?”

”I went to a faith healer.”

”Oh, we tried that,” Sue said. ”My husband and I went there for six months.”

”Don’t be silly,” Alice told her. ”Go alone.”

There are a few things for which one should go alone. Meditation is one of those things, God is one of those things, death is one of those things; one should go alone.

But the questioner is uneasy because it is only a supposition. A supposition is a supposition; it doesn’t help to understand. It hinders.

”Since you gave me sannyas, I feel like I am in an abyss.” Exactly right. That’s what sannyas is.

Sannyas is nothing but throwing you into your inner abyss, taking away everything that you cling to, taking away all that you possess, taking away your very possessiveness. Sannyas is a VIA NEGATIVA. I go on taking things away from you – your thinking, your ideology, your religion, your church, your Bible, your Koran. I go on taking away. By and by I will leave you alone; everything is taken away from you. Now you will feel as if you are in an abyss, but this abyss is just a transitory period.

You feel like you are in an abyss because now you cannot cling to anything. Relax, rest in this abyss... and suddenly the whole gestalt changes. Then you know that this abyss is your nature and there is no need to cling to anything. This is how you are. This inner silence is your nature. This inner thoughtlessness is your nature. This aloneness is nothing to be afraid of; this aloneness has to be tasted, chewed well, digested. And you will see, out of this aloneness bliss arises, bliss flowers.

But there will be a transitory period when you will not be able to cling and you will not be able to know what is going to happen and you will be just in between. Christian mystics have named those days rightly; they call them ”the dark night of the soul.” The old light has disappeared and the new has not arisen yet. It is almost like you come from the outside – it is hot, burning sun and your eyes are dazzled – you come into your room and you cannot see anything; it seems almost dark. You sit and you rest for a while; and by and by it is no longer dark. Your eyes become settled. Your focus changes and you can see now; you are no longer dazzled by the hot sun.

For lives together you have been outside in the hot sun. You have lived a miserable life – again and again the same miserable life. You have become attuned to it. When you come to your inner being, you see only darkness, abyss, emptiness. You don’t see anything. You become afraid.

Rest a little while, let your eyes be settled, and you will be able to see a light arising – a light with no heat, a flame without heat, a light which is cool. When you have started feeling it, then you know that sannyas throws you into an abyss just to bring you to an enlightened state of being. That abyss is the price we pay.

Question 3

IN YOUR LECTURES YOU TALK ABOUT GURDJIEFF, RAMAN, RAMAKRISHNA, BASHO, AND

OTHERS WHO ARE PHYSICALLY NOT ALIVE, BUT WHY DON’T YOU TALK ABOUT THE

ENLIGHTENED PERSONS WHO ARE PHYSICALLY ALIVE TODAY?

The question is from Swami Yoga Chinmaya. He has the knack of asking foolish questions.

Now, if there is some enlightened person alive, he can talk for himself. Why should I talk for him?

So I talk about the dead people because they cannot talk themselves. This is so simple.

Question 4

THERE WAS A LITTLE POLAR BEAR WHO ASKED HIS MOTHER, ” WAS MY DADDY ALSO A POLAR BEAR?” ”OF COURSE YOUR DADDY WAS A POLAR BEAR.”

”BUT,” GOES ON THE LITTLE ONE AFTER A WHILE, ”MOMMY, JUST TELL ME, WAS MY

GRANDFATHER ALSO A POLAR BEAR?”

” YES, HE WAS ALSO A POLAR BEAR.”

TIME GOES BY AND THE LITTLE ONE KEEPS ASKING HIS MOTHER, ”BUT WHAT ABOUT MY

GREAT-GRANDFATHER? WAS HE A POLAR BEAR AS WELL?”

” YES, HE WAS. BUT WHY ARE YOU ASKING?”

”BECAUSE I AM FREEZING.”

I WAS TOLD MY FATHER WAS A POLAR BEAR, I WAS TOLD MY GRANDFATHER WAS A POLAR

BEAR, I WAS TOLD MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER WAS A POLAR BEAR; BUT I AM FREEZING.

HOW CAN I CHANGE THIS, OSHO?

I happen to know your father, and I happen to know your grandfather, and I happen to know your great-grandfather too; and they were also freezing. And their mothers were telling the same story to them! – that your father was a polar bear and your grandfather was a polar bear and your great-grandfather was a polar bear.

If you are freezing, you are freezing. These stories won’t help. This simply proves that even polar bears freeze. Look at the reality and don’t move into traditions and don’t go into the past. If you are freezing, you are freezing. And this is not a consolation at all – that you are a polar bear.

These consolations have been given to humanity. When you are dying, you are dying; somebody comes and says, ”Don’t be afraid; the soul is immortal.” Now, you are dying.

I have heard about a Jew who fell on a road and was dying; it was a heart attack. A crowd gathered, and they looked for some religious people, some religious person, some priest, because the man was dying. A Catholic priest came out, not knowing who the person was. He went close to the dying man and said, ”Do you believe? Do you declare that you believe in the Trinity – God the Father and the Holy Ghost and the Son Jesus Christ?”

The dying Jew opened his eyes and he said, ”I am dying, and he is talking in riddles. Now what am I to do with this trinity? I am dying. What nonsense are you talking about?”

A man is dying and you console him that the soul is immortal. These consolations are of no help.

Somebody is in misery and you tell him, ”Don’t be miserable. It is just psychological.” How does it help? You make him even more miserable These theories are not of much help. They have been invented to console, to dieceive.

If you are freezing, you are freezing. Rather than asking whether your father was a polar bear, do some exercise. Jump, jog, or do Dynamic Meditation; and you won’t freeze, I promise you. Forget all about your father and grandfather and great-grandfather. Just listen to your reality. If you are freezing, then do something. And something can always be done. But this is no way; you are on a wrong track. You can go on asking and asking, and of course the poor mother goes on consoling you.

The question is beautiful, very meaningful, has tremendous import.

This is how humanity is

suffering. Listen to suffering. Look into the problem and don’t try to find any solutions outside the problem. Look directly into the problem and you will always find the solution there. Look into the question; don’t ask for the answer.

For example, you can go on asking, ”Who am I?” You can go to the Christian and he will say, ”You are a son of God, and God loves you very much.” And you will be puzzled, because how can God love you?

A priest told Mulla Nasrudin, ”God loves you very much.”

He said, ”How can he love me? He does not even know me.”

And the priest said, ”That’s why he can love you. We know you. We cannot love you – it is too difficult.”

Or you go to the Hindus and ask, and they say, ”You are God himself.” Not the son of God; you are God himself. But still you have your headache and your migraine and you are very much puzzled at how the God can have a migraine... and it doesn’t solve the problem.

If you want to ask, ”Who am I?” don’t go to anybody. Sit silently and ask deeper into your own being.

Let the question resound. Not verbally. Existentially, let the question be there like an arrow piercing your heart: ”Who am I?” And go with the question.

And don’t be in a hurry to answer it, because if you answer it, that answer must have come from somebody else – some priest, some politician, some tradition. Don’t answer from your memory, because your memory is all borrowed. Your memory is just like a computer, very dead. Your memory has nothing to do with knowing. It has been fed into you. So when you ask, ”Who am I?” and your memory says, ”You are a great soul,” watch out. Don’t fall into the trap. You just discard all this rubbish; it is all rot. Just go on asking, ”Who am I?... Who am I?... Who am I?...” and one day you will see, the question too has disappeared. There is only a thirst left – ”Who am I?” Not the question, really, but a thirst – your whole being throbbing with the thirst – ”Who am I?”

And one day you will see, not even you are there: there is only thirst. And in that intense, passionate state of your being, suddenly you will realize something has exploded. Suddenly you have come face to face with yourself and you know who you are.

There is no way to ask your father, ”Who am I?” He does not know himself who he is. There is no way to ask your grandfather or great-grandfather. Don’t ask! Don’t ask the mother, don’t ask the society, don’t ask the culture, don’t ask the civilization. Ask your own innermost core. If you really want to come to know the answer, go inwards; and from that inward experience, change happens.

You ask, ”How can I change this?” You cannot change it. First you have to face your reality, and that very encounter will change you.

A reporter was trying to get a human-interest story out of an old, old man at a state-supported home for the aged.

”Pop,” asked the brash reporter, ”how would you feel if you suddenly got a letter telling you that a forgotten relative had left you five million dollars?”

”Son,” came the answer slowly, ”I would still be ninety-four years old.”

Do you get it? The old man is saying, ”I am ninety-four years old. Even if I get five million dollars, what am I supposed to do with it? I will still be ninety-four years old.”

What Buddha says, what Mahavir says, what Christ says, iS of no help to you. You are freezing

– you are still ninety-four years old. Even if the whole knowledge of the world is poured into your head, it is not going to help: you are still freezing – you are still ninety-four years old. Unless some experience arises in you, some vital experience that transforms your being and you become young again, alive again, nothing is of any value.

So don’t ask others. That is the first lesson to be learned. Ask yourself. And then too remember

– because others have put answers there already, so those answers will be coming – avoid those answers. The question is yours, so nobody else’s answer can be of any help. The question is yours; the answer has to be yours too.

Buddha has drunk and he is satisfied. Jesus has drunk and he is ecstatic. I have drunk, but how is that going to help YOUR thirst? You will have to drink yourself.

It happened, a great Sufi mystic was asked by an emperor to come to his court and pray for them.

The mystic came, but he refused to pray. He said, ”It is impossible. How can I pray for you?” Said the mystic, ”There are a few things one has to do oneself. For example, if you want to make love to a woman, you have to make it yourself. I cannot do it for you on your behalf. Or if you have to blow your nose, you have to blow it yourself. I cannot blow my nose on your behalf; that won’t be of any help. And so is prayer. How can I pray for you? You pray. I can pray for myself.” And he closed his eyes and moved into great prayer.

That’s what I can do. For me the problem has disappeared, but it has not disappeared by anybody else’s answer. I have not asked anybody. In fact the whole effort has been to drop all the answers that others have given – very generously.

People go on giving you advice. They are very generous in their advice. They may not be generous in anything else, but in advice they are very generous, great people. Whether you ask or not they go on giving advice. Advice is the only thing that is given so much and that is never taken. Nobody takes it.

I have heard about two bums sitting under a tree, and one was saying, ”I landed into this state because I never listened to anybody’s advice.”

And the other said, ”Brother,I landed here because I followed everybody’s advice.”

The journey has to be your own.

You are freezing, I know. You are miserable, I know. Life is hard, I know. And I have no consolation for you. And I don’t believe in consoling you, because all consolation becomes a postponement. The mother says to the child bear, ”Yes, your father was a polar bear,” and for a little while he tries not to freeze because polar bears are not supposed to freeze. But it doesn’t help. Again he asks, ”Mother, was my grandfather also a polar bear?” He is trying to know, ”Was there something in my heritage that had gone wrong; that’s why I am freezing?” And the mother says, ”Yes, your grandfather was also a polar bear.” Again he tries to postpone freezing, but you cannot postpone it. You can delay a little; again it is there.

Reality cannot be avoided. Theorizations are of no help at all. Forget theories and listen to the fact.

You are miserable? Then misery has to be looked into. You are angry? That anger has to be looked into. You feel sexual? Then forget what others say about it; just look into it yourself. It is your life, and you have to live it. Don’t borrow. Never be secondhand. God loves people who are firsthand.

He has never been known to love carbon copies. You just be firsthand, be original, be unique, be individual, be yourself, and look into your problems.

And there is only one thing I can say to you: that in your problem, there is hidden the solution. The problem is just a seed. If you go into it deeply, the solution will sprout out of it. Your ignorance is the seed. If you go deeply into it, knowledge will flower out of it. Your shivering, your freezing, is the problem. Go into it, and warmth will arise out of it.

In fact all is given to you – question and answer both, the problem and the solution both, ignorance and knowledge both. You just have to look inwards.

Question 5

I HAVE HEARD, A MAN IN AN ORANGE ROBE ENTERED THE VRINDAVAN JUICE BAR, BARGED UP TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE, AND DEMANDED TEA AND CAKE. HE PAID WITH

A HUNDRED-RUPEE NOTE AND COMPLAINED ABOUT THE COST AND THE LONG LINEUP.

AFTER CHOOSING THE BIGGEST PIECE OF CAKE AND THE BIGGEST CUP, HE TOOK OVER

AN OLD LADY’S SEAT AND PROCEEDED TO GOBBLE THE FOOD. A BYSTANDER, PUZZLED

BY HIS BEHAVIOR, ASKED THE MEANING OF IT.

”WHY,” HE EXPLAINED, ”OSHO SAID THAT ONLY A CRYSTALLIZED EGO CAN BE DROPPED.”

There is more possibility to misunderstand me than to understand me. And in misunderstanding, you will find much solace, much consolation.

Just the other day, Mulla Nasrudin came to me, and he said, ”Enough is enough – I cannot trust you anymore.”

I said, ”What happened, Nasrudin? You have been such a long-obedient disciple to me.”

He said, ”Now it is too much. Just the other day I was at the racetrack. Somebody’s change had fallen, so I was picking it up, and there comes a blind, or mad or drunk guy, and he saddles me as if I am a horse.”

So I said, ”Why didn’t you stand up?”

He said, ”But you have said accept everything, so I said Osho says accept totally. So I accept it and I try to see now what happens – and the madman jumps on me.”

I was also intrigued; I said, ”Then what did you do?”

He said, ”What can I do? I have to run – and I come third in the race! Now this is too much! I cannot trust you anymore!”

There is every possibility to misunderstand me and there is every possibility to find rationalizations.

This is how the mind goes on being foolish, the mind goes on playing around, fooling around. It always finds ways to protect itself. If I say drop the ego, you say okay, and you try to drop it; and then the ego becomes your humbleness and you start moving around with your nose up, looking at everybody as if everybody is condemned to hell. And you have that look of ”holier than thou” and ”I am the most humble man around here.” If I say the ego has to become big, only then it bursts, then you say, ”Okay. That’s what we have been always trying. Now you are also supporting it – so far so good.”

When are you going to understand me? When you listen to me, always remember, your mind is there to corrupt it. Unless you are very, very watchful, your mind will pollute it. And mind is so cunning, it can always find a way out. And it is so clever, it can always make rationalizations look like reasons.

Question 6

DEAR OSHO, THERE ARE MORE AND MORE NON-MOMENTS, PERIODS OF NO TIME, ESPECIALLY WHEN TALKING WITH OTHERS, WHEN SUDDENLY I AM NOT TALKING

ANYMORE, TALKING IS JUST HAPPENING: THERE IS A FLOW, A SENSE OF POWER AND

WHOLENESS, HANDS MOVE IN PERFECT SYNCHRONIZATION WITH THOUGHT FEELINGS, SPACE EXPANDS, AND THERE IS OPENNESS WITH NO SENSE OF SEPARATION – AND NO

”I” THAT IS SEPARATE.

THE FRONT OF THE BODY SEEMS TO BE NONEXISTENT AND I AM TALKING WITH MYSELF.

ARE THESE THE HERE-AND-NOW-I MOMENTS YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT, OR IS THERE

MORE, OR IS IT A MATTER OF MORE MORE,FREQUENTLY?

The question is from Amit Prem.

These are the moments I am talking about, but Amit Prem is not yet certain about them; hence the question. There is still a little doubt, and because of that doubt, those moments are not penetrating deep enough to reach to his very core of being. He is still suspicious, still thinking whether they are or not. That too is natural. The whole conditioning of the mind will stand like a barrier. Even at the last moment it will try to create suspicion, to make you ambiguous, to make you unclear, confused.

The mind follows you to the very last moment, and it goes on dragging you backwards. It is its old habit; it is what the mind has been trained for. I am not condemning it; I am just stating a fact.

It happened:

An inveterate pickpocket finally breathed his last and prostrated himself before St. Peter, craving admission through the Pearly Gates.

St. Peter heard him through courteously, but then decreed, ”It is hell for you, my boy. And meanwhile, kindly give me back my watch.”

Now, a pickpocket is a pickpocket. Even at the gates of heaven, while Peter is talking, why not snatch away his watch?

Mind is a habit because mind is a mechanism.

So when these moments of here-now start

penetrating your being, the mind stands on guard and it says, ”Watch, you may be in a delusion. Or you may be hallucinating. Or maybe this guy Osho has hypnotized you” – or something. Suspicion.

Now Amit Prem has to drop this doubting. Nothing else is needed.

He asks, ”Are these the here-and-now moments?” Yes, they are.

And that’s what a Master exists for: to help you in those moments when you become suspicious.

when you lose clarity, to give you support.

I say to you, yes, these are the moments; but if you become entangled with your suspicion, you will lose them. They are just happening; it is just the beginning. If suspicion comes in that will be the end of the beginning; then they will die. They are very fragile right now. You should water them with trust. Not with doubt – doubt will prove to be a poison.

So don’t listen to the mind. That is what sannyas is all about. Why do I insist so much for sannyas?

So that when these moments start happening, you can trust me. You have always trusted your mind.

It is not worth it, but you have trusted it. The Master is a device, so there is an alternative: when there is any problem with the mind, you can choose the Master or the mind. These are the moments when the Master has to be listened to.

Yes, I repeat it again: these are the right moments. But if you get suspicious, if you think about them, you will miss them.

You are saying: ”Are these the here-and-now moments... or is there more!” That again is the mind.

The whole trick of the mind is the technique of more.” The mind always says, ”There must be more.”If you have money, the mind says, ”Have more money.” If you have power, the mind says, ”Have more power.” If you are getting moments of meditation, the mind says, ”There must be more.” ”More” is the technique of the mind to confuse you, to never allow you a moment of happiness. The ”more” brings misery: ”So there is more? So I am not getting enough.” And misery enters. You have compared.

Forget all about the ”more.” ”More” is the trick of the mind; ”more” is the agent of the mind.

These are the moments. Don’t think about the future; don’t think about the past. If you think about the past, the mind will create doubt. If you think about the future, the mind will create ambition.

These are the two tricks of the mind. Look at the past, it creates doubt. It says, ”There have been other moments like this also, but where are they now? Once you had fallen in love with a woman, and how beautiful it was – and then? Then all disappeared. Maybe these moments are also like that. You have fallen in love with this man and something is happening. It is the honeymoon, Amit Prem. The honeymoon cannot be permanent; the honeymoon will disappear.”

Amit Prem is a new sannyasin; not yet settled in sannyas, yet escaping and cannot escape, yet trying hard to figure out what is what and not able to figure it out. It is very difficult.

You cannot figure out what I am doing here. My ways are so contradictory, it is impossible to figure it out. My ways are paradoxical. So I say one thing one moment and I contradict it immediately.

He’s still not settled. He has taken sannyas, but hypothetically: ”Let us see what happens. Maybe there is something; maybe there is not. If there is not, then who can prevent you? You can move back.” That’s why this suspicion and unclarity and confusion.

If you settle with me, then the past is dropped. It is difficult and hard to drop the past, but unless you drop the past, the mind will never allow you freedom. The mind is your past; the whole accumulated past is your mind. Drop the past, and these moments will penetrate to the very core. And you will not think about ”more,” because you think about more only when these moments have not penetrated to the core. When they have penetrated to the core, there is nothing more. And when there is nothing more, there is bliss and benediction.

Question 7

WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT? PLEASE EXPLAIN.

I will not, because I cannot. And I cannot because nobody can. You have come a little late. Had you asked me the same question before I became enlightened, I had many answers. Now I have none.

Now I am absolutely dumb about it.

I can show you the path, how to become enlightened, but I cannot say what it is. I can hold your hand to the very door and push you in, but I don’t know what is in.

If you are courageous, come, follow me. If you are not courageous, escape as soon as possible, because if you hang around a little longer, it is dangerous. And I am telling you beforehand, so you can never make me responsible for it. Either escape as fast as possible and as far away as possible to be here is dangerous – or take courage and hold my hand: I can take you in that state of enlightenment.

But nothing can be said about it. It is indefinable, it is ineffable. It IS – in fact only it is, nothing else exists – but it is so vast, it cannot be confined to any explanation.

CHAPTER 5

There are no words to tell

15 December 1976 am in Buddha Hall

I. 104. aisa lo nahin tai sa, lo

O HOW MAY I EVER EXPRESS THAT SECRET WORD?

O HOW CAN I SAY HE IS NOT LIKE THIS, AND HE IS LIKE THAT?

IF I SAY THAT HE IS WITHIN ME, THE UNIVERSE IS ASHAMED.

IF I SAY THAT HE IS WITHOUT ME, IT IS FALSEHOOD.

HE MAKES THE INNER AND THE OUTER WORLDS TO BE INDIVISIBLY ONE; THE CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS, BOTH ARE HIS FOOTSTOOLS.

HE IS NEITHER MANIFEST NOR HIDDEN, HE IS NEITHER REVEALED NOR UNREVEALED: THERE ARE NO WORDS TO TELL THAT WHICH HE IS.

II. 56. dariya ki lahar dariyao hai ji

THE RIVER AND ITS WAVES ARE ONE SURF: WHERE IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE

RIVER AND ITS WAVES?

WHEN THE WAVE RISES, IT IS THE WATER; AND WHEN IT FALLS, IT IS THE SAME WATER

AGAIN. TELL ME, SIR, WHERE IS THE DISTINCTION?

BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN NAMED AS WAVE, SHALL IT NO LONGER BE CONSIDERED AS

WATER?

WITHIN THE ABSOLUTE, THE WORLDS ARE BEING TOLD LIKE BEADS.

LOOK UPON THAT ROSARY WITH THE EYES OF WISDOM.

THE TRUTH IS KNOWN AND YET NOT KNOWN – known in a sense and not known in another

– known because we are part of it, but not known because we are not separate from it. To know something, the knower has to be separate; and yet again, to know something really, how can you know it if you are separate? This is the basic problem that faces the seeker of truth. We are one with it, there is no space between us and the truth, so we cannot become the knower. We cannot separate the known from the knower – there is no way to separate – and knowledge exists only when the knower and known are separate.

Knowledge is a bridge between the object and the subject. If they are not separate, the bridge cannot exist. So the first thing to be remembered: truth is not known in the ordinary sense, cannot be known in the ordinary sense.

Yet there is a knowing of sorts – a totally different type of knowing, of a totally different quality. The knowing is more like love than knowledge. You know a woman or a man when you are deep in love.

When your boundaries meet and mingle and merge, when you are no longer separate, when you cannot say where you end and where your woman starts, when there are no fences and no defenses, when simply you are overlapping, overflowing into each other – the division has disappeared and you have become indivisible – there is a sort of knowing: you know. Before it, all that you used to think of as knowledge was just illusory.

But can you say now that you know? Now there is no one separate who can claim to be the knower.

This is the problem. Truth is known, but in such a way that you cannot claim knowledge. Truth is known in such a way that by knowing it the mystery does not disappear; in fact it becomes very, very deep, infinitely deep, ultimately deep. By knowing the truth, nothing is solved. In fact for the first time you are facing the insoluble. This is the paradox, the dilemma.

If you understand this dilemma, then you will be able to follow what Kabir is trying to say.

Let us go into it a little more. All knowledge is illusory; we only think that we know. What do we mean when we say we know? When you say, ”I know what this tree is,” what do you mean? It is a pine tree or an old oak or something else. What do you know? You know a label: it is a ”pine” or an ”oak” or an ”ashoka.” You know a name. All that your knowledge consists of is that you know the label. Forget the label and the unknown is there. All knowledge consists of only names. Drop the label and suddenly the unknown is there.

But we live by naming things; it gives us a false sense of security. Otherwise everybody is a stranger, and it will be too difficult to live with strangers. It will be so difficult to trust strangers.

Mind immediately jumps upon anything that comes, labels it, and feels good. Finished. This man is a ”good” man, and this man is a ”sinner” – you have labeled.

But can’t you observe a simple reality that the saint can become the sinner the next moment, and the sinner can become the saint? So what do you know? The murderer can become a mahatma and the mahatma can become a murderer. So when you say this man is ”good,” what are you saying?

Do you know this man, because this good man can prove bad any moment? And you say another man is ”bad,” and he can prove the holiest of men any moment. So what do you know? By labeling, by naming, you have not known anything. The reality remains unexplained, mysterious.

You say, ”This woman is my wife,” or ”This man is my husband.” What do you know? Just labeling a person ”my husband,” have you known something? You are just in a deception. You have created an illusion of knowledge.

But the mind wants this illusion very much. It feels at ease. With this illusory knowledge surrounding you, you feel at home. Mind lives in lies – old or new, but mind lives in lies.

I have heard:

When Herbert Wise, the chess champion, returned to the freshwater college he had attended in his youth, the prexy suggested that he have a look at the dormitory room he had occupied as a student. The lad who was living there at the time unfortunately had chosen this evening to smuggle in a beautiful young coed to help him with his history – a gross infraction of rules. When he heard the president and Mr. Wise in the hall, he hid the girl hastily in the clothes closet.

Wise looked at the familiar old room, sighed, and remarked, ”Same old desk, same old chairs.” Then he opened the closet door, saw the flustered coed, and added softly, ”And the same old girl.”

”It is my sister, sir,” stammered the young man.

”And the same old lie!” chortled Wise.

It continues that way – the same old lies. Mind lives through lies, mind feeds on lies. Mind cannot encounter truth. All knowledge is of the mind, so all knowledge is bound to be illusory. All knowledge is maya, it is not real. It is a pseudo coin invented by the mind to fill the gap; otherwise you will feel very, very ignorant and stupid, otherwise you will feel you don’t know anything. It will be difficult for you to stand, struggle in life. Mind says, ”Forget all about ignorance. Knowledge is possible.

It is simple: you just cram in a few facts – labels, names – get acquainted with more information, accumulate information, go to the library, and become knowledgeable.

Knowledgeableness is not knowledge, and all your knowledge is nothing but knowledgeableness.

You have gathered information from without – from tradition, from the university, from the society, civilization. Somebody is a Mohammedan, you say, and somebody is a Christian, you say; and then you have figured out who he is. Just by calling a man ”Christian” or calling him a ”communist,” have you known him? Have you known anything about him? But you have a feeling that you know now –

this man is a ”communist,” dangerous; and this man is a ”Christian,” very good.

This stupid effort to drown your ignorance by a false knowledge is the only barrier between you and the reality, between you and the truth. And if you go on with these lies, believing in them, you will never come across truth – these lies won’t allow you. These lies will function as barriers.

I have heard:

Once Mulla Nasrudin lived next to a lunatic asylum. One of his regular afternoon naps on the lawn was rudely interrupted when a beautiful young lady, completely without clothes, came bursting through the hedge, hotly pursued by three interns dressed in white.

The old Mulla was just

recovering from his astonishment when a fourth intern dashed into view carrying in each hand a heavy pailful of sand. The Mulla noticed that a considerable gallery was watching from the other side of the hedge, so he called out, ”What is the idea of the fourth intern with the pails of sand?”

”That is his handicap,” was the explanation. ”He caught her the last time.”

And even when I look at you, I see you with pails of lies – searching truth. You are never going to catch it; your handicap is going to be too much. It is impossible. You have to drop all handicaps.

Your mind is the root cause of all your handicaps. Your mind is a deceiver. It creates a magical world, a false world of knowledge.

That is the meaning of the biblical story. Adam is turned out of the garden of Eden because he has eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. It is a very significant parable. Because of knowledge Adam is turned out of heaven, Loses all his blessedness, loses all his innocence, happiness, loses immortality, becomes a mortal, becomes miserable. This is the original sin: knowledge is the original sin. Meditate on this parable as much as possible, again and again, from different angles. There is no other parable so significant in the whole history of religion.

Adam’s sin is knowledge. Then what is Jesus’ virtue? It must be ignorance. Christians don’t talk about it. It must be ignorance. That’s what Jesus says when he says, ”Unless you are like children you will not enter into the kingdom of my God.” ”Unless you are like children”? It means unless you are innocent, ignorant like children, unless you drop all your knowledge, you will not enter back, you will not be received back. Knowledge is the sin and ignorance is the virtue.

To be ignorant and to know that all knowledge is false, is a radical revolution. Then you remain virgin. Then knowledge never corrupts you. Yes, knowledge is a corruption, it is a poison.

All meditative techniques developed anywhere in the world are nothing but efforts to make you free of your knowledge, efforts to make you free of your mind. Meditation means to create a state of no-mind. A state of no-mind will be a state of no-knowledge. A state of no-mind will be a state of tremendous ignorance – primal ignorance. And ignorance is beautiful.

When you don’t know, you are not. When you know, you are. Knowledge begins to function as the ego. No-knowledge, and the ego cannot exist; it has no props, no support. It falls, collapses, disappears. And in that state of no-mind, no-ego – no-YOU – something happens, which is more like love. You flow into existence and the existence starts flowing into you. You are no longer separate from the existence. The drop has fallen into the ocean, and the ocean has fallen into the drop.

This is what is called wisdom. Knowledge is not wisdom. To know ”I don’t know anything” is wisdom.

That is the meaning of the oracle of Delphi’s declaration. Somebody asked, ”Who is the greatest wise man of the world?” and the oracle said, ”Socrates.” The person went to Socrates and told him,

”Have you heard it or not? The oracle of the temple has said that you are the wisest man in the world.”

Socrates is reported to have laughed and said, ”You go back. There must have been some mistake because just today, this morning, it has happened to me that I don’t know anything. How can it be?

If you had come yesterday I would have believed you, because I used to think that I know, but not now. This morning – this very morning – something tremendous has happened to me: all knowledge has appeared as futile. I am awakened. The sleep of knowledge is no longer there; I am no longer dreaming. And now I know only one thing for certain: that I don’t know anything.

”You go back and tell the oracle that something must have gone wrong. The oracle has always been right and true, I know, but this time the oracle has committed an error. You go and put things right.

And it is me, Socrates himself, saying that I am the most ignorant man of the world. How can the oracle say I am the most wise? No, it is not possible.”

The man was puzzled, he could not believe it, but he went to the oracle and said, ”There must have been some mistake, sir, because Socrates denies it. He says, ’I know only one thing: that I don’t know anything.’”

And the oracle said, ”That’s why we have declared that he is the greatest wise man of the world.

That’s why! Precisely that’s why we have declared it! Go and tell him. If you had asked yesterday, we would not have said so. He was as foolish as anybody else. Now he is not a fool at all – he is not fooled by knowledge. He has awakened.”

Knowing that you don’t know, you really become a knower. That is wisdom. Wisdom is not knowledge. Wisdom is awareness.

O HOW MAY I EVER EXPRESS THAT SECRET WORD?

And when you have known in this way, not the way of knowledge but the way of wisdom, the way of love – not as a spectator, not as an observer from the outside but as a participant of existence – you have danced with God hand in hand, step by step, and you have come to FEEL something....

Yes, it is better to use the word ”feeling” than ”knowing”.; it is closer to reality. Knowing is cerebral, feeling is total. When you feel, you don’t feel only from the head, you don’t feel only from your heart, you don’t feel only from your guts; you feel from every fibre of your being. Feeling is total, feeling is orgasmic, feeling is organic.

In a moment of feeling, you function as a totality. When you think, you function only as the head.

When you are sentimental, you function only as the heart. Remember, sentimentality is not feeling, emotionalism is not feeling. Thinking, you are a head – just a part pretending to be the whole. Of course it is false. This perspective is false. Emotional, sentimental, you are the heart – again another part pretending to be the whole, another servant pretending to be the master. Again it is false.

Feeling is of the total – of the body, of the mind, of the soul. Feeling knows no divisions; feeling is indivisible. When you feel, you function as a totality. When you function as a totality you function in tune with the totality. Let me repeat it: when you function as a totality you function in tune with the totality. When you function as a part you have fallen apart; you are no longer in tune with the total.

When you are no longer in tune with the total, whatsoever you think you know is false, illusory. When you are in tune with the total, you know that you don’t know anything. But even this ”not knowing” is a knowing – it is a feeling, it is a love affair with the whole.

”O HOW MAY I EVER EXPRESS THAT SECRET WORD? ” And when you come to know in this way, it is a secret knowing – secret because it cannot be expressed, secret because language is inadequate for it, secret because it cannot be taught.

Let me tell you one thing. In the East we have been making a distinction between a teacher and a Master. The teacher is one who teaches, of course; and the Master is one who does not teach.

Then what does a Master do? A teacher teaches; he believes in teaching – he believes that truth can be taught. Of course this is basically wrong. Truth cannot be reduced to language, truth cannot be reduced to concepts, so how can it be taught? Truth cannot be expressed, nobody has ever been able to express it, so how can it be taught? The teacher himself has not known yet. The teacher is as unaware as the taught. With the teacher, you become a student, so whatsoever he has accumulated, he goes on transferring it to you. It is a transference of information.

A Master never teaches, but you can catch something from the Master. Truth cannot be taught but can be caught. The Master.... His very being, his very presence. His every gesture – the way he looks at you, the way he walks. The WAY he talks – not what he says, not the content – but the way he talks. The way he keeps quiet, the way sometimes he falls silent. Something between the words and something between the lines.

The teacher exists in the words; the Master exists between the words – the gaps, the intervals. The teacher has something to teach you; the Master has something which if YOU want you can take but he cannot teach. If you are ready you can partake of it. If you are thirsty you can quench your thirst. It is not a communication. It is a communion. Between a teacher and a student there is communication; between a Master and the disciple there is a communion, a transference of energy.

Something mysterious passes, and the disciple becomes pregnant with the unknown.

”O HOW MAY I EVER EXPRESS THAT SECRET WORD?” Kabir is a Master, and he says, ”How can I express, how can I ever express, that secret word? That which has happened in the innermost recesses of my being, how can I bring it to the surface? That which has happened in the silence of my soul, how can I reduce it and convert it and translate it into language?” Language is very inadequate. Truth is vast, and language is very, very narrow. Truth is like the sky, and language is like a closed fist.

Let me tell you:

An elephant was frolicking happily in a swimming pool one day, when a mouse came along and implored him to come out of the water. The elephant ignored the mouse for a while, but it became so insistent that the elephant finally lumbered out of the pool to demand, ”What on earth do you want?”

The mouse squeaked, ”I just wanted to see if you were wearing my bathing suit.”

Yes, to bring truth into words is as impossible – more so. Words are very small, trivial, mundane, material, worldly. Words are invented by man. Truth is discovered – never invented. It is already there. And truth is discovered when somebody becomes courageous enough to lose himself, to relax into a nonbeing, into a no-mind. Then truth is known. It is known only when you are so utterly silent that not even a ripple of thought arises in you.

So how to reduce it into language, into words, into thoughts? It happens only when the thought is not present. The thought cannot convey it, and whatsoever the thought conveys is a distortion. That’s why those who have known have always been in great inner difficulty. How to express it? How to say it? When Buddha became enlightened, for seven days he remained silent. He would not utter a single word. It was so difficult. It is so easy to talk when you don’t know; it is so difficult to talk when you know. It is so easy to talk when you don’t know, because you can say anything. When you know, it is almost impossible to talk. You can go around and around.

That’s what I go on doing. I go around and around, just in the hope that someday, by chance, by accident, you may become aware that whatsoever I want to convey to you cannot be conveyed in words. Listening to my words, you may fall silent. Listening to my music, you may become so attentive, so alert, that in that alertness truth may be able to penetrate you.

But I don’t believe that through my words you are going to know anything. It is not possible.

That’s why trust has been emphasized so much. If you listen to my words you will be listening to my logic, and truth cannot be put into words, so it cannot be made a logical proposition. No, it is not a syllogism. If you are in deep love with me, then there is a possibility. Then you will not be looking for the logic. Then you will be looking for something else. Then you will be looking sideways. Then you will be looking and waiting for silences.

Truth is available here in my presence, but not in my words. If you listen only to my words, you have not listened to me at all. You have been deaf. If you have listened to my silence....

Maybe my words can be helpful as a contrast to my silence. When you write on a blackboard with a white chalk it comes out clear and loud. Hmm? because the blackboard gives the contrast. If you write on a white wall with white chalk it will not be clear and loud. It will be lost. I can keep quiet here, I can sit silently here, but then you will not be able to understand my silence at all. It will be a writing with white chalk on a white wall.

I talk to you – I create a blackboard of words, of language, concept, logic, philosophy, religion – and then I leave just a few small gaps, silent gaps, intervals. Those gaps come very loudly. Against the black background of language, silence comes very clearly.

Hence I speak. Hence Kabir speaks. Hence Buddha has to concede to speak after seven days.

There was a Zen student under a Master to whom he was very much devoted. Each time he approached the Master, the latter waved his hand, saying, ”Not yet, not yet.” Some time passed.

One evening he became desperate: ”How can this be? I have no word of instruction which will lead me to the realization. The Master simply chases me, saying, ’Not yet, not yet.’ What can I do? What do I have to think about it all?”

He went on like this – thinking, brooding, meditating – in utter desperation, but tenaciously clinging to his object of inquiry and pondering it from every possible point of view, when all of a sudden something flashed on his mind and he realized at once what the Master wanted him to discover.

The following morning he visited the Master, wishing to let him know what happened to him. But the Master seeing him come burst out, ”You have it now, you have it now!”

What happened? For years he was saying, ”Not yet, not yet.” Then one day the disciple comes, and he has not even said a single word to the Master, and the Master says, ”You have it now, you have it now.”

The day you will understand my silence and not my words, there will be no need for you to tell me that you have attained it. I will know it immediately; even before you have known it, I will know it.

There is a very subtle relationship between the Master and the disciple. It is almost like a spiritual umbilical cord. The Master knows, and goes on saying, ”Not yet, not yet. Don’t say a single word. It is all foolish, whatsoever you have brought. It is all mind stuff, whatsoever you have brought. It has nothing to do with truth; it is still knowledge. Wait, not yet, don’t say anything.”

In Zen the disciple meditates on a koan, on a Zen puzzle, and comes to the Master, brings a reply, what he has come to understand. The ”Not yet, not yet” is for that, that you have not yet understood

– ”Go back, meditate again.” For example, the Zen Master will say, ”Go and listen to the sound of one hand clapping. Listen to the sound of one hand clapping,” and the disciple listens, and tries, and finds out, figures out what to answer, how to find the answer for this puzzle; and then he brings an answer. But the way you come, the quality of consciousness that you bring, the mind full of ideas and conclusions that you bring, is enough. Your presence is enough for the Master to feel, and he says, ”Not yet, not yet.” One day, suddenly, it has happened. It happens out of the blue, all of a sudden.

In fact spiritual explosion is exactly an explosion. It is not a gradual process. You don’t grow inch by inch. Either you are there or you are not there. Either you have known or you have not known.

There is no in between, it is a sudden flash. One meditates and meditates and meditates and one goes on penetrating into one’s own mind, looking into one’s own nature. By this very looking, one day, the look is so penetrating that the mind simply stops; awareness is so total that the mind is no longer created; attention is so perfect that the mind dissolves; and there is a lightning and suddenly you know. You know that nothing can be known, you know that ignorance is primordial, you know that life is a mystery and is going to remain a mystery, you know that truth is not only unknown but unknowable. You are freed from the illusion of knowledge.

Rushed the disciple towards the Master to tell him what had happened. Because when something of such a tremendous import happens, you would like to share it. And with whom to share? Who will understand you? Only the Master can understand. You would like to share it. And when the disciple reached the Master, the Master said, ”You have it now, you have it now.” He never allowed him to say a single word before, and he is not even allowing him now. First he was saying, ”Not yet, not yet. Keep quiet. Go back.” Now he says, ”No need to come. You have known. Keep quiet.”

When truth is known, you cannot say it. That’s why the Master says, ”I have known that you have known it. Now keep quiet. Now sit silently in front of me. Now let us be together – really together.

Now let me overflow into you and you overflow into me. Now let there be a communion, let the soul meet with the soul.” Now there is no need for the mind to communicate with the other mind.

You hold the hand of your friend. That’s a communication on the physical level. You say something to your friend. That is a communication on the mental level. Then you just remain in the presence of your friend – saying nothing, gesturing nothing, having nothing to say, just pure presences – then it is a spiritual communication. That communication is called communion.

I am trying to create a community here, a community of sannyasins. Community means people who are waiting or trying to have communion. Community means people who are being together to dissolve into each other. So whosoever is here with some egoist idea is not here at all. He will miss me, and he will miss this community that exists here.

Some people come to me and they say, ”In this ashram, people don’t seem to be much interested in others. They don’t take much interest.” This person is on some ego trip. He wants people to take interest in him. Why should they take interest in him? Here we are creating a situation in which nobody is going to help your ego, nobody is going to give you importance. If you are seeking importance, then there is the big world.

In my small world, if you come, don’t seek importance, don’t seek attention. Rather become attentive, rather become aware, and try to dissolve into the community that is getting ready here.

And it is easier for you to dissolve into it right now because it is in the beginning process. Once it has gone deep, it will be more difficult for you to take the jump because there will be a great gap.

Right now there is not much gap, a very small gap. You can take the jump very easily.

O how may I ever express that secret word?

O HOW CAN I SAY HE IS NOT LIKE THIS, AND HE IS LIKE THAT?

How to say God is like this or God is like that? There are many problems. First, the language is not adequate. Second, the listener is not ready. You appear to be listening, but you don’t listen, because listening needs a tremendous sensitivity. Your whole being should become your hearing.

You should hear from every cell of your body, from every hair of your body. You should hear from the eyes and from the hands and from the soles of your feet. You should hear with your totality. You should just become ears.

I have heard:

An attendant at the London Zoo was intrigued by two Beatle-haired youths strumming guitars earnestly outside the lions’ cage. ”My brother is the cool one,” announced one of the boys modestly.

”You put him in that empty cage over there and let one lion at a time into it and you will see how even the wild beasts fall for his music.”

So the zoo attendant led the brother into the empty cage, then shoved the first lion in with him.

Almost at once the lion seemed to smile and began dancing daintily to the music. A second lion was produced and proceeded to execute a cross between the twist and a gavotte.

Then a third lion entered the cage. In less time than it takes to tell he had pounced upon the poor guitarist and eaten him up. The zoo attendant patted the surviving brother sympathetically on the back. ”I was afraid that would happen,” he said sadly, ”when I let that deaf lion in there.”

You are deaf. You appear to be hearing and you appear to be seeing, but you are blind. You appear to be alive, but you are dead. Your aliveness depends on your sensitivity. If you are sensitive, only then can truth be in some indirect way hinted at. Only hints are possible, and hints are so indirect that if you listen very attentively, only then will you catch them.

O how can I say He is not like this, and He is like that?

IF I SAY THAT HE IS WITHIN ME, THE UNIVERSE IS ASHAMED.

How to say God is within, because then who is without? He is without too.

”IF I SAY HE IS WITHIN ME, THE UNIVERSE IS ASHAMED.” There have been a few mystics who have decided to say he is within. Mahavir decided that he is within. It is a partial statement of truth; it is not total. Or, Mohammed decided the other way; he said he is without. That too is a partial truth, not the total truth. Kabir is trying to move in a deeper realm. Mohammed says, ”He is without”; hence Mohammedans killed Mansur because Mansur declared, ”He is within me. I am God – ANAL

HAQ – I am the truth! ” Mohammedans could not tolerate it because they always say, ”God is there above in the heaven. How can you, a mortal, declare that he is within you or you are him? This is sacrilege. ”

Mahavir decided just the opposite. He said, ”He is within you, so don’t worship him anywhere else.

Don’t go to worship him in the river or in the sun or in the tree or in the moon or in the stars. Don’t go to worship him anywhere. He is not in the temples; he is within you.” This too is a partial truth because he is within and without.

Kabir says:

If I say that He is within me, the universe is ashamed:

IF L SAY THAT HE IS WITHOUT ME, IT IS FALSEHOOD.

HE MAKES THE INNER AND THE OUTER WORLDS TO BE INDIVISIBLY ONE; The inner and the outer is the division of the mind. The inner and outer do not exist in reality. What is inner? Have you pondered over it, ever? What is inner and what is outer? You say, ”This is the inside of my house.” And there is a door and you pass through the door and you say, ”This is the outside of my house.” But the same sky exists outside and the same sky exists inside. The inside and the outside are not two. You inhale and you exhale. When you exhale, the breath goes out; when you inhale, the breath goes in. The within is joined with the without – the inhalation is part of exhalation; the exhalation is part of inhalation. The breath that was mine just a moment before is no longer mine; it has become yours. And the breath that was yours is no longer yours; it has become mine. So you are not so without and I am not so within. We are joined together.

There is an apple on the tree; it is outside. You eat it, you digest it; within a few hours it becomes part of you. It is in your bloodstream. After a few months a part of it will have moved to your bones and a part of it will have become your consciousness, your mind, your awareness, your thinking. A part of the apple will become your meditation. And then one day you will die and your body will be buried under the earth, and the apple tree will take food from it. Again.... Your body will feed the apple tree and again you will circulate in the sap of the tree, and you will become the leaf of the tree and the fruit of the tree, and so on, so forth.

Nothing is within, nothing is without. We are joined together. The universe is one. Yes, that’s why we don’t call it a MULTIverse, we call it a UNIverse, because it is one. It is UNI, it is a unity.

THE CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS, BOTH ARE HIS FOOTSTOOLS.

HE IS NEITHER MANIFEST NOR HIDDEN, HE IS NEITHER REVEALED NOR UNREVEALED: THERE ARE NO WORDS TO TELL THAT WHICH HE IS.

Then how to tell? If we say ”within,” it is half; if we say ”without,” it is half. If we say, ”He is within and without,” it is confusing; then OUR distinctions, OUR categories, dissolve. Then it becomes very difficult to know who is who. It becomes very difficult to live. If you are me and I am you, then it will become very, very difficult to live. If you put your hand into my pocket, I cannot say, ”What are you doing? Are you a thief or a kleptomaniac or something?” I cannot say anything, because you are me and I am you. That’s why, you see, I don’t have any pockets. It will be difficult to decide.

Ordinary life will become very, very complicated. I don’t know my name, you don’t know your name; it will become very difficult.

I have heard:

The wealthy and aged society leader stepped out in the garden of his home during a party he was giving and discovered his young wife in the arms of another man. ”What is the meaning of this?”

shouted the outraged millionaire. ”Who is this man?”

After a moment’s embarrassing silence the young wife spoke up and said, ”I believe my husband is perfectly within his rights. What is your name?”

It is happening more and more. In a way nothing is wrong in it: nobody has any name. And what is the point of knowing the name of the other person, because all names are false? All names are arbitrary, they don’t say anything, but they are needed. The ordinary life, the practical life, will become impossible.

So Kabir says if we say he is within, that is half, and the world is ashamed, and the whole is ashamed. If we say he is without, that is not true, because he is within too. And if we say he is both and indivisibly one, then all distinctions drop and it becomes very impractical. So how to say it?

”THERE ARE NO WORDS TO TELL THAT WHICH HE IS.” He can be felt only in silence, and he can be showed only in silence. Yes, nothing can be said about him, but he can be showed to you.

And that is the meaning of the relationship between a Master and a disciple. The Master leads you somewhere, to some vision that has become part of his being. He takes you to his inner world so that you can see a little through his eyes, so that you can hear a little through his ears, so that you can touch reality a little through his hands. Once the glimpse is there, then things will become very easy.

And there is no need to disturb the practical world. Let it continue as it is. That’s why I don’t say renounce the world. I say be part of it. It is good. Just know that it is all arbitrary, that all the distinctions are only useful, not true. They have a utility but no truth in them. Use the distinctions, but never be lost in them.

Once when a government dignitary called O Wang was late in coming to Bokuju, a Zen Master, Bokuju Bokuju asked the officer why he was delayed. He said that he had attended a polo playing.

The Master asked, ”Who strikes the ball, the rider or the horse?” The officer replied, ”The rider.”

”Was he tired?” ”Yes, he was tired.” ”Was the horse tired?” ”It too was tired.” Bokuju then asked,

”Was the goalpost tired?” The officer was at a loss how to answer such a question. The goalpost?

After returning home, he spent his evening thinking of the Master’s strange question. In the middle of the night the solution dawned on him unexpectedly. The officer called on the Master next day and reported that he understood the Master’s question. Bokuju asked, ”Was the post tired?” ”Yes, tired!”

said the officer. Bokuju laughed and he said, ”You are right.”

Now this is a tremendous experience. Because the universe is one. The rider is tired, the horse is tired, what about the goalpost? The ordinary mind will say, ”What nonsense. A goalpost is dead.”

But if the universe is one – and indivisibly one, nothing can be dead – or nothing can be alive. Either everything is alive or everything is dead. If the universe is one, how can anything be dead? If God is life then nothing can be dead. And that is what dawned upon the officer, that when the Master says everything is one, then of course the goalpost must be tired.

Now scientists say that trees feel tired. Just within twenty years the fact has become known that trees feel tired, that trees feel happy, that trees feel sad, that trees feel angry, that trees feel loving.

Someday it is possible some scientist will stumble upon this fact too: that the goalpost is tired – feels tired, happy, sad, angry. If the universe is one, this is how it has to be.

When you come home tired, have you ever thought your shoes must be tired? It will be very confusing and you will get very worried; hence we don’t allow such disturbing truths into our consciousness. Scientists say we allow only two percent of all facts to enter into our consciousness; ninety-eight percent is denied entry. Otherwise life will become very, very difficult.

Unless you become very, very aware, life will become very, very difficult. If you become aware you can tackle more facts, you can allow more facts into your consciousness. When your awareness is perfect, you can allow a hundred percent of life to enter into you and it will not be confusing. When you have grown into consciousness, you can take the totality in. Then you will see the saint is the sinner and the sinner is the saint. Then you will see God is the devil and the devil is God. Then you will see matter is mind and mind is material.

That totality can be realized only when you have become so tremendously aware that your awareness is not disturbed by it. Ordinarily we need distinctions to keep things clear-cut: this man is bad, avoid him; this man is good, follow him; this man is good, imitate him; this man is bad, don’t come in contact with him, don’t become friendly to him, there is danger. This is poison and this is nectar; drink the nectar and avoid the poison.

I have heard a very beautiful story. Listen to it attentively.

Once there were two men who ate exactly the same food, but one had two bowls while the other had only one. The man with two bowls divided his food into bitter and sweet, and put only the bitter in one bowl and only the sweet in the other. The man with one bowl naturally mixed the bitter and the sweet together. As time passed, the first man grew thinner and thinner, and gradually wasted away, while the second, who ate just the same food, grew healthier and healthier daily. At last, the first saw his approaching death, and in desperation asked the second the secret of his vitality and vigor.

”You, having two bowls,” the second replied, ”divided the bitter from the sweet, and so believed in the importance of taste that you did not allow the food you took to sustain you with its own inner life.

But I had only one bowl and so mixing the bitter and the sweet together, have not been fooled by the matter of taste, for whatever I have been given to eat I have taken simply as food, and it has yielded its nourishment to me, praise God.”

The first man rose from his deathbed and with a great effort picked up one of his bowls and dashed it to pieces; and in the one bowl that remained he ate gratefully of the food his friend offered him and was whole again.

This is a beautiful story, a Sufi story. If you divide, you will be divided within too. If you divide existence into good and bad, God and devil, consciousness, unconsciousness, heaven and hell, this division is bound to create a division in you. You will be split in two; you will become a schizophrenic.

You will lose your togetherness; you will start falling into parts; you will no longer be integrated. Your perception, your vision, is divided; how can you be undivided! Your vision is your being. If you drop dividing and you start looking for the one, you will become one too – because whatsoever you see you become. Once you start eating in one bowl, the sweet and bitter both, you are nourished, because the contradictions are not contradictory. They are complementary.

Alan Watts has written about George Gurdjieff that he was a ”rascal saint.” That’s perfectly true. A real saint is bound to be a rascal saint because he will be bitter and sweet both. If he is just a saint

– just sweet and sweet and sweet – avoid him; otherwise you will get diabetes. A sweet saint is very dangerous. Just sweet? It will nauseate you. You will feel sick. The bitter is also needed.

When you feed on totality – indivisible totality – you are nourished. This is the meaning of this story: don’t divide.

But language divides; that’s why truth cannot be expressed. If you say, ”God is good,” it has become a false statement, because then who will be bad? If you say, ”God is light,” then who will be darkness?

To many sannyasins I have given names which mean darkness, night, or things like that, and I have always been watching whenever I give this name. To one sannyasin I gave the name NISHA, night.

Immediately, within two, three days, she wrote a letter, ”Osho, this name disturbs me very much.”

Just two, three days ago, to another sannyasin I gave the name YAMINI; that means night. Her letter has come. She must be here. Her letter has come, ”Osho, can’t you change my name? Yamini, night? I love light.”

We have a very dualistic ideology. God is light; then who is darkness? Then there must be two Gods – the god of the darkness also. Then not only are you schizophrenic, your whole existence is schizophrenic. Not only are you divided, you have divided existence itself.

No, day is beautiful, so is night. Day is godly, divine, so is night. You may be surprised to know the word ”day” comes the from the same root as ”divine.” They both come from the same root. So day is divine, and night? – nobody says night is divine. Night too is divine. And it will be better if you eat of both, day and night. It will be good if you have one bowl.

I give to my sannyasins one bowl.

Eat sweet and bitter, good and bad, consciousness,

unconsciousness. Enjoy both and you will be nourished, and you will become very, very strong.

And your strength will not be the opposite of softness, no. The stronger you will be, the more fragile too. And this is beauty, when a strong man is fragile like a flower. Strong like a sword and fragile like a flower – then you are total. Then you are undivided, then you are indivisible, then you are really an individual. ”Individual” means that which cannot be divided. You have come home, you have become one; now you can relax and rest.

But language by its very nature divides. If I say to you, ”You are my friend,” I have divided. Then I have said in my eyes somebody is my enemy; you are my friend. I say, ”I love you”; that means I hate somebody. I say, ”I am happy”; that means unhappiness is not welcome. Language divides.

Language is based in schizophrenia, based in a deep split.

THERE ARE NO WORDS TO TELL THAT WHICH HE IS.

THE RIVER AND ITS WAVES ARE ONE SURF: WHERE IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE

RIVER AND ITS WAVES?

WHEN THE WAVE RISES, IT IS THE WATER; AND WHEN IT FALLS, IT IS THE SAME WATER

AGAIN. TELL ME, SIR, WHERE IS THE DISTINCTION?

Attain to a perception which has no distinctions – of the lower and the higher, of the material and the spiritual. Attain to a perception which is transcendental, because the wave is the ocean and the ocean is the wave. They are together. Have you ever seen the ocean without the waves, and have you ever seen a wave without the ocean? They are together. They are two polarities of one.

Oneness exists between the two. There are so many colors, seven colors, but they are all part of one light. The whole spectrum belongs to one ray of light. From the darkest black to the whitest white, the whole spectrum belongs to one, to the light.

... Tell me, Sir, where is the distinction?

BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN NAMED AS WAVE, SHALL IT NO LONGER BE CONSIDERED AS

WATER?

These are just names – utilitarian, good, but never be deceived by the utility. Remember the truth.

Utility is practical; truth is real. Utility is needed but is not the nature of things. When you are not there to name and the ocean is left alone, which is the wave and which is the ocean? There is nobody to make the distinction. The ocean is the wave and the wave is the ocean. When you have gone home and the ocean is left alone, there are no waves and no ocean; it is all oneness. You come and you bring your distinction. Nothing is wrong in it if your remember that just by naming a wave as wave you have not created any distinction, but we become very, very deceived by our names.

An embarrassing moment ensued on upper Broadway the day the Queen of Greece came up to Barnard College to receive an honorary degree. One of the guests at the ceremony was a crusty old psychiatrist from Columbia University across the avenue.

”Come over and meet the Queen of Greece,” smiled the dean of Barnard. The old psychiatrist shook hands graciously, then cackled to the dean – loud enough for Her Majesty to overhear, ”She seems harmless enough. How long has she thought she is the Queen?”

Now a psychiatrist always lives with people among whom somebody thinks he is a king, and somebody is a queen, somebody is Adolf Hitler, and somebody is Napoleon – wwith mad people.

He says, ”She seems harmless enough. How long has she thought she is the Queen?” But in fact whether you only think you are a queen or a king or you really are, what is the difference?

It happened in a madhouse in India that when Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister, he went to see the madhouse. A man was being released on that day and the superintendent thought it would be good if the prime minister released him by his own hand. So the man was brought out.

Jawaharlal asked him, ”How long have you been here?” He said, ”I have been here for three years, and these people are very good. They have cured me absolutely.” Then suddenly he asked, ”But who are you, sir?” So Jawaharlal said, ”You don’t know me? I am Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, prime minister of India.” The man said, ”Don’t be worried. These people will cure you within three years.

That’s what I used to think when I came here! I suffered from the same trouble.”

But really is there any difference? If you ask the mystics they say there is none. A madman in his madness thinks he is the prime minister, and somebody else is the prime minister and becomes mad. It is not very much of a difference. They may have traveled different routes. One is mad, that’s why he thinks he is the prime minister; another is the prime minister, that’s why he is mad. Maybe practically there is a distinction; but in reality none.

Because it has been named as wave, shall it no longer be considered as water?

WITHIN THE ABSOLUTE, THE WORLDS ARE BEING TOLD LIKE BEADS: LOOK UPON THAT ROSARY WITH THE EYES OF WISDOM.

What are the eyes of wisdom? Knowledge dropped, you attain to the eyes of wisdom. Ignorance covered, you become knowledgeable. Knowledge dropped, ignorance accepted as ultimate, you become wise.

So these are the three types of people in the world: the ignorant who is trying to become knowledgeable, the knowledgeable who has forgotten his ignorance, and the wise who has dropped knowledge and has come to accept his ignorance as ultimate and is no longer making any effort to know anything whatsoever. He has come to know that nothing can be known, that knowledge is impossible, that ignorance is the very nature of existence because it is a mystery. In his ignorance he has become relaxed. He rests in his ignorance. He has become innocent like a child. Then one becomes wise – not by knowing, but by knowing that nothing can be known, by knowing that all knowledge is illusion, by knowing that the very effort is doomed to fail, by knowing that existence is mysterious and it is not available for those people who are ready to analyze, dissect.

It is available for those people who are ready to fall in love with it, for those people who can sing a song with it, dance a dance with it. God is available to singers and dancers and people who are innocent.

CHAPTER 6

Trust your nature

16 December 1976 am in Buddha Hall

Question 1

LIKE ALL OTHER INDIAN SAINTS, WHY DO YOU NOT LIKE TO BE THE SAINT OF THE

MASSES?

I AM NOT AN INDIAN – nor am I an American or a Chinese. I don’t believe in countries and I don’t believe in any political divisions. Because of political divisions, humanity has suffered enough. No more of that nonsense. I have to live somewhere, so I live here, but I don’t belong to India. I am not a nationalist, because all nationalism is in some way or other a form of fascism.

If you think you are an Indian or a German or a Japanese, you are a fascist – and you are a danger to humanity, to peace, to love, to progress. You are not a religious person. A nationalist is never a religious person, cannot be. And a nationalist is a neurotic. The whole of human history is enough proof for it.

I am not an Indian, the first thing. And the second thing: I am not a saint, either.

You ask me: ”Like all other Indian saints, why do you not like to be the saint of the masses?” First, I am not an Indian; and second, I am not a saint. The very claim that one is a saint is a condemnation of everybody else. In the very claim, others are condemned. If I am a saint then you are a sinner

– you have to be sinners. Otherwise how can I exist? To create one saint, you will need millions of sinners. It is very costly and uneconomical.

I would like a world where the sinners and the saints have disappeared. They are two aspects of the same coin. Lao Tzu says in his TAO TE CHING, ”When the world was really natural and religious, there was not a saint and not a sinner.” When the saints entered in the world, sin entered. When you say somebody is a saint, you have started divisions: the good and the bad, that which has to be done and that which has to be avoided. You don’t accept life in its totality; you become a chooser.

And I teach choiceless awareness. I don’t teach any choosing on your part, because whatsoever you choose is going to be a wrong choice – because you will be there as a chooser. Accept the total and don’t go on labeling things – this is good and that is bad.

The division between the sinner and the saint is again an egoistic division. It is very oppressive.

It condemns. It is very hateful. A saint looks at you with the eyes of ”holier than thou” – ”I am the chosen one, and I am going to heaven and you all are going to hell.” No, that is not my outlook at all. I declare you are also holy, divine. There exists not a single being who is not holy. To me the word ”holy” means WHOLE. We belong to one whole; we are all holy. We are parts of one universal consciousness. We are ripples of one ocean. That’s what Kabir was saying yesterday: the wave is not different from the ocean. Even the dirty wave is not different from the ocean. Even the dirty wave is as much part of the ocean as is the clean wave.

And what do you call dirty and what do you call clean? All are human conceptions. A person can be a saint in one country and may not be thought of as a saint in another. A person can be a saint in one century and may not be thought of as a saint in another. Just think: Mohammed with a sword in his hand. Can any Jaina or Buddhist call him a saint? It is impossible. A sword in the hand? Mohammed cannot be called a saint according to the Jainas and the Buddhists. Can Mohammedans call Mahavir or Buddha a saint, when people are suffering and being tortured and you are just sitting under your bodhi trees doing nothing? What type of sainthood is this? These are escapists, not saints.

You may be surprised to know that Jainas don’t call Krishna a saint. They call him the greatest sinner ever because he persuaded Arjuna for the war. Arjuna was going to become a Jaina monk; he was saying, ”I don’t want all this war, all this violence. I want to renounce this world. This is not worth it,” and Krishna persuaded him, ”Do your duty. If God has willed so, let it be so. You simply say ’amen,’ and go into it. You just become a vehicle, instrumental.” Arjuna argued and argued, but finally Krishna persuaded him. So Jainas say the whole responsibility of the Mahabharat War, the great Indian war, goes to Krishna. He is responsible for the whole violence.

What have they done to Krishna, do you know? They have thrown him into the seventh hell. Of course, you are free to do so because you write your stories. In the Jaina PURANAS, Krishna is in the seventh hell, the worst hell, and he will have to be there up to the very end of this world.

Now who is a saint? How do you define a saint? And who is going to define and who has the criterion? Different philosophies will define differently.

I am not a saint, because I don’t allow myself to be defined by anybody else. I am just myself. Call me sinner, call me saint – that is your attitude – but I am simply myself. And I leave myself undefined because, to me, reality is indefinable and I am part of reality, as you are part of reality.

When you want to renounce something, renounce definitions, renounce categories. Don’t allow anybody to pigeonhole you.

And the moment you know your indefinable quality, you have transcended the world and you have attained to nirvana, you have become enlightened. An enlightened person is not a saint nor a sinner, cannot be. These are the categories of the unenlightened people. People who have not yet become aware, they think in terms of good and bad. One who has become aware knows nothing as bad, nothing as good. He is simply a witness to all.

So I am neither an Indian nor a saint.

”Like all other Indian saints, why do you not like to be the saint of the masses?” And who are these masses? These neurotic people all around, this insane world all around – this is the mass? Who are these masses? These people who are blind, these are the masses? This vast darkness all around the earth...?

I don’t belong to the masses; I cannot. I belong to the whole but not to the masses. To the masses belong the politicians. Because they have to exploit the masses and they have to lead the masses, of course they have to follow the masses too. If you want to become the leader of the masses, then you have to show that you follow the masses. That is the bribery you have to pay. If you want to exploit the masses, you become the saint of the masses.

I am not interested in any sort of exploitation. I am myself. If somebody wants to partake of the truth that I am, he can come. He can participate in my being.

And remember, I don’t allow an easy approach, because I want everybody to know well that truth has to be paid for. You have to sacrifice much. It is not cheap. And I don’t want to make it cheap. I don’t allow you an easy approach towards me. I will create all sorts of hindrances between you and me. Only those who are REALLY seekers and have an intense fire in them will be able to approach me.

I am not interested in the masses at all. I am not a politician, and I am not interested in becoming a leader of the masses, nor the servant of the masses, because those are just diplomatic games, political games.

I am here, available. If you have the intense desire and thirst, you can approach me. And again I repeat, the approach is not easy; I will hinder you in many ways; I will test you in many ways. Only when I feel that you are really ready to surrender, to sacrifice yourself – only when I see that truth is even more valuable to you than your life – then you belong to me. Otherwise not.

This question has come from some Indian who has fallen in the wrong company here. He should not be here really. He has asked at least fifteen questions, all foolish. But he seems to be thinking that he knows much. Friend, you are in the wrong company. Escape from here. These are mad people. These are not scholars here, and I am not interested in scholars and I am not interested in pundits and people who think they know. If they know, they know. Why should they come here?

What are you doing? Such a wise guy, what are you doing here? You should not be here in the first place. You know already? Very good. I am happy that you know. Then go to the masses and help the masses and become a saint of the masses. What are you doing here? Why are you wasting time here?

If you don’t know, only then come to me. And if you don’t know, then don’t ask questions as if you know. Then ask questions out of your ignorance.

These questions are parrotlike things; you simply go on repeating words.

I have heard:

Once upon a time there was a parrot who could say only three little words: ”Who is it?” One day when the parrot was alone in the house there was a loud knock on the door.

”Who is it?” screeched the parrot.

”It is the plumber,” the visitor responded.

”Who is it?” repeated the parrot.

”It is the plumber, I tell you,” was the reply from the outside. ”You called me to tell me your cellar was flooded.”

Again the parrot called, ”Who is it?”

By this time the plumber became so angry that he fainted. A neighbor rushed over to see the cause of the commotion and, gazing at the unfamiliar face of the prostrate plumber, he asked, ”Who is it?”

The parrot answered, ”It is the plumber.”

The pundit is a parrot, and a very foolish parrot at that, because parrots can be forgiven, but human beings cannot be forgiven so easily.

If you know, there is no need to be here. If you don’t know, then please never ask questions from your knowledge, from your so-called knowledge. The first lesson here is to know that you don’t know.

And I am not saying that you don’t know. If you know, it is very good; but I am not interested in

”knowers.” You can go and teach the masses and help the poor people. It is because of you and people like you they are still poor, and it is because of you and people like you that they are still living in hell. And they will live in hell unless leaders like you stop serving them. Unless do-gooders like you stop doing good, they will remain in their misery.

But my interest is only in those people who have come to know that they don’t know, that they are ignorant. In India it is very difficult. Knowledge has become part of the Indian blood. For centuries they have been like parrots, repeating SHASTRAS, scriptures – memorizing – not knowing anything but feeling very egoistic that they know. Whenever such a person comes here, I am simply surprised why he should come here. Out of all the places, this place is not for you, people like you – not at all. Come here only if you can throw your knowledge outside the gate. Where you leave your shoes, leave your knowledge too, your head too. Only then can you understand what is happening here. If it is not possible for you, there is no need to come.

And I am not interested in the masses, because if you are interested in the masses you have to be manipulated by the masses. I am not in any way a mass man, because I am very individual. I have my own way, my own life, my own style, and I don’t allow anybody to interfere with it. If you want to become a man of the masses, the whole mass interferes with you. They teach you how you should sit and how you should stand and what you should say and what you should not say and what you should eat and what you should not eat and when you should go to bed and when you should get up. They teach you everything. This is very ironical that the people who think they are leaders of the masses and gurus of the masses in fact are the slaves of the masses. The masses teach them how to be. They don’t have any freedom. And the masses go on looking from everywhere: ”Are you really following what the mass wants to be followed? Are you really following the idea of the mass, what a saint should be like?” Or if you are not following, then you become a fallen saint; then you are a sinner.

I don’t allow anybody to dictate my life. I don’t allow anybody’s life to be dictated by me. That’s why I don’t give any discipline to my people. I simply confer freedom on them and a responsibility to be free. Never interfere with anybody’s life, and don’t allow anybody to interfere with your life. Be individualistic. I am not a socialist, I am not a communist. I believe in the individual. I am absolutely an unashamed individualist.

I was moving around the country, I was moving among the masses for many years, but I was surprised to see the fact that the masses try to manipulate you. Rather than learning anything from you, rather than taking anything from you, they try to manipulate you.

Let me tell you one story I was just reading the other day: Farmer Jones, of Clinton, New Jersey, made history at the State Fair one day when he bought a prize rooster for the highest price ever paid in the history of the poultry trade. When he got it home, however, he found he simply could not control the rooster’s romantic tendencies. Not only the hens, but the ducks, geese, and swans, not to mention a few stray nanny goats and sows, fled before the rooster’s tireless onslaughts.

Farmer Jones finally collared his gay bird and grumbled, ”I did not pay a record price for you to waste your energies on every form of animal life in New Jersey. You are henceforth to confine your activities exclusively to the hens. Keep on the way you are going, and you will die of exhaustion.”

The rooster made light of his owner’s fears, but sure enough, Farmer Jones found him a few mornings later flat on his back, his eyes glazed, his legs straight up in the air, with a couple of buzzards ominously circling closer and closer above him.

”What did I tell you, you durn fool?” roared the farmer. ”I knew the life you were leading would get you sooner or later!”

But then, to his amazement, the supposedly expired rooster opened one eye and whispered hoarsely, ”Pipe down, will you? When you are trying to romance a buzzard, you have got to play it their way!”

If you want to become a saint of the masses, you can become one only in THEIR way. I am not interested in anybody else’s way. I have found my way and my goal. I only allow people here who are ready to understand me and who are no longer obsessed with wanting to control me or are obsessed with wanting to be controlled by me. I am a free man, and I confer freedom on you. My sannyas is a declaration of freedom. It is not a discipline; it is a freedom.

The second question, from the same gentleman:

Question 2

IS IT NOT HARMFUL TO AN INDIVIDUAL AND ALSO TO SOCIETY TO LIVE WITHOUT THE

BARRIERS OF NORMS? IF SO, THEN WHY DO YOU PREACH THAT YOUR SANNYASINS

SHOULD LIVE AS THEY LIKE? MIND ALWAYS GOES THE WRONG WAY IF NOT RESTRICTED.

And who is going to restrict the mind? The mind of the society? Who is going to restrict the mind?

The mind of the dead people, the dead moralists, the dead priests? Who is going to restrict the mind? You? Who are you except the mind?

The first thing to be understood: up to now humanity has lived under a curse, and the curse is that we have never been allowed to trust our nature. We have always been told, ”Trust your nature and you will go wrong.” Mistrust, restrict, control. Don’t go according to your feel. We have been told that human nature is somehow basically evil. This is stupid, this is foolish and poisonous. Human nature is not evil. Human nature is divine. And if the evil has arisen, it has arisen because of restrictions.

Now let me explain it to you.

You never see animals going to war. Of course there are fights sometimes, but they are individual fights – not world wars with all the crows of the east fighting with all the crows of the west or all the dogs of India fighting all the dogs of Pakistan. It is not. Dogs are not so foolish, neither are crows.

Yes, sometimes they fight, and there is nothing wrong in it. If their freedom is violated, they fight, but the fight is individual. It is not a world war.

Now what have you done? You have repressed humanity and you have not allowed individuals to be angry sometimes – which is natural. The ultimate total result is that everybody goes on gathering his anger, goes on repressing the anger; then one day everybody is so full of poison that it explodes in a world war. Every ten years a world war is needed. And who is responsible for these wars? Your so-called saints and moralists, do-gooders, the people who have never allowed you to be natural.

Have you ever seen any dog killing another dog? Yes, they fight sometimes – but just fight. Never has a dog killed another dog. Man is the only animal who kills another man. No crow has ever killed any other crow. No lion has ever killed another lion. Man is the only species of animal that kills its own kind. What has happened to man? Has he fallen lower than the animals? Then who is responsible? Only one thing is missing from the animals: they don’t have saints and moralists.

Priests – Christian and Hindu and Mohammedan and Jaina – they don’t have. They don’t have temples, mosques, Bibles and Vedas, that’s all. That is the only difference.

Still there are a few primitive societies where, down through the ages, murder has never happened, because nobody has poisoned their mind for morality, nobody has trained them to be moral. They are natural people. When you are natural you function harmoniously. Sometimes you become angry, but that is natural – and it is momentary.

A person who never becomes angry and goes on controlling his anger is very dangerous. Beware of him; he can kill you. If your husband never becomes angry, report him to the police. A husband who sometimes becomes angry is just a natural human being, there is no fear about it. A husband who never becomes angry will one day suddenly jump and suffocate you. And he will do it as if he is possessed by something. Murderers have been telling the courts down through the ages,

”We committed the crime, but we were possessed.” Who possessed them? Their own unconscious, repressed unconscious, exploded.

Have you watched a simple fact? If you have a picture of a beautiful bitch and bring it to a dog, he will not be interested at all. Dogs are not playboys. Not that they don’t love bitches, they love tremendously, but in a picture, in pornography, they will not be interested. Because to create pornography you need saints. First repress the sexual instinct, the natural instinct, and tell people that it is wrong and evil. When they repress their sexual instinct, the repressed instinct finds outlets.

Now it is difficult to go and watch a beautiful woman passing by the road. Then what to do? Lock your room and look at the PLAYBOY magazine. That is safer; nobody comes to know. You can hide your PLAYBOY magazine in the Bible and you can pretend you are reading the Bible. Only man is pornographic. No other animal is pornographic. These are simple facts.

Who has made man pornographic? Primitives are not – still are not. Women are naked and move naked – and without any fear. And what type of civilization do you say you are living in?

A woman cannot pass through the roads without being pinched on the bottom, without being treated inhumanly. A woman cannot walk in the night alone. And this is civilization. And people are just obsessed with sex twenty-four hours a day. Who has given this obsession to man? Animals are sexual but not obsessed; they are natural. When sex becomes an obsession, it takes perverted forms; and these perverted forms are rooted in the moralizers and their teachings.

The so-called religious people-have never trusted human nature. They talk about trust, but they have never trusted God. They trust rules, laws; they never trust love. They talk about God, but the talk is just empty taLk. They trust in the police, in the court. They trust in hell fire. They trust in creating fear and in creating greed. If you are saintly and good and moral, you will have heaven and all the pleasures of paradise, FIRDAUS. Or, if you are not moral, then you will suffer hell fire – and eternally, remember – forever and forever.

These are fear and greed. They have been manipulating the human mind through fear and greed.

They want you to become free of fear and greed – and their whole teaching is rooted in it. They don’t trust.

I trust you and I trust your nature. I trust animal nature. If nature is allowed its own course, yes, there will be a little anger sometimes and there will be a little flaring too, but nothing is wrong in it. It is human and it is beautiful. But there will be no war.

Psychologists say all your weapons are phallic. Because you could not penetrate a woman’s body, you penetrate somebody’s body with a sword. The sword is a phallic symbol. It is beautiful to love a woman, but to penetrate somebody’s body with a sword is ugly. But this is how things have been.

You ask me: ”Is it not harmful to an individual and also to society to live without the barriers of norms?” You have lived with barriers and with norms. What has happened? Look at the state of humanity today. It is a neurotic earth, a great madhouse. This is what has happened out of your norms, idealism, perfectionism, moralism. Out of all your commandments this has happened. The whole earth has turned into a neurotic camp, a big madhouse. And still you are afraid and still you go on. This is a vicious circle.

It is as if you make a person fast and when he fasts he becomes of course hungry and he starts looking obsessively for food. Then, thinking and seeing that he has become obsessed with food, you put him in chains, because otherwise he will break into somebody’s kitchen. Now you put him in chains because you say that if he is not put in chains, he is dangerous – he can break into somebody’s kitchen. He cannot be relied upon. Then you put him in chains and you continue forcing him to fast. And then you become more and more afraid because he is getting mad. This is a vicious circle. In the first place, why has he become so obsessed with food? Your disciplining too much for fasting has created this illness. Fasting is not natural.

Yes, sometimes it happens in animals, but they don’t BELIEVE in fasting, they don’t have a philosophy of fasting. Sometimes it happens. One day the dog feels sick and he will not eat. This is natural. He simply does not eat because he does not FEEL like eating. He moves with his feeling; it is not a rule. Nobody has taught him to fast. In fact he will go and eat grass and vomit; the grass functions and helps him to vomit; he will vomit. Nobody has taught him. And he will not eat unless the desire to eat arises again. He moves with nature. When he feels like eating, he eats; when he does not feel like eating, he does not eat. This is what I would call the real life.

Sometimes when you feel like NOT eating, don’t eat. I am not against fasting. I am against the philosophy of fasting. Don’t make a rule that every Sunday you have to fast. That is foolish because how can you decide that every Sunday you will not feel like eating? Sometimes it may be Friday when you don’t feel like eating. Then what will you do? You will force yourself to eat because it is Friday. When you feel like eating, eat. When you don’t feel like eating, don’t eat. Move with your feeling, and by and by you will be in tune with your nature.

To be in tune with nature is to be religious, to me. My definition of religion is: to be in tune with nature. And that is the meaning of the Indian word DHARMA; it means ”nature,” intrinsic nature.

Trust nature and don’t violate it.

But you have been taught to violate, so people who have lived starved lives, when they come here in this ashram – which is a totally different phenomenon; they have never seen any ashram like this; no ashram like this has ever existed – they are very much surprised. They come here to see sad people, dead people, dragging somehow, chanting mantras, reading books; and when they see people dancing – men and women dancing together, holding hands, people hugging each other, people so full of love and joy – they say, ”What type of religion is this?” Religion has to be of the cemetery; it cannot be of life. Religion has to be negative. Men and women holding hands? This is dangerous. We cannot trust man, we cannot trust woman. This is dangerous; this is playing with fire. Create restrictions, make China walls....

No, I trust nature. I don’t trust your laws. Your laws have corrupted the whole of humanity. Enough is enough! The time has come when all the old, rotten religions have to be burned completely and a totally new concept of religion has to arise – life-affirmative, a religion of love and not of law, a religion of nature and not of discipline, a religion of totality and not of perfection, a religion of feeling and not of thinking. The heart should become the master, and then things settle on their own.

If you can trust nature, by and by you become quiet, silent, happy, joyful, celebrating – because nature is celebrating. Nature is a celebration. Look all around. Can you see any flower which looks like your saints? Can you see any rainbow which looks like your saints? Or any cloud, bird singing, and the light reflecting in the river, and the stars? The world is celebrating. The world is not sad.

The world is a song, an utterly beautiful song, and the dance continues. Become part of this dance and trust your nature.

If you trust your nature, by and by you will come closer to the cosmic nature. That is the only way.

You are part of the cosmic. When you trust yourself, you have trusted the cosmic in you. Through that goes the way. From that small thread, you can reach to the very goal. Trusting yourself, you have trusted God who has made you. Not trusting yourself, you have distrusted God who has made you.

Who has given you sex?

Of course God has given you sex.

And who has taught you

BRAHMACHARYA and celibacy? Your so-called saints. Your saints are against God. Who has given you hunger? God. And who has taught you fasting? Your saints.

I am for God and against your saints because your saints are against God. I teach you to be natural, to be spontaneous. And I don’t teach you repression, restriction. I teach you freedom. If you restrict yourself too much and repress yourself too much, you will die before your death, and then you will live a stale life.

Let me tell you one beautiful story:

They tell about a wise old rabbi in the heart of Russia whose advice was slavishly followed by the members of his synagogue. One morning he was cornered by a troubled follower who explained,

”I invested all my savings in two hundred chickens. When I went out to the coop this morning, a hundred of them had died. What should I do?”

”It is the voice of the Lord,” quoth the rabbi. ”Say a prayer. Then double the sales price of the chickens you have left and you will not have lost a single kopek.”

But the next morning the villager was back to report, ”Another fifty of my chickens perished last night.”

”The ways of the Lord are sometimes mysterious,” said the rabbi. ”The fifty chickens that have survived are obviously the finest and the most valuable of the flock. Say another prayer of thanks and again double the sales price and you will not have lost a single kopek.”

Alas! The next morning the last fifty chickens had bitten the dust. ”Now what should I do?” wailed the villager.

”My son,” quoth the rabbi, ”I have lots more invaluable advice I could give you, but what use would that be to you? You have no more chickens.”

When I look at your so-called religious people, I see they have no more life. No advice can be of any help to them. They are dead people. They should really be in their graves. They are walking illegally. They are ghosts; they are living a posthumous existence. They have committed suicide and are still walking and moving. I feel sorry for them, but these people are dangerous too because they go on doing the same to others that has been done to them by others. They go on teaching the same nonsense to other people. They go on crippling small children, paralyzing new life springs, poisoning new wells. That’s what they can do. That’s all that they know. They have been unable to live; they make others unable to live.

Watch. Never get into the trap of a man who is dead. It is better to be irreligious. It is better not lo believe in God and not to go to the church and the mosque and the temple – but be alive, because life is the real church of God. Forget all about God and nothing is lost, but start destroying life and everything is lost – because life is God.

I teach you life, love, because that’s how I see God is.

And these bondages that have been created by religion are just in your idea. If you become aware, you can drop them immediately, instantly.

”How come,” the hostess of a kid’s birthday party asked a little girl in attendance, ”that your younger brother is so shy? He has not moved from that corner all afternoon.”

”He is not shy at all,” answered the little girl. ”He has never had on a necktie before – and he thinks he is tied to something.”

All your religions are just neckties. You are not tied to anything. It is just your idea that you are tied.

Drop all discipline and all ties and start moving and let God live through you – and let God live through you in freedom. Trust freedom and trust God, and’ you will never be a loser.

I am not saying there will always be flowers and flowers in your life. No, there are thorns, but they too are good. And I am not saying that your life will always be sweet. It will many times be very, very bitter, but that’s how life grows – through dialectics. I am not saying you will always be good.

Sometimes you will be very bad, but one thing will be certain about you: when you are bad you will be authentically bad, when you are good you will be authentically good. One can trust, one can rely upon you. When you are angry, one can rely on it that your anger is not false, not cold; it is hot and alive. And when you love, one can rely upon you that it is hot and warm.

Remember, a person who cannot be angry cannot be loving. The roses grow only with the thorns.

If you cannot be hotly angry in some moment, you cannot be hotly in love – because you cannot be hot, you cannot be warm, you remain frozen. And if you have repressed anger too much, you are always afraid to move in love, because who knows?

A man came to me and he said he could not move into deep orgasm while making love. A perfectly healthy young man. What has gone wrong with him? He cannot move into orgasm; or at the most the orgasm remains only local, it does not spread all over his body. And a local orgasm is not of much significance. When the orgasm is in the total and every fibre of your being throbs with new life

– you are refreshed, rejuvenated – for one moment you become part of God, part of the tremendous creativity that surrounds you. You lose yourself. You are no longer an ego, you melt. You don’t have any boundaries then.

I inquired about his anger. He said, ”But why are you asking about anger, because my question is about love? I cannot love deeply.” I said, ”Forget about love because first we have to think about anger. Because if you cannot love deeply, that means you cannot be angry deeply.” He was surprised, but that’s how it turned out to be. From his very childhood, he had been brought up in a very religious family and he had always been told not to be angry, to control anger. He has learned to control. He has become so efficient that he does not know that he controls. He has really become a controller. Now the control has become unconscious. He is a very controlled person. Everybody respects him – in the society he will succeed everywhere. He IS a success. But in his inner life he is a failure. He cannot even love.

I told him, ”You start by being angry, because my understanding is that when you come to a peak in your orgasm, you cannot allow it because, if you allow it, you are afraid maybe with it the anger, the repressed anger, may also be allowed.” He said, ”What are you saying? I always dream that I have killed my woman. And I always dream that 1 kill her, suffocate her, while making love to her. And I am afraid that if I lose control I will not be able to resist the temptation to suffocate and kill her.”

Now the anger has become a great force inside him. He is so afraid to decontrol, how can he love?

It is impossible. And if you miss love, you will miss prayer and you will miss God too.

This repressive society, this repressive civilization has failed utterly. Yet you are not aware.

I have heard a beautiful story:

In the days when Khrushchev (and, somehow, we miss him) was Mr. Big in the Soviet Union, he often admitted that Stalin treated him occasionally like a court jester or clown and ordered him,

”Dance the gopak.” ”And”, Khrushchev would add, ”I danced.”

Somebody in the crowd would always cry out, ”Why did you let him make a fool of you? And Khrushchev would demand sternly, ”Who asked that question? Stand up!” Inevitably, nobody answered, and after the appropriate pause, Khrushchev would conclude, ”That, comrades, is why I danced too.”

Just out of fear, Stalin can kill.

Stalin is death, and your priests have been death, representatives of death not of God.

I represent life. Your priests have been in conspiracy with death and they have crippled life. Your priests talk about God, but it seems they are partners with the devil. A great conspiracy....

And they have destroyed the whole human mind. They have uprooted you from your feeling part; they have made you hang in your head. Now you don’t know how you feel; that’s why you cannot trust your feeling and you have always to look to somebody to tell you what to do. In the childhood the parents go on telling you do this and don’t do that. Then in the school, the teacher; then in the university, the professor; then in the society, the boss, the politician, the leader. Everywhere you are being told what to do and what not to do. And you are always seeking somebody to dominate you so that you can become dependent. Because you don’t know how to get commandments from your own heart, from your own being, you always depend on some authority outside.

This is ugly, this is miserable, this should not be.

I am not an authority here. At the most a midwife, but not an authority. I can help you to be reborn, but I cannot dominate you, I cannot dictate things to you. You hanker for it. People come to me and they say, ”Osho, tell us exactly what we have to do.” But why can’t you listen to your own heart? You have life bubbling inside you. The spring is there, the source is there. Go in. I can tell you how to go in, I can teach you the devices for how to go in, but take your commandments from there. There is the Bible inside you – the REAL book, the Veda, the real knowledge.

Get your instructions from there, and once you start getting your instructions from your innermost core, you will be a free man and a happy man. A free man is happy; an unfree man is never happy.

You are not meant to be slaves. You are meant to be masters. That’s why I call my sannyasins

”swami”; swami means a master, one who has taken his reins in his own hands.

Question 3

BELOVED OSHO, WHILE I WAS ROAMING AROUND NEAR BOMBAY, I STOPPED AT

MUKTANANDA’S ASHRAM FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS. UNEXPECTEDLY, WHILE I WAS THERE

HE POURED ON ME MUCH GRACE AND VERY SPECIAL ATTENTION, EVEN THOUGH THE

FIRST THING I SAID WAS I AM A DISCIPLE OF BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH. I FELT

HONORED BY HIM YET WAS A BIT UNCOMFORTABLE. MAINLY, I FELT GUILT TOWARD YOU. I AM BACK NOW TO YOU BUT VERY CONFUSED. PLEASE HELP ME.

First thing, whatsoever you do, never feel guilty – whatsoever you do. To go to Muktananda’s ashram is not a sin. It may be your karma, but it is not a sin. You have not violated any rule, because I don’t have any rules. How can you violate? I don’t give you rules, because you are such neurotic people that out of the rules you will create guilt. Never associate guilt with me, around me, in association with me. I don’t want you to create any guilt, to ever feel guilty. Whatsoever you do, do it totally.

Now, you have been to Muktanand’s ashram: you should have been there totally. You must have been thinking about me there, and you must have been feeling guilty. You have been taught wrong things.

To be with me is not a monogamy. It is not a husband-wife relationship, that the wife cannot look at another man or the husband cannot look at another woman. I make you absolutely free. How many times do I have to repeat it? You can go to Muktananda or anywhere – to hell even, you can go. And if you wander around Bombay too much, suddenly one day you will find yourself in hell, remember.

Because a direct route goes from Bombay to hell.

And this is surprising how you managed to reach Muktananda’s ashram by wandering around Bombay. It is far away from Bombay. But it may be the same guilt: you cannot even take the responsibility that ”I WENT.” You cannot even say that? How poor. You cannot even take your responsibility that ”I went to Muktananda’s ashram.” You say, ”... while I was roaming around near Bombay, I stopped at Muktananda’s ashram – FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS”! Just look at the absurdity.

Be responsible. If you have been there, you have been there, and nothing is wrong in it. Muktananda is also God; maybe a mediocre god but still a god. You are allowed to go to mediocre gods too. And don’t feel guilty; because you are already punished. Muktananda is a punishment. What more punishment do you need?

Remember responsibility always. Whatsoever you do, do consciously; don’t wander. The questioner is trying to say that it was not conscious, deliberate – ”by chance.” But nothing is by chance; everything is your responsibility. Don’t be accidental. This is one of the ways how we try to throw responsibility onto others’ shoulders. Your act is your act. Next time, please, if you go, there is no need to wander so much. You can go directly.

And then ”a couple of days” – just by wandering. A couple of minutes may have been okay, but a couple of days means you wanted to be there. But nothing is wrong in it. What I am insisting on is: accept it, that you wanted to be there.

And it is good. I know how you feel. You are shopping for a guru, and it is a supermarket. There are many gurus in the world, and how can you just decide that this man is the right one? You will have to go here and there; sometimes to Muktananda, sometimes to Sai Baba, sometimes to somebody else. Nothing is wrong in it.

If something of me has penetrated your heart, you will come back. If not, then it is good that you don’t come back. If something beneficial happens to you there, then allow it to happen, with all my blessings, because that is what we are trying to do. If it happens in Muktananda’s ashram, good.

It should happen, that is the point. I am not in any obsession with Poona, that it should happen in Poona. If your enlightenment happens in Muktananda’s ashram, very, very good. I will be happy, tremendously happy it happened. Poona is not the point. This small piece of land... how many people can become enlightened here? The whole world is yours; become enlightened anywhere you want, choose any place.

And it is natural for the mind to go here and there. One wavers a little and then by and by one settles.

And it is good that one should waver a little. So don’t force yourself to be here if the idea arises, which is natural, to go and visit some other ashrams and see what is happening there. You may be just deceived here. Who knows? I may be just a fake, a fraud. So who knows? Just go and see what is happening there. Maybe something is really happening there and you are benefited. Good.

If not, I am available here; you can come back. But don’t create any guilt.

”Unexpectedly, while I was there he poured on me much grace and very special attention, even though the first thing I said was I am a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.” That’s why! It is so simple and so political; there is nothing much in it, not a mystery. Next time go without wearing orange, without a MALA, shave your head so he cannot recognize you; and then see.

Mulla Nasrudin died. He went to heaven, but of course, as you are concerned with going to some other ashram, he lived in heaven a few days and then he said to God, ”I have never seen hell. And who knows, maybe things are better there. And rumors have come that they have air-conditioned it and much dancing and drinking goes on there and all the beautiful people of the world are there.

Here there are only sad saints, holy people, sitting dusty and dirty under the trees. No song – not even a newspaper! No radio, no tv. And rumors are that all the politicians are there and all the scientists are there and they have created a beautiful place.”

God said, ”You can go and see and have a visit.” And a two-days’ visa was given to him.

He went and he was received with great celebration. And it was really beautiful; he had never even dreamt of such a beautiful place. He thought, ”What nonsense! Even God would enjoy to be here.

Nobody knows that hell has changed completely, and we go on believing in old books where heaven was praised and hell was condemned. Now things are totally different; things are the other way! ”

For two days he enjoyed. He gambled and drank and danced, and all the beautiful women from Cleopatra to Marilyn Monroe – all were there. It was tremendously beautiful, and two days just passed like two seconds. He was very sorry.

He went back and said to God, ”I don’t want to be in heaven. Please give me a permanent visa; I want to go there.”

God said, ”But remember, once you have a permanent change of address, you will not be allowed to come back.”

He said, ”Who wants to come back? Don’t waste time! And I don’t want to go through the red tape.

Give me an order immediately that I want to go to hell. I don’t want to stay here a single moment.”

And of course, it was arranged. He reached hell, and suddenly almost a dozen devils jumped on him and started beating him. He said, ”What are you doing?” And he looked around; that beautiful scene was not there – all was fire and flames. And he said, ”This looks like the old hell. Have I missed something? Have I reached a wrong place?”

They said, ”No, you are in the right place.”

”But,” he said, ”just the other day I was here for two days and it was so beautiful.”

They laughed and said, ”That was not the real hell. It was just a showpiece for the visitors. Now you have come as a permanent resident here; now you will know the real thing.”

So next time, don’t talk about me. If you talk about me, certainly, it is simple and diplomatic that much grace and love and attention should be given to you.

And it worked too: ”I felt honored by him....” Special attention; who will not feel honored? Here I never give any special attention to anybody. Even if you want to see me you will have to wait for days. The appointment is not so easy. And I don’t pay any special attention to anybody, because here I really mean to work, I mean business.

Special attention is given to you just to buttress your ego... and that’s how things go on. The guru buttresses the ego of the disciple and the disciple buttresses the ego of the guru; and a mutual understanding happens and things go well and everything runs smoothly. They go on lubricating each other. Here, nothing of that sort.,I am very businesslike; I don’t give any special attention to you. Because the very desire to get special attention is wrong. What are you going to do with the special attention you get? You will feed your ego. Everybody wants to be specially attended to.

Why? Because everybody wants to be somebody special.

So of course, there is nothing mysterious in it: ”I felt honored by him....” The special attention worked on your ego.

If you want to be here with me, remember, I am not playing any game of the ego with you. Things are straight, direct. You are here to dissolve yourself, and I am here to help you die. It is going to be arduous, but all growth is painful.

But if you want children’s toys, then you can go anywhere you want to. Maybe you need them right now. Maybe you are still childish, juvenile, not a mature person. Then you will need something like that.

But never feel guilty. I don’t want you to feel guilty for anything, whatsoever it is. Unconditionally, I want to say to you that I don’t want to create guilt in you.

Question 4

IT IS FOUND THAT REMEMBRANCE OF ”BELOVED’ OR ”DARLING” IS MORE SPONTANEOUS

AND EASY THAN THE REMEMBRANCE OF ”GOD” OR ”SUPREME SELF.” WHY IS IT SO?

It is so simple. Why should it not be so? Your beloved is real; your God is just a bogus concept, empty, immaterial, just a word. If you go deep in it, there is nothing in it. Your God is just a word; your beloved is a reality. My God is a reality; your God is not a reality. Your God is just a word heard unconsciously; it goes on reverberating, vibrating in you, but it is just a word. What does it mean? It has no meaning. Your beloved, of course, is significant.

That’s why I say forget about God the concept, the word, the theological idea; rather, love – love your beloved – and love her so deeply, or him so deeply, that a moment comes when you can feel the beloved not as the body but as the soul. That will be the door of the temple of God. Love totally, and through total love, prayer becomes, by and by, a natural phenomenon. Love is transformed into prayer. Each beloved, each lover, becomes a window to God.

So I don’t teach you: go against love. I teach you: go through love. That is the whole difference between my teaching and the teaching of the traditional, so-called saints. I teach you go through love; that is natural. But go so totally, so utterly lost in it that by and by it is not just a superficial thing; you can start feeling the soul of the other. In that moment, you will be able to see the whole of existence filled with soul.

If you have looked into the eyes of your beloved and seen something of the ineffable, the indefinable, then look at the tree and you will see the same thing there too. Then look at the rose and you will find the same eyes there too. Then run around and you will see he is everywhere. But the first glimpse will be in your beloved; and that is natural.

Love is the natural way to God.

Two very small boys were playing marbles together when a very, very pretty little girl walked by. One of the boys exclaimed fervently to his pal, ”Brother, when I stop hating girls, she is the one I am going to stop hating first!”

From the very childhood, from the very beginning, love takes hold of you. Maybe you are not yet able to define it, maybe you can still think only in terms of ”hate,” that you will ”not hate” this person.

It is a negative definition of love, still love is negative – but by and by it will become positive. By and by even the positivity will disappear; it will become existential. Then it is prayer.

If you can go on diving deep into love, one day you will find that you have arrived at God.

Mistress Mulla Nasrudin complained to the school principal that her thirteen-year-old son seemed to be spending most of his time staring at the girls in their summer miniskirts. ”Don’t worry,” were the principal’s reassuring words. ”He is just going through a stage that won’t last more than the rest of his life.”

Love is something that lasts your whole life. You begin in love; you should end in love. Then the circle is complete. You are born out of love; you should die in love. Then the circle is complete.

But your God is bogus, your God is out of fear; or your God is just a concept given by others to you.

A little girl – 1974 model – had been on dozens of jet planes in her time, but this was her first overnight journey in an upper berth of a Pullman car. Somewhat frightened, she called out at regular intervals to her mother below, ”Mommy, are you there?”

After many hours of this a gentleman across the aisle piped up, ”Yes, mommy is here. And I am here too. We are all trying to get a little sleep. So for heaven’s sake, stop that confounded noise.”

There was a moment of silence, and then a quavering little voice called out, ”Mommy, was that God?”

That’s your concept of God: fear. Your God means your father, magnified; your headmaster, magnified; or the head constable. What do you mean by your God? You don’t have any experience.

Rather than thinking of God as your father, it is better to think of God as your beloved; because a father is an authoritative figure, unnatural, social, formal. Once it never existed; sometime it may disappear again. It is better to think of God as your beloved; and it is better to move through the beloved towards the ultimate beloved. You will be moving naturally, spontaneously, and there will be no repression, and there will be no unnecessary harshness in your lifestyle – you will not become a masochist.

And if you can go to God laughing, why go weeping? If you can go to God dancing, then why not go dancing? I don’t teach you a God who is against life and love. I teach you a God who is the very depth, the very ground of life and love.

You can drop the word ”God” if it creates trouble for you. Replace it with ”love,” and let ”love” to be with a lowercase l, not with a capital L. Don’t make much fuss about it. A lowercase l, ordinary love – the love that happens between two friends, that happens between a husband and wife, that happens between a child and a mother, that happens, always happens, in relationship.

Become more and more loving and you will be closer to God, closer and closer. The day your whole being is a state of love, you have arrived: God is revealed to you. Yes, Jesus is right when he says,

”God is love.” But my insistence is even more than Jesus’; I say, ”Love is God.” Jesus says God is love; I say love is God. And the word ”God” has become very dirty because it has been used and misused by politicians and priests for so long. It is a dirty word now; you can drop it. ”Love” is fresher, more virgin, more existential, truer.

Love, and whomsoever you love, you will find he has become a God. Love, and you will always find God in the end.

CHAPTER 7

Enter into your own body

17 December 1976 am in Buddha Hall

Il. 22. man tu par utar kanh jaiho

TO WHAT SHORE WOULD YOU CROSS, O MY HEART? THERE IS NO TRAVELER BEFORE

YOU, THERE IS NO ROAD.

WHERE IS THE MOVEMENT, WHERE IS THE REST, ON THAT SHORE?

THERE IS NO WATER; NO BOAT, NO BOATMAN IS THERE;

THERE IS NOT SO MUCH AS A ROPE TO TOW THE BOAT, NOR A MAN TO DRAW IT.

NO EARTH, NO SKY, NO TIME, NO THING, IS THERE: NO SHORE, NO FORD!

THERE, THERE IS NEITHER BODY NOR MIND. AND WHERE IS THE PLACE THAT SHALL STILL

THE THIRST OF THE SOUL? YOU SHALL FIND NAUGHT IN THAT EMPTINESS.

BE STRONG, AND ENTER INTO YOUR OWN BODY: FOR THERE YOUR FOOTHOLD IS FIRM.

CONSIDER IT WELL, O MY HEART! GO NOT ELSEWHERE.

KABIR SAYS: ”PUT ALL IMAGINATION AWAY, AND STAND FAST IN THAT WHICH YOU ARE.”

II. 81. satgur soi daya kar dinha

IT IS THE MERCY OF MY TRUE GURU THAT HAS MADE ME TO KNOW THE UNKNOWN; I HAVE LEARNED FROM HIM HOW TO WALK WITHOUT FEET, TO SEE WITHOUT EYES, TO

HEAR WITHOUT EARS, TO DRINK WITHOUT MOUTH, TO FLY WITHOUT WINGS; I HAVE BROUGHT MY LOVE AND MY MEDITATION INTO THE LAND WHERE THERE IS NO SUN

AND MOON, NOR DAY AND NIGHT.

WITHOUT EATING, I HAVE TASTED OF THE SWEETNESS OF NECTAR, AND WITHOUT WATER, I HAVE QUENCHED MY THIRST.

WHERE THERE IS THE RESPONSE OF DELIGHT, THERE IS THE

FULLNESS OF JOY. BEFORE WHOM CAN THAT JOY BE UTTERED?

KABIR SAYS: ”THE GURU IS GREAT BEYOND WORDS, AND GREAT IS THE GOOD FORTUNE

OF THE DISCIPLE.”

GOD IS WITHIN AND WITHOUT, because only God is. In fact to say ”God is” is a repetition because God is never ”is not.” God is the very isness of existence. We can say ”the house is” because once the house was not and once again the house will not be. To call the house ”is” is okay because the

”is not” is possible. We can say ”the man is” but we cannot say ”God is,” because only he is, always has been, always will be. God is the very isness, God is existence itself.

Then why say the word ”God” at all? Why use it? We use it very symbolically, to indicate something.

When we say ”God is” we mean existence is not without a soul. We mean that existence is not dead.

We mean that existence is alive, throbbing with love, compassion, consciousness, conscience; that existence is intimate; that there is a possibility of addressing existence and there is a possibility of getting the response. When we say ”God is” we mean that existence allows the possibility of a dialogue. You can have a dialogue with it; you can call it ”thou” and it will not be meaningless; and you can be in such a state that prayer becomes possible, that communion becomes possible.

That’s all the word ”God” carries. Existence is not like a dead rock; it is an alive flower. It will respond to you. If you love it, love will flow towards you. If you move towards it, it will move towards you. If you seek it, it will seek you. Existence is not care-less. If you are in love with existence, existence is in love with you. That’s all that we mean when we call existence divine or when we say God is.

Remember it. It is a poetic way of saying a truth. It is not a fact. It is poetry, it is romance. And religion is romance with existence.

Yes, it is more like falling in love rather than arguing towards a conclusion.

That’s why Kabir says God is within and without, but the journey has to start from the within. Unless you have known God withinwards, you will not be able to comprehend him in the outside. Unless you have seen him within yourself, you will not be able to see him in the trees, in the birds, in the stars. How can you see him in the tree, in the rock, if you have not been able to feel him within yourself? Your center of being is the closest door to God. If you have not been able to enter from there, you cannot enter from anywhere else.

God is within and without, both, because only he is; still, the journey starts from your innermost core. First you have to look withinwards. If from the very beginning you start looking for God in the outside, your God will be nothing but an imagination, a falsity.

This point has to be understood very deeply. The whole approach of Kabir – the whole approach of all the mystics of the world – depends on this. If you see God outside and you have not seen him within, it is going to be just a dream, a projection, a wish fulfillment; so don’t start the journey that way. The journey starts by closing the eyes; the journey ends by opening the eyes. First, one closes the eyes in meditation, goes deep into oneself. When one has realized, touched the very core, has known who is there; one opens the eyes – and finds him all over, spread everywhere.

But you cannot begin from the outside. That’s where organized religion misses the whole point. The Christian goes to the church, the Hindu goes to the temple, the Mohammedan goes to the mosque.

The Mohammedan travels thousands of miles to go to Mecca, the Hindu goes to Kailash; and Kabir says he is neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash. He is within you. Not that he is not in Kaaba and Kailash!

Once you have found him within yourself you will find him everywhere – but then there will be no point of going to Kaaba and Kailash because wherever you are, wherever you look, you will find Kaaba, you will find Kailash.

There is a very beautiful story in the life of Nanak, another great mystic of the same calibre as Kabir.

Nanak went to Mecca; he traveled with some Mohammedan travelers who were on a pilgrimage.

They reached Mecca, the holy stone of Kaaba. It was evening and the sun was setting, and they were very tired; and Nanak immediately fell asleep. The travelers, the companions, were very much surprised. They used to think of Nanak as a very holy man, but he was doing something stupid: his legs were towards the Kaaba when he lay down and fell asleep. They became very much afraid; this is a sacrilege. And by the time they could do something about it, the chief priest came, and he said,

”Who is this man? Is he an atheist, he does not believe in God? He does not seem to be a Muslim.

Throw him out of here!”

All this noise and talk, and Nanak opened his eyes, and he said, ”What is the matter?” They said, ”This cannot be allowed. Your legs are towards Kaaba, and this is a sin.” Nanak laughed uproariously, and he said, ”You can put my legs anywhere you like, but, one thing before you do it, tell me if this is not so: wherever my legs are, they will always point towards God – because he is everywhere.”

Up to this point, the story seems to be absolutely realistic; then it becomes a parable. The priest was very angry; he took hold of the feet of Nanak and turned his feet away from Kaaba. And the parable says Kaaba turned towards Nanak’s feet. And he moved him in every direction, and Kaaba turned to that direction.

Now, it is a parable; I don’t say now it is realistic. Half the story seems to be exactly right. The other part seems to be very poetic – true, but not factual. It is very significant though. God is everywhere.

Once you have found him within, you will find him everywhere. Then you cannot find a place where he is not. But don’t start the journey from the outward. Don’t start going to Kaaba and Kailash, to the temple and the mosque; otherwise you have taken a wrong step. And one wrong step leads to another. You start imagining.

Once a Sufi stayed with me. He had many disciples, thousands of disciples, and his disciples used to come to me and say their Master is great, he sees God everywhere – in the trees, in the rocks, in the birds, animals, even in the dog – everywhere he sees God. When he came to stay with me, the first night we sat together, I looked at him. He was a very beautiful man – but I could see that his God is a projection; he is living in his imagination, in a reverie, in a dream. The dream is beautiful, because when you dream about God everywhere, even the dream changes your life – even the idea that God is everywhere brings tremendous changes – but it is not radical. It is mental; it is a mind game. It is a sort of auto-hypnosis.

I asked him, ”Please, tell me how you started to see God everywhere.” And he was very reverent –

to everything. He would go and bow down before a rock, any rock, and he would go down and touch the tree; and he was really very reverent and he had a very peaceful quality all around him. He was a poet, but not a mystic. I asked him, ”Tell me how you started to see God.”

He said, ”How I started? I started to think, continuously, ’God is everywhere,’ and whatsoever I would touch, I would think, ’Here is God.’ I would look into the eyes of a man, and I would say, ’Here is God.’ And I would repeat it and repeat it, and by repeating it continuously for three years, one day it suddenly dawned over me. he was everywhere.”

I told him, ”You do one thing. It took three years? You do one thing. You will be here with me for seven days; for three days you stop thinking about God.”

He said, ”What do you mean? I cannot do it. For thirty years I have been continuously thinking about God, and it has given me tremendous peace and I have been very, very blissful – and why should I stop for three days?”

I said, ”Just to see whether, if you stop for three days, you can still see God or not. If you cannot see, then these thirty years you have lived in a beautiful dream – sweet, but a dream all the same.”

He became intrigued. He was afraid to try it, but then he became more and more interested too.

Whenever you become afraid of something, you become infatuated too. First he denied, but I could see that he would not be able to resist the temptation. Next morning he said, ”Okay, I will try. I trust God, and I know he is everywhere. Just by not thinking do you think I will not be able to see him?”

I said, ”I don’t say anything. There is no need to conclude right now. Let the experiment be done. For three days you stop thinking, you stop imagining – you stop altogether. You just move backwards, thirty years back. Become that man who has never thought about God and who has not projected God everywhere.”

By the third day, the man became ordinary. The aura disappeared, his eyes became empty. That peace was no longer there. He started crying, and he said, ”You have disturbed me very much. My whole experience is lost.”

I said, ”I have not disturbed you. You can start imagining again. I have simply showed you one truth, that even if you go on imagining for thirty lives, it will remain your imagination. You have started wrongly – and it is time you should change, because this is of no use. Thirty years of constant auto-hypnotizing, and gone within three days? It is of no worth.”

Start from the within. First, rather than projecting God.... It is going to be a projection – you don’t know whether God is or is not. You know only the word, you know the tradition, you know the priest, you know the image that has been put into your mind. If you are a Christian, you can project Christ very easily and you can see Christ very easily. It will be a hallucination; it will be a sort of neurosis.

f you are a Hindu, you can see Krishna very easily, you can project. If you are a Buddhist, you can see Buddha.

Mind can create the illusion so beautifully and so realistically that even reality, itself pales down before it, becomes faint, looks unreal. And you have been doing it every night n your dreams. You know, your mind has a faculty – a faculty to create images. Not only to create images but to make them appear so real that again and again you forget.,very night you dream, every morning you come to know.hat it was a dream and not a reality; and again when you dream the next night, again you become a victim, again you forget that it is a dream, again it looks real, absolutely real.

Even absurdities look real – that which cannot be imagined – be, even that. You are talking to your wife and suddenly -lour wife turns into a horse. And even then the doubt does not arise. In a dream the doubt never arises. You trust even this. You cannot say, ”What nonsense. How can it be?” So, everything is possible in a dream, and your trust is tremendous. In the morning when you are awake, all is one, and you laugh. And this has been going on for years... again you will fall a victim.

This is the dream faculty of the mind. A part of the mind unctions as a projector – just exactly like the projector in he movie house. The projector is hidden behind – you never look at the projector, you don’t even think about the projector. You look at the screen. The screen is empty; the projector goes on. Just a game of light and shadow... and you become o absorbed, you become so lost. You are real and the screen, absolutely false, but you forget yourself, and whatsoever going on the screen takes a reality of its own. And you NOW it is not real, but you go on forgetting again and again.

Sometime try it in a movie house; it is a good meditation: just try to remember that it is unreal, that it is unreal.... Go on remembering that it is unreal and the screen is empty, and you will be surprised: for a few seconds you can remember; again you have forgotten, again it has become the reality.

Whenever you forget yourself, the dream becomes real. Whenever you remember yourself – that ”I am real,” you shake yourself – the screen becomes unreal and all that is going on becomes unreal.

Let me put it in this way: The world looks real in the same proportion in which you are unconscious, asleep; the more aware you become, the world becomes more and more unreal.

Even this so-called world becomes unreal, so what to say about your ideas? You project God, you project this and that – heaven and hell – they are all projections. You give them reality by becoming unconscious.

So a man who thinks of God as his surrounding, as being everywhere, has started a wrong journey.

What will he do? He can only auto-hypnotize himself. This is not going to lead to knowledge, to realization. This is getting into the unreality even deeper than before. This is getting into a sort of neurosis.

That’s why Freud is right when he says that the so-called religions are nothing but collective neuroses. The so-called religions are! Buddha may not have been a neurotic, Jesus may not have been a neurotic; but Christians are, Buddhists are. The difference is Buddha starts from his withinwards, from his inwards, and the Buddhist starts from the idea. Jesus looks into his being, and the Christian looks at Jesus, looks outside. There is the whole difference.

Kabir says:

TO WHAT SHORE WOULD YOU CROSS, O MY HEART? THERE IS

NO TRAVELER BEFORE YOU, THERE IS NO ROAD.

If you go outside of your being you will be lost, Kabir says. ”... THERE IS NO TRAVELER BEFORE

YOU” – whom will you follow, my heart? ”... THERE IS NO ROAD :” – how will you seek God?

Where will you go to seek him?

WHERE IS THE MOVEMENT, WHERE IS THE REST, ON THAT SHORE?

THERE IS NO WATER, NO BOAT, NO BOATMAN IS THERE,

THERE IS NOT SO MUCH AS A ROPE TO TOW THE BOAT, NOR A MAN TO DRAW IT.

But you can fill your screen of the mind with your own imagination. You can imagine a road, you can imagine a Master leading you, you can imagine the goal; you can create a dream.

In reality, there is no road. In reality, there is no other shore. This is the only shore there is. This is the only reality there is. There is no other reality; there is no separate reality. The reality is one. You can approach it in two ways: either with eyes full of dream or eyes without any dream.

NO EARTH, NO SKY, NO TIME, NO THING, IS THERE: NO SHORE, NO FORD!

If you go into the without, you will be moving into nothingness, emptiness. Of course, you can fill this emptiness with your own images and with your own ideas, but you are creating a neurosis –

a religious neurosis, but it is a neurosis. When you go to the temple and you pray to a god who is outside you, what are you doing? Have you ever thought about it? Go to the madhouse, to the lunatic asylum, and see there. Somebody is sitting there and talking to his wife, and there is nobody around. He is sitting alone and talking to his wife. And you know that he is mad; the wife is not there and he is talking, he is imagining. He not only talks from his side, he answers from his wife’s side too. This is a madman, you say. And then you go to the mosque, temple, church, and somebody is bowing down to some god nobody can see. Is it in any way different? It is again madness.

To whom are you praying? Who is there outside you? Your prayer is a sort of a dream which you are creating. Yes, Sigmund Freud is right – as he is right in many things. He has a tremendous grip on truth. Religion seems to be a collective neurosis – but the religion of the Christians, the Hindus, and the Mohammedans; not the religion of Buddha, Jesus, Nanak, Kabir; not the religion I am talking about.

The real religion consists of going inwards. And when you want to go inwards you have to drop all thinking, you have to drop all images. You have to become completely empty; only then can you go inwards. To go inwards, this is a basic need: that all thinking stops completely. Then you cannot hypnotize yourself. Without thinking, hypnosis cannot exist. All imagery stops. Only in that state of no-imagination, no-thought, no-mind, one comes to feel the reality that is there at the innermost core of your being.

Once you have felt it there, then open your eyes and you will see it everywhere. Now it is totally different; the quality is no longer the same. Before, it was an imagination; now it is a reality. It is not that you are creating it; now it is there. It is a revelation.

But ordinarily, we are accustomed to looking outside. Our eyes open outwards. When you close your eyes you see only darkness and nothing, or at the most, you see reflections of the outside passing. You close your eyes and you see the outside world reflected: a friend’s face; somebody has insulted you, and the episode; or you have gone to the market to purchase something and you are haggling with the shopkeeper. Things like that – just reflections of the outside. Either you look outside or you look into the reflections of the outside.

But the eyes cannot see withinwards and the ears cannot hear withinwards, the hands cannot touch withinwards. All the senses open towards the outside; they are meant for it. The senses are bridges; they are meant to open outside. They reveal the surface of reality not its depth. If you want to know the depth, you will have to go beyond the senses into your own being. There you see without eyes.

There you hear without ears. There you touch without your hands.

But our habit is very, very powerful, so when a person becomes fed up with the world, feels frustrated with the world, sees that there is nothing there, and starts thinking about religion, again the old habit works: he again starts looking for God outside. He was looking for money; now he looks for God.

First he was looking for political power; now he looks for religious power. But he looks outside. His old habit remains the same; he has not changed at all.

I have heard about a closemouthed politician who shot his girl friend and was convicted of murder in the first degree. Just before he was hanged, he was asked, ”Have you anything you wish to say?”

His answer was, ”Not at this time.”

Just the old habit. Now there is going to be no time anymore, he is going to be hanged, but that was his old habit. A politician always tries to avoid answering anything. Even if he answers, he never answers; he goes roundabout. You cannot figure out whether he says yes or no. It is very difficult to decide what he is saying. Or simply he refuses to answer. And this man is going to die the next moment, and he says, ”Not at this time” – and there is going to be no time any longer. Just the old habit.

The mind is trained to look outside, so when you start looking for God, also, you start looking for him outside. You go into the scripture – the Bible, the Veda, the Koran, the Geeta – or you go to a priest or you go to the temple or you go to somebody for advice – but you never go inwards. And the only place to go is to go in.

The only place to be is to be in! From there the door opens. From there you knock at the doors of reality. From there comes the realization of that which is.

And you have been gone so far in the outside world – after money, after power, after sex, after this and that – that it takes very long to come back. And you come back very reluctantly.

I have heard:

A moonshiner in the Georgia hills was caught redhanded by a posse of revenue agents. The moonshiner, despite his seventy years and long gray beard, tore himself loose from the sheriffs grasp, and headed crosscountry with the speed of a gazelle. The sheriff, a kindly – and lazy – soul, marveled at the old boy’s agility, and said, ”Let’s let him go.”

Five days passed, however, and the moonshiner failed to return. Just as his relatives and neighbors were concluding that his unusual exertions had been the death of him, he stumbled home in a state of complete disrepair ”Where you been, Beauregard?” asked his partner. The moonshiner answered simply, ”I been coming back.”

He had gone so far away – five days it took for him to come back.

And you have been gone so far away for so many lives.

But don’t start calculating how long it will take for you to come back, because wherever you are, you can close your eyes and you are in. It is not a question of really coming back. Wherever you are, you close your eyes and you are in.

It is almost as if somebody is running away from the sun, his back towards the sun as he is rushing farther away and farther away, and then one day he realizes this is foolish – the sun is the source of life. What is he 40 do? WilL he have to travel the same distance that he has traveled away from the sun? No. He just turns his back and the sun is there. The sun has always been there.

This is what is known as conversion. Conversion means a turning of one hundred and eighty degrees

– a sudden turn. This is what I call sannyas: a sudden turn. It is not a question that you will have to come the same distance again that you have traveled away. You cannot travel away from God! How can you travel away from yourself? Wherever you go you remain yourself. You can go to hell, and you will remain yourself. You can go to the moon or to some faraway star; you will remain yourself.

And wherever you are ready to close your eyes – turn your face inwards – the inner reality starts revealing.

So it is not a question of calculating how many lives we have been gone away. It is a moment – a sudden moment of illumination.

You may have been reading Zen stories. And all the Zen stories have one very absurd thing: the satori, the Zen enlightenment, happens very suddenly. You cannot figure it out, how it happened.

The Master hits the disciple on the head, and the story simply says: ”And he became enlightened.”

Now this seems to be absolutely absurd. A sinner – a man who has been doing so many wrong things in his life and just a single moment before was unenlightened, ignorant – has become enlightened within a single moment? Yes, this is how it happens.

Time is not needed. Time is needed to travel outwards. To come in, time is not needed, time is not the factor. Space is needed to go outside. Space is not needed to come inside; space is not the factor.

Yes, it is how it happens. Sometimes just a hit from the Master, or sometimes just a look from the Master, and it can happen. And not only that, sometimes it can happen without the Master.

It is said about Lao Tzu that he was sitting under a tree when he became enlightened, but he was not doing anything. Buddha was meditating; Lao Tzu was not doing anything, not even meditation.

He was just sitting, and an old leaf fell from the tree, started falling, slowly, lazily, like a feather, and he watched it falling, and it settled on the ground... and he became enlightened. Now, there was no Master, and he was not even meditating. What happened? Just watching the leaf falling? In that very moment, he must have become so tremendously aware, so absorbingly aware, that the mind stopped, there was no thought. He simply watched the leaf falling. The leaf settled on the ground; something settled in himself too. He was no longer the same person. The old is dead, the new is born. It is a rebirth.

And this is what I teach you too. So don’t be very calculative and arithmetical; they are not needed for the inner journey. Just be quiet, silent, more and more relaxing, more and more in tune with nature; and more and more, sit with closed eyes, just doing nothing – not even meditating – just doing nothing. If nothing happens don’t be worried. If you can accept that nothing is happening, that too is okay; then some day something is going to happen which will transform you.

One day, for no visible cause at all, one settles. Or something absolutely irrelevant may become instrumental. You are sitting with closed eyes – a child starts laughing loudly, and the very laughter becomes the old leaf. Or your wife has dropped something in the kitchen, and the very noise, and suddenly something is broken inside you, a breakthrough.

It can happen any moment, it can happen in any situation, because it is your innermost nature. It is already there; it has not to be produced and it has not to be created. You have brought this treasure with you.

But you go on looking outside and you remain a beggar. Come in and become emperors.

THERE, THERE IS NEITHER BODY NOR MIND: AND WHERE IS THE PLACE THAT SHALL STILL

THE THIRST OF THE SOUL?

YOU SHALL FIND NAUGHT IN THAT EMPTINESS.

BE STRONG, AND ENTER INTO YOUR OWN BODY.

Don’t go outside.

Kabir is a great lover of the body – and all the great mystics have been lovers of the body – because the body is the real temple of God. And if you find somebody condemning the body, know from the very beginning that he knows nothing. If somebody is against the body, he has not known anything at all. He does not even know the ABCD of spirituality. He has not even begun. If he condemns the body he is still afraid of the body. If he condemns the body he is a dualist: he thinks himself separate from the body. If he condemns the body he still has great lust and greed in him. If he condemns the body, it means the body still tempts him too much and he shivers and trembles before the body.

He is antagonistic to the body because he has not yet been able to understand what this beautiful phenomenon is that we call the body. The body is the temple of God. God is enshrined in it; God is embodied in it. It is God’s body.

”BE STRONG, AND ENTER INTO YOUR OWN BODY:” If you don’t enter into your own body, you will be chasing shadows and nothing will be the outcome. You can go on rushing and speeding, and you will never reach anywhere because the place to reach is within you. The goal to reach is in the seeker; the seeker is the sought.

”BE STRONG....” And what does Kabir mean when he says, ”Be strong”? He means, then don’t be weak; these people who are against the body are all weaklings. They have become afraid of their own body. When you are afraid of somebody, you are thought to be a coward, but think of the Person who is afraid of his own body. He is the worst coward. You cannot find a weaker person than him.

There are so-called saints who will not allow their body to rest. They are afraid because if you give the body rest, then the body demands more. They will not give right food to the body. They will fast because they are afraid, because if you give food to the body, the body creates energy. Energy wants to delight, energy wants to love, energy wants to dance; so don’t give food to the body. Fast, starve the body. They slowly kill the body, by and by.

I have heard Mulla Nasrudin was going for a long trip to London; he had to go.

He persuaded his brother to take care of his Siamese cat while he was away. Nasrudin dearly loved that Siamese cat, but the brother definitely did not. The very moment Nasrudin set foot back at the airport, therefore, he phoned his brother to check on his cat’s health. The brother announced curtly,

”Your cat died,” and hung up.

For days, Nasrudin was inconsolable. Finally, however, he phoned his brother again to point out, ”It was needlessly cruel and sadistic of you to tell me that bluntly that my poor, poor cat had passed away.” ”What did you expect me to do?” demanded the brother. ”You could have broken the bad news gradually,” grumbled Nasrudin. ”First, you could have said the cat was playing on the roof.

Later you could have called to say he fell off. The next morning you could have reported he had broken his leg. Then, when I came to get him, you could have told me he had passed away during the night. Well – you did not have it in you to be that civilized. Now tell me – how is Mama?”

The brother pondered momentarily, then announced, ”She is playing on the roof.”

And your so-called saints are always playing on the roof – just killing themselves, gradually. They are suicidal people, your saints are suicidal people. Of course, not courageous enough to do it in one stroke. They do it slowly – starving, torturing the body, destroying the body by and by, in steps.

Other suicidal people are more courageous; they do it in a single moment. And these people go on lingering, playing on the roof.

Kabir is not against the body. He cannot be. He knows that the body is the temple of God. When you starve the body, you starve God himself. When you don’t allow rest to the body, you don’t allow rest to the God embodied there.

Be worshipful, be respectful towards your body. God has chosen it to be his residence.

And the body is a miracle; it is tremendously beautiful, tremendously complex. There is no other thing so complex, so subtle as the body. You don’t know anything about it. You have only looked at it in the mirror. You have never looked at it from the within; otherwise it is a universe in itself.

That’s what the mystics have always been saying: that the body is a miniature universe. If you see it from the inside, it is so vast – millions and millions of cells, and each cell alive with its own life, and each cell functioning in such an intelligent manner that it seems almost incredible, impossible, unbelievable.

You eat food, and.the body transforms it into blood, bones, marrow. You eat food, and the body transforms it into consciousness, thought. A miracle is happening every moment. And each cell functions so systematically, in such an orderly way, in such an inner discipline, that it seems almost not possible – millions of cells. Seventy million cells are there in your single body – seventy million souls. Each cell has its own soul. And how they function! And how they function in such a coherence, in such a rhythm and harmony. And the same cells become the eyes and the same cells become the skin and the same cells become your liver and your heart and your marrow and your mind and your brain. The same cells specialize – then they become specialized cells – but they are the same cells. And how they move, and how subtly and silently they work.

There is a possibility that cancer is nothing but some cell going insane inside you, who has lost track, who is no longer functioning intelligently and has gone berserk. There is a possibility that cancer is nothing but a cell gone out of tune. Otherwise millions and millions of cells are working in such a sane way that even your human society is nothing compared to it. Your society is almost insane –

as if everybody is a cancer cell.

In your body, God is manifested. You have to go withinwards. You have not yet acquainted yourself with this temple.

”BE STRONG...” – don’t be a weakling and don’t be a coward and don’t try to escape from the fact of your body. Rather, penetrate into it, go deep into it, go into the mystery of it.

”BE STRONG, AND ENTER INTO YOUR OWN BODY:” Don’t look for God in the sky; look for God within your own body. Kabir is very realistic, very scientific.

... and enter into your own body:

FOR THERE YOUR FOOTHOLD IS FIRM.

Because there you are rooted.

The body is your earth; you are rooted in the body.

Your

consciousness is like a tree in the body. Your thoughts are like fruits. Your meditations are like flowers. But you are rooted in the body; the body supports it. The body supports everything that you are doing. You love; the body supports. You hate; the body supports. You want to kill somebody; the body supports. You want to protect somebody; the body supports. In compassion, in love, in anger, in hate – in every way – the body supports you. You are rooted in the body; you are nourished by the body. Even when you start realizing who you are, the body supports you.

Don’t kill the body. Don’t be a masochist, don’t torture it. It is your friend; it is not your enemy. Listen to its language, decode its language, and by and by, as you enter into the book of the body and you turn its pages, you will become aware of the whole mystery of life. Condensed, it is in your body.

Magnified a millionfold, it is all over the world. But condensed in a small formula, it is there present in your body. Decode it there first. And there is no other way to decode it anywhere else.

Be strong, and enter into your own body: for there your foothold is firm.

... CONSIDER IT WELL, O MY HEART! GO NOT ELSEWHERE.

KABIR SAYS. ”PUT ALL IMAGINATION AWAY, AND STAND FAST IN THAT WHICH YOU ARE.”

Listen to these beautiful and tremendously significant words:

”O MY HEART! GO NOT

ELSEWHERE.” There is no need to go anywhere. All is already given to you. You are a fool going anywhere and begging for it. God has made you from the very beginning as an emperor. He never creates beggars. If you have taken the role of a beggar, it is simply your responsibility and your stupidity.

”KABIR SAYS: ’PUT ALL IMAGINATION AWAY....’” This idea that you are a beggar is also your imagination. And the next idea, when you get fed up with your begging, desires, ambitions, and you start reading the scriptures and you come across great sayings – ”Aham Brahmasmi” – ”I am God”and then you start imagining ”I am God”; that too is imagination.

Rather than imagining, drop all imagination, move into a state of no-imagination. That’s what he means: ”GO NOT ELSEWHERE.” Imagination is the way to go somewhere else. Listen to it: whenever you imagine, you go away from yourself. You fall asleep in the night – you fall asleep in the night here in Poona, and then in a dream you dream you are in New York, Timbuktu, Peking.

It is imagination. In the morning you find yourself in Poona – you had never left Poona; the whole night you were here – but in your imagination you had gone to so many places.

Exactly the same is the case: you have never left your divinehood, your godhood. You have never left that, there you are rooted, but in imagination sometimes you became an animal and sometimes you became a tree and sometimes you became a man and sometimes you become angry and sometimes you become very kind, sometimes you are a gentleman and sometimes you are a robber.

You go on imagining. Sometimes you think you.are a child and sometimes you think you are young and sometimes you think you are old, sometimes you think you are a man and sometimes you think you are a woman, but these are all imaginations.

Deep down, you are only God and nothing else. These are all roles that you choose yourself. You create, you project, and then you enter into your own projections.

Go not elsewhere, O my heart! Consider it well.

”KABIR SAYS: ’PUT ALL IMAGINATION AWAY....’” That’s what meditation is all about: putting imagination away. But there are foolish people who bring their imagination to their meditation too. In meditation also they start imagining; they start imagining a thousand and one things.

Somebody imagines he has seen Krishna, somebody imagines his KUNDALINI is rising, somebody imagines his SAHASRAR is opening, somebody imagines something else, and people have different imaginations. These are all imaginations.

When you feel your KUNDALINI is rising, don’t get involved in it – let it rise.

Remain aloof

and detached, and say, ”Okay, this must be some imagination.” You have heard so much about KUNDALINI rising. You must be reading the books of Gopi Krishna – KUNDALINI rising – and so many yogis are talking about it. It is in the air, so you become infected with the idea. Then you are waiting for it to rise. Not even simply waiting, but in a subtle way, trying to help it to rise. You are ready to support it. Just a slight thing – an ant crawling upon your spine – and it is there and suddenly you are full of energy. And you have imagined it and you have created. Now it becomes yet another ego trip.

You have read in books that the third eye will open, so you are waiting for it, and when you close your eyes – consciously, unconsciously – you look for the third eye, and you start imagining. One day, you can see the light there – imagination is tremendously powerful. It can create whatsoever you want to create.

Now look: in India, Jainas have existed as long as the Hindus – one of the oldest religions of the world is Jainism – but Mahavir never talked about KUNDALINI, and the Jainas’ twenty-four TEERTHANKARAS never talked about KUNDALINI. Down through the ages, down through the centuries, Jainas ave not talked about kundalini, so it never rises in a Jaina saint – never – because they never read about it. So it never arises in a Jaina saint. Buddhists don’t believe in it, so it never rises. Christians, Mohammedans, never heard about t, so it never rises.

Something else happens to Buddhists: CHAKRAS open. And, you will be surprised, when Hindus think about CHAKRAS, seven CHAKRAS open; when Buddhists, five – only five – two imply disappear; because Buddhists talk about five CHAKRAS, and Hindus talk about seven. And there are tantricas who talk about nine!

And, you will be surprised, once a man came to me and he said, ”Nine CHAKRAS have opened.”

I said, ”Wait. There are thirteen in all.” He said, ”What? I have never heard about. Buddhists talk about five, Hindus talk about seven, and tantricas talk about nine. Thirteen?” I said, ”I have discovered more.” And after three months he came and he said, ”Right you were! Now the thirteenth has also opened!”

Just an idea I had put in his mind – ”thirteen.” And how can it be that he would not experience them all when he has arrived so far, at the ninth? He created four more. It is not so difficult.

Forget all about your imaginations; otherwise you will be trapped by your mind. If you see something, remember, it is imagination. If you feel something, remember, it is imagination. If you experience something, remember, it is imagination. When the experiencer is left alone without any experience, then there is no imagination. When the knower is left and there is nothing to know, then there is no imagination. When there is pure awareness without any content, then there is truth. And Kabir insists: ”Put all imagination away.... ”

God is not an experience, God is not an object. God is the very experiencer within you. You cannot see God. God is the one who is seeing through you. You cannot see God; you cannot reduce him to an object. You cannot put him in front of you; otherwise God will be separate from you. No, God cannot be experienced. And those who claim that they have experienced God are imagining things deluded. You cannot experience God! You can be God, but you cannot experience God. Because you are God, how can you experience God? God is not separate from you.

So God is when all imagination is brushed aside and only experiencing remains, just the light – not falling on anything – without any content – you just are, just isness, being.

”... AND STAND FAST IN THAT WHICH YOU ARE.” Don’t go anywhere in imagination. Stand fast in that which you are, and you will know what God is. Knowing yourself, you will know God.

Knowing the knower, you will know God. God never comes as an object of knowledge. He is your consciousness, he is your very being.

IT IS THE MERCY OF MY TRUE GURU THAT HAS MADE ME TO KNOW THE UNKNOWN; I HAVE LEARNED FROM HIM HOW TO WALK WITHOUT FEET,

TO SEE WITHOUT EYES, TO HEAR WITHOUT EARS, TO DRINK WITHOUT MOUTH, TO FLY

WITHOUT WINGS;

I HAVE BROUGHT MY LOVE AND MY MEDITATION INTO THE LAND WHERE THERE IS NO SUN

AND MOON, NOR DAY AND NIGHT.

”IT IS THE MERCY OF MY TRUE GURU.... ” Kabir says it is not y your effort that you attain to God.

It is by the mercy of the true guru, it is by the mercy of the Master. Kabir believes tremendously in the mercy of the Master. Let us :ry to understand it.

First, the word ”guru.” Guru means one who has gravitation, around whom you suddenly feel as if you are being pulled. The guru is a tremendous magnet, with only one’ difference. There is a man who has charisma – you are pulled, ut you are pulled towards him. That is the man of charisma.

He may become a great leader, a great politician. Adolf Hitler has that charisma; millions of people are pulled towards him. Then what is the difference between a charismatic leader and a guru? The difference is tremendous. The difference is: when you are pulled towards a guru you suddenly feel that you are being pulled inwards, not outwards.

When you are pulled towards Kabir, Nanak, Buddha, you have a strange feeling. The feeling is that you are being pulled towards them and at the same time you are being pulled inwards – a very strange paradoxical phenomenon

at the closer you come to your guru, the closer you come yourself. The more you become attracted towards the guru, the more you become independent. The more you become surrendered to the guru, the more you feel that you ave freedom you never had before.

So it is a very subtle difference. Remember it. If you are Pulled towards a man and that pull creates a slavery, that an is not the guru. That man may have charisma, may have magnetic power – maybe his great intelligence, his physical beauty, or his sheer vitality pulls you – but you will be going away from yourself. It will be an infatuation. You will be obsessed with this man, and you will be off your center. Avoid such people; these are the greatest mischief-mongers in the world. Adolf Hitler, Napoleon, Alexander – these are the people who have created great havoc, because people feel tremendously attracted and people feel like surrendering.

Remember, if your surrendering gives you freedom, then the man is a guru, a Master. If your surrendering makes you a slave, makes you a robot – as all the followers of Adolf Hitler were turned into mechanical robots.... They lost their souls; he simply exploited their souls. They lost all their awareness. This happens in the spiritual world also, because these charismatic people are everywhere. So make it a criterion inside: if by the presence of your guru, of your Master, you are becoming freer and freer, more and more independent; by surrendering, the paradox is happening

– that by surrendering you are gaining more willpower, by surrendering you are becoming powerful not impotent – then you are near the guru.

The guru is one who pulls you towards himself just to throw you back into your own being. He functions as a mediator; via the guru, you arrive at your own self. Because you cannot go directly, he helps you via him. But his whole effort is to make you yourself.

A true guru will never impose himself upon you. He will never impose his life-style on you. He will never give you any rigid discipline. He will not enforce anything on you, regiment you. He will not try to create soldiers of you. No, he will help you to become yourself. He will help you to be yourself, whatsoever that is. He will help to give you more and more understanding about yourself. You will become more and more centered, rooted, near him. More and more you will feel he has given you back to yourself – that which was lost or forgotten, he has made you aware of it.

That’s what I say to my sannyasins: that I have nothing else to give to you; I give you back to yourself.

You surrender to me, and I give it back to you.

It is difficult for you to know yourself right now because you have lived in forgetfulness for so long.

You need a shock; I give that shock to you. But I don’t give you any discipline. And I don’t force my life-style on you, because each person has to find his own life-style and each person is so unique that each person has to live in his own way. Nobody else’s life-style is going to help you. You will become second-rate, secondhand; and God loves only firsthand people. Never be a carbon copy. If somewhere you are forced to become a carbon copy, avoid that place like the plague, escape from there.

”IT IS THE MERCY OF MY TRUE GURU THAT HAS MADE ME TO KNOW THE UNKNOWN;/I HAVE LEARNED FROM HIM HOW TO WALK WITHOUT FEET, TO SEE WITHOUT EYES, TO

HEAR WITHOUT EARS, TO DRINK WITHOUT MOUTH, TO FLY WITHOUT WINGS;” Because the inner world is without any senses. Eyes are not there, ears are not there, mouth is not there, wings are not there. And this is the miracle of a Master: that he helps you to see without the eyes. And it is simply a PRASAD, a gift; it is only out of his compassion that it happens. No effort is needed on your part, and no effort is needed on the Master’s part. When the disciple is surrendered and the Master is REALLY a Master, it simply happens on its own accord.

When the disciple is surrendered and the Master is ready, there is a communion, and something jumps from the soul of the Master to the disciple – an exchange of energy, a shock, an electroshock

– and suddenly you become aware of your own reality.

”I HAVE BROUGHT MY LOVE AND MY MEDITATION INTO THE LAND WHERE THERE IS NO

SUN AND MOON, NOR DAY AND NIGHT.” And now Kabir says, ”By the mercy of my Master I have come to a point where I am neither a man nor a woman, nor a sun nor a moon, where all duality is lost night and day are lost, summer and winter no longer exist, God and devil are gone. I have come to where only one exists: the nondual, the ADVAITA, the one. I have come to unison.” This is the meaning of the word ”yoga”: to come to unison. I have fallen into the unity with the whole.

WITHOUT EATING, I HAVE TASTED OF THE SWEETNESS OF NECTAR, AND WITHOUT WATER, I HAVE QUENCHED MY THIRST.

WHERE THERE IS THE RESPONSE OF DELIGHT, THERE IS THE FULLNESS OF JOY.

This is of great significance. If you are delighted, joy will descend on you. Delight is human; joy is divine. When you are delighted, you will feel great joy descending on you.

That’s why I go on insisting sing, dance, delight, celebrate. That’s what YOU can do. Joy is not within your hands. You can delight in small things – a flower, a bird singing, a beautiful child, a beautiful woman. You can delight in small things – in food, in sleep, in the morning breeze, the sunset, in the stars. You can delight in small things.

If you can delight in small things, suddenly you will see great joy is descending in you. Joy comes from the whole. Delight creates the capacity to receive it. To remain delighted is enough to become a religious person. If you can celebrate continuously, that’s enough; then God is going to descend in you. You are creating the receptivity; the response of delight creates the heart, makes it ready, makes it receptive, opens your doors.

There is a great saying of Jesus, incomparable. Jesus says, ”Those who have, to them more will be given; and those who have not, even that which they have will be taken away from them.” A very absurd-looking saying: those who have, more will be given to them. Does not look very democratic, does not look very communistic, socialistic. Looks very anti-communist. Those who have will be given more? This is unjust. And those who have not, even that which they have will be taken away.

But the saying is of tremendous significance, one of the most secret sayings. Yet I also repeat it; and all the mystics have said that in different ways; that’s what Kabir is saying.

If you are delighted, joy will be given to you. If you have a little delight, more joy will descend on you.

If you are silent, more silence will come to you. If you have, more will be given to you; if you don’t have, even that which you have will be taken away.

.. BEFORE WHOM CAN THAT JOY BE UTTERED?

And that joy is such that when it descends it is inexpressible. Delight can be expressed; you can dance, you can sing, you can hug, you can hold hands. Delight is human and can be expressed.

Joy is superhuman and impossible to express.

KABIR SAYS: ”THE GURU IS GREAT BEYOND WORDS, AND GREAT IS THE GOOD FORTUNE

OF THE DISCIPLE.”

Yes, to become a disciple is to be fortunate. To find a Master is the greatest blessing that can happen to a man on the earth. It is very rare to find a Master and it is very rare, when you have found one, to surrender to him. But if it happens at all, the greatest thing has happened. More than that is not possible in life. Let me explain it to you, what the Master exactly means.

God is far away – just a word, we have never experienced him. The Master, or guru, functions as a midway station. God is superhuman, far away, difficult to conceive of. The guru is human, and yet divine. The guru is like us, and yet not like us. He is a bridge between man and God; he is just at the middle point. Exactly, the guru balances existence. The disciple is man; the God is not man; the guru is both. On one side, he belongs to humanity; on another side, he belongs to God. One of his hands is with the humanity; his other hand is in the hands of God. He becomes the bridge. That’s why we call the guru a god-man or a man-god. That’s why Jesus goes on saying, again and again,

”I am the son of God, and I am the son of man.” He is a guru, he is a Master.

It is very difficult for Christians to explain why he says, again and again, ”I am the son of man.” It would have been more logical if he had said only one thing: ”I am the son of God.” But why does he say, ”I am the son of man”? If he is the son of God, then he is no longer part of humanity; then he is as far away as God himself. Then what is the point of his coming to the world? It is meaningless.

He had to become the son of man; only then does he relate to us. Then he is a relative, then he is a brother, then he is part of our family.

That is the mystery of the guru. The guru is more mysterious than God. God is simple. Man is simple. The guru is very mysterious – because paradoxes meet in him, contradictions meet in him.

The guru is a meeting place of man and God, a crossroads, a SANGAMA, a meeting of the two rivers, of two different dimensions.

The seeker is ignorance; God is knowing, wisdom. The seeker is darkness; God is light. The guru is a twilight.

In India we pray at the time of twilight. The Sanskrit word for twilight is SANDHYA, and by and by it became synonymous with prayer. Twilight is prayer, the moment to pray. Twilight is representative of the guru. In India the sayings of the saints are called SANDHYA BHASHA, ”the language of the twilight.” They speak in metaphors which belong to two worlds: to the human and to the divine.

There is a story about Kabir that when he arrived home and faced God, he was very much puzzled because the guru was standing there with God. He was very much puzzled about whom he should bow down to first, the priority – to God, or to the guru? And then he touched the feet of the guru and said, ”Because without you, I would have never known God. So you come first. Through you I have known; so you come first. God can wait, because without you there was no God for me. It is only through you he has become a reality. I bow down to you.”

”KABIR SAYS: ’THE GURU IS GREAT BEYOND WORDS, AND GREAT IS THE GOOD FORTUNE

OF THE DISCIPLE.”’ There are millions of people; very few become seekers. There are thousands of seekers; very few become disciples. To become a disciple is a rare privilege because only by becoming a disciple does one become connected, linked, with a Master. Then your destiny is not alone; then your destiny is linked with a Master.

People come to me and they say, ”We don’t want to take sannyas. Won’t you help us?” I say, ”I will help you, but you will not be able to receive it. My help will not be of much use, because you will not be there to receive it.” By becoming a sannyasin, you become ”response-able.”

And the word ”responsible” I use in the literal sense: ”response-ability.” By becoming a sannyasin, you become response-able towards me, you become receptive towards me, your heart opens, you can trust me, and you become vulnerable. And then, only then, I can shower on you and I can lead you to the unknown – the land where there is no moon and no sun and no day and no night, and the land where there is no space and no time, and the land where you will be flying without wings and you will be seeing without eyes, and the land where nectar is flowing but no mouth is needed to drink of it.

That is possible only if you have taken the jump of disciplehood. Yes, blessed is the man who is courageous enough to become a disciple.

It needs courage, it needs guts, it needs tremendous willpower, to surrender. Never think for a single moment that it is weaklings who surrender. Never. Weaklings cannot surrender. Cowards cannot surrender. It is only very, very strong people who can surrender. Surrender is possible only if you are very much grounded, centered: you know that you can surrender and yet you will not disappear into the surrender. You know that you can surrender and yet surrender is going to bring freedom to you.

CHAPTER 8

The irrational rationalist

18 December 1976 am in Buddha Hall

THE Current OF 18TH DECEMBER HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. ABRAHAM T. KOVOOR, EIGHTY-YEAR-OLD RATIONALIST AND ATHEIST, OF CEYLON, IN WHICH HE REFERS TO AND

CRITICIZES YOU. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT?

R. ABRAHAM T. KOVOOR seems to be a nice old man, but a little senile. Senile, I call him, because a person cannot be both together – a rationalist and an atheist. It is impossible. Either you can be a rationalist or you can be an atheist. A rationalist cannot believe in anything. A rationalist cannot have any belief – in God or in no God. A rationalist suspends all belief. A rationalist can only be an agnostic; he can only say, ”I do not know.”

The moment you say ”I know,” you are no longer a rationalist. The moment you say ”I know that God does not exist,” you are as irrational as the person who says God exists. You have lost track.

How can you say God is not? The whole existence has not yet been measured. There are depths upon depths, there is much still unknown. A little is known. Far more remains unknown and unknowable. How can you say dogmatically that God is not?

A rationalist will avoid all temptation of dogmatism. He will say, ”I do not know.” Socrates was a rationalist, Buddha was a rationalist, Nagarjuna was a rationalist, but they were not atheists. Atheism means you are against theism; you have chosen a belief. To believe in God is a belief; to believe in no God is a belief again. You remain a believer.

To be a rationalist is very difficult, arduous, because man wants to cling to some belief.

Now this T. Kovoor is eighty years old. For eighty years continuously he has been traveling around, arguing, saying to people that God does not exist. This seems to be absurd. If God does not exist, he does not exist. Why bother? And why waste your precious life for something which does not exist? It is absurd, it is irrational, but if you look deep into it, he is clinging to this no-belief. This disbelief has become his practice, his religion. Now he cannot simply rest; he has to argue – argue against God, argue against religion, try to prove that God does not exist. For what? What is the point?

Your precious life is wasted. And he believes that he has only one life; after death there will be no life. Then this is foolhardy, then this is simply stupid – to waste your life in the service of something which does not exist. And you don’t have a soul, he says, and there is going to be no more life, this is the only life there is. And he has devoted his whole life to nonsense. How can he be a rationalist?

A rationalist will say that life is mysterious. We are trying to know, we have come to know a little, but much more is still left; so the conclusion cannot be decided right now. We will have to wait till the very end. When everything is known, only then can we conclude.

A rationalist has to live without a conclusion. A rationalist has to live without a philosophy, without a religion.

T. Kovoor has made a religion out of his atheism. He is not a rationalist, because rationalism and atheism cannot go together. That’s why I say he must be suffering from senile dementia.

The second thing I would like to say is that he is senile and yet juvenile, too, because atheism is a phase of adolescence. Every intelligent person becomes atheistic at a certain age. Near about the fourteenth year, everybody becomes atheistic. That’s a natural part of growth because the child needs to say no. It is a psychological need. Up to the age of fourteen, the child has lived protected by the mother, the father, the family; now he wants to be himself. And he wants to say no because only by saying no can he feel free, can he have a sense of freedom. He starts saying no to everything.

If the father says, ”Don’t smoke!” he will smoke, because that is the only way – to deny the father is the only way to grow. If the mother says, ”Don’t do this!” he has to do it; it is a must. If he does not do it he will never have any backbone. He will be impotent. He will not have any power. He will be unable to define himself, who he is. He has to say no.

And when you say no to your father, you say no to the ultimate father, naturally. It is a corollary. The child has to deny everything to get free. He has to kick everything that his parents believed, that the society believed. This is natural, and good.

If you have never been an atheist you will never really become a theist, because one who has not said no, how can he say yes? His yes will be impotent. Your yes is meaningful only when you have said no.

But it is a phase and, naturally, people grow out of it. Atheism is a phase. After atheism comes theism. Theism is also a phase. First you say no to feel yourself, then you become a hard ego. Then it hurts. Then you have to say yes to relax. First you say no to become an ego, strong enough to be on your own, then one day you feel it is now hurting, it has become too hard. You have to drop it; you have to say yes. You become a theist.

But, to me, religion starts only when you have dropped both – no and yes, both. Then you come to silence, you don’t say anything. A really religious person is not a theist. He has simply become silent. The no is gone, the yes is gone.

I myself was an atheist – and I was stubbornly an atheist. I was thrown out of one college just because of that, expelled, because the professor said it was impossible to teach this boy. Because my no was so much that for ordinary, small things I would not say yes. If the teacher would ask me,

”Can’t you see these walls?” I would say, ”I can see them, but I don’t know whether they ARE or they are NOT, because in dreams I see walls and they are not.” And he would ask, ”Can’t you see I am standing here?” I would say, ”I see you, but I cannot trust whether you are there or not because one day I saw you in my dream and in the morning I found you were not.”

He got very much puzzled and confused, and I confused him so much that after eight months of his effort he simply resigned from the college. He said, ”I cannot come. This boy is going to drive me crazy. Either he has to be expelled or I have to be relieved of my duties.” Of course I was expelled from the college. I had not done anything wrong, but I enjoyed no-saying tremendously. I loved it.

Then of course, naturally, I grew out of it, because the purpose was fulfilled. Then I became a theist, but one day I found even the purpose of yes-saying was fulfilled. I am now neither; I am neither an atheist nor a theist. I am simply here, without any yes, without any no. I am tremendously silent. I don’t divide into this and that, into yes and no, into for and against.

That why I say Dr. Kovoor must be suffering from senility and still he is a juvenile. He has become stuck at the age of fourteen. His physical age must be eighty, but his psychological age cannot be more than fourteen.

And I say it from my own experience. I have passed through these phases. His psychological age cannot be more than fourteen. And that’s how things are: many people never grow beyond the fourteenth year. They remain adolescent, juvenile. Somehow it happens that by the time you become sexually mature, whatsoever is in your mind becomes fixed, becomes imprinted deeply.

Fourteen is the age when you become sexually mature. Then ordinarily it happens you become stuck. Whatsoever your ideology, you become stuck with it; then you don’t change. If you are a Hindu, you become a Hindu and you remain a Hindu. It is good to be born as a Hindu, but to die as a Hindu is ugly. It is good to be born as a Christian, but to die as a Christian? That means your whole life has been a wastage.

One should grow out of all confinements – theistic, atheistic. He is not a rationalist; otherwise he would have grown. Irrationalism has two alternatives: theism, atheism. A rationalist can only be an agnostic – like Nagarjuna, Buddha, Socrates. They don’t say anything about God; they keep quiet.

If you ask Buddha, ”Does God exist?” he keeps quiet, he does not answer, because to say yes is wrong, to say no is wrong. The question is so vast it cannot be contained in either yes or no.

God means the whole existence. How can you deny and how can you affirm?

Dr. Kovoor must be having a very childish concept of God – a great king, emperor of the world, sitting somewhere in heaven on a high golden throne, ruling from there. This is stupid, the very idea is stupid, and he has been fighting against this stupid idea. When the idea itself is stupid, your fight is meaningless. And he has been fighting with dummies, and by fighting with dummies he has become well-known and is thought to be a great rationalist. He is not, nothing of the sort, not at all a rationalist.

He has been fighting with very ordinary minds. For example, Satya Sai Baba; he is the opponent of Satya Sai Baba. Now Satya Sai Baba is neither a mystic nor a philosopher, just an ordinary magician. You can demolish him. And Kovoor goes on challenging him and he never answers. It is very simple to fight with Satya Sai Baba. Kovoor has never fought against a really rationalist mind.

A rationalist mind is sharp like a sword. A rationalist mind means: I cannot believe in anything unless I have experienced it, and I cannot disbelieve in anything unless I have experienced it. Has he experienced God? Has he ever meditated? Has he ever gone into the inner lab? Has he ever known a single moment of no-thought? Then all his assertions are just meaningless.

Have you tried to know God? You are fighting with ordinary people, whose belief is just mumbo jumbo. You can fight with them and you can prove to them that their argument is not right, that their belief is not right. An ordinary man has no foundation; it is very easy to demolish his arguments. In fact he has no arguments.

But if you are really a rationalist, then you have to go into the experimentation of it. He should move into yoga, he should move into meditation, he should go deep into ecstasy, and from there he should assert whether God is or not.

This is one of the most precious experiences of history, that whosoever has gone withinwards has become a mystic. Nobody has gone in and remained a non-mystic. Without any exception, whenever a person has meditated, he has felt the very heart, the very core of existence.

God is not a person. God is just a symbol to show a certain quality in existence. For example, if there is no God it simply means life is meaningless. If there is no God it simply means this cosmos is not a cosmos, it is a chaos. If there is no God it simply means that life is accidental, there is no reason for it to be there at all. God is a symbol. To say ”God is” is just another way of saying that life is meaningful. To say ”God is” is another way of saying that life has poetry in it, music in it, coherence, harmony. To say that God is is to say that existence cares about you, it is responsive towards you, you are not uncared for, the universe is not indifferent towards you. The universe loves you, the universe feels you, the universe is a mother, is a father. These are symbolic ways of saying the same thing: that God is.

The word ”God” is not metaphysical. The word ”God” is just poetic. And there is no need to argue against poetry. Poetry can only be understood. Poetry is not an argument, it is not a syllogism. You cannot prove or disprove it.

To say ”God is” simply means that we are not in a strange world, that we are not strangers here, that we are at home, that we can relax and rest, that there is beauty, that there is love, that there is a possibility to grow. The moment you say there is no God, what are you saying? You are saying now there is no possibility to grow. You are stuck; there is nowhere to go.

If you are really a rationalist you will have to commit suicide. A real rationalist person cannot live.

Why? For what? I would like to ask Dr. Kovoor why he is living at all. There is no God, there is no soul, there is no meaning, there is no love, there is no poetry; why do you go on dragging yourself?

For what? Why are you burdening the earth?

In the same interview, to which I am coming, the reporter asks, ”Dr. Kovoor, you are against the godmen and you are against religion. Your life must be in danger. Have you ever been threatened?”

And he says, ”No, I have never been threatened, but I always take precautions.” For what? If you die nothing dies. because in the first place there was no soul. If you die nothing is lost. You were just a coincidence, an accident. If Dr. Kovoor dies, nothing dies.

With God disappear all values, all beauty, all ecstasy, all love, all significance.

Why are you taking precautions, for what?

He says, ”I don’t believe in any existence after death.” Have you known death? Have you experienced death? Without experiencing death, how can you say that there is no existence beyond death? This is not very rational. This is very childish. This is very mediocre, not even intelligent. Unless you have passed through death, how can you assert that there is no life beyond death? You can only say, ”I don’t know.” You cannot say, ”I KNOW there is no life.”

And if there is no life after death, how can life be before death? If there is no life after death, then there was no life before birth. There is no life before birth, there is no life after death; just suddenly between birth and death life exists? – out of nothing, out of the blue? This is not very rational. For something to exist, there has to be a continuity.

The Poona River exists. You cannot say, ”Before it enters Poona it is not; after it leaves Poona it is not. It just exists in Poona, suddenly.” You will be thought to be a madman. If the river enters Poona, it must have existed before Poona; otherwise from where will it enter Poona? If it leaves Poona, it must go somewhere.

The existential remains existential. There is no existence coming out of nonexistence, and existence cannot go into nonexistence. You can ask the physicists. They have not yet been able to destroy a single atom. You cannot destroy anything – and you cannot create anything either. You cannot destroy a grain of sand. Science has progressed so far, so much, but we are incapable of creating a single grain of sand or of destroying a single grain of sand. You can grind it, you can change the form, but it will remain in another form. Only the form changes; life goes on.

And he says, ”I believe there is going to be no life after death.” And who is this who is saying all this nonsense? Who is this? Matter cannot talk. And who is taking precautions? Life must be interested in protecting itself. Life must have an intrinsic mechanism to protect itself. For what? The seed protects itself; the hard crust that exists around the seed is a protection. It protects itself so that it can grow into a tree. You protect yourself to grow. If there is no growth, then why protect? Why not go and jump into the sea? And in Ceylon the sea is very close and beautiful. Why not jump into the sea and.finish it? For what are you protecting and taking precautions?

Even in an atheist like Kovoor, life wants to live – a tremendous desire to live. For what? If the desire exists there must be a meaning to it. And the meaning is that life in itself is not the end. Life is just a passage. Life in itself is just the journey, not the goal. Life in itself is just a process of reaching somewhere.

A rationalist, if he is really a rationalist, has to commit suicide. He has nothing else to do here. But Kovoor is not a rationalist. He is atheistic, that’s true.

And atheism is the lowest form of religion. Why do I call it the lowest form of religion? Because it is the least productive, least creative. Have you watched? Down through the centuries, the theistic religion has been so productive, so creative – Khajuraho, Ajanta, Ellora, Michaelangelo, Mozart, Leonardo da Vinci, the great churches and cathedrals, the great temples of the East, the great statues of Buddha. All painting, all sculpture, all music, all drama, all poetry, has come out of the theistic religion. Atheists have not created anything. That’s why I call it the lowest form of philosophy.

They have not created anything; they have been the most unfertile, impotent people. They have not created any book compared to the Geeta or the Bible or the Koran. They have not created anything whatsoever. Their whole effort has been this: that there is no God. Is it enough just to go on declaring there is no God? They have not challenged the intelligence of man.

From Charvak to Dr. Kovoor, their whole history is the history of impotence. All that is beautiful has come out of the religious people, the theistic people.

There are three hundred religions in the world – so much variety, so many possibilities. Atheism is just monotonous. It does not even have another variety. You cannot choose; you don’t have anything to choose from. Atheism is just atheism.

And Dr. Kovoor has not said a single thing that is original. Eighty years of sheer wastage.

Whatsoever Charvak said three thousand years before, the atheists have just been repeating it.

They are parrots. In religion there is tremendous variety. Mahavir says something, Buddha says something else, Jesus still something else, Mohammedan brings another dimension, Moses opens another door, and Zarathustra is calling you to see from his eyes. Tremendous variety, so many dimensions, so many possibilities challenge humanity, bring forth the best in you.

Atheism is just uncreative. In fact it has to be so because there can be no creation out of a negative attitude. The negative attitude is more like death than like life. ”No” is death; ”yes” is life. When you say yes, doors open; when you say no, all doors close. Religion has been very, very productive; and still goes on producing, still is creative, still is not exhausted and spent. And atheism? – has never been alive, a dead philosophy, repetitive.

And the beauty or the irony of it is that if atheists disappear, theism can survive because it does not depend on atheists. Just look at it. If there is no atheist, there is no problem for one who believes in God, but if there is no believer in God, atheism will disappear. It is dependent; it has no independence. If all the world drops religious attitudes and everybody says, ”Yes, we don’t believe in God,” what will happen to atheism? It is a negative attitude; it depends on the theist. The theist said ”God is” and the atheist said ”God is not.’j His whole energy comes from the theist. If theists disappear, atheism disappears, simply, without leaving a trace.

The no cannot exist without the yes, but the yes can exist without the no. That’s why I say yes is powerful. It has its own life; the no has no life of its own.

And it is only stupid people who become entangled with the no so much – people who cannot create.

And it is very easy to say no, remember, because nothing is involved in saying no. To say yes is dangerous because then you will have to commit. If you say no, there is no commitment, there is no exploration, you don’t go on any adventure. If you say yes, then the journey starts and you move in dangers. It is arduous. A yes-sayer has to go to explore the unmeasured. The no-sayer has stopped himself; he is not going anywhere, he is stuck, he becomes stale and stagnant. He stinks.

Now, the interview proper.

The CURRENT asked where he will be after death. Kovoor said, ”I will not be anywhere.... I do not believe that I have a soul.”

I remember, once Mulla Nasrudin invited his friends to his house. In some moment of excitement in the coffeehouse he was bragging about his generosity, and then somebody said, ”Mulla Nasrudin, if you are so generous, why don’t you invite us someday?”

He said, ”Come right now, all of you.” Thirty, forty people followed him. As he reached closer to his home, he became afraid of the wife. He said, ”Now there is going to be trouble.” He asked his friends, ”You wait. You know how things go between a husband and a wife. First let me go in and persuade her and let me release the news by and by. Forty people, suddenly – she may drop dead.

You wait.” So they waited.

He went in and told his wife, ”A few people are waiting outside. Simply go and tell them that Mulla Nasrudin is not at home.”

She said, ”What are you saying? And you have just come with them! I have seen you coming!”

He said, ”Forget about that; now this seems to be the only way out of it. Go and just tell them that he is not at home.”

So she went and she said, ”What are you doing here? For whom are you waiting? Mulla is not at home.”

They said, ”Are you kidding? He came with us, and he just went in, and we are watching the door and he has not gone out. He must be in!”

Now the wife and the friends started arguing, and Mulla forgot. He came out and he said, ”What do you mean! He may have gone out from the back door!”

Dr. Kovoor says, ”I believe that I have no soul.” Who is this declaring ”I am not”? Even to declare

”I am not,” you have to be there. To believe or not to believe is not the point. To declare belief or unbelief, you have to be there.

If there is no soul, then go and ask the same question to a rock. Ask the rock, ”Is there a soul or not?” and the rock is not going to say, ”I don’t believe in any soul.” The rock will not say anything; there is nobody to deny or affirm. In fact, you cannot deny yourself. It is not possible. You cannot say ”I am not.” It is self-contradictory.

He says, ”I will not be anywhere.” It is impossible not to be anywhere. You will be somewhere. You ARE somewhere, Dr. Kovoor. Your body may dissolve into matter, your mind may dissolve into atmosphere – but everything that is in you will be there. Nothing will be lost.

And this concept of soul is just a symbol. It simply shows that you are a unity – body, mind, and something beyond it because you can watch your own thoughts. Who is the watcher? You cannot be totally identified with your mind. You can see a thought entering in the mind and moving. Who is this seer?

He has never tried meditation, it seems. A simple technique would be of tremendous help to him.

Although he is eighty, it is never too late. A little technique of just sitting silently and watching will make him aware that the body is there as the outer shell, then thoughts are there as the inner shell, and there is at the very hub just a witnessing, just awareness. That awareness is soul. That awareness will be somewhere, because it is somewhere right now. It cannot disappear; nothing ever disappears. Forms change; the reality remains. But he says, ”I do not believe....”

That’s what I mean when I say he is not a rationalist. A rationalist will never talk in terms of belief or no-belief. He will talk in terms of experience. He can only say, ”I have not experienced yet, so how can I say without experiencing whether there is a soul or not? And I am not dead yet, so how can I say?”

Socrates was dying, and somebody asked, ”Are you not afraid, Socrates?” He said, ”Why should I be afraid, because I don’t know what is going to happen? First thing, maybe atheists are right.” Listen.

He says, ”Maybe, perhaps, atheists are right and I will simply disappear. Then there is nobody left, so why fear? For whom to fear? There cannot be any anguish for me, because I will not be there. If atheists are right, then I will not be, and when I am not, fear cannot exist. I will not be tortured. Or maybe theists are right and I may continue, and if I continue, then why fear? I will be there. So I will see what happens, but I have not died yet. Wait, let me die. Only then will I know whether I survive or not.”

This is pure rationalism. A rationalist cannot assert such things, that ”I don’t believe in a soul.”

Then, the CURRENT asked him, ”Does Bhagwan Rajneesh have a soul?” It amused me very much.

How can you ask somebody else about my soul? And he could not even gather courage to say, ”How can I know about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh? He may have, may not have.” What he answered is sheer nonsense. He said, ”I do not know much about Rajneesh.” As if by knowing much he will know whether I have a soul or not. Even if you live with me for a hundred years and you know much about me, you will not know me. Knowing much ”about” will not help. Because there is no way to enter into me, you can only watch my behavior. You cannot see ME; you cannot enter into my interiority, into my innerness – and that innerness is what soul is.

Matter has only an outside; matter has no inside. Listen to it attentively: matter has no inside. You can break matter and you will find the same matter inside that you found on the outside. It has no inside; matter only has an outside.

But a man has an inside. I say ”I love you.” You can cut me and try to find out where love is, and you will not find it. Of course Dr. Kovoor talks, says things, asserts, makes statements, but if we cut him we will not find any thinking inside, no thoughts, not even this thought that ”I don’t believe in the soul.” When you cut a man, the inside disappears. When the man was there in his organic unity, the inside was there. The inside is what we mean by ”soul.”

How can you know my inside? Only I can know it. He does not even know his own inside; he has never been there. He is an extrovert; he has never entered his own temple. He has never come to his own innermost shrine. He has not encountered himself.

And he says, ”I do not know much about Rajneesh” that’s why he cannot say whether Rajneesh has a soul or not. Knowing ”about” won’t help. Unless you know yourself, it is not going to help. I can say that Dr. Kovoor has a soul because I have come to know my own soul. In that very recognition I have recognized the soul of everybody. Notwithstanding what he says, I say he has a soul, because I have come to know my soul. I don’t know much about him either, I have only seen his photographs, but I can say he has a soul, because his eyes show fire, sincerity. He is a sincere man – more sincere than your Satya Sai Babas. That much I have to concede: he is a sincere man.

Sincerity shows his soul. He is an honest man. He has not deceived anybody. He may be deceived himself; that is another matter. He is deluded; that is another matter. But he has never deceived anybody. He has a soul, a very sincere, religious soul.

But I can say that, not because I know much about him. Because I know myself, that’s why I say it.

He cannot say anything about me because he does not even know himself.

It is not a question of knowing about me. If you ask me about somebody in China whose name I have never heard – if you say, ”A certain man, Ching-chang, has he a soul?” I will say, ”Yes, if he exists, he has a soul.” I have not even heard his name and I don’t know whether ”Ching-chang” can be a Chinese name or not – looks Chinese – but if Ching-chang exists, he must have a soul. That much is absolutely certain. It is not certain because I know anything about Ching-chang. I have not even seen his photograph; I have never heard about him; I have just invented the name here, now.

But I can say he has a soul, if he exists at all, because I know – I know myself. Knowing myself, I have known all human beings. Knowing myself, I have known the whole of life. Not only do I say that you have a soul and that Dr. Kovoor has a soul, I say trees have a soul, and animals and birds.

And I say to you the whole of existence is full of soul. That’s what we mean when we say ”God is”: existence is full of soul. Existence has an interiority; it is not just the surface. It has a depth, it has meaning. It is not a chaos; it is a cosmos. It has a destiny, a direction. It is going towards a certain fulfillment. It is moving towards an orgasm, ecstasy.

And then he goes on saying – which was not asked, hence I call him senile: ”But the cult spread through him shows the mental derangement of his devotees. It is as bad as the Hare Krishna.” Now the question was about me, not about my devotees. A rationalist will stick to the question. There is no need to go to my devotees. He has not known much about me, and I think he has not known anything about my devotees, about my disciples. He may have heard some rumor, but that is not the way of a rationalist. He should come here; he should see my devotees. And seeing from the outside won’t help much. He should dance with them. It will be a beautiful scene – eighty-year-old Dr. Kovoor dancing, doing Kundalini Meditation.

And he says that ”the cult spread through him shows the mental derangement of his devotees.” It shows many things. First, he believes that the mind can be in a derangement. That means he believes there is a certain arrangement of the mind. Arrangement brings soul back; arrangement brings God back. If you say the mind is deranged you accent some criterion, you say that there is a certain way when the mind is arranged rightly; otherwise you cannot say this is deranged. You have a certain concept of how the mind should be. If you have some concept of how the mind should be, you have brought a value in from the back door. This cannot be allowed to a rationalist.

How should the mind be? Harmonious? Loving? Compassionate? Intelligent? How should the mind be? And if there is a ”should,” then existence is not accidental. Then you have a value. And if you have a ”should” about the human mind, why should you not have a ”should” about the whole?

He is not a rationalist at all, poor fellow. He does not know anything about rationalism. He has not done his homework. He may have collected a little bit from here and there, but he does not know the intensity of a rationalist’s intelligence.

A rationalist is more like Sartre; he will say everything is meaningless. A rationalist will be more like Samuel Beckett – absurd. Samuel Beckett’s plays go on, move in absurdity, because the whole of life is absurd. There is no possibility of any coherence, meaning. All is mad. So somebody asks you about A and you talk about B; that too is okay because there is no way to know what is okay. There is no way to judge what is what. It is a chaos.

Samuel Beckett’s famous play, you may have heard of it or read it, is called WAITING FOR GODOT.

Two vagabonds wait under a tree; they wait for Godot. Nobody knows who this Godot is. It is ”Chang-ching.” The word looks like ”God” – ”Godot” – but it is just appearance; nobody knows exactly. They also don’t know, but they wait – and every day they wait. Again in the morning one says to the other,

”What do you think? Will he be coming today?” And he says, ”I hope so. He should be coming by now; we have waited enough.” By the evening they become tired and one says, ”It is too much now – enough is enough. Why should we continue waiting!” And the other says, ”Yes, why should we continue waiting?” One says, ”Now we should stop waiting; we should go,” and the other says,

”Okay, we should go,” but they never go. And nobody raises any question that ”We decide to go but we never go.” It is an absurd world.

Somebody asked Samuel Beckett, ”Who is this Godot?” He said, ”If I had known, I would have written it in the play myself.”

And this way it continues; Godot never comes. Abruptly the play starts, abruptly it ends. And those two persons go on waiting. For whom are they waiting?

All waiting is hopeless. If you are really a rationalist, then you cannot hope. If you hope, you bring God in. God is the hope, soul is the hope, the possibility of growth is the hope.

Now, he says my disciples are mentally deranged. Then he must have some criterion. What criterion is there? Is Dr. Kovoor the criterion? If people are like him, then they are rightly arranged? Then he seems to be the ultimate value. Then Mahavir was deranged because he walked naked; Kovoor has never walked naked. Then Buddha was deranged because he left his kingdom and beautiful woman and the child and all the pleasures – abnormal, deranged. Then Jesus was deranged because he was saying that he is the son of God. What nonsense. God does not exist, so how can the son exist? He must be hallucinating.

One of the very famous thinkers of the West, Albert Schweitzer, wrote a book on Jesus to protect him against the psychoanalysts’ attack, because Schweitzer was afraid that sooner or later the psychoanalysts were going to say that Jesus is deranged, is mad. In 1914 he wrote a book to protect Jesus. He tried hard, but he could not come to a positive conclusion. The conclusion that he arrived at was this: that there are not enough facts to prove that Jesus was mad. This was the conclusion – of a follower! Not enough proof to prove that Jesus was mad. Very negative. He says we cannot prove that he was insane, but we also cannot prove that he was sane. This is even worse.

At least if you call a man insane, something is settled. Now this is putting him in a limbo, hanging in between – sane or insane? And who is the criterion and how do you create the criterion?

My disciples are the sanest people possible on the earth because they are not accumulating insanity.

That is the whole secret of catharsis. He must have heard that my disciples scream and shriek and shout and dance and go mad, but he should come.

Madness is when it is beyond your control. Have you watched my disciples meditating, shrieking, shouting, going crazy? Then suddenly Chaitanya orders them, ”Stop!” And they stop. Go to a madhouse and say loudly, ”Stop!” Nobody will stop. That’s how you judge madness. This is a willed madness; they are in control. They are DOING it; it is not happening to them. They are going into it.

They are releasing the pent-up energy.

People go mad because they don’t release. Then the energy goes on accumulating and it becomes too much. One day it explodes. Then Chaitanya will go on saying, ”Stop! Stop!” and you will not stop, because you cannot stop; now it is beyond you.

If Kovoor goes mad he will not listen to ”Stop!” If my disciples go mad, if somebody comes and says,

”Stop!” they will immediately stop. It is within their power. It is catharsis; it is not madness.

And it seems he has not heard anything about modern trends in psychotherapy. He does not know anything about Arthur Janov’s Primal Therapy. He does not know anything about Encounters, Growth Groups, Humanistic trends. He does not know anything about Psychodrama. He has not heard anything. He is a very, very ancient, dead man. He is not contemporary at all. It seems he has not read anything other than Charvak and Epicurus and Karl Marx. He is out of date.

Dr. Kovoor, you are dead. You don’t know anything about what is happening in the world; you are not a contemporary.

These people here around me are going to be the sanest people in the world because they are not accumulating. They have come to know a secret: how to release and how to drop everything that goes on accumulating inside, and always remain virgin, fresh, young – sane. Sanity does not have anything to do with control. Sanity is a natural state. If you control anger, one day suddenly you will find it has overpowered you. Release it.

I believe in release, in catharsis, because I believe that is the only way to remain sane. To remain sane in an insane world is a difficult thing because people all around are stuffed with all sorts of illnesses – anger, sex, jealousy, possessiveness, hatred. They have been taught to control from the very childhood. They have become just like volcanoes; they are sitting on the volcano. People are not sane; people are insane.

Animals are saner, trees are more sane; and I am teaching you to be natural. And to be natural is to be in tune with God. To be natural, to be spontaneous, is to be religious.

And he says, ”It is as bad as the Hare Krishna.” No, then too he is not right. It is WORSE than Hare Krishna. The Hare Krishna people are very simple, almost simpletons. They don’t know anything about life. Prabhupad has attracted the lowest, the stupidest people of the world, foolish people. No, sir, this is worse than that. These are very intelligent people around me. These are not simpletons; these are very intelligent people.

And Hare Krishna is not going to bring any revolution in the world. It is traditional. What I am doing is worse, Dr. Kovoor. It is going to bring a tremendous revolution in the world. It is going to shatter your old world completely. I am creating atomic explosions; sooner or later they will explode all over the world. They will shatter your whole society, your whole so-called civilization. They will shatter the whole past. These are totally new beings.

I am helping a new world to be reborn, a fresh consciousness, a new consciousness.

Hare Krishna people are nothing. Maybe a sort of entertainment, amusing, eccentric, but they have no future. They have a past. My people have no past; they have a future.

And the future is always dangerous – because if the future is allowed, the past has to be dropped.

Only by dying to the past does one become available to the future.

I would like Dr. Kovoor to come here, taste some of the energy of my people. Although it is very late, better late than never. If before you die you can have a taste of something beyond, it will be good.

Sooner or later, Dr. Kovoor, you will be dying. It is better to have some preparation. It is better to be ready for an after-death life. It is possible.

And when I say it is possible, I am not talking theoretically. I am.a very practical man, down to earth.

I am a Jew! I mean business. If you come here and allow me to dismantle you a little, to destroy you a little, I can create you again. This is a promise.

Question 1

YOU SAY IT CAN’T BE SAID. AND SOMEWHERE IT IS WRITTEN: WHAT CAN’T BE SAID CAN’T

BE WHISTLED EITHER.

Wrong, because I am whistling it every day. It can’t be said, but it can be whistled. And you know it too, that when you can’t say something, you find ways to whistle it. You want to say to some woman,

”I love you,” and you can’t say it; then what do you do? You hug her. It is a way of whistling. You hold her hands, you look into her eyes, helpless, knowing well that you can’t say it, but still you impart, you commune. I am doing it every day.

Yes, that is right – truth cannot be said – nobody has ever said it – nobody is ever going to say it.

By its very definition it iS ineffable, inexpressible; but it can be whistled. Buddha whistled, Mahavir whistled, Jesus, Zarathustra, Mohammed. I am whistling it every day.

Of course I have to whistle it again and again because you don’t listen. And I have to whistle it again and again because every day I find I missed again. It is so difficult to say it, it is so impossible to say it. I try and then I say, ”Let us see tomorrow. Let us improve it a little more. Maybe there is some other way and it can be whistled a little better.”

It cannot be said, that’s true; but it can be whistled. I am a proof of it – every day.

From Swami Yoga Chinmaya:

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO, YOU OFTEN SAY THAT LIFE IS FUN. STILL, SOMETIMES YOU SEEM TO BE

TAKING THINGS VERY, VERY SERIOUSLY.

That, too, is fun.

Question 3

I LOVE THE WAY YOU WALK. WHY DO YOU WALK HOW YOU WALK?

Thank you!

I am a drunkard, and I cannot do better. There is no art to it; it is just my drunkenness.

And if you also want to walk like that, you will have to become like me. Don’t try to imitate it; because you can imitate a drunkard, but by that you will not become drunk. You can imitate a drunkard perfectly – even better than the drunkard himself – but you will not become drunk. Become drunk.

I am drunk with the divine. It is a miracle how I am here. When I stand on my feet, I say, ”So, old boy, you are doing it again?” It is a miracle how I stand. It has become very, very difficult for me to be here on the earth. The wings have grown and the sky is waiting and my boat has arrived long ago. I should have left this shore, but I am in deep love with you mad people, so I go on lingering a little more. I say, ”A little more.” I go on postponing. I go on persuading the powers that would like me to leave now. I say, ”Wait a little more. I can drive a few more people crazy.”

Question 4

YOU SAY, ”SURRENDER TO ME.” DOES THIS NOT SHOW THAT YOU ARE FULL OF EGO?

Sure! I am the greatest egoist you can ever find. My ego is so vast that you all are included in it. It is so vast that trees and animals and rocks are included in it. It is so vast that stars and the moon and sun are included in it. It is so vast that the past, present, and future are included in it. Hence I say to you, ”Surrender to me.”

Krishna says to Arjuna in the Geeta: ”SARVA DHARMAN PARITYAJYA MAMEKAM SHARANAM

VRAJ” – ”Leave all your religions and come to my feet.” He is also the same type of egoist as I am.

Buddha says, ”Come to me, and I will deliver you.” He is also the same type of egoist. And Jesus says, ”I have come into the world to deliver everybody.” What pure egos!

Yes, you are right, sir. I am a great egoist. But remember, my ego is inclusive of all; hence it is not an ego at all. It is so inclusive that it is empty. It is so all-inclusive that there is no sense of ”I” in it.

CHAPTER 9

Dance today with joy

19 December 1976 am in Buddha Hall

Il. 103. naco re mero man, matta hoy

DANCE, MY HEART! DANCE TODAY WITH JOY.

THE STRAINS OF LOVE FILL THE DAYS AND THE NIGHTS WITH MUSIC, AND THE WORLD IS

LISTENING TO ITS MELODIES.

MAD WITH JOY, LIFE AND DEATH DANCE TO THE RHYTHM OF THIS MUSIC. THE HILLS

AND THE SEA AND THE EARTH DANCE. THE WORLD OF MAN DANCES IN LAUGHTER AND

TEARS.

WHY PUT ON THE ROBE OF THE MONK, AND LIVE ALOOF FROM THE WORLD IN LONELY

PRIDE?

BEHOLD! MY HEART DANCES IN THE DELIGHT OF A HUNDRED ARTS; AND THE CREATOR

IS WELL PLEASED.

I. 105. man mast hua tab kyon bole

WHERE IS THE NEED OF WORDS, WHEN LOVE HAS MADE DRUNKEN THE HEART?

I HAVE WRAPPED THE DIAMOND IN MY CLOAK; WHY OPEN IT AGAIN AND AGAIN?

WHEN ITS LOAD WAS LIGHT, THE PAN OF THE BALANCE WENT UP: NOW IT IS FULL, WHERE

IS THE NEED FOR WEIGHING?

THE SWAN HAS TAKEN ITS FLIGHT TO THE LAKE BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS; WHY SHOULD

IT SEARCH FOR THE POOLS AND DITCHES ANYMORE?

YOUR LORD DWELLS WITHIN YOU: WHY NEED YOUR OUTWARD EYES BE OPENED?

KABIR SAYS: ”LISTEN, MY BROTHER! MY LORD, WHO RAVISHES MY EYES, HAS UNITED

HIMSELF WITH ME.”

ECSTASY IS A LANGUAGE that man has completely forgotten. He has been forced to forget it; he has been compelled to forget it. The society is against it, the civilization is against it. The society has a tremendous investment in misery. It depends on misery, it feeds on misery, it survives on misery.

The society is not for human beings. The society is using human beings as a means for itself. The society has become more important than humanity. The culture, the civilization, the church, they all have become more important. They were meant to be for man, but now they are not for man. They have almost reversed the whole process; now man exists for them.

Every child is born ecstatic. Ecstasy is natural. It is not something that happens only to great sages.

It is something that everybody brings with him into the world; everybody comes with it. It is life’s innermost core. It is part of being alive. Life is ecstasy. Every child brings it into the world, but then the society jumps on the child, starts destroying the possibility of ecstasy, starts making the child miserable, starts conditioning the child.

The society is neurotic, and it cannot allow ecstatic people to be here. They are dangerous for it.

Try to understand.the mechanism; then things will be easier.

You cannot control an ecstatic man; it is impossible. You can only control a miserable man. An ecstatic man is bound to be free. Ecstasy is freedom. He cannot be reduced to being a slave. You cannot destroy him so easily; you cannot persuade him to live in a prison. He would like to dance under the stars and he would like to walk with the wind and he would like to talk with the sun and the moon. He will need the vast, the infinite, the huge, the enormous. He cannot be seduced into living in a dark cell. You cannot make a slave out of him. He will live his own life and he will do his thing.

This is very difficult for the society. If there are many ecstatic people, the society will feel it is falling apart, its structure will not hold anymore.

Those ecstatic people will be the rebels. Remember, I don’t call an ecstatic person ”revolutionary”; I call him a ”rebel.” A revolutionary is one who wants to change the society, but he wants to replace it with another society. A rebel is one who wants to live as an individual and would like there to exist no rigid social structure in the world. A rebel is one who does not want to replace this society with another society – because all the societies have proved the same The capitalist and the communist and the fascist and the socialist, they are all cousin-brothers; it doesn’t make much difference. The society is society. All the churches have proved the same – the Hindu, the Christian, the Mohammedan.

Once a structure becomes powerful, it does not want anybody to be ecstatic, because ecstasy is against structure. Listen to it and meditate over it: ecstasy is against structure Ecstasy is rebellious.

It is not revolutionary.

A revolutionary is a political man; a rebel is a religious man. A revolutionary wants another structure, of his own desire, of his own utopia, but a structure all the same. He wants to be in power. He wants to be the oppressor and not the oppressed; he wants to be the exploiter and not the exploited he wants to rule and not be ruled. A rebel is one who neither wants to be ruled nor wants to rule. A rebel is one who wants no rule in the world. A rebel is anarchic. A rebel is one who trusts nature, not man-made structures, who trusts that if nature is left alone, everything will be beautiful. It is!

Such a vast universe goes on without any government. Animals, birds, trees, everything goes on without any government. Why does man need government? Something must have gone wrong.

Why is man so neurotic that he cannot live without rulers?

Now there is a vicious circle. Man can live without rulers, but he has never been given any opportunity – the rulers won’t give you any opportunity. Once you know you can live without the rulers, who would like them to be there? Who will support them? Right now you are supporting your own enemies. You go on voting for your own enemies. Two enemies stand in a presidential contest; and you choose. Both are the same. It is as if you are given freedom to choose the prison, which prison you want to go in. And you vote happily – that I would like to go to prison A or B, that I believe in the Republican prison, I believe in the Democratic prison. But both are prisons. And once you support a prison, the prison has its own investment. Then it will not allow you to have a taste of freedom.

So from the very childhood the child is not allowed to taste freedom, because once he knows what freedom is, then he will not concede, he will not compromise – then he will not be ready to live in any dark cell. He would like to die, but he will not allow anybody to reduce him to being a slave. He will be assertive. Of course he will not be interested in becoming powerful over other people. These are neurotic trends, when you are too interested in becoming powerful over people. That simply shows that deep down you are powerless and you are afraid that if you don’t become powerful others are going to overpower you.

Machiavelli says that the best way of defense is to attack. The best way to protect yourself is to attack first. These so-called politicians all over the world – in the East, in the West – are all deep down very weak people, suffering from inferiority, afraid that if they don’t become powerful politically then somebody is going to exploit them, so why not exploit rather than be exploited? The exploited and the exploiter, both are sailing in the same boat – and both are helping the boat, protecting the boat.

Once the child knows the taste of freedom, he will never become part of any society, any church, any club, any political party. He will remain an individual, he will remain free and he will create pulsations of freedom around him. His very being will become a door to freedom.

The child is not allowed to taste freedom. If the child asks the mother, ”Mom, can I go outside?

The sun is beautiful and the air is very crisp and I would like to run around the block,” immediately –

obsessively, compulsively – the mother says, ”No!” The child has not asked much. He just wanted to go out into the morning sun, into the brisk air, he wanted to enjoy the sunlight and the air and the company of the trees – he has not asked for anything! – but compulsively, out of some deep compulsion, the mother says no. It is very difficult to hear a mother saying yes, very difficult to hear a father saying yes. Even if they say yes, they say so very reluctantly. Even if they say yes, they make the child feel that he is guilty, that he is forcing them, that he is doing something wrong.

Whenever the child feels happy, doing whatsoever, somebody or other is bound to come and stop him – ”Don’t do this!” By and by the child understands, ”Whatsoever feel happy in is wrong.” And of course he never feels happy doing whatsoever others tell him to do, because it is not a spontaneous urge in him. So he comes to know that to be miserable is right, to be happy is wrong. That becomes the deep association.

If he wants to open the clock and see inside, the whole family jumps on him – ”Stop! You will destroy the clock. This is not good.” He was just looking into the clock; it was a scientific curiosity. He wanted to see what makes it tick. It was perfectly okay. And the clock is not so valuable as his curiosity, as his inquiring mind. The clock is worthless – even if it is destroyed nothing is destroyed – but once the inquiring mind is destroyed much is destroyed; then he will never inquire for truth.

Or it is a beautiful night and the sky is full of stars and the child wants to sit outside, but it is time to go to sleep. He is not feeling sleepy at all; he is wide awake, very, very much awake. The child is puzzled. In the morning when he feels sleepy, everybody is after him – ”Get up!” When he was enjoying, when it was so beautiful to be in the bed, when he wanted to take another turn and have a little more sleep and dream a little more, then everybody was against him”Get up! It is time to get up.” Now he is wide awake and he wants to enjoy the stars. It is very poetic, this moment, very romantic. He feels thrilled. How can he go to sleep in such a thrill? He is so excited, he wants to sing and dance, and they are forcing him to go to sleep – ”It is nine o’clock. It is time to go to sleep.”

Now, he was happy being awake but he is forced to go to sleep. When he is playing he is forced to come to the dining table. He is not hungry. When he is hungry, the mother says, ”This is not the time.” This way we go on destroying all possibility of being ecstatic, all possibility of being happy, joyful, delighted. Whatsoever the child feels spontaneously happy with seems to be wrong, and whatsoever he does not feel at all seems to be right.

In the school a bird suddenly starts singing outside the classroom, and the child is all attention towards the bird, of course – not towards the mathematics teacher who is standing at the board with his ugly chalk. But the teacher is more powerful, politically more powerful than the bird. Certainly, the bird has no power, but it has beauty. The bird attracts the child without hammering on his head,

”Be attentive! Concentrate towards me!” No, simply, spontaneously, naturally, the consciousness of the child starts flowing out of the window. It goes to the bird. His heart is there, but he has to look at the blackboard. There is nothing to look at, but he has to pretend.

Happiness is wrong. Wherever there is happiness the child starts becoming afraid something is going to be wrong.

If the child is playing with his own body, it is wrong. If the child is playing with his own sexual organs, it is wrong. And that is one of the most ecstatic moments in the life of a child. He enjoys his body; it is thrilling. But all thrill has to be cut, all joy has to be destroyed. It is neurotic, but the society is neurotic.

The same was done to the parents by their parents; the same they are doing to their children.

This way one generation goes on destroying another. This way we transfer our neurosis from one generation to another. The whole earth has become a madhouse. Nobody seems to know what ecstasy is. It is lost. Barriers upon barriers have been created.

It is a daily observation here that when people start meditating and they start feeling the upsurge of energy and when they start feeling happy, they immediately come to me and say, ”A very strange thing is happening. I am feeling happy, and I am also feeling guilty, for no reason at all.” Guilty? They are also puzzled. Why should one feel guilty? They know that there is nothing – they have not done anything wrong. From where does this guilt arise? It is coming from that deep-rooted conditioning: that joy is wrong. To be sad is okay, but to be happy is not allowed.

Once I used to live in a town. The police commissioner was my friend; we were friends from the university student days. He used to come to me, and he would say, ”I am so miserable. Help me to come out of it.” I would say, ”You talk about coming out of it, but I don’t see that you really want to come out of it. In the first place, why have you chosen to work in this police department? You must be miserable, and you want others also to be miserable.”

One day I asked three of my disciples to go around the town and dance in different parts of the town and be happy. They said, ”For what?” I said, ”You simply go.” Within one hour, of course, they were caught by the police. I called the police commissioner; I said, ”Why have you caught these people of mine?” He said, ”These people seem to be mad.” I asked him, ”Have they done anything wrong?

Have they harmed anybody?” He said, ”No, nothing. Really, they have not done anything wrong.”

”Then why have you caught them?” He said, ”But they were dancing on the streets! And they were laughing.” ”But if they have not done anything harmful to anybody, why should you interfere? Why should you come in? They have not attacked anybody, they have not entered anybody’s territory.

They were just dancing. Innocent people, laughing.” He said, ”You are right, but it is dangerous.”

”Why is it dangerous? To be happy is dangerous? To be ecstatic is dangerous?” He got the point; he immediately released them. He came running to me; he said, ”You may be right. I cannot allow myself to be happy – and I cannot allow anybody else to be happy.”

These are your politicians, these are your police commissioners, these are your magistrates. the juries, your leaders, your so-called saints, your priests, your popes – these are the people. They all have a great investment in your misery. They depend on your misery. If you are miserable they are happy.

Only a miserable person will go to the temple to pray. A happy person will go to a temple? For what?

A happy person is so happy that he feels God everywhere! That’s what happiness is all about. He’s so ecstatically in love with existence that wherever he looks he finds God. Everywhere is his temple.

And wherever he bows down, suddenly he finds God’s feet, nothing else. His awe, his reverence, need not be so narrow that he has to go to a Hindu temple or a Christian church. That is silly; that is meaningless. Only miserable people who cannot see God, who cannot see God in a blooming flower, who cannot see God in a singing bird, who cannot see God in a psychedelic rainbow, who cannot see God in the floating clouds, who cannot see God in the rivers and in the ocean, who cannot see God in the beautiful eyes of a child, they go to the church, they go to the mosque, they go to the temple, they go to the priest, and they ask, ”Where is God? Please show us.”

Only miserable people become available to religions. Yes, Bertrand Russell was almost right when he said that if someday the world becomes happy, religion will disappear. I say ALMOST right, ninety-nine percent right. I cannot say a hundred percent right because I know of another type of religion which Bertrand Russell is not aware of. Yes, these religions will disappear – he is right about these religions: the Hindu, the Christian, the Mohammedan, the Jain, the Buddhist, these will disappear – certainly they will disappear. If the world becomes happy, they are bound to disappear, because who will bother? But he is only ninety-nine percent right; he is one percent wrong. And that one percent is more important than the ninety-nine percent because another type of religion, REAL religion, ecstatic religion, religion which has no name, religion which has no code, no Bible, no Koran, no Vedas, a religion which has no scripture, no adjective to it, just a religion of dance, a religion of love, a religion of reverence, a religion of benediction, PURE religion, will arise in the world when people are happy.

In fact these religions that exist, they are not religions. They are just sedatives, tranquilizers. Marx is also right of course, only ninety-nine percent – that religion is the opium of the masses. He is right. These religions help you to tolerate your misery. They help you, they console you, they give you hope that ”Yes, today you are miserable; tomorrow you will be happy.” And that tomorrow never comes. They say, ”In this life you are miserable, but in the next life.... Be good, be moral, follow the rules of the society – be a slave, be obedient – and in the next life you will be happy.” And nobody knows about the next life. Nobody ever comes and says anything about it. Or if they don’t believe in the next life, they say, ”When you have gone to the other shore, to heaven, there is your reward.”

But be obedient to the priest and the politician.

There is a conspiracy between the priest and the politician. They are two sides of the same coin.

They help each other. And they all are interested in you remaining miserable – so the priest can have a congregation and the priest can exploit you; and the politician can force you to go to wars in the name of the nation, in the name of the state, in the name of this and that – and it is all nonsense, but he can send you to war. Only miserable people can be enlisted for war; only deeply miserable people can be ready to fight, can be ready to kill and to be killed. They are so miserable that even death seems to be better than their life.

I have heard Adolf Hitler was talking to a British diplomat. They were standing on the thirtieth floor of a skyscraper, and to impress him, he ordered one German soldier to jump off. And the soldier simply jumped without even hesitating, and of course died. The British diplomat could not believe it; it was unbelievable. He was very much shocked. This wastage? For no reason at all. And to impress him more, Hitler ordered another soldier, ”Jump!” and the other jumped. And to impress him even more, he ordered a third soldier.

By this time, the diplomat had come to his senses. He rushed and stopped the soldier and said,

”What are you doing, destroying your life for no reason at all?” He said, ”Who wants to live, sir, in this country and under this madman? Who wants to live with this Adolf Hitler? It is better to die! It is freedom.”

When people are miserable, death seems to be freedom. And when people are miserable, they are so full of rage, anger, that they want to kill – even if the risk is that they may be killed. The politician exists because you are miserable. So Vietnam can continue, Bangladesh, the Arab countries. War continues. Somewhere or other, war continues.

This state of affairs has to be understood – why it exists and how you can drop out of it. Unless you drop out of it, unless you understand the whole mechanism, the conditioning – the hypnosis in which you are living – unless you take hold of it, watch it, and drop it, you will never become ecstatic, and you will never be able to sing the song that you have come to sing. Then you will die without singing your song. Then you will die without dancing your dance. Then you will die without having ever lived.

Your life is just a hope; it is not a reality. It can be a reality.

This neurosis that you call society, civilization, culture, education, this neurosis has a subtle structure. The structure is this: it gives you symbolic ideas so that reality by and by is clouded, becomes clouded, you can’t see the real, and you start becoming attached to the unreal. For example, the society tells you to be ambitious; it helps you to become ambitious. Ambition means living in hope, living in the tomorrow. Ambition means today has to be sacrificed for tomorrow.

Today is all that is there; now is the only time you are, you ever will be. If you want to live, it is now or never.

Society makes you ambitious. From the very childhood when you go to school and ambition is put into you, you are poisoned: grow rich, become powerful, become somebody. Nobody tells you that you already have the capacity to be happy. Everybody says that you can have the capacity to be happy only if you fulfill certain conditions – that you have enough money, a big house, a big car, and this and that – only then can you be happy.

Happiness has nothing to do with these things. Happiness is not an achievement. It is your nature.

Animals are happy without any money. They are not Rockefellers. And no Rockefeller is as happy as a deer or a dog. Animals have no political power – they are not prime ministers and presidents

– but they are happy. The trees are happy; otherwise they would have stopped blooming. They still bloom; the spring still comes. They still dance, they still sing, they still pour their being into the feet of the divine. Their prayer is continuous, their worship is always happening. And they don’t go to any church; there is no need. God comes to them. In the wind, in the rain, in the sun, God comes to them.

Only man is not happy, because man lives in ambition and not in reality. Ambition is a trick. It is a trick to distract your mind. Symbolic life has been substituted for real life.

Watch it in life. The mother cannot love the child as much as the child wants the mother to love him, because the mother is hung up in her head. Her life has not been one of fulfillment. Her love life has been a disaster. She has not been able to flower. She has lived in ambition. She has tried to control her man, possess him. She has been jealous. She has not been a loving woman. If she has not been a loving woman, how can she suddenly be loving to the child?

I was just reading a book of R.D. Laing. He sent me his new book just two, three days ago, THE

FACTS OF LIFE. In the book he refers to an experiment in which a psychoanalyst asked many mothers, ”When your child was going to be born, were you really in a welcome mood, were you ready to accept the child?” He had made a questionnaire. First question: ”Was the child accidental, or did you desire the child?” Ninety percent of the women said, ”It was accidental; we did not desire it.” Then, ”When the pregnancy happened, were you hesitant? Did you want the child, or did you want an abortion? Were you clear about it?” Many of them said that they hesistated for months whether to have an abortion or have the child. Then the child was born – they could not decide.

Maybe other considerations – maybe the religious consideration: it may create sin for them, it may create hell for them. They may have been Catholics or Hindus or Jainas, and the idea of violence, that abortion is violence, prevented them from getting an abortion. Or social considerations. Or the husband wanted it. Or they would like to have a child as a continuity of their ego. But the child was not liked. Rarely was there a mother who said, ”Yes, the child was welcome. I was waiting for him and I was happy.” And even of those who said this, the psychiatrist writes, ”We were not certain whether they were being honest. They may have been just saying so.”

Now a child is born who is unwelcome. From the very beginning the mother has been hesitating whether to have it or not to have it. There must be repercussions. The child must feel these tensions.

When the mother would think to abort the child, the child must have felt hurt. The child is part of the mother’s body; every vibe will reach the child. Or when the mother thinks and hesitates and is just in a limbo of what to do or what not to do, the child will also feel a trembling, shaking – he is hanging between death and life. And then somehow the child is born and the mother thinks it is just accidental – they had tried birth control, they had tried this and that, and everything failed and the child is there – so one has to tolerate. That tolerance is not love.

The child misses love from the very beginning. And the mother also feels guilty because she is not giving as much love as there would have been naturally. So she starts substituting. She forces the child to eat too much. She cannot fill the child’s soul with love; she tries to stuff his body with food.

It is a substitute. You can go and see. Mothers are so obsessive. The child says, ”I am not hungry,”

and the mothers go on forcing. They have nothing to do with the child, they don’t listen to the child.

They are substituting: they cannot give love, so they give food. Then the child grows: they cannot love; they give money. Money becomes a substitute for love.

And the child also learns that money is more important than love. If you don’t have love, nothing to be worried about, but you must have money. In life he will become greedy. He will go after money like a maniac. He will not bother about love. He will say, ”First things first. I should first have a big balance in the bank. I must have this much money; only then can I afford love.”

Now, love needs no money; you can love as you are. And if you think love needs money and you go after money, one day you may have money, and then suddenly you will feel empty because all the years were wasted in accumulating money. And they are not only wasted! All those years were years of no love, so you have practiced no love. Now the money is there, but you don’t know how to love. You have forgotten the very language of feeling, the language Or love, the language of ecstasy.

Yes, you can purchase a beautiful woman, but that is not love. You can purchase the most beautiful woman of the world, but that is not love. And she will be coming to you not because she loves you; she will be coming to you because of your bank balance.

Mulla Nasrudin was in love with a woman – very homely and ordinary, but she had much money and she was the only child of her father, and the father was old and dying. Mulla was deeply in love with the woman, and one day he went to her very excitedly because the father was approaching death very fast – and he said, ”I am dying.” Mulla said to the woman, ”I am dying; I cannot live without you a single moment.” She said, ”That’s okay, but I have bad news for you. My father has made a will, and he has given all his money to a trust and I am not going to get any money. Mulla, do you love me still?” Mulla said, ”I love you, and I will always love you – though I will never see you again. But I will always love you and I will always remember you!”

All love disappears. This is symbolic; money is a symbol. Power, political power, is a symbol.

Respectability is a symbol. These are not realities; these are human projections. These are not objectives; they have no objectivity. They are not there. They are just dreams projected by a miserable mind. If you want to be ecstatic you will have to drop out of the symbolic. To be freed of the symbolic is to be freed of the society. To be freed of the symbolic is to become a sannyasin. To be freed of the symbolic you have taken courage to enter into the real. And only the real is real. The symbolic is not real.

The third thing before we enter into these beautiful sutras of Kabir: What is ecstasy? Something to be achieved? No. Something that you have to earn? No. Something that you have to become? No.

Ecstasy is being; and becoming is misery. If you want to become something you will be miserable.

Becoming is the very root cause of misery. If you want to be ecstatic – then it is just now, here-now, this very moment. Look at me. This very moment – nobody is barring the path – you can be happy.

Happiness is so obvious and so easy. Its your nature. You are already carrying it. Just give it a chance to flower, to bloom.

Ecstasy is not of the head, remember. Ecstasy is of the heart. Ecstasy is not of thought; it is of feeling. And you have been deprived of feeling. You have been cut away from feeling. You don’t know what feeling is. Even when you say ”I feel,” you only think you feel. When you say, ”I am feeling happy,” watch, analyze, and you will find you THINK you are feeling happy. Even feeling has to pass through thinking. It has to pass through the censor of thinking; only when thinking approves of it is it allowed. If thinking does not approve of it, it is thrown into the unconscious, into the basement of your being, and forgotten.

Become more of the heart, less of the head. Head is just a part; heart is your whole being. Heart is your totality. So whenever you are total in anything, you function from feeling. Whenever you are partial in anything, you function from the head.

Watch a painter painting – and that is the difference between a real artist and a technician. If the painter is just a technician who knows the technique of how to paint, who knows the know-how, who knows all about colors and the brushes and the canvas and who has gone through the training, he will function through the head. He will be a technician. He will paint, but he will not be totally in it.

Then watch a real artist who is not a technician. He will be absorbed in it, drunk. He will not only paint with his hand, and he will not only paint from his head. He will paint with his whole being; his guts will be involved in it – his feet as much, his blood and bones as much, his marrow. Everything will be involved in it. You can watch it, you can see, you can feel he is totally in it, lost. Nothing else exists. He is drunk. In that moment, he is no more. He is not a doer. The head is a doer. In that moment of total absorption, he is not a doer; he is just a passage, as if God is painting through him.

When you come across a dancer – a REAL dancer, not one who is a performer – then you will see that he is not dancing, no Something of the beyond is dancing in him. He is totally in It.

It is said about the great dancer Nijinsky that there were moments when he would take such a leap that it was physically impossible – gravitation does not allow that big a leap. He was asked again and again, ”How do you do it?” and he would say, ”I am surprised as much as you are surprised.

And I cannot MANAGE to do it. When I try to do it it never happens, I fall very short, but when I am in the dance and I am completely lost – when I am not! – it happens, as if gravitation suddenly is no more. I become weightless, I don’t feel any weight – as if something starts pulling me upwards rather than downwards.”

This pull upwards is known in yoga as levitation. Yes, it happens in meditation too. Nijinsky was unknowingly moving into deep meditation. The dance was so total that he became a meditator and levitation happened.

Whenever you are totally into something, you are ecstatic. When you are partially into something, you will remain miserable, because a part will be moving separately from the whole. There will be a division – a split, a tension, anxiety.

If you love from the head, your love is not going to give any ecstatic experience. If you meditate from your head....

Just the other night, one woman from the West was saying to me that she has come here because she has seen many people coming here, becoming sannyasins, whose lives have been transformed and who have become so happy. That’s why she has also come here – to become happy. She is meditating, but nothing is happening. She is trying hard, but nothing is happening. I told her,”Nothing is going to happen. You start from a very wrong place. Your motivation is the barrier: you have come from the head. Those people who have become sannyasins, they had not come with a motive, with greed. You have come with a motive, with greed. Your mind is already poisoned; you have come with an idea, and you are watching for when it is going to happen. It will never happen, because you will never allow yourself to be totally in it. A watcher will stand by the side and will see, has it happened yet or not?”

I used to go to a river to swim, and I loved it. Whenever I would come back, one of my neighbors always used to watch me, and he would see that I was very ecstatic. One day he asked, ”What is happening? I always see you going to the river, and for hours you swim in the river and you remain in the river. I am also coming, because you look so happy.” I said, ”Please don’t come. You will miss, and the river will be very sad. No, don’t come, because your very motivation will be a barrier. You can swim, but you will be watching for when that happiness is going to happen. It will never happen

– because it happens only when you are not.”

Swimming can become a meditation, running can become a meditation – anything can become a meditation – if you are not. Ecstasy is of the heart, is of the total.

DANCE, MY HEART! DANCE TODAY WITH JOY.

Says Kabir, ”DANCE MY HEART!” – by ”heart” is meant your total organic unity – ”DANCE TODAY

WITH JOY.” And dance today, not tomorrow. Let the dance be here and now, and let it come from your totality. You abandon yourself; you become a drunkard.

THE STRAINS OF LOVE FILL THE DAYS AND THE NIGHTS WITH MUSIC, AND THE WORLD IS

LISTENING TO ITS MELODIES:

MAD WITH JOY, LIFE AND DEATH DANCE TO THE RHYTHM OF THIS MUSIC.

Yes, joy is mad. And only mad people can afford it. The ordinary sane person is so clever, so cunning, calculating, he cannot afford joy, because you cannot control joy. Just as I said a joyful man cannot be controlled by the society, let me say this also to you: that you cannot control your joy, you cannot control your ecstasy. If you want to remain in control, you will never be joyful; then you can only be miserable. Only misery can be controlled – by the society or even by you!

Many people come to me, and they say they would like to get out of their miseries, but they are not ready to move into a state of uncontrol. They want to control joy too. They always want to remain in control. They always want to remain the master, the boss. That is not possible. The boss has to go.

The joy can erupt into your being only when all control has been removed. Joy knows no control. It is wild.

And I say to you God is wild, and joy is the first step towards God. Ecstasy is wild. You cannot control it. You have to lose all control. You have to drop into it, into the very abyss of it – and it is a bottomless abyss. You go on dropping and dropping and dropping and you never arrive to the bottom because there is no end to joy. It is a nonending process, it is eternal. And it so huge, how can you control it? The very idea is stupid.

”MAD WITH JOY, LIFE AND DEATH DANCE TO THE RHYTHM OF THIS MUSIC.” And when you are madly dancing, madly singing, when you are joyful without any control, without your presence, when the joy is so full, overflowing – you are flooded with it and all control is abandoned – then you will see a miracle: death and life dancing together. Because then all duality disappears. If you are dual, duality appears. If you are nondual, duality disappears. When you are split, the whole world is split. It is your own split that is projected onto the screen of the universe. When you are in a nonsplit state, integrated, one, organic, orgasmic, then all duality disappears.

Then life and death are not two, not opposites, but complementaries dancing with each other hand in hand. Then bad and good are not two – they are dancing with each other hand in hand. Then matter and consciousness are not two. This is what is happening inside you: the soul is dancing with the body; the body is dancing with the soul. They are not two. They are one, they are absolutely one, manifestations of one. The body is nothing but visible soul, and the soul is nothing but invisible body.

And God is not somewhere above in the heavens. He is here-now in the trees, in the rocks, in you, in me, in everything. God is the soul of existence, the invisible the innermost core. And the inner is dancing with the outer. And the sublime is dancing with the profane. And the holy is dancing with the unholy. And the sinner is dancing with the saint

Once you have become one, suddenly all duality disappears. That’s why I say a really wise man is also a fool, has to be, because foolishness and wisdom dance together. And a really sage person, a saint, is also a rascal, has to be, it cannot be avoided. God and devil are not two. Have you ever thought about the word ”devil”? It comes from the same root as ”divine”; they belong to the same root. They both come from a Sanskrit root, DIVA; from it comes DEVA, from it comes ”divine,” from it comes ”devil.”

Deep down, the tree is one. Branches are many, moving in different dimensions, directions; leaves are millions; but the deeper you go, you come to one, one tree.

Mad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music.

... THE HILLS AND THE SEA AND THE EARTH DANCE.

When you are in a dance, everything dances with you. Yes, the old saying is true: when you weep, you weep alone; when you laugh, the whole world laughs with you. When you are miserable, you are separate.

Now look at this. Misery separates you; separation makes you miserable. They are together, they are one package. Whenever you are miserable you suddenly become separate. That’s why the ego cannot afford to be happy, because if you become happy the ego cannot exist – you are no longer separate. The egoist cannot afford to be ecstatic. How can he afford to be ecstatic, because in ecstasy the ego will not be there? That is too much. He would like to remain miserable. He will create a thousand and one miseries around him just to help the ego to be there.

Have you watched it? When you are really happy, your ego disappears. When you are really happy, suddenly you feel a deep atonement with the whole. When you are miserable you want to be alone; when you are happy you want to share.

When Buddha was miserable he went to the forest, escaped from the world. What happened after six years? When he became ecstatic he came back, back to the marketplace. When Mahavir was unhappy, miserable, he escaped from the world, he renounced the world. When he became happy he came back to the world.

Now, Jainas don’t talk about Mahavir coming back to the world; they only talk about the renunciation.

Their scriptures only say that he renounced the world. That is only half the story – and not the peak, just the beginning of the story. Yes, for twelve years he lived alone in the forest, not uttering a single word. He was so miserable, he separated himself from the whole world. He remained Lonely. Then one day came the spring, and the flowers started blooming, and he was full of ecstasy; he came back to the world. The Jaina scriptures don’t talk about it – and that is the real part of the story, the more significant part that he comes back to the world that he moves amidst people, that then again he starts talking, then again he starts singing, then again he conveys, shares. Whatsoever he has attained has to be shared.

In misery you are like a seed. In ecstasy you become a flower, and your fragrance, of course, has to be released to the winds.

You can watch it in your life also, in a small way of course. When you are unhappy you close your doors, you don’t want to see your friends, you don’t want to go anywhere, you don’t want to participate in anything. You say,’ Leave me alone. Please leave me alone.” When somebody becomes very, very unhappy, he commits suicide. What is the meaning of it? What is suicide?

Suicide is just an effort to go so far away from the world that one cannot come back. It is moving into loneliness ABSOLUTELY, irrevocably, so that you cannot come back. That’s what suicide is.

Have you ever heard about any man committing suicide when he was happy, when he was ecstatic, when he was dancing? No, when the dance arises, you burst forth, you throw your doors open, you call your friends, you call your neighbors, and you say,”Come. I am going to give a feast and let us dance and let us have a little fun. I have much to share and I would like to give it to you.”

And whosoever comes to your door, you greet him, you welcome him. Anybody is welcome in the moment when you are happy. When you are unhappy, even those who have always been welcome are no longer welcome.

”THE HILLS AND THE SEA AND THE EARTH DANCE.” With you that happens. If you dance the whole existence becomes a dance. It is already a dance. Hindus say it is a RAS-LEELA, God is dancing, and around God the stars and the moon and the sun and the earths and the whole existence. The whole existence is dancing around God. God is Krishna and the whole existence is his GOPIS, his girlfriends. This is the RAS that is continuously going on, but you will know it only when you learn the ways of dance, the language of ecstasy.

... THE WORLD OF MAN DANCES IN LAUGHTER AND TEARS.

Beautiful is Kabir. His sayings are of tremendous significance.

”THE WORLD OF MAN DANCES IN LAUGHTER AND TEARS.” When you dance sometimes you will laugh and sometimes you will weep too, but now your tears will have a totally different quality to them. They will not be of sadness. They will come out of your depth, out of your overflowing heart.

They will be of joy and cheer, they will show your rejoicing.

You have known only one sort of tears, and those are that of sadness and sorrow, because you have known only one thing that overfills you sometimes, and that is sadness, depression, sorrow, and that flows through your tears. You have not known the other quality – the rich tears. These are the poor tears, ill, neurotic. You don’t know the healthy tears, the tears of well-being – when you are full of love and you don’t know how to express, when you are full of joy and you don’t know how to express and you are so overflooded that tears start flowing.

Tears are just an overflow, and Kabir says, ”THE WORLD OF MAN DANCES IN LAUGHTER AND

TEARS.”

You may have seen it happening sometimes to a madman; a madman sometimes laughs and weeps together. Sometimes it happens to my sannyasins, and they come to me very much scared and they say, What is happening? Laughter is okay, tears are okay, but both together? That simply shows I am going crazy.” You are not going crazy. You are becoming one, your duality is disappearing. Your tears and laughter are becoming joined together. Hand in hand they are going to dance together.

Your schizophrenia is over. Your division has fallen away. Now you are becoming undivided. Now you are becoming a unison, a UNIO MYSTIEA is happening. So everything is joining together; the polar opposites are coming closer and becoming one – tears and laughter together.

WHY PUT ON THE ROBE OF THE MONK, AND LIVE ALOOF FROM THE WORLD IN LONELY

PRIDE?

Yes, Kabir is right. Up to now this has been so. The monk has lived in a lonely pride. He has separated himself from the world: he has put on the robe of the monk; he has shaved his head; he has declared to the world,”I don’t belong to you and you don’t belong to me; I am no longer a part.

I am going away,” and has become very egoistic. That is one of the ways to feel pride, to become proud.

The psychology of pride has to be understood. A man becomes rich. The richer he becomes, the more aloof and distant he becomes. He is not easily approachable; it is impossible. Even to his intimates he is not available. And in America it is happening that even his wife, his children, are not very close now. He is so far away, aloof. His richness has become a pyramid, and he is sitting on the top, very, very far away. A man who achieves political power, like Adolf Hitler, becomes very aloof. He had not a single friend. It was said about Hitler,’ Either you are a follower or you are an enemy but he has no friend.” There was not a single person who could have put his hand on his shoulder and talked with him intimately. Impossible. He would never allow anybody that intimacy, that closeness.

With richness, with power, with knowledge, with asceticism, the same thing happens again and again. And the monk is also another way of living in a lonely pride. Kabir is right.

That’s why I have changed the total concept of sannyas. I tell my people to live in the world, to be in the world, to be in the crowd, to live the ordinary life – in a very extraordinary consciousness. Join them together: the world of the householder and the world of the monk – bring them close. Let the marketplace become your monastery; let your monastery become a marketplace. No more dualism

– no more of the pride of the monk.

My sannyasins feel very much puzzled – particularly the Indian sannyasins, because they have lived in a lonely pride for thousands of years. They come and they say to me, ”This doesn’t look good.

I am still a householder; I live with my wife and with my children. How to wear orange? It is very difficult.”

Women have come to me crying and weeping, and they say, ”What have you done? You have given sannyas to my husband; now what will.happen to me and my children?” I say, ”Don’t be worried.

Nothing is going to happen. Your husband will be with you.” They say, ”We cannot accept that.” One woman came to me and she said, ”What have you done? You have made my husband a sannyasin; now I cannot make love to him.” How to make love to a sannyasin? This is simply absurd; never has been heard of before. No, that is not possible.

The world of the monk and the world of the householder have existed up to now, hitherto, as enemies, separate. I have tried to bring them together. If Kabir comes back, he will not write this line again. He will not say, ”Why put on the robe of the monk?” He will say, ”If you belong to this guy Rajneesh, okay.”

”... AND LIVE ALOOF FROM THE WORLD IN LONELY PRIDE?” No, my sannyasins are not living in lonely pride, Kabir. I can assure you!

BEHOLD! MY HEART DANCES IN THE DELIGHT OF A HUNDRED ARTS; AND THE CREATOR

IS WELL PLEASED.

This is a beautiful sutra. Try to understand it. God is the creator: all the religions of the world have been talking about it, but nobody seems to have understood rightly what it means, what is its implication.

God is the creator. If it is true, then only through creation can you arrive close to him; there is no other way. If God is the creator, then become creative, and creativeness will be your prayer. Paint, sing, dance, compose poetry, make a statue – anything – but become creative. Plant a garden.

Anything – small, big, whatsoever. The proportion is not the question – anything, but be creative.

If you are cooking in the kitchen, then cook creatively; then make it more and more artful. Then don’t just go on doing it in a routine way. Let it be your poetry, your sculpture, let it be your song.

Whatsoever you are doing, be creative, bring the new in. Go on exploring the unknown. Innovate, invent, discover, create something – because if God is the creator then whenever you become creative, you come close to him. Whenever you are creative, God is the creator in you.

But up to now the religious people have lived very uncreatively; they don’t create. They simply remove themselves from the world. They don’t compose poems, they don’t paint pictures, they don’t carve statues. They simply become aloof; they become uncreative. To become uncreative is to go against God.

BEHOLD! MY HEART DANCES IN THE DELIGHT OF A HUNDRED ARTS; AND THE CREATOR

IS WELL PLEASED.”

WHERE IS THE NEED OF WORDS, WHEN LOVE HAS MADE DRUNKEN THE HEART?

Kabir says, ”Now there is nothing to say. I can only dance. I can sing, and my song will also be wild and mad, because I don’t know logic anymore, I don’t believe in words anymore. The language, the ordinary language, is not enough to hold what I am to express.”

”WHERE IS THE NEED OF WORDS” – now words are not needed; even silence will do – will do better – ”WHEN LOVE HAS MADE DRUNKEN THE HEART?”

I HAVE WRAPPED THE DIAMOND IN MY CLOAK; WHY OPEN IT AGAIN AND AGAIN?

Now God has become a part of my heart, and I cannot go on exhibiting him again and again. Those who want to see him, let them come close, let them inquire, but I am not going to convince anybody and I am not going to talk about my God to anybody. If somebody wants, he should come to me, he should inquire – he should surrender, he should open his heart.

WHEN ITS LOAD WAS LIGHT, THE PAN OF THE BALANCE WENT UP: NOW IT IS FULL, WHERE

IS THE NEED FOR WEIGHING?

And I don’t argue anymore and I don’t judge anymore and I don’t philosophize anymore. I don’t theorize anymore there is no question of weighing. God has already happened; truth is known.

There is no longer any groping.

THE SWAN HAS TAKEN ITS FLIGHT TO THE LAKE BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS; WHY SHOULD

IT SEARCH FOR THE POOLS AND DITCHES ANYMORE?

Listen to this. It is not that you have to drop the world. It is that you have to know what God is.

Then all that is ugly drops on its own accord. I am not teaching you to drop anything, to renounce anything. I am saying realize something that is already within you, that is your innermost core. Once realized, many things will disappear.

”THE SWAN HAS TAKEN ITS FLIGHT TO THE LAKE BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS, WHY SHOULD

IT SEARCH FOR THE POOLS AND DITCHES ANYMORE?” You go on looking for ecstasy in sex, you go on looking in money, in power, only because you don’t know real ecstasy. If you have known once, you will stop. All these dirty places are of no meaning to you. Not that you renounce them!

Simply they become irrelevant.

YOUR LORD DWELLS WITHIN YOU. WHY NEED YOUR OUTWARD EYES BE OPENED?

KABIR SAYS: ”LISTEN, MY BROTHER! MY LORD, WHO RAVISHES MY EYES, HAS UNITED

HIMSELF WITH ME.”

That meeting place is within you. There happens the ultimate union, the ultimate marriage, where you and the whole meet and dissolve into each other, and disappear into each other.

That

disappearance of the two into one is what ecstasy is.

I have heard about a soldier in the Second World War who would drop his rifle on the battlefield and run to pick up any little scrap of paper, would examine it eagerly, then sorrowfully shake his head as the paper fluttered to the ground. Hospitalized, he remained mute, his compulsion obscure and intractable. He wandered forlornly about the psychiatric ward, picking up scraps of paper, each time with discernable hope followed by inevitable dejection. Pronounced unfit for service he received one day his discharge from the army, whereupon, receiving the discharge form, he found his voice. ”This is it!” he cried in ecstasy. ”This it!”

Ecstasy is the ultimate freedom, and then one simply shouts in joy, ”This is it! This is it! Eureka! I have found it.”

And the irony is that you need not go anywhere to find it. It is already there. It is your very core, your very being. If you decide to find it, you can find it this very moment. It does not need a single moment’s postponement. An intense thirst can open the door. A great urgency can right now make you free.

CHAPTER 10

The choice is yours

20 December 1976 am in Buddha Hall

Question 1

ARE YOU THE ONLY ENLIGHTENED PERSON IN THIS ASHRAM? IF YES, IS IT IMPOSSIBLE

TO ENLIGHTEN OR TO BE ENLIGHTENED NEAR AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON?

SINCE I BECAME ENLIGHTENED I have never come across a person who is not enlightened. You see only that which you are. Before I became enlightened, the same was the case with me – the whole world used to appear tremendously asleep, in darkness, in death, unenlightened, because you are reflected continuously everywhere. Every other person is just a mirror; you see yourself. So don’t be worried about others; think about yourself. That should be your problem.

Others are not your problems. Whether they are enlightened or not, how does it concern you?

Why should you be worried about it? If somebody wants to remain unenlightened, it is absolutely his business to decide about it. If they want to play the game of being unenlightened, it’s perfectly okay. If you have become fed up with the world, if you are fed up with your anguish and anxiety and you have realized that now it is time to awake, then there is no difficulty. Nobody can prevent you.

Nobody is preventing you. It is only your own decision to play the game as an unenlightened being or to play the game as an enlightened being. It is only a question of inner decision.

In a single moment, in one stroke, you can become enlightened. It is not a gradual process, because enlightenment is not something that you have to invent. It is something that you have to discover. It is already there. It is not something that you have to manufacture. If you have to manufacture it, of course, it will take time; but it is already there. Close your eyes and see it there. Be silent and have a taste of it. Your very nature is what I call enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something alien, outside you. It is not somewhere else in time and space. It is you, your very core.

I was staying at Mulla Nasrudin’s. One morning when we were sipping tea, the wife of Mulla Nasrudin told him, ”Mulla, you swore terribly at me in your sleep last night.” Mulla Nasrudin laughed and said,

”Who was asleep?”

You are not asleep. Whatsoever you are doing, you have chosen to do it; it is your choice. And I insist that it is your choice, because if it is your choice, then it can be dropped immediately, the moment you are ready to change your choice. You have chosen your life to be this way – the way of agony, anguish.

Certainly you will ask, ”Why should one want to choose a life of agony, anguish, anxiety, pain, suffering? Why? Why should one choose a life of sorrow?” There are reasons, great reasons behind it: because only in sorrow can you BE. In ecstasy you disappear. Only in pain can you exist as an entity. In bliss you are lost as a drop is lost in the ocean. You are afraid to lose yourself; hence you have chosen the ways of agony. They create the ego; the more you suffer, the more you feel you are. Suffering gives you a definition. It makes you feel solid; it gives you a feeling that you are separate from the whole. That’s why you have chosen it. Nobody has chosen sorrow and suffering directly. Indirectly, you have chosen to be an egoist. Hence you have to choose suffering: without suffering you cannot be an egoist. The ego cannot exist without a sea of suffering around it. The ego is like an island in a sea of suffering.

You are enjoying your ego. You are continuously strengthening it, decorating it, making it more and more valuable. This is your choice.

Once you see that the ego is deeply connected with suffering and without suffering it cannot exist, then if you don’t want to suffer, you drop the ego, you forget all about the language of the ego. The language of the ego is the language of agony. And then things are very simple.

I have heard:

A little boy worrying through his very first day at school, raised his hand for permission to go to the wash-room, then returned to the class a few moments later to report that he could not find it.

Dispatched a second time with explicit directions, he still could not find it. So this time the teacher asked a slightly older boy to act as guide. Success crowned his efforts. ”We finally found it,” he told the teacher. ”He had his pants on backwards.”

This is the situation. You are enlightened beings, just your pants are backwards. You need a slightly older boy to guide you, that’s all. That’s what a Master is meant to be.

Nothing is missing; nothing can be missing. You are born enlightened. Then you have chosen a life of suffering and agony. You can live enlightened, you can die enlightened. It depends on you. It is a question of sheer choice.

”Are you the only enlightened person in this ashram?” In this ashram you will not even find trees unenlightened.

”If yes, is it impossible to enlighten or to be enlightened near an enlightened person?” It is not a question of being near an enlightened person. If you don’t choose, you can be here forever and you will not choose. If you choose to be enlightened, you can be enlightened anywhere.

I am needed, a Master is needed, because your desire to be enlightened is not very strong, not very intense. You don’t feel the urgency, you don’t feel thirsty enough for it. It is not your first priority.

Maybe it is somewhere on your shopping list – just at the end. If any money is left, if time is left, and the market remains open, you will see. But it is not first. First comes the world, and then comes God. Of course, you never come to God, because the world is vast – one thing leads to another, and it goes on and on. God has to be your first priority. I am needed only to help you to put God on your list as the first priority, that’s all. If you can put it there yourself, then you can become enlightened anywhere.

I became enlightened without any Master, so there cannot be any problem for you. If it can happen to me, it can happen to you. The Master is not a must. It has become a must because you are so lethargic, because you are so unwilling to move towards ecstasy, because you are so attached to the ways of sorrow and anguish.

You have become so attached to the prison, you don’t want to get out of it. Even if the door is left open, you don’t escape. You go on deceiving yourself; you don’t even look at the door. You go on deceiving yourself that the door is closed and the guard is there. And there is nobody! The door is open and the guard is not there. But you want to remain in the prison; you have become too attached. You have invested too much in the prison. In fact you have started looking at the prison as your home. The outside world looks strange and wild, and you feel afraid.

People are afraid of freedom, and people are afraid of knowing life too deeply. People are afraid to love, people are afraid to BE. They have lived long in the dark; now they are afraid of light – afraid they will not be able to open their eyes, afraid they will be dazzled, their eyes may be destroyed, afraid because their life in the darkness has become a settled routine. It is secure. Why take any chance? Why go into the unknown and the uncharted?

The darkness has become too familiar; otherwise you can become enlightened anywhere. It is your treasure. You can claim it any moment. It is a surprise why you have not claimed it up to now.

And remember, nobody else can enlighten you AGAINST yourself. If you have decided to remain the way you are, then there is no possibility. All the Buddhas and all the Christs and all the Krishnas all put together, they cannot do anything – and you will remain the same as you are. And it is good in a way that it should be so. If you can be enlightened by somebody else, against you, then that enlightenment cannot be very valuable. It cannot be a freedom. If you can be forced to be enlightened, then that too is going to be a slavery, a bondage – a new bondage.

No, it is absolutely your choice! Choose it or leave it, but remember always, it is your responsibility.

There are many people who come to a Master and surrender just so that they stop feeling responsible. That is a wrong type of surrender. Surrender means ”I am ready to cooperate,” that’s all. It does not mean ”Now you are responsible, and if I don’t become enlightened then you will be responsible for it.” Then even through surrender nothing is going to happen, because the surrender in the first place happened through wrong reasons.

When you come to me to be initiated, this is the whole meaning of initiation: that you tell me that ”I am ready,” that ”I will not hinder your efforts,” that ”If you help me, I will welcome it,” that ”If you knock at my door, you will find me ready to receive you,” that ”I am ready to become a host to you,” that ”I will cooperate,” that ”My yes is total.” That is the meaning of sannyas, the meaning of surrender: that

”I will not say no,” that ”I will not resist,” that ”I will not fight you.” It is not throwing away responsibility; it is simply dropping resistance. Not dropping responsibility, but only resistance. And once resistance is dropped, things start happening on their own accord. I am just an excuse.

Exactly, a Master is what the scientists call a catalytic agent. It does not ”work”; its presence is enough. It simply helps by being present. A Master cannot do anything to you in reality, but his presence.... You feel more trust. You cannot trust yourself; that’s why you need to trust me. If you can trust yourself, there is no need. If you feel enough unto yourself, there is no need. If you don’t feel enough, you don’t feel confident enough, you don’t feel that you will choose the right thing, you don’t feel that you will move into the right direction, then surrender is helpful. You trust somebody you feel has known, somebody you feel loves you, will not harm you, somebody you feel has more than you. You trust him. You hold his hand.

And all that happens always happens within you – and it happens without the doing of the Master.

Enlightenment is not something that can be ”done” by anybody. You just relax in trust, and it starts arising in you. It was waiting there for the moment when you can say yes. If you can say yes to the whole, good, there is no need for a Master.

If you cannot say yes to the whole sky – it may seem too huge – then say yes to a window. The Master is a window; it opens towards the sky. It brings you towards the sky. The Master is just a passage. Pass through the Master in trust, in love, in surrender, and things will start happening.

Question 2

WHEN I CAME HERE I WAS TENSE. PEOPLE LOOKED UNFRIENDLY, NOT OPEN. NOW

ALL THAT HAS CHANGED; EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL. I HAVE HAD SIMILAR EXPERIENCES

BEFORE, BUT THEY HAVE ALWAYS FADED AWAY. I HOPE IT IS NOW WISDOM AND WILL NOT

FADE, BUT IF EAR IT MAY BE KNOWLEDGE AND I WILL LOSE IT.

Look at a rose flower. If it is real it will fade by the evening; if it is a plastic flower it will not fade.

Knowledge is more permanent than wisdom, because wisdom is real and knowledge is just artificial.

You are thinking in wrong terms.

You tell me that it has happened before, also – these moments, these openings – but then they fade, they disappear, they become part of your memory. Now you want something permanent. This very idea is full of greed. If you want something permanent, you will have to choose something false, because only the false is permanent. The real is momentary – the real is always momentary. It exists for a moment and then it is gone. It is strong, and fragile. It is tremendously strong: when it is there it is there in totality. When it is gone it is gone. Only the false is permanent, but out of greed we seek permanence.

Love is fragile like a rose flower. Marriage is a plastic flower; it stays. It is artificial, legal, social.

Love is unreliable. It is there, and when it is there it is tremendously beautiful. You fly in the high skies; you are turned on; everything looks full of delight, joy. The whole existence becomes a feast, a celebration, a dance. From every nook and corner God starts looking at you... and then suddenly it is gone – as suddenly as it had come one day, it is gone. The magic disappears, the charm is no more, the poetry fades; only ashes are left, dead, stale.

Afraid of this fragile reality, man has created his permanent reality against it – to be secure, to be certain. You cannot rely on a girlfriend, you cannot rely on a boyfriend. You can rely on a husband or a wife. A wife and a husband are plastic. A girlfriend is a wind; nobody knows whether she will be lingering around you the next moment or will be gone and will have chosen another part of the world or another tree to have the affair with. Nobody knows. Out of nowhere, one moment it is and another moment it is gone. It may not go, it may go, but nothing is certain about it. Afraid of this uncertainty – out of greed, out of fear – man has created marriage. Marriage is an ugly thing. Love is beautiful.

Can’t you see the ugliness of a plastic flower? And why is a plastic flower ugly? In the first place, to be permanent it has to be dead because life implies death. Only dead things never die. If you are alive you are prone to dying. The more alive you are, the more prone to death. The more vibrant with life, the closer is death. In every dance of life you will find death present, deeply present.

That’s why it happens when you are deeply in love with somebody, suddenly you start thinking about death. Have you watched it? Lovers start thinking about death. Money changers never think of death. A poet in a deep moment of communion with nature starts thinking of death. A dancer at the peak, when everything is exploding, becomes afraid: death is there. When you are at a crescendo of any experience, you will always find death present. Why? Because whenever life is there death is there.

People have decided not to live at the maximum, never to go to the optimum. Live at the minimum –

at the minimum you can avoid death. Because at the minimum you are almost dead. The contrast is not there. When you are very, very alive, death comes very close by; the contrast becomes very clear. People are afraid of death; that’s why they live at the minimum. People are afraid of change; they start loving things which don’t change. A house is more unchanging. A country, a creed, a temple, a god of the theologians, seems to be more permanent. They avoid looking at the momentary – and reality is momentary, it is flux, it is a process. Everything is moving dynamically; it is riverlike.

You tell me, ” When I came here I was tense. People looked unfriendly, not open. Now all that has changed....” Nothing has changed; only you have changed. The people are the same – you can ask them. They were tense because you were tense. They were unfriendly because you were not friendly. Nothing has changed. People have not changed; they have not suddenly become friendly.

You have changed. You have opened, you have relaxed. You are no longer asking that they should be friendly; rather, you have started to be friendly yourself. And suddenly you see they are friendly.

Whatsoever you are you will always find. And whatsoever you find, remember, it is you. It is nobody else.

This happens to everybody who comes here. In the beginning he comes with great expectations, as if the whole ashram will dance because he has come, and they will celebrate and there will be a great festival. These expectations lurk in the mind. And then one comes here and Sant won’t even allow you easily in from the gate! And he looks very unfriendly. He is directed to be that way there.

And suddenly your hopes and expectations disappear.

I help it. They should be destroyed, because with those expectations and hopes you will continue to be an egoist. With those hopes and expectations you will remain the old. They have to be dropped.

This is a situation, this ashram is a device. Here we try in every way to put you off. If you persist, then great is the payoff. If you escape, it is good for you and it is good for me too, because as it is I have enough responsibility for enough people. Unless you are really ready to go into deeper things and you have not come here as a curious person, you have not come here with some ambition still lurking in your mind, with some politics in your mind – only if you have come here as a real authentic seeker – only then will you stay. Then you will stay whatsoever happens around. You will not bother about it. You will say, ”It is okay. There must be some reason in it.”

If you persist, persevere, you will start feeling that people are friendly. You have dropped your expectations; that’s why they start looking friendly. They are the same people: neither friendly nor unfriendly. This ashram is very neutral. We are not interested in converts, in new converts. We are not interested at all; we don’t take much interest. We are neutral. If you come it is your responsibility to come. If you choose you choose. We don’t persuade you in any way. You cannot blame us later on, that ”You persuaded us”; that much is certain, you cannot blame us. If you stayed, you stayed because you had chosen to stay. From the very beginning things are clear.

Now you say, ”... everyone is beautiful. I have had similar experiences before, but they have always faded away.” Good that they faded away. If they had remained, you would have been stuck. Then you would not have grown. Everything should come and go. It prepares you for a greater experience. It has to go away. If you are stuck with one experience, then there will be no growth in your life. Feel happy, feel grateful that they have faded away; otherwise you would not have been here. You are here because your past faded away.

But you are here, it seems, still with a wrong desire: that now you will find something permanent.

No, I don’t deal in the permanent at all. I deal in the momentary and the eternal – and they are both the same. The permanent is a false thing. The momentary and the eternal are the real things. But let me explain it to you.

Ordinarily, in your dictionaries you will find ”permanent” as if it is a synonym for ”eternal.” It is not.

The eternal is always momentary. Look at the rose flower again. In the morning it is there; by the evening it is gone. It was momentary. But it will come again – tomorrow in the morning another flower is there. It has always been coming. The eternal peeks through the momentary, the eternal looks through the momentary. One rose flower goes, another rose flower comes, that goes, another is coming; in fact the one goes just to make place for the other. The beauty is eternal. The ”roseness”

is eternal. Rose flowers come and go; the roseness is eternal.

Live in the momentary. And live in the momentary without any desire for the permanent; otherwise you will miss the eternal. Live in the moment so tremendously and totally that you forget the permanent. The permanent is a projection in the future; the permanent is your desire. It has nothing to do with reality. The eternal is the depth of the momentary – the eternal is in the moment. The permanent is horizontal, linear. The eternal is vertical.

Somebody is swimming on the surface of a deep river; that’s how the permanent is. And somebody dives deep in the river; that’s how the eternal is. Dive deep in the moment and you will touch the eternal. Look in the rose flower. Yes, this rose flower is momentary, but look deep, dive deep, and suddenly you will see hidden behind this rose flower is roseness. Hidden behind this momentary rose flower is beauty eternal, divine. Flowers will come and go; flowering remains. Roses come and go; roseness remains. Lovers come and go; love remains. Your woman may die, your man may disappear may escape. These are all roses. Love remains.

My teaching is trust love. Don’t betray love. Love is something that will happen again and again –

with another woman with another man, with another friend. It will happen again and again; it will flower again and again. Don’t get stuck. Your wife has died. Of course you feel sad and you cry, and it is good, but don’t get stuck. Now don’t decide to remain a widower for ever and ever. This is foolish, this is stupid. And don’t think that falling in love again will be a betrayal to your wife, no. You had fallen in love with your wife in the first place because of love. Another love will arise, another love will arise.... Don’t betray love. Persons come and go.

Don’t hanker for the permanent; otherwise you will destroy the reality of the person. If you hanker for the permanent, then you don’t look into the real; then you start trying to fix it so that the wife remains forever your wife. You start becoming possessive. Thinking that this rose flower may fade away, you take it away from the plant, because on the plant you have seen flowers disappear – in the evening the petals start falling and the flower is gone. Before it is gone, you cut it from the plant. You can put it in a safe-deposit box, you can lock it up, but by cutting it from the plant you have made it already dead; now it will simply rot in your safe-deposit box. You have not even allowed it a beautiful death.

Don’t be so cruel, don’t be so unkind. The flower was beautiful on the plant, on the bush; it was alive there; its life belonged to the life of the bush. Let it die there. That death was beautiful; now you have taken it away. I have seen people putting rose flowers in their bibles; then they become dry and dead. You didn’t allow a beautiful death to the flower.

And your bibles are also like dead flowers.

Remember, when you start possessing the woman or the man, you are killing – you are putting the flower in the safe-deposit box. And you rush to the court to get married; you are making it a legal thing. Love dies when law comes in. Love cannot exist with law. Love is lawlessness. Love is so spontaneous, how can it exist with law? It is impossible. Love has disappeared from the earth because there is too much law. Unless law disappears from the earth, there is no possibility for love to appear again. And without love there is no possibility of prayer. And without love there is no possibility for God.

Religion does not consist of laws. It consists only of one thing, and that is love.

”I have had similar experiences before, but they have always faded away.” Good. This is how it should be. Don’t look back; look forward. More is to come. Don’t close your eyes, and don’t cling to the past. More is to come; you are growing. Better and deeper experiences are waiting for you.

”I hope it is now wisdom and will not fade....” Wisdom always fades out. Only knowledge remains.

”... but I fear it may be knowledge and I will lose it.” If this is your notion, you will be in trouble.

Wisdom always fades. Wisdom need not remain there as a wound. It comes and goes like a breeze.

Of course each moment of wisdom makes you wiser and wiser, but this is how wisdom makes you wise: you become aware that reality fades, that reality is momentary, that reality comes and goes, that nothing is permanent. Everything is eternal! but nothing is permanent. The permanent is the human desire; the eternal is God’s nature.

Everything comes again – never the same, yet comes again. Spring has gone, will come again.

Summer has gone, will come again. It will be there again – yet never the same. Your childhood is gone, but many other children will be born. Your youth is gone, somebody else will be becoming a youth. Your old age is disappearing, somebody else is becoming old. You are dying, somebody else is getting ready to die. Death continues, life continues, love continues, and we are just vehicles of these eternal forces.

So drop the idea of the permanent. Live in the moment, and you will know the eternal.

Question 3

OH, THE RELIGION! THE ADORATION OF THE PAST! THE BEAUTY AND SENTIMENTALITY AF

THE PAST!

SINCE I WAS A LITTLE CHILD, I HAVE ALWAYS FELT LIKE THINKING ABOUT THE PAST AND

GETTING A FEELING OF SWEET PAIN, THAT THE PAST IS GONE, AND CRYING SWEET AND

WARM TEARS AND REALLY ENJOYING THE WHOLE THING VERY MUCH – THIS WHOLE

THING CALLED NOSTALGIA. SOMETIMES I REALLY LOVE MY PAST. HAVING A PAST TO PLAY

WITH, I FEEL BLESSED. AM I A FOOL?

SO I HEAR YOU AND AGREE WITH YOU, INTELLECTUAL, THAT THE PAST IS

NONEXISTENTIAL AND UNREAL, BUT I SEEM TO FEEL DIFFERENT ABOUT IT. WHAT IS

GOING ON?

IF NOSTALGIA IS JUST A TRICK OF THE EGO, WHICH IT MUST BE, THEN WHY DOES IT

COMES AS A GOOD WARM FEELING?

HOW CAN THE DEVIL BE SWEET?

OR HOW CAN MY FEELINGS BE UNREAL?

OR IF MY FEELINGS ARE UNREAL, WHAT IS LEFT?

The one question is not one question; it is seven questions. So we will have to be surgical. Excuse me. We will have to cut this question into seven parts.

First: ”Oh, the religion! The adoration of the past!” Religion is not the adoration of the past. It has nothing to do with the past. Religion is possibility, not past. Religion is potentiality for the future, not past. Religion is not looking backwards; it is looking forwards. Religion is not memory, but hope. But you have been trained to look at the past because you have been trained not by religious people but by Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans. These are not religious people. You have been conditioned by the priests and the popes and the SHANKARACHARYAS. These are not religious people.

If you come to a religious person, he will give you hope for the future – he will give you a fire for the future. He will not talk about the dead past. To look at the dead past is dangerous. For one thing, it cannot be repeated. Second, one who goes on looking back cannot live the future. It is as if you are driving your car looking only in the rearview mirror. You are doomed! The rearview mirror is not for that. When you reverse your car, it’s okay, use it; or sometimes somebody is honking his horn from behind, look. But don’t get obsessed with the rearview mirror. It may be a beautiful mirror, but please, look ahead. You are driving in the future. Looking backwards and driving in the future is dangerous; then the accident is almost predictable. It is not an accident; it is a certainty; it is going to happen.

Remember, all movement is towards the future; you cannot move towards the past. Movement is only towards the future, but you can look towards the past. And if you go on looking towards the past, still you are moving towards the future, and if your life becomes accidental, prone to accidents, and you collide and bump and this and that and your whole life becomes a misery, it is natural. Look where you are going. Don’t look to the past where you have been.

No, you must have been taught by Christians. Hindus, Mohammedans; that’s why you think,”Oh, the religion! The adoration of the past!” Religion has nothing to do with the past, because religion has nothing to do with the dead. It is a concern with life, a commitment to life.

”The beauty and sentimentality of the past!” There is nothing beautiful in it. How can the dead be beautiful? You don’t know what beauty is then. Beauty is always in the alive. Beauty is always of the present. But if you have become blind to the present, then of course you know only one beauty, and that is of the past. And that is not beauty at all. Beauty is throbbing, pulsating with life. Beauty is always here-now; it is not in the past.

But to be here-now needs great courage. To be here-now needs great awareness. To be here-now needs great intelligence. So people have chosen not to bother with the herenow; they look back, they look at the past. Now no intelligence is needed to look at the past – any stupid person can do that. Anybody can look at that which has happened. To look at that which is happening needs subtle, tremendous awareness. And that is the way the future is going to happen.

The future is constantly turning into the present; the present is constantly turning into the past. The past is out of your hands; you cannot do anything-with it. Then don’t get stuck with it, because nothing can be done about it. You cannot undo it. You cannot change it. It is impossible. It is futile to waste time with it. But there are people – millions of people, they are the majority – who go on thinking about the past, who go on decorating it in their memory. They are missing the real. They have become involved with the unreal, with the gone. These people are dead people.

There is nothing beautiful in a grave. There is nothing beautiful in a skeleton. It simply stinks. A dead body simply stinks. There is nothing beautiful in it.

Beauty needs life, because beauty needs heartbeat, beauty needs pulsation, streaming, energy, vitality. The past is just a memory. You are just playing a tape when you start looking at the past; you are just looking at a movie. It is no longer anywhere; it is just in your head. And it is mechanical.

Now scientists say that it is absolutely mechanical. They have found that if electrodes are touched at certain centers of the mind, certain memories start unfolding. You think you are free? You are wrong.

If your skull is opened and a certain spot is touched with an electrode, some electricity is given to that spot, a certain memory will start. You will see you are a child. Suddenly! You were not thinking about it. You will see you are a child, running in the garden in the morning sun trying to catch a butterfly; and you have fallen and you have broken your leg. And if the electrode is taken away, the memory stops. Again if the electrode is touched to the same spot, the same memory repeats in the same way again: you are a child in the garden running in the morning sun trying to catch a butterfly; you have fallen; you have broken your leg. Put the electrode off; the memory disappears. Put the electrode on again; the memory again starts the same way: you are a child....

This is a mechanical thing. And you cannot stop it! Remember, when the electrode is there, do whatsoever you want to do – shake your head and want to get rid of it – you cannot. The tape is running, the film is moving, the film is on the projector. Your mind simply functions as a screen.

Nothing is beautiful in it; it is a mechanical thing.

To be here-now you have to be aware, not mechanical. To be in the past any machine will do; you are not needed.

Sooner or later, when a person dies, a person like Albert Einstein, they will take his tape out. Right now it is difficult, but sooner or later they will find the way to take the brain out and keep it alive as a machine, and then they can play it; it can be projected on a screen. Einstein will not be there, but his memories will be there and they will be played on a screen, and he will again and again discover the theory of relativity – and he is not there.

Mind, when functioning as the past, is a mechanism. When mind thinks about the future, again, it is the past projecting into the future. When you start thinking about tomorrow, what is your tomorrow?

Just a modified form – a little decorated, retouched here and there – just your yesterday projected again. Maybe there are a few things you don’t want. Your woman nagged you too much yesterday.

You don’t want her to nag you again, you don’t want her to do that again tomorrow. Maybe you drop that. You were eating in a Chinese restaurant and it was tremendously delicious and you would like to eat there tomorrow again – and a little more. This is how your tomorrow comes, from the gone yesterday – a little retouched here and there, decorated, polished, modified, refined, but it is the gone yesterday projected again.

Only the present is not mechanical. Only the present is real. Only this moment is real. And only this moment is beautiful.

”... I have always felt like thinking about the past and getting a feeling of sweet pain, that the past-is gone, and crying sweet and warm tears and really enjoying the whole thing very much....” People do that, they go on enjoying the past very much, because they don’t have any future and they don’t have any present. These people are dead people, corpses walking on the streets.

Stop getting into the past too much. Detach yourself: Get out of your past. Yes, sometimes it can be very sweet. because you are completely free to choose. People choose good things from the past and go on dumping the bad things in their basement. That’s why everybody thinks their childhood was paradise. It is not so. Ask the psychologists. They say it is a chosen part; you have chosen a few pages. Whatsoever you feel beautiful, you have chosen and you go on looking at it. And not only that, you go on magnifying its beauty, its sweetness, its goodness.

And this only shows one thing – this obsession with the past shows only one thing: your present is ugly. This shows only one thing: that you are impotent as far as the present is concerned. A really potent man or woman, a really vital person who lives in the present, will not have time to go into the past. The present is so absorbing, the present is so enchanting, the present is so tremendously alive, why should one go to the past? You go to the past only because you have not yet learned how to be in the present.

And to be in the present is to be religious. because to be in the present needs awareness. And awareness is the very key of all religion.

”Sometimes I really love my past. Having a past to play with, I feel blessed. Am I a fool?” Certainly, absolutely – and a perfect fool at that. Get out of this, and the sooner you do, the better. Be a little wiser with your life.

”So I hear you and agree with you, intellectually....” There is never any agreement intellectually. This is a way of saying that you don’t agree with me. ”Intellectual” agreement? It is not an agreement at all. It is as if somebody comes and says,”I love you very much – intellectually. What do you mean?

Intellectually? How can love happen intellectually? How can you agree with me intellectually’?

Maybe you cannot argue, maybe you feel yourself a little at a loss as to how to argue with me – you feel silenced – but it is not agreement. To agree intellectually is not to agree at all. Unless you agree totally, you agree not.

”So I hear you and agree with you, intellectually, that the past is nonexistential and unreal....” I am not giving you any theory or philosophy. I am simply stating facts. There is no question of agreement or disagreement. When I say the trees are green, do you agree with me intellectually, or do you disagree with me? You simply look at the trees and you say, ”Right. Trees are green.” When I say the past is gone, am I saying some philosophy to you, am I preaching some philosophy to you? ”The past is gone” is as much a fact as ”the trees are green.” You know it, I know it, everybody knows it: the past is gone. The past MEANS that which is gone. The past is the past. Do you have to agree with me about this too? Then either I am mad or you are mad!

If I say the sun has risen and you say, ”Yes. I think I will agree with you”.... About facts one need not agree or disagree. Just look at the fact. Either it is a fact or it is not a fact. How can you hesitate between agreement and disagreement? Either I am stating some fictitious thing or I am stating a fact. Just look into the fact.

The past is gone – you are no longer a child, or you are no longer a young man. The past is gone.

Let the gone be gone. That’s what Jesus says when he says, ”Let the dead bury their dead.” Let the gone be gone, and look at that which is.

And now one thing to be remembered. A person who is so obsessed with the past, his past is not reliable either. Because, for example, today, right now, I am talking to you. This is the present.

Tomorrow it will have become the past and then you will think about it – Osho talking to you and how beautiful it was. Look at the foolishness of it. One doctor used to come here, and he would continuously take notes. I asked him, ”What dp you go on doing?” He said, ”I take notes because you say such beautiful things, I would like to remember them later on.” ”But when I am talking right now, then you are taking notes. Your notes are not reliable, because you don’t hear me: you are concerned with the notes too much. Your concern with the notes simply says you are too concerned with changing the present into the past, and then you will enjoy.”

Yes, there are people.... There is a certain category of people called the ”tourists.” It is a sort of neurosis. They go to the Himalayas. They don’t look at the Himalayas – they are continuously clicking their cameras and looking at the guidebook and listening to the guide. The Himalayas are not a concern at all. And if you ask them they will say, ”Yes, back at home, resting in our armchairs, we will look at the album.”

Don’t be a tourist. ”Tourist” is a certain sort of neurosis. When you are facing the Himalayas, tell the guide to keep quiet, because whatsoever he says is meaningless. The Himalayas are there, you are facing Gourishankar; let everybody keep quiet. Look at it, face it, encounter it. It is tremendously beautiful. Don’t bring your camera in; the camera will falsify it. And the camera can give only one aspect; just a small window will open. The whole of the Himalayas was available in its totality, and you missed that. And you will look back home – with nostalgia – at how beautiful were the Himalayas.

And you were never there! You were with your camera and you were listening to the guide and you were looking at the guidebook and the map – and you were never there. Maybe when you were in the Himalayas you were thinking about your home – with nostalgia!

I cannot trust you that you had a real past. Your past is gone, and even that past cannot be very real. Because you don’t know how to live in the present, how can your past be real? Not even as a memory is it worth trusting. First live in the present – let the present have its total impact on you –

then your past will have something, a true memory. Otherwise your memory is not reliable. You may be imagining it; you may be dreaming about it.

While I am talking to you, be here with me. When you are in Poona, be in Poona. Otherwise there are people: when they are in Poona they think of Philadelphia, and when they are in Philadelphia they will think of Poona. They go on falsifying everything.

”If nostalgia is just a trick of the ego, which it must be, then why does it come as a good warm feeling?” Because you don’t know how to be warm here-now. Because you don’t know how to be loving here-now. You are cold and frozen here-now, so you seek warmth in memories. You are tremendously poor. I feel sorry for you.

”How can the devil be sweet?” The devil is always sweet. God is sometimes bitter too, but the devil is always sweet. He has to be sweet; otherwise how will he deceive you? He cannot afford to be bitter. He has to always buttress you.

”How can my feelings be unreal?” I am not saying that your feelings are unreal. I am saying feelings exist in the present. In fact the word ”feel” has no past tense. I don’t know about language and the grammarians, but I say to you, the word ”feel” has no past tense – cannot have. ”Feel” means ”feel here-now.” Thinking is always past; thinking has no present tense. You cannot think here-now. The moment you think, you are lost, you have lost track of the present. Feeling is always of the present; thinking, always of the past.

You try it. And I am stating a fact. You try it. If you think, you always think of that which is gone or that which has not come yet; both nonexistential. Thinking is nonexistential. Feeling is existential. If you love a person, and you feel the love, you feel here-now. How can you have the feeling of yesterday?

You will THINK that you felt yesterday; you cannot FEEL it. And to think that you felt is not feeling; it is thinking. It is a deception.

And, ”If my feelings are unreal, what is left?” I am not saying your feelings are unreal. I am saying you are unreal. And when you are not left, God is. God knows only the present; God has no past and no future. God always is. You cannot make a sentence ”God WAS”; it will be meaningless.

You cannot say ”God WILL BE”; that too will be meaningless. God is always is; God is isness, the absolute present.

When you are not there.... And you are nothing but your past. What are you? Just a collection of the past. Drop your past, and you are not. The ego is nothing but a collective name for your whole past; and when you don’t live in the past, you start living egolessly. Then moment to moment you go on dying to the past, you go on renouncing the past, and each moment you are fresh, young, virgin.

And in that virginity is God.

The soldier returned home unexpectedly on a fast leave. A few minutes later he was in bed with his wife when the janitor knocked on the door. ”My God,” he screamed, jumping out of bed, ”it is your husband!”

”Don’t be silly,” said his wife. ”My husband is in Germany.”

Get it? They both forgot the present. The soldier has come on a fast leave and immediately gets into bed with the wife, and the janitor knocks on the door. Of course he must have become afraid, as he must have been becoming afraid in other people’s houses with other people’s wives, and he suddenly jumps off the bed, and he says, ”My God, it is your husband!” And he is the husband!

”Don’t be silly,” says his wife. ”My husband is in Germany.” She must be sleeping with others. And both are in the past. People are so unaware of the present. People are not in the present at all.

That’s how they are missing God. God is the present, and you are not in the present. To be present –

in the present – is to be in meditation. That’s all meditation is about. To be present is to be prayerful.

Question 4

ONCE IN A WHILE, MY MIND LOOKS AT YOUR CLOSE DISCIPLES, LIKE THE TALL ENGLISH

GUY WITH THE SAD FACE. ONE HEARS HIS SAD VOICE AS HE READS THE SUTRA. THE

GUY NEVER SMILES, NEVER LETS GO. DO PEOPLE BECOME VERY SERIOUS IF THEY ARE

SO NEAR YOU?

I am not serious, and a certain balance is needed. Teertha balances me. He has to be serious on purpose. When the Master is not serious, disciples have to be serious.

You can ask Narendra, one of our sannyasins. His father is a beautiful man – a little crazy. For thirty, forty years he has been crazy. Small children will watch him – his own children will watch him –

because he can steal. He can take things from the money box and disappear. Hmm? the father. So small kids, they will just sit there in the shop and watch. When the father can steal, then the children have to watch. Otherwise ordinarily it happens the other way: the father watches, and the kids steal.

This is how it is happening here. The Master is nonserious: the kids have to be serious. It certainly balances. Teertha is not serious; he has to be on purpose.

But you need not be worried about others. That is not mannerly, and that is not good at all. It is impolite, inhuman. You should not be concerned with others. Why should you be worried? And who are you to decide what others should do? The very idea that you have to decide that ”others should do like this” is a deep political ambition to become powerful, to manage, to suppress.

Now, you say, ”Once in a while, my mind looks at your close disciples....” Don’t waste time. Look at yourself. In fact there is not much time; you cannot afford it. Life is short and much has to be done.

Don’t waste your time, because God will not ask you why Teertha was serious. He will not ask you; it is not anything to be asked to you. If he wants to ask, he will ask Teertha. He will ask you about you, and then you cannot say, ”I cannot answer because I was too busy looking at other people and what they were doing and my whole life was wasted in that.”

”The guy never smiles, never lets go.” But it is possible that if somebody lets go, the smile may disappear. If the smile is forced, pretentious, then let-go will help the smile go. It is not necessary that when you relax you will smile. It depends. Somebody may start crying when he relaxes – and he may have been laughing before. Now he relaxes and he starts crying. Somebody may have been very, very sweet and smiling, and when he relaxes, suddenly he becomes serious. There is no necessity about it. If his smile was false, then when he relaxes he cannot smile. If his sweetness was false, when he relaxes he cannot be sweet. If his softness, politeness, was just hypocrisy and he relaxes, then he cannot be polite. It depends.

So there is no necessity that in a let-go everybody has to smile. These ideas of how everybody should be are wrong. When I say let go, I am simply saying be natural. If to somebody it happens that he feels natural when he is serious, then it is perfectly good. Then don’t impose on him that he has to laugh. Why? Who are you? You never seem to allow people freedom. Sometimes you say they have to be serious – don’t laugh. And sometimes, if you turn to the other extreme, you start saying, ”Now nobody is allowed to be serious – laugh!” Both are wrong.

Allow the other his being. If serious is natural, good. The whole world cannot laugh. In the world there exists a certain balance. Just as half are women and half are men and half are introverts and half are extroverts and half are people with will and half are people with a tremendous quality of surrender, in exactly the same way, half the people when they are relaxed will laugh and half the people when they are relaxed will become serious. That’s a balance. The world is a great balance.

But I have the feeling that the person who has asked must himself have suffered from seriousness.

Otherwise why should he be worried? You can laugh. Teertha’s seriousness is not a hindrance to you. He is not going to prevent you. But if you feel that somebody is serious and you feel a certain hindrance for yourself to laugh, that means deep down in your unconscious you have been a serious person. In fact you are finding ways and means to be serious here; you are finding a rationalization. So now if you think, and if I can say to you, that people who are very close to me become serious, then you would also like to become serious and come close to me. You are trying to find a rationalization. It is your outlook, and your outlook always shows something about you.

I have heard an anecdote of the night Houdini, the great magician, first introduced the trick of putting a a dozen needles and a piece of thread into his mouth, and then producing them all neatly threaded.

”I want a gentleman in the audience,” he announced, ”to examine the needles and thread, and then look into my mouth to make sure nothing is concealed there.” An elderly little man climbed up to the stage, and peered intently into Houdini’s bridgework. ”Well,” said Houdini finally, ”don’t just stand there. Tell the audience what you see.”

The little man said, ”Pyorrhea.”

He was a doctor. When you say something about somebody, you say something about yourself.

Never be concerned about others. My whole effort here is to give you all freedom, total freedom, to be whatsoever you can be. Seriousness is also beautiful if it is natural. Then it is a flowering. The whole world laughing and nobody serious will not be a very deep world. It will be very superfluous.

Laughter has a beauty of its own, a flowering, but seriousness.... When I say don’t be serious, I mean don’t be UNNATURALLY serious. When I say laugh, I don’t mean laugh anywhere for no reason at all. When I say laugh, I mean ALLOW laughter; if it comes don’t repress it. And the same I say about seriousness. If it is natural to you, if it is a natural climate to you and you feel good and happy in it, then perfectly good. There is no need to be worried about it.

Remember, the unnatural has to be dropped and the natural has to be allowed flowering, expression.

If you are here in this world to sing a serious song, sing it. That’s your destiny. If you are here to dance and laugh, dance and laugh. That’s your destiny.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10