The Perfect Master, Vol 2

Talks on Sufi Stories

Talks given from 01/07/78 am to 10/07/78 am

English Discourse series

CHAPTER 1

Once Upon a Time

1 July 1978 am in Buddha Hall

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A COW. IN ALL THE WORLD THERE WAS NO ANIMAL

WHICH SO REGULARLY GAVE SO MUCH MILK OF SUCH HIGH QUALITY.

PEOPLE CAME FROM FAR AND WIDE TO SEE THIS WONDER. THE COW WAS EXTOLLED

BY ALL. FATHERS TOLD THEIR CHILDREN OF ITS DEDICATION TO ITS APPOINTED TALKS.

MINISTERS OF RELIGION ADJURED THEIR FLOCKS TO EMULATE IT IN THEIR OWN WAY.

GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS REFERRED TO IT AS A PARAGON WHICH RIGHT BEHAVIOUR, PLANNING AND THINKING COULD DUPLICATE IN THE HUMAN COMMUNITY. EVERYONE

WAS, IN SHORT, ABLE TO BENEFIT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF THIS WONDERFUL ANIMAL.

THERE WAS, HOWEVER, ONE FEATURE WHICH MOST PEOPLE, ABSORBED AS THEY WERE

BY THE OBVIOUS ADVANTAGES OF THE COW, FAILED TO OBSERVE. IT HAS A LITTLE HABIT, YOU SEE. AND THIS HABIT WAS THAT AS SOON AS A PAIL HAD BEEN FILLED WITH ITS

ADMITTEDLY UNPARALLELED MILK – IT KICKED IT OVER.

Sufism is not speculation – it is utterly practical. It is not a philosophy – it is very down-to-earth. Its roots are in the earth. It is not abstract, wholly thinking – it means business. It wants to transform people, not just to stuff their minds with futile, impotent ideas. And all ideas as such are impotent.

They pretend much, but when you go deep into them, you will always find them empty of all reality.

They promise, but they never deliver the goods. They cheat.

Philosophers have been the greatest cheats in the world. They create beautiful mansions in the air.

They are artists in creating dreams. And those who become enchanted with those dreams are very unfortunate, because their lives will be wasted. And by the time they become aware that they have been chasing dreams, it will be too late.

And there are a few people who never become aware of it. Their whole lives they remain engrossed in ideas, and they die engrossed in the ideas. They never come face to face with reality. And it is only reality that liberates.

Truth liberates, not ideas. And truth is not an idea: truth is a experience.

Sufism is not an ’I’m’ as such. It is a practical methodology It is alchemy. If you understand its ways, it is going to transmute you from lower metal to higher metal. It can take you to another reality. It can open doors to the ultimate. It is not interested in giving you great ideas. Its basic emphasis is how to give you a little more awareness. Even an ounce of awareness is far more valuable than the whole Himalayas of philosophy. An inch of becoming more conscious is far better than traveling thousands of miles in your dreams.

Philosophy is a very articulate dream – non-pictorial, conceptual, but still it is a dream, a very sophisticated dream. Unsophisticated people dream in pictures; sophisticated people dream in concepts – but the quality remains the same.

The dream is that which prevents you from knowing the reality. All dreaming has to stop, has to cease. When your eyes are no more full of dreams, you will be able to see that which is. And that liberates, that uplifts, that transmutes!

A few things about the Sufi approach:

First, that it is more scientific than philosophic – scientific in the sense that the criterion of truth has to be a practical result. If your religion is true, it will nourish you, it will strengthen you, it will expand you. The truth is not in the proofs – only you can be the proof.

Vivekananda asked Ramakrishna, ”What proofs are there of God’s existence?”

And Ramakrishna said, ”I am.”

A strange answer. Vivekananda had not expected that answer. You also would not have expected it, because when somebody is asking for a proof of God, then there are traditional, philosophical proofs. One expects those proofs. Vivekananda must have been thinking Ramakrishna would say,

”Everything needs a creator. The world is, therefore there must be a creator. We may be able to see him or not, but the creator must be there because the world is.”

But no, Ramakrishna didn’t say anything like that. He was not a philosopher: he was a Sufi. He said, ”I am! Look at me. feel me! Go into me! I can take you into that reality that you are calling God. What name you give to it is irrelevant. I have been to those heights – I can lead the way for you too. Are you ready to come with me?”

Vivekananda was not prepared. He had come to argue. But this is not an argument. This is going to be risky, to follow this madman. One can never be certain where he will lead you.

Vivekananda hesitated. And Ramakrishna said, ”Before you ask a question, you should be ready to receive the answer! Are you a coward or something? Why did you ask in the first place?” And Ramakrishna jumped – he was that kind of madman, like Zusya – and he touched Vivekananda with his feet on his chest, and Vivekananda fell into a kind of trance.

When after one hour he woke up, he was a transformed man. He bowed down, touched the feet of Ramakrishna, and said, ”Excuse me, I am sorry. It was so childish of me to ask such a question. It is not a question – it is an adventure. And thank you! You have given me a taste of something of which I was not aware at all.”

This is the way of the Sufi. He creates a situation. The situation is his lab. In that situation he slowly slowly persuades you, seduces you, really, to go into the beyond. Yes, it is a seduction – because who will be ready to go into the beyond? The mind wants to cling to the known; the known is familiar.

With the known we are skillful, efficient; vie can tackle it. To go into the unknown is certainly risky.

And we will be like children. All our expertise will be left behind. All our knowledge will be of no use there. Who wants to go into the unknown? But God is not only unknown but unknowable. God is available only to those who gather courage and go into the unknown.

The Sufi Master helps you to gather courage. The Sufi Master, by THIS example, by his being, by his presence, creates the longing for the impossible. Stirs your heart. Gives a new life release to your breathing. Pulsates you with a new passion for God. But this is not philosophy. He does not solve a question at all. Yes, he helps you to dissolve all questions, but he never solves a question.

So the first thing to be understood is: Sufism is practical, very very down-to-earth. Sufism likes people like Zorba the Greek, because they are the people who can become Zorba the Buddha –

only they are the people who can become. The people who have become very very clever in playing with words, philosophizing, abstraction, rationalizations, explanations, they are not the people to go into that journey. They are cowards. All their philosophization is nothing but an escape from the truth. To escape from the truth they create theories about truth, and then they cling to those theories believing that this is what truth is all about.

Hence, there are Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians and Jains, but not Sufis. A Sufi has nothing to do with Hinduism or Mohammedanism, or Christianity. A Sufi can happen anywhere! in any religion, or in no religion. A Sufi is a wanderer, a Sufi is universal. A Sufi belongs to the whole world and the whole world belongs to the Sufi. All is his, and he uses all situations to transcend.

The Sufi agrees perfectly with the Buddha as far as the definition of truth is concerned. Buddha is reported to have said to his disciples: Truth is that which works. A very pragmatic definition of truth.

Never surpassed. Even modern science cannot give a better definition of truth than Buddha has given: Truth is that which works. If it doesn’t work, it is not true. The lie is that which doesn’t work, it cannot work. It cannot work because it goes against the universal law. Truth works because it is in harmony with the universal law.

Remember it: always go on judging your beliefs, your concepts, your prejudices – let this be the touchstone. Believe only in that which works. And then it is no more belief: it is trust, because you have seen its work. You know it corresponds with Tao; you know it is in tune with the ultimate law of life, with Dhamma.

This should be the one and only criterion for all those who follow on the path.

Philosophy is abstract, woolly and utterly meaningless. It cry Ares great clouds around you, and gives you a feeling as if you are coming closer to knowing something. But that never happens. One can be surrounded by very colorful clouds – nothing is going to happen. In fact, philosophy hinders.

The more clouds you have around you of thoughts, ideas, ideologies, the less is the possibility of having clarity to see.

Drop all philosophies. Let your eyes be empty, empty of all. Those empty eyes become full of truth.

Philosophy only creates words, generates words and words and words. One word generates another word... it is a kind of unconscious association.

Watch sometimes sitting silently: utter one word, and wait, and you will see it is bringing other words.

That’s how psychoanalysis works: free association. Lie down on the couch of a psychoanalyst and he says, ”Free associate – let anything come.” One word comes, and you are surprised: it is hooked with other words, it brings other words. And then you are even more surprised: words are not separate, they are chained with each other. There is a certain system . Words exist in bunches.

Just one word... and it provokes a series, and it goes on and on and on.

One word creates another. This is what Buddha calls SANTAAN. Just as parents give birth to a child, words give birth to another word, a continuum. It goes on ad infinitum. People are not lost in ignorance: people are lost in the jungles of words. Sufism is very much against being wordy. It happens: if you go to a Sufi Master, you will have to be with him for years. And only when you have been with him for years sitting silently, watching, or doing whatsoever he tells you to do.... No questions are raised, no doubts solved, no discussions allowed, no argumentation appreciated. If the Master says, ”Go and fetch up water from the well,” you go and fetch up water from the well. You don’t ask why. Even sometimes the Master may ask something absurd.

A famous Sufi story:

A seeker came to a Master and he said, ”I have been to many Masters and they all have failed me.

Nobody was a true Master. I have come with great hope to you. This is my last resort – be my shelter. And I know you have it! I can see you have it. It is radiating.”

The Master said, ”Yes, I have it. And I know those people you have been with – they also have it.

The problem is not whether I have it or not: the problem is whether you will be able to take it!”

The disciple said, ”I am ready. Whatsoever you say I will do.”

The Master said, ”Then come on with me, I am going to the well to fetch water. Remember one thing: never ask a question. Questions are not allowed. Watch! but never ask a question.”

The disciple said, ”This is not difficult.” But from the very beginning he started feeling very uneasy –

because the Master was carrying a bucket with no bottom! to the well, to fetch water. But he kept quiet. It was difficult, it was REALLY hard, but he kept quiet. He avoided looking at the bucket... with no bottom? and, you are going to fetch water?

A thousand and one times in those few moments that passed between the house and the well, the idea arose in him to ask, ”What are you doing? Have you gone mad?” But the question was not allowed. But how long can you go on this way?

The Master started drawing water from the well. And, of course, the bucket had no bottom so when it would go into the well, it would fill; and when he would start pulling it up, all the water would fall out

– and only the empty bucket cam up. Just think about the disciple... and he is standing there and seeing this whole nonsense. He became suspicious of this man: ”Either he is mad or a fool. And what am I getting into with this man? My old Masters were at least better.”

But questions were not allowed, so he somehow repressed the temptation. Once it happened, the bucket came up empty, and the second time and the third time – and the fourth time he forgot all about it and he said, ”What are you doing?! This is no way to draw water from a well. Your bucket has no bottom.”

And the Master said, ”You have broken the rule. You were not supposed to ask anything – you were only supposed to watch. Get lost! I have nothing to do with you.”

The disciple thought, meditated over it the whole night, and felt, ”There must have been something mysterious in it – I missed. I should have waited.”

He went back the next day, and asked to be forgiven. The Master said, ”I can forgive, but you will not be able. You could not resist a small thing. You could not control yourself for such a small thing. If it was absurd that was my problem, not your problem. How were you concerned with it? It was only a device. If in such a small thing you cannot remain non-argumentative... there are greater things which I am going to reveal to you, it will be impossible for you to remain non-argumentative. And Sufis don’t believe in argumentation. I am not interested at all in your questions and answering them.

I have it! I can give it to you. But you will have to prepare yourself. And this is your preparation: become non-questioning, remain in a state of no doubt.”

Sufis create such situations. These situations help the disciple to mature. Once the maturity is there, the transmission becomes possible. The Master has it, the disciple can also have it – but there are a few things that have to be dropped.

SO THE FIRST THING ABOUT SUFISM IS: it is all alchemy – the science of the inner soul. It is an experimentation in consciousness. Only the result decides whether what you were doing was right or wrong. There is no other way of deciding it.

Philosophies go on moving in circles – they never lead you anywhere. Sufism is tired of philosophies.

In fact, ALL great mystics are tired of philosophies. It is because of the mire of the philosophies and the confusion of the philosophies that people are debarred from knowing that which is their birthright.

God is not lost through your sins: God is lost through your so-called knowledge.

Sufism is experimentation for a certain experience. It is not a path of belief but of knowing, experiencing. It is existential. Experience of what? Experience of oneself. It is not speculation for speculation’s sake. It has a methodology which yields the most sublime experience of all – call it God, Nirvana, moksha, liberation, or what you will, it is the most sublime experience of them all. It is the greatest experience in life. And without this experience, nobody ever feels any contentment, cannot feel. We are MEANT to attain to this experience. This is our potential: it has to become actual. This is our seed: it has to bloom in all its color and fragrance. And unless the seed has become the tower we will remain uneasy, uncomfortable, hankering for something, not knowing exactly what. Searching, groping....

Man remains groping and searching. And the search ends only with God and never otherwise. What is God? The experience of your own innermost core. God is not there! God is here inside your heart, pulsating, breathing, aware. God is very close by.

Ramana Maharshi says: self-knowledge is an easy thing the easiest thing there is. Because it is so close! It is already there, it has always been there. Just a look, just a turning-in, and you are no more a beggar, and you have attained to emperor hood, and you are enthroned, and you are crowned, and you are a king. Just a look within.... But this is what Sufis say. Ramana is a Sufi.

I am using the world ’Sufi’ in the widest meaning of the word. Buddha is a Sufi, Jesus is a Sufi, Ramana is a Sufi. By ’Sufi’, I mean one who is fed up with philosophies and has started searching for the real, who is no more satisfied with synthetic food and who searches for the real nourishment.

Ramana says: Self-knowledge is as easy a thing as any – the easiest thing there is. But just in contrast to it, listen to this sentence from Immanuel Kant, a great philosopher: Metaphysics is a call to reason to undertake anew the most difficult of all tasks, namely that of self-knowledge.

Philosophy makes it difficult, very difficult, almost impossible – because philosophy moves farther and farther away from it. To know about the self is not to know it, to know about God is not to know God – how can the ’about’ be it? About and about... you go in circles. It becomes impossible.

The more you become clever, cunning, calculating, about the about, the farther and farther you are led astray. It is not a question of knowing about the self: it is simply a question of KNOWING it, being aware; not a question of thinking about it, but of centering in it. witting silently in it, and it is revealed.

Ramana is right, he has to be right – he knows. Immanuel Kant is not right, he cannot be right – he never came across it. Although he tried hard, he worked hard – he had one of the keenest intellects ever. His acumen cannot be doubted. His logic is perfect. But as far as his insight is concerned, he is blind.

It is like a blind man thinking about light – it is bound to be impossible. How can a blind man think about light?

Buddha says that it happened:

In a great king’s court, the scholars of the court started debating about God. And the king was no ordinary king – he was REALLY a king, the king of the inner world. His outer kingdom was just accidental; it had happened accidentally to him.

One great king was dying. He had no son. Before his death, he made a will that ”Tomorrow morning, whosoever enters into the town, the first man, let him become the king.” And this was just a coincidence – this sannyasin was the first to enter through the gates, so he was made the king. That was accidental. Before that he had already become the king of the inner kingdom.

In his court, they were discussing God. And the king started laughing, and he said, ”Listen. Collect all the blind men of the town.” And all the blind men were collected, and the king said, ”Have you all seen elephants?”

And they said, ”Yes.”

And then a great argument ensued. One blind man said, ”An elephant is like this,” another said,

”The elephant is like this...” and their statements were very contradictory. Because one blind man had touched only the trunk, and another blind man had touched only the ear, and the third one had touched only the leg, and so on and so forth. Their descriptions were different, as different as they could be.

And the king said to his scholars, the court scholars and pundits, ”Listen: these blind people cannot agree on what an elephant is. And they all have seen something of the elephant! What about you?

At least they have seen something – one has touched the leg, another has touched the trunk... and you have not even seen a PART of God and you are arguing. You are more blind than these blind people! And whatsoever you are saying is all nonsense. You can quote scriptures – that is not going to help. Unless you have seen, nothing is going to help.”

Sufis believe in seeing. Seeing is easy: thinking is difficult. If you have ears, you know what music is; but if you don’t have any ears, how are you going to think about music? in what way? It is impossible!

There is no way to communicate to you what music is. If you have eyes, you know the colors, and the beauty of a rainbow. But if you don’t have any eyes, even the greatest of poets cannot give you an inkling of what a rainbow is; it is impossible.

Sufis don’t believe in thinking: they believe in seeing.

You must have heard the famous saying: Seeing is believing. That’s just what Sufis say. They say: Seeing is believing.

A famous Sufi saying is: He who knows others is learned – he who knows himself is wise. To be learned is easy; to be wise takes guts, courage. Why? Why in the world does one need to be courageous to know oneself? There are reasons.

The first reason is: there is a fear that if you go in, you may not find anybody there... and in a way that fear IS right. You are not going to find anybody there. That apprehension is right.

If Naresh goes in, he will not find Naresh there. If Astha goes in, she will not find Astha there. If Sudha goes, she will not find Sudha there. If Viyogi goes, Viyogi will not find Viyogi there. Something is to be found there, but that is indefinable, unname-able. And that something is not your possession: that something is as much yours as everybody else’s.

You will find something, but that will be the universal center – you will not find any individual there, you will not find any ego there. Hence the fear. You will disappear: in self-knowledge you are going to disappear utterly. Hence people talk about it, ask about it, read books about it, but never go in.

An unconscious fear prevents their path.

And the modern man particularly is even more afraid. Modern man is often driven to despair because he is afraid that the self does not exist at all, or that the self is a *Capekan machine, Skinnerian robot, a Kafkan cockroach, an Ionescoan rhinoceros, or a Sartrean useless passion. All these fears have exploded on the modern mind.

Who knows? When you go in, you may find the Kafkan cockroach. There is a parable of Kafka: One morning he wakes up and he finds that he is a cockroach Must be dreaming, must have awakened in a dream. And not only that: the cockroach is upside-down – just legs, and he can see those legs moving in the air, and he cannot put himself right, and he is on his back. And you can think... the misery of the man, the agony, and the nausea. And he tries hard, but there seems to be no way to get up. A big cockroach, filling the whole bed.

The modern man is even more afraid: Who knows what you are going to stumble upon inside you self? Nightmares, monsters... who knows what is there?Why open Pandora’s box? Keep it tightly closed and sit upon it. That’s what everybody is doing. And, in a way, the fear IS right – but only in a way.

In the beginning you will find cockroaches and rhinoceroses and reptiles and all kinds of horrible things you will find – because THESE are the things that you have been repressing in yourself, these are the things that you have not allowed. Anger you have re-pressed, jealousy you have repressed, possessiveness you have repressed, hatred you have repressed. Violence, murderousness, you have repressed. ALL these things are there! This is the cockroach inside you. Violence has become one leg, and possessiveness has become another leg, and jealousy has become another leg....

When you go in, you will have to face these. Of course, this is not the whole story. If you CAN FACE

the cockroach, if you can go deeper and deeper without any fear and watching all that is happening, and remembering that ”I am just a watcher, a witness to it all. I cannot be the cockroach because I can see.... ” Whatsoever you can see you are not.

Make it a key, a constant remembrance: whatsoever you see, you are not. Anger you see? then you are not anger. Hunger you see? then you are not hunger. Sexuality you see? then you are not sexuality. You are the one who witnesses all this. Remember the witness, and slowly slowly all cockroaches disappear, and all rhinoceroses disappear – and all that is ugly disappears.

Witnessing is such a phenomenon that it dissolves all that is ugly. Slowly slowly, only the witness is left. But that witness is not going to be you: that witness is God. That witness cannot be confined as I – it is pure amness.

Just the other day, I had told you that there were two inscriptions engraved on the temple of Apollo at Delphi: ”Know Thyself” and ”Nothing in Excess.” These admonitions were not unrelated. Man was advised to know himself, yet in his knowing he was to avoid extremes. What are the extremes?

Two are the extremes: the hell and the heaven, the ugly cockroaches and the beautiful butterflies.

You have to remain a witness to both.

You are neither the cockroach nor the butterfly with

psychedelic colors – you are neither. Neither this nor that – NETI NETI. You are just the watcher, the mirror that reflects the cockroach, that reflects the butterfly.

According to the priests at Delphi, one extreme was the attempt to go beyond his finitude, to act as though he was infinite. That happens. If you go in, either you start feeling that you are something like a creature from hell, or you start feeling that you are an angel, a creature from heaven. But in both the ways you have again created an ego. Avoid the extreme, because the ego can exist only with the extreme. It dies in the middle. The golden mean is the grave of the ego.

The Greeks used to call this extreme HYBRIS. The term to designate this extreme meant an outrage against the nature of things. Don’t start thinking that you are heavenly, that you are a messenger of God, that you are specially sent to the world to deliver the latest dissemination, that you are the son of God, that you are the only messenger, the only true messenger, the only Master, the only Perfect Master... avoid this nonsense. God comes in many many ways, and his messages go on filtering into the world. Not only from Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed – no. Even when a cuckoo calls, it is his message. And Jesus is not the only begotten son of God – otherwise everybody else will be an orphan.

Each tree, each animal, each bird is as much a son to God as anybody else. Not that only Mohammed is the prophet – rivers and mountains, they are all his messengers, his prophets. His message goes on showering from everywhere, from every nook and corner. So don’t get into that idea; otherwise, ego has come from the back door, and it will create trouble for you again. You missed self-knowledge.

Greeks have a special word for it – they call it HYBRIS. The other extreme was the attempt to act as though the individual were not a member of society – to become a monk, to move into solitude. You are part of the society, you are born in society, you live in society. The social consciousness is like the ocean to you – you are the fish in this ocean. You cannot live without it! And those who try to live without it almost always become perverted. Yes, once in a while it is good to rest for a few days in a mountain retreat – just for a rest, but you have to come back to the world. Yes, it is good for a few hours to meditate, but then you have to go back into the world. Don’t become a monk. Don’t start thinking of yourself as separate, because self-knowledge cannot be attained in separation. It is attained in union.

And the closest union possible is with other people. How can you commune with trees if you cannot even commune with people? How can you commune with rocks if you cannot even commune with your beloved. It is absurd! The whole idea is absurd. A man is saying, ”I am leaving my wife and my children because they are a bondage to me and I am going to the mountains to have a communion with the mountains.” He is talking rubbish. To commune with the mountains will not be possible for him – because the mountains speak a totally different language. They are far behind human consciousness. To relate with them you will have to become a mountain – only then can you relate.

If you cannot relate with human beings, who are as evolved as you are, who belong to the same language world, who belong to the same level of life, you cannot relate with anybody else anywhere.

Don’t be fool yourself.

Greeks were very very particular about it, about these two extremes. One who lived outside the society was called a private being. They have a very beautiful word for that – they used to call him IDIOT. Out of this word has come ’idiot’. IDIOT was the name of such a being – if you go REALLY

outside of the society you will become an idiot. This is my observation.

I have seen many people living for years in the mountains – they become idiots. They HAVE to become idiots because there is no challenge, no human challenge to provoke them; no human challenge to sharpen their intelligence. They are BOUND to become idiots! Growth is NOT possible there.

They may live in a silence, but the silence is of the mountains – it is not their achievement. Unless you can live silence in the market-place, it is not your achievement. Come back from the Himalayas and you will be suddenly shocked that you are the same person as you had gone – maybe you are worse. You will not be able to tolerate the noise, the turmoil of the world. What kind of attainment is this? Rather than becoming more capable, more integrated, you have disintegrated, you have become weaker. You have not gained in strength.

Know thyself, but in your knowing, do not become a hybrid or an idiot! One is getting puffed up in the ego – that ”I am a soul,” that ”I am infinite,” that ”I am eternal,” that ”I am this and that.... ” If the I persists, then you are nothing. When the I goes, yes, eternity is there – but you cannot claim it as yours. Eternity is, God is, immortality is, but nothing that you can possess, nothing that you can keep in your safe-deposit. It has nothing to do with you! It belongs to existence at large. And you also belong to existence.

That is the first extreme to be avoided.

And the second extreme: don’t become an idiot. Don’t start escaping from people, because all growth is there with people, in relating with people, in accepting the challenge and responding to that challenge.

Self-knowledge is a very strange concept, and you have to understand it – because that is the whole work of a Sufi: how to know oneself. The word itself is a contradiction in terms, because in knowledge at least two things are needed: the knower and the known. And in self-knowledge there are not two things but only one. How to call it self-knowledge? Who is the knower and who is the known? The word has to be used because we don’t have any other better word for it. But it has to be used very very knowingly – knowing that it doesn’t mean exactly what it says.

Self-knowledge is a kind of knowing, but not knowledge. It is a kind of awareness, luminosity, but not knowledge. Knowledge it cannot be, because knowledge requires two.

This problem of self-knowledge has been concisely and metaphorically stated by Simone de Beauvoir. She says: ”It is easy to say ’I am I’. But who am I? Where to find myself? I would have to be on the other side of every door. But when it is I who knock on the door, the other on the other side becomes silent. To know the self, the self must be on both sides of the same door. But, alas, when the self knocks on the knower side of the door, there is no one on the other side of the door to open the door. And when there is a self on the other side, the known side of the door, to open it, there is no self on the knower side of the door to knock! So what should one do?”

Do you understand? If you are the knower, then who is there to be known? And if you are the known, then who is there to know? This is what Beauvoir means, that you have to be on both sides of the door. For example: if you are knocking at a door, and you are the one, the only one there, if you knock on the door, there is nobody from the inside to answer the knock. If you are inside the door and ready to open it, then there is nobody to knock. And you have to be on both sides – only then can there be some communication, some knowledge.

This is impossible. How can you be on both sides of the door? This looks like a Zen Koan – it is. It is the basic Koan. Out of this Koan, thousands of other khans have been created. So what should one do?

Some say: ”Keep on knocking!” That is the way of the will.

”Go on knocking”.Jesus says: Ask and it shall be given to you. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. Seek and ye shall find.

This is one answer: Go on knocking... persevere, be patient. Don’t feel frustrated if the door is not opening. You go on knocking, you go on knocking, you go on knocking.... One day the door is bound to open. That is one answer.

The other answer is: ”Stop knocking and wait!” That is the way of surrender, of the devotee, of the lover, of prayer. The first is the way of the yogi who functions through will-power. The second is the way of the surrendered devotee, who waits, trusts, prays.

But I say to you: Look... there is no door to knock upon and no one to knock on it! And lo! the door is open. It has remained open all along, from the very beginning. And there is no self to be known, and there is no self-knowledge. Knowing, of course, there is, but nothing like self-knowledge.

That’s what the great mystic woman, Rabia, said to Hassan: Hassan used to pray every day before the mosque, just sitting on the street. And he would cry and he would weep, and he would look at the sky and he would say, ”God, open the door! I have been waiting long. Is it not enough? Have I to pass through more tests? Have you not tested me enough?

Open the door! I am crying, I am weeping, I am shouting – open the door!”

That was his constant prayer – every morning, every evening, wherever he was he would go to the mosque and sit in the street and pray.

Rabia was passing one day. She hit hard on the head of Hassan, and said, ”What nonsense are you talking about? The door is open! But you are so much engaged in your shouting ’Open the door! Listen to me Lord. Why are you not opening the door?’ You are so much occupied with this nonsense, you can’t see that the door is open! It has always been open.”

I agree with Rabia... all is available. You need not struggle. You need not even surrender! because surrender is the polar opposite of struggle. You have to be just in the middle. You have to be just in a state of non-doing, neither struggling nor surrendering. And suddenly you will be able to see the door is open. You have never gone anywhere else. You have always been in. Where else can you go? Inwardness is your nature. And then all is revealed like lightning. Suddenly darkness disappears and all is light.

But there is no self to be found. KNOWING happens but it is not a self-knowledge. Hence the fear.

Deep down somewhere in the unconscious, you know it perfectly well that ”If I go in, I will not find myself. It is better not to go in, so one can go on believing that ’I am’!”

This I is the only barrier. This I is the only ignorance. This I is the only sin.

Now this small, beautiful story:

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A COW. IN ALL THE WORLD THERE WAS NO ANIMAL

WHICH SO REGULARLY GAVE SO MUCH MILK OF SUCH HIGH QUALITY.

THE COW HAS ALWAYS SYMBOLIZED THE SACRED – the innocent eyes of the cow, the sagely vise of the cow, has always provoked the idea of the sacred. You will be surprised to know, but this is a fact of the inner world. Darwin discovered that man has evolved out of the monkeys. And he is partly true: man’s body has come out of monkeys – but his soul not has come out of monkeys. Man is a synthesis of two different lines. The body has come from the monkeys and the soul has come from the cow. That’s why the East has always thought of the cow as the mother. Now, Darwin says the monkey is the father. Both are right.

The soul has evolved on a different line. The cow is the closest as far as the soul of man is concerned, and the monkey is the closest as far as the body is concerned. And man is a synthesis between these two lines. Something of the monkey is in him, and something of the cow too. The cow has always been the symbol of the sacred.

This story says:

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A COW. IN ALL THE WORLD THERE WAS NO ANIMAL

WHICH SO REGULARLY GAVE SO MUCH MILK OF SUCH HIGH QUALITY.

And the sacred is our real nourishment. We live not by bread alone. Yes, Jesus is right, man cannot live by bread alone. If man lives by bread alone, he will remain just an animal. He will remain a monkey. Some higher nourishment is needed. It comes from the sacred.

So those who start feeling starved for the higher nourishment, they seek Masters, they seek great music, they seek poetry, a esthetics . They start searching for some higher nourishment, subtle nourishment, which you cannot get in the marketplace, which cannot be sold like a commodity, which you cannot have from a supermarket, which is possible only in a sacred relationship. And that is the relationship between a Master and a disciple: some-thing not of this world.

PEOPLE CAME FROM FAR AND WIDE TO SEE THIS WONDER.

But ordinary people are only curious. Even if they go to a Buddha, they go out of curiosity, as if that is some kind of entertainment. Even if they listen to Jesus, they are in search of some sensation –

that is not their real need.

PEOPLE CAME FROM FAR AND WIDE TO SEE THIS WONDER.

One thing to be remembered: Aristotle says that philosophy begins in wonder – not so in the East.

In the East, nobody has ever said that philosophy begins in wonder. In the East we know philosophy begins in the awareness of suffering, not in wonder. In the anguish of man, not in wonder. In the angst of man, in the meaninglessness of man’s life, and in the awareness of it, philosophy begins.

So Western philosophy has remained a kind of entertainment.

Eastern philosophy is not

entertainment – it is work, it is SADHANA. In fact there is no word in any language of the world to translate this Indian word SADHANA because nothing like that has ever existed anywhere else.

SADHANA means: philosophy is not just to think but to be. One has to become it. One has to live it! It has to become your blood and bones and your marrow.

SADHANA means it is not only a kind of systematic thought but a way of life. It has to become your style of life. You have to prove it through your LIFE: whatsoever you think is right has to be lived –

that is the only proof that you think it is right. If you think that it is right and you live otherwise, you are be fooling others and you are be fooling yourself.

The Eastern approach is that life is anguish, anxiety, angst. And the awareness of it makes one search for means and methods how to go beyond it.

PEOPLE CAME FROM FAR AND WIDE TO SEE THIS WONDER.

And, of course, because they were there only for entertainment, they could not see the whole thing.

THE COW WAS EXTOLLED BY ALL. FATHERS TOLD THEIR CHILDREN OF ITS DEDICATION

TO ITS APPOINTED TASK.

People are always searching to impose thoughts on their children. They are always searching for examples, so they can torture their children, and they can say, ”Look! Look at this cow, this wonder of the world – be like this! Produce something!” And by ’production’ they mean money, power, prestige; become a president of a country. ”Look at this cow! You so have to be a wonderful man in the world.

Be somebody so people come to see and applaud you.”

Parents are always, constantly, telling their children, ”Be like this, be like that! Look at somebody else’s child how intelligent he is.”

A father was saying to his child, ”Look at the neighbor’s child how intelligent he is! Always comes first in the class. And you are there, failing again and again,.”

And the child said, ”That is not my fault – he has got smart parents.”

Parents are trying somehow to create ambition in children. Ambition is a fever, it is illness. An ambitious man always remains ill inside. He suffers from a spiritual cancer. His body may be okay, but his soul dies. He sells his soul, for useless things. He collects many useless things, and destroys all that is essential in him. But parents go on doing that. They can’t miss a single oppor-tunity. So they must be bringing their children to show them this cow: ”Look at this cow! This is how one should be. What production! How much milk! And of what quality!”

MINISTERS OF RELIGION ADJURED THEIR FLOCKS TO EMULATE IT IN THEIR OWN WAY.

And that’s what ministers and priests are doing – teaching people always: ”Be like this! Be like that!”

Nobody is ever told to be just like himself or herself. This is the calamity. Man has lived under it for thousands of years, and this has to be completely dropped; otherwise, man will never be free and never be healthy and never be holy. This is the greatest curse that has happened to man, that people go on telling you, ”Be like a Buddha, be like a Mahavir, be like Mohammed, be like Kabir, be like Rumi!”

Nobody is here to be somebody else – everybody is here only to be himself. Let it be declared to the world: that everybody is here JUST to be himself. Only then will the world be at ease and in harmony. Otherwise, all become imitators and all become pseudo and hypocrites, and split and schizophrenic. They say one thing and they live another – they HAVE to, because their natural self cannot be destroyed by these teachings. At the most they can cultivate a facade; a false mask they can wear. They can create a personality, but their innermost being will remain the same. And to do any-thing against it is a crime – is the greatest crime there is.

My effort here with you is to free you from this curse. You have to be just yourself... then there is great relaxation. Then tensions disappear. And then you can be authentic, sincere! And then you can be just yourself. And then you can respect yourself. And the man who respects himself, respects others. Then you can love yourself, and the man who loves himself can love others.

MINISTERS OF RELIGION ADJURED THEIR FLOCKS TO EMULATE IT IN THEIR OWN WAY.

GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS REFERRED TO IT AS A PARAGON WHICH RIGHT BEHAVIOR, PLANNING AND THINKING COULD DUPLICATE IN THE HUMAN COMMUNITY. EVERYONE

WAS, IN SHORT, ABLE TO BENEFIT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF THIS WONDERFUL ANIMAL.

They were all exploiting the existence of the poor cow. There are always people around who are ready to exploit everything for their own ends. Sufism is not an idealism; it does not give you any ideal. It helps you to be natural, spontaneous. Sufism is not perfectionist – it cannot be, because it is not neurotic.

All perfectionism drives people to neurosis. Whenever you see a neurotic, search deep in him and you will find hidden a perfectionist. And wherever you find a perfectionist, be alert. He is on the way to becoming a neurotic.

Sufis are simple people. They rejoice in simple things. They don’t have great ideals, they don’t have ANY ideals. They don’t create a perfect idea that everybody has to be like that – no. Everybody has to be just like himself. Only by being yourself will you become a prayer to God. Only by being yourself will you be able to offer your joy, your celebration to God. Only by being yourself will you feel grateful. And gratefulness IS prayer.

And all this was going on. Parents were teaching their children and ministers were teaching their flocks, and the government officials were making much fuss about it, and professors and schoolmasters, and everybody must have been using the oppor-tunity. Nobody misses it. It is a way to condemn others.

Whenever there is a person in bloom... people start condemning everybody! Rather than being joyous seeing the beauty of the flowering, they start condemning everybody, because now you have to be like that – and nobody can be like that.

There are books like Thomas a Kempis’ book IMITATION OF CHRIST – ugly books. Imitation? And if you imitate Christ, will you be Christ? You will be an imitation. And howsoever perfect the imitation is, it is imitation all the same. And an imitation is an ugly phenomenon.

If you are just an ordinary pebble on the seashore, be that! but don’t imitate the Kohinoor, because in the God’s eyes there is no difference between a Kohinoor and a pebble on the shore. Both are beautiful. Both have to exist in their own way. Both have to pray in their own way! Both have to bloom in their own way. God loves variety. Just look at the world: how much variety is there! Each individual is so unique – unrepeatable, irreplaceable. Never before has there been anybody like him.

Never again will there be anybody like him. God only creates you once. Don’t miss this opportunity, and don’t be deceived by these people.

These people are just after you to make slaves out of you. And the best strategy to reduce people into slavery is this: tell people to become like a Buddha – they cannot. They will start feeling guilty.

They will feel, ”Something is wrong with me.” And once a person feels, ”Something is wrong with me,” he is in the hands of the priest.

And the irony is:

THERE WAS, HOWEVER, ONE FEATURE WHICH MOST PEOPLE, ABSORBED AS THEY WERE

BY THE OBVIOUS ADVANTAGES OF THE COW, FAILED TO OBSERVE. IT HAS A LITTLE HABIT, YOU SEE. AND THIS HABIT WAS THAT AS SOON AS A PAIL HAD BEEN FILLED WITH ITS

ADMITTEDLY UNPARALLELED MILK – IT KICKED IT OVER.

THE COW MUST HAVE BEEN A GREAT PHILOSOPHICAL COW. That’s what philosophers go on doing. All their teachings, howsoever beautiful, are futile Nothing happens out of them. The milk is there, but it is always kicked over. There is no practical utility in it. It is absolutely useless.

But nobody was observing this small defect. And this is not a small defect! But people who are exploiting the situation will always call it a small defect.

I have heard:

A matchmaker was exulting over the virtues of a particular girl. ”She is beautiful, tall, well-built, a good cook, a smart woman, with integrity,” he listed.

But the client said, ”But you left out one important thing, didn’t you?”

”Not possible,” said the matchmaker. ”What could I have left out?”

”That she limps,” said the young man.

”Oh!” came the answer, ”But only when she walks!”

Or, another:

A matchmaker told a young man that he had the perfect girl for him. ”She is a redhead!” he exclaimed with pride.

”You mean Becky, the tailor’s daughter?” cried the young man.

”That’s her!” beamed the

matchmaker.

”You’re crazy! She’s almost blind!”

”That bothers you? That’s a blessing. Half the time she won’t be seeing what you are doing.”

”But she also stutters!”

”That’s also a blessing. A woman who stutters will be afraid to speak, so you’ll live a peaceful life.”

”But she is deaf!”

”I should have such luck! With a deaf wife you can shout, you can scream as much as you want to.”

”But she’s twenty years older than I am!”

”Ah,” retorted the matchmaker disgustedly. ”I bring you a woman with such gifts, and you pick on one little fault!”

People who are out just to exploit a situation will not bother whether anything comes out of it or not.

They go ON preaching to you: Become Jesus, become Buddha, become like Kabir.... And down the ages they have been saying this and nobody has been able to do it. Still they go on. It is good business. It is very bad for humanity, but it is good business for them. They want you to go on feeling more and more guilty, condemned, worthless. The more worthless you feel, the more easily you go and become their victims.

And they don’t want to change the subject. They want to insist on the same old nonsense again and again. They go on changing the form of it, the language of it, the style of it, but they don’t want to change the subject.

Peterson came home at three in the morning and found his wife lying awake in bed.

”Where were you until three o’clock in the morning?” she screamed.

As she spoke, Peterson opened his bedroom closet and found a naked man cringing on the floor.

”Who is this man?” Peterson demanded.

”Don’t change the subject!” his wife replied.

Priest don’t want to change the subject at all. That’s why they are so angry with me – I am trying to change the subject. I am trying to make things appear exactly as they are. They have exploited humanity too long, and their devices are very cunning.

It was a boiling hot day in July. Mrs. Finkelstein went into a store to buy a fan.

”What kind of fan do you want?” asked Levy, the storekeeper. ”We have fans for a nickel, for a quarter, and for a dollar.”

”So give me one for a nickel,” said Mrs. Finkelstein.

”Okay,” said Levy, as he handed her a thin Japanese paper fan.

In ten minutes, Mrs. Finkelstein was back. ”Look what trash you sold me!” she shouted. ”The fan broke.”

”It did?” said Levy. ”And how did you use it?”

”How did I use it?” replied Mrs. Finkelstein. ”How do you use a fan? I held it in my hand, and I waved it back and forth in front of my face. Did you ever?”

”Oh no!” explained Levy. ”With a five-cent fan, you got to hold it still in both hands, like this, and wave your head back and forth in front of it.”

The priests are always right. If something is wrong, it is with you. And I want to say to you: Nothing is wrong with man – everything is wrong with the priests. Nothing at all is wrong with man! Let it be declared and shouted from the house stops: Man Is as he should be! And if anything looks wrong, it is just because of the nonsense taught to people by the priests.

They have been teaching abstract nonsense. People need a real religion that transforms them, that nourishes them, that makes them more aware. They don’t want Christianity, Hinduism, Islam.

They want an authentic life and ways to live an authentic life – not according to somebody else but according to their own nature. They need freedom and they need spontaneity.

Drop all kinds of idealism from your mind, and all kinds of perfectionist concepts from your mind. Be natural. Be ordinary... and you will know God. Because in just being ordinary you become the most extraordinary being possible.

CHAPTER 2

There is no Self, no Other

2 July 1978 am in Buddha Hall

The first question:

Question 1

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MASTER AND A PSYCHOTHERAPIST?

A MASTER IS NOT: A PSYCHOTHERAPIST IS. The Master is a hollow bamboo, a mere passage, for the divine to descend. He is not on his own. He has nothing to say, he has nothing to do –

but much happens through him. But it is always through him. He is not the doer of it. He is just a watcher. He allows it, he does not hinder it. He cooperates with it, but he is not the originator of it.

He is just a vehicle.

The psychotherapist IS. He is a doer, knowledgeable. He has all the expertise available. He is not a hollow bamboo. He is not an absence. Hence much cannot happen through him. He can only do a patchwork: here and there a little polishing, a little white-wash, a little adjustment – that’s all. His work is trivial. Man’s work is bound to remain trivial. Only God is great. And only that which comes from God is vast.

Man’s doing is bound to remain petty, small – of no significance in fact, or only of momentary importance. But when God descends, something of the eternal reaches into your being.

The psychotherapist knows about the mind and the workings of the mind. But man in his deepest core is not a mind at all. That’s the problem. Man’s disease, man’s illness, is not only that of mind –

it is spiritual, it is metaphysical, it is existential.

The physiologist, the physician, can help you about the body; and the psychologist, the psychotherapist, can help you about the mind – but these are just your surfaces. You are not your surface: you are your depth. Neither the physician can touch that depth, nor the therapist can touch that depth. That depth can only be touched by a Master – because he IS that depth.

A Master is a no-mind. And that is the greatest difference that is possible. The psychotherapist knows about the mind, is a very cultivated mind, cultured, educated, efficient. Technologically he knows the know-how.

The Master is a no-mind. He has no know-how. He makes his nothingness available to the disciple, but that nothingness IS a healing force. The psychotherapist TRIES to heal, but never succeeds.

The Master never tries to heal, but always succeeds. His love is his therapy. Out of his absence flows his love.

And that love is God’s love in fact.

When Jesus says again and again, I and my Father are one, this is exactly what he is saying: Don’t think of me as myself. I only represent. I am just a symbol. I am just a door. LOOK through me and you will find the beyond.

The Master lives in a totally different reality. The psychotherapist lives in the same reality where you live. There is no qualitative difference between you and the psychotherapist; between the patient and the doctor there is no qualitative difference. The difference is that of knowledge, that of quantity.

He knows more than you know, but he is nOT MORE than you are! He is exactly at the same level.

He is worried with the same anxieties. He is troubled by the same nightmares.

Sigmund Freud himself remained obsessed with the fear of death his whole life. How is he going to help? And he is the founder of psychoanalysis. How is he going to help? All his help can only be a pretension. He himself is trembling. He was so afraid of death that even to mention the word

’death’ was enough... and he would start perspiring. Just the mention of ghosts was enough... and he would fall in a swoon. And it was not only so with him.

Carl Gustav Jung was exactly the same. He was so afraid of death that he could not see a dead body. He always wanted to go to Egypt to see the ancient mummies. He was very much interested in the occult, and certainly the pyramids of Egypt have great keys of occult knowledge, and those mummies are carrying some great messages to be deciphered and decoded. He had become aware of it. He wanted to go, and many times he tried to go but never could he manage. He would fall ill. Whenever he would arrange to go to Egypt he would fall ill – just the idea of seeing the dead mummies, three thousand years old, was enough to shake him to the very roots. Slowly slowly, he became aware that whenever he made the arrangement he fell ill – that illness was psychological.

Once it happened: somehow he dragged himself to the airport; even though he had a fever out of his fear, he went to the airport – but could not manage to enter into the aeroplane. From the airport he rushed back home. He became so frightened that he dropped the whole idea for ever, and he never went to Egypt to see those mummies. And he was very much interested in them.

Now, how are these people going to help?

A Master knows there is no death – not only knows through others but through his own experience.

He has looked deep into his life, and death has disappeared like a fog – evaporated. A Master is one who is absolutely free, not only from pathological psychology but is free of psychology itself, is free of mind. He has cut the very root of all pathologies.

With the psychotherapist your relationship is that of a patient and doctor. It is not intimate – it cannot be. It is professional. With the Master your relationship is that of love; it is not professional. It is intimate. It is the most intimate relationship there is. Yes, not even between lovers does such intimacy exist as exists between a Master and a disciple. It is a marriage. And such a marriage where not only bodies, not only minds, but two beings meet.

The psychotherapist is trying to become the Master in the West.

A strange phenomenon is

happening: the psychotherapist is trying to become the Master, is trying to become the guru –

and the priest, the guru, is trying to become the psychotherapist! Now priests talk about psychology, and psychologists talk about religion – because priests are seeing that whatsoever they have been selling up to now cannot be sold any more – it is out of date. People are no more interested in it.

People are no more interested in theology. People are interested in knowing about their mind and its working; people are more interested in having a better mind, more efficient, more calm and quiet and collected.

So the priest is moving, slowly slowly, from theology to psychology. And the psychoanalyst, the psychotherapist, is becoming aware of the phenomenon that the people’s real problems are not psychological but religious.

Carl Gustav Jung is reported to have said: ”observing thousands of patients in my life, this has been one of my most important conclusions – that people who come to me after the age of forty-two, or nearabout, are not really suffering from any psychological problems but are suffering from religious problems.”

I perfectly agree with Jung – that is the time when a person suddenly becomes aware of death. Just as at the age of fourteen a person suddenly becomes aware of sex, and sex becomes important, and sexual fantasies come rushing towards his being from all over the place, and each thing starts taking a sexual color – the dress, the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he looks – everything starts taking a sexual tinge, just like that, at the age of forty-two suddenly death is encountered for the first time. Life starts declining. One has to be ready for the second phase of life. And the modern society does not prepare people for the second phase.

For life you have been prepared in the school, college, university – for almost twenty-five years you have been prepared! You have been taught how to live, but you have not been taught at all how to die. And death is the culmination of life. It is a great art.

Religion is the art of death – how to die joyously, how to die with hallelujah on your lips, how to die dancingly. How to transform the quality of death into the quality of samadhi. How to transform the experience of death into the experience of communion with the divine.

It is near about the age of forty-two that suddenly religion starts becoming important. And modern man does not accept that, so a thousand and one problems arise. Jung is right: people suffer from something which is not psychological but religious. They need an understanding that can help them to go through death. They need some awareness of the immortality of the soul. They need something that is not part of the body but is part of the beyond, so they can trust it. They need a boat so when they leave the body they can move to the other shore.

The psychologists are becoming aware that people’s problems are fundamentally religious, so they are turning to be gurus. And the priests and the gurus, seeing that their old theologies, their old gods, are just out of fashion, nobody is interested in those old gods and old scriptures... people may not say anything out of politeness, but the moment you mention the word ’god’ people feel a little embarrassed. They start looking sideways. They want to avoid the subject and the topic completely.

They don’t want to hear about the angels and heaven and hell. And certainly they are not interested in your so-called great theological problems about how many angels can dance on a single pin-point.

These things look stupid now. Man has grown out of all this. These are hangovers.

So a strange phenomenon is happening. But remember, when the priest talks about psychology he looks stupid, because he is just trying from the back door to bring religion in. ale cannot find any other proofs, so now he is calling on psychology. And psychology cannot give ANY proofs Torn religion. So all the proofs that he gathers through psychology are just imaginary, artificial, arbitrary, somehow managed and manipulated, not valid. He looks stupid.

And so is the case with the psychotherapist who turns to be a guru – because it is not only through knowledge that you can become a Master: you will have to grow in being. No university can make you ready for it. You will have to go inside yourself; you will have to travel a long way in your inferiority.

So all that the psychologist or the psychotherapist talks about religion remains just bare, mere philosophy. His personality gives no evidence of it.

I hove heard:

”There is nothing wrong with you,” said the psychiatrist to his patient. ”You are just as sane as I am.”

But, doctor,” cried the patient, as he brushed wildly at himself, ”it’s these butterflies – they’re all over me!”

”For heaven’s sake, ”cried the doctor, ”don’t brush them off on me!”

Now that man is mad – there are no butterflies – but to work with mad people, how, long can you remain sane? It has been the observation of many people that in a madhouse, the maddest person it the doctor. Working with mad people continuously, slowly slowly, rather than changing them, which is very difficult, he becomes changed by them.

In the midst of her psychiatric session. Mrs Blossom suddenly exclaimed, ”I think I have taken a fancy to you, doctor! How about a kiss?”

”Absolutely not!” the doctor replied indignantly.

”That would be contrary to the ethics of my

profession. Now continue as before.”

”Well, as I was saying,” the patient continued, ”I’m always having arguments with my husband about his father, and just yesterday... I’m sorry, but it just occurred to me again. What harm would there be if you gave me just one little kiss?”

”That’s absolutely impossible!” the doctor snapped. ”In fact, I shouldn’t even be lying on this couch with you!”

The psychotherapist is not much different from you, cannot be. He knows a little bit more than you know about the mind. But by knowing more about the mind, nothing is helped. One has to go beyond the mind.

Psychotherapy thinks that there are unhealthy minds AND healthy minds – but the experience of the Buddhas is totally different. They say: Mind as such is unhealthy. There are no healthy minds.

Mind AND unhealthy are synonymous. So you cannot make the mind healthy. Yes, you can make it more adjusted, you can make it normally unhealthy, not abnormally unhealthy. You can bring it to a point where it is just like everybody else. That is normal unhealthy, normal neurosis. But you cannot make mind healthy. It is impossible. Can you make a disease healthy? If the disease is there, you are unhealthy. You cannot say, ”Now I have a very healthy disease.”

Mind is the disease! The Master is one who has seen it and gone beyond the mind, who lives in the land of no-thought, who lives in that absolute silence. But from that absolute silence, the impossible becomes possible. Just to be with a Master is to be in a healing presence.

The Master is not a therapist, but his presence is therapy. His presence heals, and heals wounds of so many lives. But his process of healing is not psychological: it is existential. He does not go on tackling each of your diseases separately: he simply cuts the root in one single stroke. He cuts the mind. He does not bother about the branches and the leaves.

The psychotherapist goes on cutting the leaves. You have this fear, afraid the psychotherapist will try years of psychoanalysis and somehow you become adjusted to the fear.

A man continued to piss in his bed in the night. Now he was getting to be thirty-five – it was already too late. He was married, he had children. Now it was time for the children to piss in the bed – and he was still doing it.

The wife suggested, ”Why don’t you go to the psychotherapist?”

So he went. Then the LONG psychotherapy continued... analysis is a long process, and very costly.

And after six months a friend asked, ”How are things going?”

He said, ”Perfect!” He was buoyant, flowing with joy. He said, ”Perfect. I have found the greatest psychotherapist there is in the world.”

The friend asked, ”So he has cured you?”

He said, ”No, but I no longer feel guilty about it. He has convinced me that this is perfectly natural, normal – in fact, he himself does it.”

The psychotherapist is in the same boat as you are in. All that he can do is a little bit of patchwork.

The Master KILLS you, destroys you, in your totality – gives birth to a new man. The Master becomes a mother to you, a womb. To be a disciple is to enter into the womb of the Master. It is a death and a resurrection.

Second question:

Question 2

STANDING SURELY PROUD WITH ME

UNDER THIS SHOWERING SUFI SKY

GRACE STREAMING LIGHT LIMBS

SONGS FLOWING STRONG THROAT

A GREAT FULLNESS FALLS

AND RISES WITH EACH BREATH

AND PEACE FLIES ON BEATING WINGS

TO SETTLE DEEP WITHIN MY SOUL...

OH OSHO,

IS IT PRAYER

THAT’S THERE?

YES, VANDANA, THIS IS PRAYER. Prayer is not a formality. You need not go to a church to pray –

and those who go, they don’t understand what prayer is. You need not go to a temple or a mosque or a GURUDWARA – and those who go, they are only pretending.

Prayer is something of the heart. It can happen anywhere. And wherever it happens, there is the temple. You need not so to the temple to pray, but WHEREVER you pray, you create a temple, an invisible temple. Wherever somebody bows down in prayer to existence, that place becomes sacred.

To a praying heart, any stone becomes Kaaba, any water becomes Ganges water. To a praying heart, each tree is a Bodhi Tree. The question is not of formality: it is of the feeling of being, uplifted. Yes, exactly that’s what prayer is: when you suddenly feel you are being uplifted, when gravitation has no more pull over you, when you know that all the weight has disappeared, that you are weightless; when there is no past hanging around your neck like a rock, and when there is no future distracting you, driving you away from the present – when THIS moment is all, THIS

HERE, THIS MOMENT, is all in all, something opens up in the heart and a fragrance is released.

Sometimes in words, sometimes in silence. Sometimes in meaningful words, and sometimes just like a child babbling. Sometimes it may become a song, or a dance. Sometimes you may just be sitting like a Buddha – utterly quiet, unmoving; a center of a cyclone sometimes.

Prayer has no fixed form. And the moment you give it a fixed form, you destroy it. Prayer is spontaneity. And whenever it comes, it always comes with a new flavor. You cannot predict it.

And whenever it comes, it comes from the blue – you cannot drag it. Yes, you can invite it, but you cannot produce it on order. When it comes, it comes. It comes like a breeze, and suddenly you are full of it. And then it is gone. Its coming is beautiful – its going, too, is beautiful. When it comes you are bathed, basked. When it goes, it leaves a GREAT silence, the primordial silence, behind it. Just as when a storm goes and all becomes utterly silent.

Its coming is beautiful: its going is beautiful. But never for a single moment think, Vandana, that you can manage it. If you try to manage it, you will miss its spontaneity. You will kill it. Then it will not be the bird on the wing in the sky. Then it will be just the bird in your golden cage – looks only like the bird. Where is that beauty? Because beauty is intrinsically part of freedom. No beauty can exist without freedom. Wherever freedom is lost, beauty is lost. Slavery is ugly.

Yes, the bird was beautiful on the wing in the sky, whispering with the clouds. There was great benediction. Weighing its wings high up in the sky, just floating in a kind of let-go. And there was great joy. Just to WATCH it was an ecstasy. Now you have caught hold of the bird, and you may have put it in a golden cage studded with diamonds – but what are diamonds to a bird? What is gold to a bird? Its gold is the open sky, and its diamonds are the free-floating clouds and the sun and the moon and the stars.

The bird in the cage looks alive but is no more alive. It is just appearance. So is the prayer. If you manage it, it is a bird in the cage. Never manage prayer. These are great things. Man should be very very respectful about these great things.

And man has not been respectful! That’s why there is so much prayer going on in the world –

Hindus praying, Mohammedans praying, Christians praying – everybody is praying, and WHERE

IS PRAYER? If so much prayer were really going on, the world would be a paradise. If so much prayer were coming out of the hearts, there would be duds of prayer gathering all over the earth and showering. But there seems only to be hatred, violence, war. Prayer is nowhere to be found.

Something is wrong.

This prayer is artificial.

Vandana, whatsoever is happening to you, allow it. Never catch hold of it. The mind tries to catch hold of it. That’s why I am insisting, so that you remain aware. Whenever something beautiful happens – mind is a hoarder, mind is very greedy – whenever something beautiful happens it immediately wants to catch hold of it. It immediately wants to become a master of it, so that it can reproduce it again and again whenever it wants.

But there are things which are beyond you: love, meditation, prayer, beauty, grace, God. These are things beyond you! You can at the most OPEN yourself, INVITE them, and wait. But you cannot drag them in. Dragged, you will have something artificial, plastic. The real will never come to you.

These are things you can have only with open hands.

But the mind says, ”When it is there, don’t lose the moment – catch hold of it. Keep it in your fist, or put it in your safe-deposit and lock it up.”

You cannot Lock flowers in a safe-deposit. Money you can lock because money is dead. Flowers you cannot lock because they are alive. They have to be on the trees, rooted in the earth and rooted in the sun, and rooted in the wind. They exist only in that aliveness all around. Cut from all sources of life they will die and stink.

Yes, this is prayer:

A GRATEFULNESS FALLS

AND RISES WITH EACH BREATH

AND PEACE FLIES ON BEATING WINGS

TO SETTLE DEEP WITHIN MY SOUL...

OH OSHO,

IS IT PRAYER

THAT’S THERE?

Yes. This is prayer. Now be watchful. Let it come and let it go.... Never hinder its process. When it comes, feel thankful. When it doesn’t come, wait. Don’t complain – it will come. It will come more and more. If you can wait, with great longing, AND patience, it is bound to come. It always comes.

The third question:

Question 3

OSHO, SAY SOMETHING MORE ABOUT SELF-KNOWLEDGE. THAT’S MY WHOLE INTEREST

AND INQUIRY.

SELF-KNOWLEDGE IS A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS. When it really happens, there is no self and there is no knowledge. If the self is there, it can’t happen. If knowledge is there, it has not happened. So a few preliminary things to be understood.

First: for self-knowledge to happen, the self has to go. You have to forget all about your ego. You have to be in a state of egolessness.

And the second thing: you have to forget all about knowledge too. If you are continuously hankering to know, that very hankering will prevent you. God reveals himself only to those who are not hankering for anything, who are not desiring anything – not even to know God. Mysteries are revealed only to those who simply wait, who make no demand on God. They wait with open eyes, they wait with open heart, but with no demand.

Your demand is basically ego-oriented. Why do you want to know? Because knowledge gives power.Try to understand it. Knowledge IS power. The more you know, the more powerful you become. Ego is always interested in becoming knowledgeable. If you know about nature, you become powerful over nature. If you know about people, you become powerful over people. If you know about your own mind, you become powerful over your own mind. If YOU KNOW about God, you will become powerful over God.

The search for knowledge, deep down, is really the search for power. And how can you be powerful over reality? The very idea is ridiculous. Allow the reality to be powerful over you... relax. And allow the reality to take possession of you, rather than you trying to take possession of reality.

To be really in a state of self-knowledge, one has to forget self and forget ALL inquiry into knowledge.

Then it happens! and only then it happens.

There have been three efforts in the whole history of human consciousness concerning self-knowledge.

The first effort is of the realist. The realist denies the self; he says there is no self inside, no subject; only the object exists, the thing, the matter, the world. That is his way to avoid the inner journey.

The inner journey is dangerous. You will have to lose all! Self-knowledge and all, root and all – you will have to lose all. The realist cannot take that risk. He finds an explanation. He says, ”There is no soul. There is no self. All that exists in the world is objects.” So he becomes concerned with knowing the objects. He forgets the subjectivity and becomes occupied with the objectivity. That’s what science has been doing for three hundred years. It is a way of escaping from oneself.

The second way is that of the idealist who says there is no object: the world is MAYA – illusion.

There is nothing to know outside, so just close your eyes and go in. Only the knower is true – the known is false. The realist says only the known is true and the knower is false; the idealist says only the knower is true and the known is false. And just see the absurdity of it – because how can there be a knower if there is no known? And how can there be a known if there is no knower?

So the idealist and the realist are only choosing half of the reality. About the other half they are afraid.

The realist is afraid to go in, because to go in means to go into emptiness, into utter emptiness. It is to fall in a bottomless pit, in an abyss... unpredictable. Where one will land nobody knows, or whether there is any landing at all.

The realist is afraid of the knower, so he denies it. Out of fear he says it is not: ”My whole concern is with the known, the object.” And the idealist is afraid of the object, of the world, of the enchantments of the world, of the magic of the world. He is afraid of getting lost into the desires and passions. He is afraid of getting entangled into things – money, power, prestige. He is SO afraid that he says, ”All is dream. The world that is outside is not real. The real world is inside.”

But both are being half true. And remember: a half-truth is far worse than a total lie. At least the total lie has one quality about it: it is total – the quality of totality. And one thing is beautiful about a total lie: it cannot deceive you long – because it is such a lie, even the stupid person will be able to see sooner or later that it is a lie. But the half-truth is dangerous – even an intelligent person can get lost into it.

And then there is the third way: the way of the mystic. He accepts both, and rejects both. That is my way. He accepts both because he says, ”On one plane both exist – the knower and the known, the subject and the object, the inner and the outer. But on another plane, both disappear and only one remains – which is neither the known nor the knower.”

The mystic’s approach is total. And I would like you to understand the mystic’s approach as deeply as possible. On one level both are right. When you are dreaming, the dream IS true, and the dreamer is true. When you are awake in the morning, it is no more true. Now the dreamer is gone, the dreaming is gone – both have gone. Now you are awake. Now you are existing on a totally different level of consciousness.

The world is true, the ego is true, when man is ignorant, unconscious, unaware. When man becomes aware, when Buddhahood happens, then the world is not there, neither is there any ego – both have disappeared. ”Both have disappeared” does not mean that nothing is left: both have disappeared into each other. Only one is left now, two are not left. The knower and the known have become one.

That oneness is what is really meant by self-knowledge. But the word is not right. No word can be right. About such great experiences which go beyond duality, no word can be right.

Man tries in two ways to overcome the epistemological dichotomy which is inherent in self-knowing.

One way is to confine his knowing to objects of the world of the non-self. This way is to escape from self-knowledge. The people who want to escape from self-knowledge condemn it as introverted, unsocial, abnormal, even perverted. They call it a kind of intellectual masturbation, navel gazing: they call these people lotus-eaters, dreamers, poets, mystics, somehow gone astray from reality.

How much of the pursuit of research in the natural sciences is motivated by the effort to keep our attention off ourselves? This question has to be asked.

People become interested in scientific research – why? Are they really interested in some scientific project? or are they simply trying to avoid going in? The greater possibility is that they are avoiding going in.

Albert Einstein said before he died that if God were going to give him another chance to be born, he would not like to become a scientist again. A friend who was by the side of the bed asked, ”Then who would you like to become?t’

And he said, ”Anybody, but not a scientist. I would like to become a plumber even, but not a scientist.”

Why? Albert Einstein was a man of great sensitivity, of great intelligence; a man who could have easily become a Buddha. Had all the potential, and missed – because he poured ALL his intelligence into the objective world. He became too much concerned about the stars and time and space, etcetera, and he forgot completely about himself. He became so much engaged with other things and other problems that he forgot completely who he was, or that some time has to be given to oneself too.

One of the socialist leaders of India, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, went to see him. He was telling me that when he went to see Albert Einstein he had to wait six hours. The time had been fixed by Albert Einstein himself, and again and again the wife would come and bring tea and other things and would say, ”We are sorry but he is taking his bath.” So long?

Dr. Lohia asked, ”How long is he going to take his bath?”

The wife said, ”Nobody knows, because when he sits in his tub he starts thinking of great things.

And he forgets completely where he is. And we are not allowed to disturb him, because he may be chasing some subtle train of thought, and if we disturb him it may be a loss to humanity.”

Dr. Lohia became more interested. He said, ”But what does he go on doing sitting there?”

The wife, said, ”Please don’t ask... he plays with soap-bubbles. He keeps himself engaged with soap-bubbles, and goes on thinking. All the great problems that he has solved, they have been solved in his tub.”

You must have heard of great scientists becoming absent-minded. Those are not just jokes – there is a truth in it. They lost track of their own being.

It is said of Immanuel Kant: one night he came back home, he knocked on the door, it was getting dark, and the servant looked from the window, from the top floor, and said, ”The master is not at home.”

It is Emmanuel Kant’s house, he is the master, but the servant thought somebody had come to see the master. So he said, ”The master is not at home. He has gone for a walk.”

And Immanuel Kant said, ”Okay, then I will come later on.”

And he went! After walking for one hour, then he suddenly realized, ”What nonsense has this servant been playing with me? I am the master!”

If you become too much engaged in outer things, there is a possibility your whole consciousness will start moving into extroversion. Nothing points to yourself.

Another night, Immanuel Kant came back home. He used to carry a walking-stick. He went in the room and forgot what is what, so he put the walking-stick on the bed, and he himself stood in the comer. Only in the middle of the night, suddenly he recognized the fact that something was wrong.

This IS possible. One can become really so much obsessed with the objective... one can lose all track of oneself. One can fall in a shadow. Scientists live in that kind of shadow. Philosophers live in that kind of shadow.

Subjectivity is eliminated when objects and objective interests take over. The onto logical imperialism of scientific methodology is a pressing danger. It is one matter to hold that if something cannot be known by scientific methods, it cannot be KNOWN, but it is quite another matter to hold that if something cannot be known by scientific methods it does not EXIST.

And once you become too much obsessed with the objective, then naturally you become obsessed with the methodology of science too – then that is the only valid method to know. If something is not available to THAT method, then not only do you say it cannot be known, you start saying, slowly slowly, unconsciously, unawares, that if it cannot be known through scientific method it cannot exist.

That’s why scientists go. on saying God does not exist. Not that God does not exist – it is just their methodology. Their methodology is for the object and God is your subjectivity. Their methods are meant to catch hold of that which is separate from you. And God is not separate from you: God is your innermost being, your inferiority.

Through scientific methods, love cannot be proved. That does not mean love does not exist. For it, a different methodology is needed, a different approach, a different vision, a different way of seeing.

The scientist avoids the problem of self-knowing by getting more and more interested in the objective world. By getting more and more into things, he goes farther and farther away from himself.

And there is a third effort also to overcome the subject/object dichotomy, and that is the way of the mystic. One way to AVOID this problem of subject and object is that of the scientist: only object exists. The other way to avoid the dichotomy – because it is insoluble – is that of the idealist: to say that the world is illusory, it doesn’t exist, it is MAYA, close your eyes. Both are wrong. The third is the method of the mystic: he TRANSCENDS. He does not deny reality to the object, he does not deny the reality to the subject – he accepts the reality of both. He bridges them.

That is the meaning of the famous Upanishadic statement: TAT-TVAM-ASI – That art thou. This is a bridging. In this bridging, self-knowledge happens. Self disappears, knowledge disappears –

knowing remains. A clarity, a transparency. All is clear. There is nobody to whom it is clear, and there is nothing which is clear – but ALL IS clear. It is only clarity and clarity....

This is called by the Buddhists: The Lotus-Land of Buddha. All is clear and fragrant, and beautiful, and graceful. Then the splendor opens its doors.

The mystic transcends the problem by attempting a form of knowing in which the knower and the known are merged into one unit. Now nothing is left in the concept of ’knowledge’. Knowledge cannot be divided into direct and indirect. All knowledge is indirect. Knowledge is a salute, not an embrace. It is a representation, a symbolization, a universalization, an analysis. In a sense, knowledge is a form of falsifying; for reality is concrete, particular, specific, unanalyzed. Knowledge is a dry and dead fact – it is not wet experience. And experience is not knowledge but knowing.

That’s why Krishnamurti always uses the word ’experiencing’ rather than ’experience’. He is right.

He turns the noun into a verb: he calls it experiencing. Remember that always: transform nouns into verbs and you will be Dover to reality. Don’t call it knowledge: call it knowing. Don’t call it life: call it living. Don’t call it love: call it loving. Don’t call it death: call it dying.

If you can understand that the whole life is a verb, not a noun, there will be great understanding following it like a shadow.

There is no self and there is no other.

The great Jewish mystic and philosopher, Martin Buber, says that prayer is the experience of I and thou, a dialogical experience a dialogue. Yes, in the beginning prayer is so, but not in the end. For the beginners, prayer is a dialogue between I and thou. But for those who have arrived, prayer is not a dialogue because there is neither I nor thou – only one. Dialogue cannot exist. It is not communication: it is communion. It is not even union, but unity.

Self-knowledge is of great importance. Nothing else is of more importance than that. But remember these two pitfalls: one is denying subjectivity and becoming a realist; another is denying reality and becoming an idealist. Avoid these two pitfalls. Walk exactly in the middle.

And then you will be surprised – the self has disappeared, the knowledge has disappeared. But then descends knowing. Great light descends, and a light that not only transforms you but transforms your whole world.

Buddha is reported to have said: The moment I became enlightened, the whole existence became enlightened for me. This is true. I am a witness to it. Exactly that’s hove it happens. When you become enlightened, the WHOLE existence becomes full of light and remains full of light. Even darkness becomes luminous, even death becomes a new way of living.

The fourth question:

Question 4

WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND YOU?

I AM SO SIMPLE – something must be wrong with you. You must be knowledgeable. You must be carrying great prejudices in you. Otherwise, what I am saying are such simple truths; there is no way to make them more simple. But you must be waiting to hear something else – then problems arise.

I say one thing. You were waiting to hear something else. And there is collision, they collide. And, naturally, if anything collides with you, you cannot accept it. It creates confusion. I am here to clarify things for you, but if you have ideas, a priori ideas, fixed attitudes, prejudices, conditioning, then my simple statements will collide with your deep-rooted beliefs – and there will be confusion. You want to hear something else... if I say it then it is perfectly okay. You say, ”I understand.” That’s what you mean when you say, ”Yes, I understand.” It means I am agreeing with you, but I have no obligation to agree with you. How can I agree with you? If I agree with you, how am I going to change you?

All hope is, all promise is, in my disagreeing with you, because that’s the only possibility for you to grow beyond yourself.

But it happens. You have a certain idea. I say something: either you hear something which I have not said, or your belief is hurt, wounded, you become restless, and in that restlessness you cannot hear what is being said. Otherwise I am saying such simple things.

The husband came home drunk again. His wife could not stand it. She screamed at him, ”If you don’t stop this damnable drinking, I am going to kill myself!”

The hapless husband retorted, ”Promises, that’s all I get, promises.”

It is very difficult to hear what is being said. You hear what you CAN hear.

One parent was listening to her six-year-old at his math lesson: ”Three plus one, the sonuvabitch is four,” he said. ”Three plus two, the sonuvabitch is five. Three plus three, the sonuvabitch is six.”

The mother’s jaw dropped in astonishment. ”Johnny, where in the world did you ever learn to talk like that?” she angrily asked.

”Oh, that’s the way they teach us at school,” said Johnny.

Unable to believe it, Johnny’s mother visited the teacher and demanded an explanation. But the teacher was as horrified as the mother – she had no idea where Johnny had learnt those words.

Then she realized what had happened.

”I get it,” she laughed. ”We teach the children to say: Three plus one, the SUM OF WHICH is four; three plus two, the SUM OF WHICH is five!”

I may be saying one thing... you may be hearing another. Then it becomes very difficult. I talk from my vision; you listen from your vision. There is a vast difference. So each word that is said to you is being translated by you, even though I am speaking the same language that you understand – still it is being translated.

The marriage counselor was advising the bride-to-be. ”The first thing I must tell you is that if you want to retain the interest of your husband, you must never completely disrobe in front of him when retiring. Always keep a little mystery about you.”

About two months later, the husband said to his bride, ”Tell me, Jane, is there any insanity in your family?”

”Of course not!” she responded hotly. ”Why do you ask such a question?”

”Well,” said he, ”I was merely wondering why, during the last two months since we’re married, when you go to bed you never take off your hat.”

People understand in their own ways. That may be creating trouble for you. You will have to come closer to my vision of things. In fact, what I am saying is very simple. It is not difficult at all.

Secondly, you will have to leave your past behind. Come fresh to me, clean slates, so I can write something that has happened to me. If you come with so many things already written on your slate, I will still write, but it will become very very confusing for you to understand what has been written.

Everything else that you are carrying in your head becomes entangled with what I say. It never reaches to you exactly as it is said.

Listen to me, not from the head but from the heart. Listen to me not argumentatively but in a kind of deep intimacy, love, sympathy. Don’t be here like a spectator – become a participant. Fall en rapport with me. That is the only way to understand what is being said to you, because what is being said to you is no ordinary message. It is absolute fire. If you allow, it is going to transform you, it is going to transmute you. If you allow, you will never be the same again. If you allow, this is going to be your rebirth.

And the last question:

Question 5

I FEEL HOMESICK – WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

HOW AM I TO KNOW? It may mean something really great, metaphysical. Mystics say they feel homesick, but then they mean they are longing for the original source, the ultimate home. They are longing for God. But I don’t know about you. You may be simply feeling homesick!

Listen to these stories:

A traveling salesman went into a hashery. He instructed the waitress, ”Look, I want two eggs, and I want them fried very hard. I want two pieces of toast burnt to a crisp, and I want a cup of coffee weak, lukewarm, and practically undrinkable.”

”What!” exclaimed the waitress. ”What kind of an order is that?”

”Never you mind,” insisted the salesman, ”Just bring me what I asked for.”

The waitress went back to the kitchen, told the chef there was a loony guy outside and gave him the order. The chef prepared everything just as it was ordered. The waitress brought the miserable breakfast back to the table, and said coolly, ”Anything else, sir?”

”Why, yes,” said the salesman. ”Please sit down next to me and nag me. I’m homesick.”

Or this story:

A battling couple had had the worst spat of their marriage. Enraged and disgusted, the husband grabbed his coat and stormed out of the house. To cool his ire, the sizzling spouse took the subway to Grand Central and visited some of the local bars to try to forget his troubles. Before long he was beginning to feel his oats.

By two a.m., the hapless husband decided that he was soused enough to take anything his wife could mete out. He left a bar and started walking up Eighth Avenue, looking for the subway station.

As he neared Madison Square Garden, he looked up and there in bright neon lights glared the sign:

”Big Fight Tonight.” He paused, refocused his eyes, and sighed: ”Ah, home at last!”

I don’t know what you mean by your question. You say: I FEEL HOMESICK – WHAT DOES IT

MEAN? YOU must really know. If it is the homesickness for God, I can show you the way. And every-one remains homesick unless one finds God. We have lost our paradise. We have known how it is to be, what beauty it is to be – we have lost it. We had known it in the mother’s womb.

The memory persists. The memory is not mental: it is in every cell of your body, every fiber of your body. It continuously persists. It goes on haunting you, it goes on giving you a sense that something is missing. Things are as they should not be. It goes on goading you towards something that is possible.

That goal is God – or call it truth, or Nirvana, or what you like. If you are feeling homesick in this sense, I can help you. If you are feeling homesick in some other sense, go to Deeksha....

CHAPTER 3

Out of Context

3 July 1978 am in Buddha Hall

A CERTAIN SUFI TEACHER WAS EXPLAINING HOW A FALSE SUFI HAD BEEN UNMASKED.

”A REAL SUFI SENT ONE OF HIS DISCIPLES TO SERVE HIM. THE DISCIPLE WAITED ON

THE IMPOSTER HAND AND FOOT, DAY AND NIGHT. PRESENTLY EVERYONE BEGAN TO SEE

HOW THE FRAUD LOVED THESE ATTENTIONS, AND PEOPLE DESERTED HIM UNTIL HE WAS

COMPLETELY ALONE.”

ONE OF THE LISTENERS TO THIS STORY SAID TO HIMSELF, ”WHAT A MARVELLOUS IDEA! I SHALL GO AWAY AND DO JUST THE SAME THING.”

HE WENT TO WHERE A BOGUS DIVINE WAS TO BE FOUND, AND PASSIONATELY DESIRED

TO BE ENROLLED AS A DISCIPLE. AFTER THREE YEARS, SUCH WAS HIS DEVOTION THAT

HUNDREDS OF DEVOTEES HAD COLLECTED. ”THIS SAGE MUST INDEED BE A GREAT MAN,”

THEY SAID TO ONE ANOTHER, ”TO INSPIRE SUCH LOYALTY AND SELF-SACRIFICE IN HIS

DISCIPLE.”

SO THE MAN WENT BACK TO THE SUFI FROM WHOM HE HAD HEARD THE STORY AND

EXPLAINED WHAT HAD HAPPENED. ”YOUR TALES ARE NOT RELIABLE,” HE SAID ”BECAUSE

WHEN I TRIED TO PUT ONE INTO PRACTICE, THE REVERSE HAPPENED.”

”ALAS,” SAID THE SUFI, ”THERE WAS ONLY ONE THING WRONG WITH YOUR ATTEMPT TO

APPLY SUFI METHODS. YOU WERE NOT A SUFI.”

SUFISM IS NOT A DOCTRINE BUT A DISCIPLINE, A METHOD OF inner transformation, an alchemical device – to change the lower into the higher, to change the baser metal into gold. It does not believe in talking about God. Rather, It believes in creating God. It does not believe in great philosophical argumentation – that is all rubbish. Its whole emphasis is on how to destroy man’s mechanicalness, how to de-automatize man, how to release awareness in him.

Self-remembering is its only and its whole philosophy.

If you can understand one word, ’self-remembering’, you have understood all that Sufism consists of.

Man lives, but without any remembrance of who he is. Then you can go on doing a thousand and one things, but failure is going to be your fate. You are doomed to fail, because unconsciousness fails. Only consciousness succeeds, because it is only through consciousness that you become part of the divine cosmos. Unconscious, you remain apart. Unconscious, you are confined by your ego, you are like an island. Conscious, the ego melts, you become one with the whole, the harmony of the whole.

The part is going to fail. The part cannot succeed. Only the whole succeeds.

That is the meaning of the ancient statement: SATYAM EVAM JAYATE – it is only truth that wins.

Why is it only truth that wins? Because to be true is to be with God; to be true is to be with the ultimate law of existence, is to be in tune with. Tao. And the whole cannot fail.

The individual is bound to fail. And unless you remember, you will remain an individual. The moment you remember, the miracle happens, the paradox happens: in self-remembering, self disappears; only remembering is left. In non-self-remembering, there is no remembering, but the self continues.

The self and remembering cannot exist together; their co-existence is not possible.

Sufism can be reduced to a single method: self-remembering. A man who remembers himself functions in a different way. Never imitate anybody, because by imitation you are not going to reach.

If by chance you are fortunate and blessed and you come across a Buddha, learn how to remember.

Don’t imitate him. If you imitate a Buddha, you will be just a dummy Buddha, a false entity, of no worth. And you will become more and more stupid – imitators always become stupid.

Intelligence never grows by imitation: intelligence grows by experimentation. Intelligence grows by taking challenges. Intel-ligence grows by accepting questions and endeavoring to find their answers.

Imitation means the question has not yet even arisen, and you have accepted the answer. If the question has not arisen then the season is not ripe – don’t sow the seeds, they will die. It will be sheer wastage.

But it happens: if you come across a Buddha, his being, his presence is magnetic – you would like to be like him. His grace enchants you. You would like to learn his way of life. You will start imitating unconsciously. That too happens unconsciously. He looks so beautiful, he looks so silent and so blessed – who would not like to imitate him? But if you imitate, you miss, because consciousness cannot be imitated. It has to be created. You have to become the lab. You have to become the experiment. You have to create the fire. You have to create the patience. You have to create many things which are ingredients for the inner chemistry, and then the flame comes one day. Then you are a Buddha in your own right. Not a copy! not a carbon copy.

Your innermost being will be exactly like the Buddha, but your outer personality will be different. A Jesus is a Jesus, a Krishna is a Krishna, a Rumi is a Rumi, a Mansoor is a Mansoor. From the periphery they are AS different as people can be different, but from the innermost core their taste is one, similarly one.

What is that taste? That is the taste of self-remembering.

The body is different. Buddha has a different shape, Mohammed has certainly a different shape; their eyes, their noses, their faces, their hands, are different; their languages are different, their characters are different. Mohammed has a sword in his hand and Buddha will not touch a sword, never. Krishna has a flute – you cannot visualize Mahavir having a flute. It is impossible. Jesus is on the cross, in that deep agony of humanity, as if all the agony of all the human beings has centered into the being of Jesus. And Krishna is dancing, as if all the ecstasies of all possible human beings are gathered together. But if you look deep, in the agony of Jesus and in the ecstasy of Krishna, the taste is the same. Dancing, Krishna is remembering. Dying, Jesus is remembering. Buddha is sitting silently under his tree, with utter self-remembering, and Meera is dancing, with great abandon, but deepest at the core there is the flame of self-remembering.

Self-remembering is the soul of religion.

But we always see the periphery. If you come to me, you will see my periphery, you will not see my center. That is not available to ordinary eyes. Unless you grow the eyes of a disciple, you will not be able to see it. Unless you grow the inner eye you will only see my circumference. And I am not my circumference: I am my center. The circumference is accidental, but the center is not accidental

– it is essential. The same center can exist in different circumferences. But the ordinary eyes will see only the outer, and will become obsessed with the outer and will start imitating it – in the hope that ”Maybe someday, imitating, and imitating more perfectly, we will arrive at the center.” There is no way from the periphery to the center!

Let this be remembered by you always and always: there is no way from the periphery to the center.

There is certainly a way from the center to the periphery. If the inner changes, the outer changes of its own accord – but not vice versa. Just by changing the outer, you will not be able to change the inner. In fact, by changing the outer you will become a hypocrite. By changing the outer, you will become split, you will become two. Rather than becoming one, you will be divided. And all divisions bring misery.

And this is the greatest division:

when somebody’s center speaks one language and the

circumference another, he starts falling into a kind of schizophrenia. These two poles will become farther and farther apart, and he will not be able to keep himself together. Sooner or later he will fall into fragments. That’s what madness is.

Never imitate, otherwise you are on the path of being mad. UNDERSTAND, but never imitate. When a Master speaks, whatsoever he is saying is true in HIS context. Don’t take his statements out of his context, otherwise you have missed the meaning.

And I know: even out of context those statements LOOK meaningful, but they are no more meaningful. Meaning is never in the words but always in the context. In that way, all dictionaries are false, because in a dictionary there are only words without context. You read a word ’love’. Now what meaning can the word ’love’ have? It can have a thousand and one meanings, and it can have a thousand and one meanings because it has no meaning in itself. It depends on the user and the context.

A man says to a woman, ”I love you.” And another man says, ”I love ice-cream.” Is the meaning the same? And Jesus says, ”Love is God.” When Jesus says, ”Love is God,” and you say, ”I love ice-cream, ” is the meaning the same? Then God’s taste will be the taste of ice-cream. No, it is not.

The meaning of the word depends on the context. And the context is a huge phenomenon. In the context, the person who has made the statement is deeply involved. If he is a man of presence, his presence is involved. If he is a Buddha or a Christ, if he is a Sufi, then all that he has known and seen is involved in it. Don’t take statements of Buddhas ordinarily. Till you have understood the quality of the Buddha, his mindfulness, his awareness, you will go on misunderstanding. And whatsoever you will do out of your misunderstanding will create more misery, complexity, turmoil, in your life. Rather than becoming a blessing, it will become a curse. That’s what has happened to humanity at large.

Millions are there who are Christians, and they don’t know what Christ-consciousness is, and they go on reading the Bible. And millions are there who are Buddhists, and they don’t know what Buddha-consciousness is, and they go on reading the Diamond Sutra. And millions are there who are Hindus, and they don’t know what Krishna-consciousness is, and they go on reading the Gita.

Hence the confusion in the world. Hence so much stupidity in the world, unintelligence in the world, mediocrity in the world.

People read the Sermon on the Mount, or the Bible, or the Gita, or the Dhammapada, but the meaning? – the meaning is going to be yours. Meaning cannot be that of Jesus or Krishna or Mohammed Always remember: when you are reading the Bible, be very conscious, cautious, that it is your meaning that you are reading there. You cannot read what Jesus means. You can read that only when you have attained something of Jesus’ self remembering.

THIS IS THE KEY-WORD IN SUFISM: self-remembering. It is not a doctrine; it is a discipline. It is not magic, ritual; it is science, it is REAL psychology. That is the literal meaning of the word

’psychology’: the science of the soul. The Western psychology has no right to call itself psychology; it is not the science of the soul. On the contrary, it denies the existence of the soul. It is so absurd to call it psychology. It only studies the behavior – and not even the behavior of man, but the behavior of rats, to understand the behavior of man. It reduces man to rats. Rats have the keys: it thinks if you can understand the rat and the rat’s mind you will be able to understand man and man’s mind.

In the East we have thought just the diametrically polar opposite: unless you understand a Buddha, you will not understand man. Just see the difference. Skinner says if we can understand the mind of the rat we will be able to understand the mind of man. Man is nothing but a little more complicated rat. The rat is simple, can be understood more easily. Hence the obsession of the psychologists to study the rat.

The Eastern psychology, which is REALLY psychology, says unless you understand Buddha you will not understand man – because man is just a seed. How can you understand the seed unless you have seen a tree? fully grown, with foliage, with flowers, with fruits? Unless the seed has manifested itself totally and has come to be actual, is not only potential, you will not be able to understand it. If you want to understand the seed, go and study the tree. By studying the tree you will know what the seed is and what the seed can be.

In the East we understand Buddha to understand man.

In the West you understand rats to

understand man. This is humiliating. This is insulting.

Western psychology is not psychology yet. It should drop the name! It is only a study of outer behavior, but not of the inner consciousness. It denies that there is anything inner.

Sufism is psychology in the true sense of the word. It depends on the inner. But then one problem arises: when you listen to the statements of the Sufis, be very alert. Don’t translate them according to YOUR understanding, otherwise you will miss the import. Rather than bringing the statements of the Sufis to your understanding, you will have to rise in your awareness and go closer to the Sufis.

These are the two ways to understand.

For example, you are here with me. One way is: whatsoever I say, you translate it, reduce it, to YOUR understanding. That is one way to understand it. In fact, it is a way of misunderstanding it.

The other way is the right way to understand: when you fall in love with something that I say, then try to come closer to my awareness. Then meditate more. Then become more self-aware. Then witnessing has to be grown. Then more energy has to be poured into observation, so that you can rise a little higher from your ordinary plane of understanding. Then you will be able to see the point.

The problem becomes very complicated because Sufis use very simple language.

You can

understand it. As far as language is concerned there is no problem. But as far as the MESSAGE IS

concerned, there is a great problem. The statements of the Sufis are coded messages – simple on the surface but carrying great treasure in them.

Sufism is not a doctrine, hence it is not intellectual. It is existential. It is total. Intellect is only a tiny part. But somehow this calamity has happened, that the intellect has become dictatorial, that it has usurped all the power that you have, that it has become totalitarian, that it has become the master.

Sufis say the intellect is a great servant, a good servant, very useful, but a bad master. It can’t be the master.

In fact, no PART can be the master. Neither can the heart be the master. Neither the hands nor the feet, nor the kidneys, nor the lungs – NO PART can be the master. The mastery belongs to the organic unity. Man’s being should be a democracy in which every part has its say, and where every part functions at its maximum, is not hindered. end out of the harmony of all the parts arises self-remembering.

So one thing to be reminded of: Zen is anti-intellectual; it is not so with Sufism. Zen is irrational; it is not so with Sufism. Sufism is a very balanced view. It is neither intellectual nor anti intellectual ; it is neither rational nor irrational.

Sufism says: Intellect has its own place; it is a good machine. It has to be used, but only as a machine. The machine has not to become a master. This vision of man functioning as an organic unity is one of the greatest contributions to human consciousness from Sufism. Neither the heart nor the head nor anything else has to become the boss. There is no need for any boss in your being.

All have to function; nobody’s functioning has to be hindered.

And out of the harmony of all the parts functioning arises that great grace called self-remembering.

It is neither of the mind nor of the soul nor of the body, but of all. It is a trinity. It is total.

Zen is a little bit extremist. It goes from intellect to the diametrically opposite extreme. Sufism is far more balanced, moderate. It remains in the middle. It says there is no need to take any standpoint.

Use all that God has given to you, but use it in such a way, in such an artful way, that your life becomes an orchestra. And the melody that will come out of that orchestra is self-remembering.

That self-remembering reveals to you all the mysteries there are. Intellect has a part to play; intellect has to serve. Its contribution is significant, for two reasons. One: while you are moving on the path, intellect helps you to avoid the falls. Intellect cannot deliver you the truth – it is too big, it is beyond intellect. It is the capacity of the total only. But intellect can still do some great work, spade work.

It can show you what is false, it can show you what is wrong. It can show you where not to go. It can help you eliminate. And that is great work. When you are standing at a crossroad and there are four roads, three have to be eliminated – intellect will do that. It cannot absolutely say to you, ”This is true. Follow this.” It cannot directly guide you, but it can say to you, ”This does not seem to be true.” Why? Because intellect’s whole capacity is that of doubt. Its function is that of doubt. It can doubt! So it can show you what is false. It cannot trust, so it cannot show you what is right, but in an indirect way, if the false is eliminated you are coming closer to the true.

When ALL that is false is eliminated, and only that which is truth is left, intellect becomes silent. If it is not the master, it becomes silent. If it is the master, it goes on repeating the old gramophone saying, ”This is false, this is false....” If it is just a slave, then it goes on saying, ”This is false, this is false, this is false,” and a moment comes when it faces the truth... it simply remains silent. It cannot say, ”This is true.” That is not the capacity of the intellect. But when the intellect is silent you can move on to the truth.

To find a real Master you will have to use your intellect. There is nothing else that you can use. And this is the way to use it: don’t allow it to be your master. It is a beautiful computer, bio-computer, very delicate, very complex, of immense value. Millions of years have been wasted by nature to create it

– don’t just throw it in the dustbin. Use it! Its capacity to doubt, its skepticism, is of immense value.

Descartes started his philosophical inquiries with doubt. He made it a point that ”Unless I find something which is indubitable I will not believe in anything.” Everything was eliminated: God was eliminated, heaven and hell were eliminated, angels, Devil, all were eliminated... the whole of theology was eliminated. But then he came across one thing: one’s own existence – how can you doubt it? Intellect becomes silent. You cannot doubt your own existence, because even to doubt it, you are needed. If I say I am not, I am falsifying my own statement. If I am not then who is making this statement?

There is a famous Sufi story:

Mulla Nasrudin was sitting in the coffee house, and bragging, as was his habit, about everything.

And he suddenly said, ”There is nobody more generous than me.”

And friends said, ”Nasrudin, this is too much! We have never seen any generosity in you. You have not even asked once for us to come to your home even for a cup of tea – what kind of generosity are you talking about?”

He said, ”Come, you all – the whole coffee house is invited to my house! I am going to give you a feast tonight. Everybody is invited, come all!”

He was so excited that he forgot all about his wife. The closer they came to home, the more his senses came back. He began feeling afraid. The whole day he had not been to the house. ”The wife must’ be angry!” In fact, he had gone to purchase vegetables in the morning. She must be in a rage by now. And now, not only is he coming without vegetables but with thirty people!

Just in front of the house, he said to his friends, ”Wait. You are all married people, you know, you understand. Let me go in first. Let me persuade my wife.”

They understood, they waited. Half an hour passed, one hour passed. It was getting late and they were feeling hungry. They said, ”What is the matter?” So they knocked on the door.

Mulla said to his wife, ”I have been a fool. I don’t know what madness took possession of me. I was just talking by the way about my generosity and I got into this stupidity, and I have invited these people. Now there is only one way: when they knock, you just go out and tell them that Mulla is not at home.”

But the wife said, ”You have come with them and they know.”

Mulla said, ”That I will take care of. You just go.”

So the wife went out. She said, ”What are you waiting for? Are you looking for Mulla Nasrudin? He is not at home.”

They said, ”This is too much. He had come with us! Thirty witnesses – he has gone in and we have not seen him going out either. He must be in!”

But the wife said, ”He is not in. You go home!”

But they started arguing and Mulla was hiding behind, and when the argument became too much and he saw that the wife is being defeated in the argument, he forgot. He came out and he said,

”Listen! He may have come with you, but there is a back door too – he may have gone by the back door. So what is the point of arguing?”

Now, he himself is saying that he may have gone by the back door. You cannot say ”I am not” –

you cannot say ”I am not at home.” That will defeat your whole purpose. To say ”I am not,” you are needed.

Descartes stumbled upon the fact – the fact of I-amness is indubitable, it cannot be doubted. He found here intellect be-coming silent. The intellect cannot do anything. Doubt is not possible, because to doubt is to prove.

Intellect has to be used, Sufis say, but as a slave not as a master. Then, when it confronts truth, it falls silent. This is one, and the first, purpose of intellect.

The second purpose is: when you have found the truth, it is through the intellect that there is some possibility to share it with others. When you have found it, it is through the intellect that you can devise methods, techniques, situations, so that others can also be led into it.

Intellect is not the enemy – it can be used. Before attainment it can be helpful in rejecting the false; after attainment it can be helpful in indicating the truth, hinting at the truth – it can become a finger pointing to the moon.

So remember, Sufis are not against intellect, not at all. But still, don’t forget: intellect has not to be the master of the house. Nobody has to be the master of the house. Your whole unity has to function in harmony. And then when there is nobody master in you, the real Master descends. That is God.

If you have a master of your own, it prevents the real Master from coming in. It may be the intellect, it may be the heart, it may be logic, it may be faith – anything – but if you have a master of your own, the true Master will not be able to enter in you. There is no space for the true Master to come in.

And the true Master is only one: the true Master is God.

NOW THIS BEAUTIFUL STORY.... Before I go into the story, zone thing more: these are not historical facts, these are parables. Don’t start thinking about these stories as if they have happened.

Why am I reminding you of it? Because just the other day, Ashoka wrote a letter to me.

We were. discussing one story, one of the most beautiful Sufi stories, about the dervish who asked the king to fill his begging bowl ”... to prove that you are really a king. If you cannot even fill the begging bowl of a poor beggar, what kind of king are you? and what sovereignty are you talking about?”

Gold coins were poured in, but it was a miraculous begging bowl, a magic begging bowl. All that was poured in disappeared immediately, and the bowl remained as empty as ever. The Sufi showed a great truth.

This begging bowl is the desiring mind of man. You can go on filling it, you can fill it with all the kingdoms of the world, and they will disappear, and the desiring bowl will remain empty. Even Alexanders die empty, Napoleons die empty, Adolf Hitlers die like beggars. Only those who have understood the futility of desiring die like kings. They also live like kings. A Buddha lives like a king.

That was why Jesus was so much misunderstood – because he declared himself the king, the real king. And he told his disciples, ”I have come to bring the kingdom of God onto the earth.”

The politicians became very much afraid: ”Is he a competitor or something?” They thought, ”He is gathering an army, sooner or later he will declare himself to be the king.” He was talking of a totally different kind of kingdom! He was not talking of the kingdom of this world: he was tasking of the kingdom that comes when desiring disappears.

Yes, there have been kings, a Buddha, a Christ – but they were not kings in the ordinary sense in which you use the word.

And the Sufi was showing to that sovereign the futility of all that he had, the utter futility of all his possessions. Our possessions are made of the stuff called dream. They disappeared in the bowl.

It was one of the most beautiful parables – but a parable, remember. It did not happen actually like that. But Ashoka wrote a letter to me. He is infatuated with magic. Because of that, he had lived for many years with Satya Sai Baba, thinking that there must be truth when a man can produce, out of nowhere, Swiss wrist watches, gold coins, holy ash – there must be something great. He has come to me, he has become a sannyasin, he is growing every day, but Satya Sai Baba seems to be a chronic disease in him. Somehow it goes on lingering; he cannot miss an opportunity. And he is growing, and he is going beautifully well. I am perfectly happy. But that old mind goes on protecting itself somewhere in the nooks and corners.

The day that whole old mind goes, he will have an experience of satori. I am waiting for that day.

Listening to this parable, he jumped upon it. He said, ”You praised this Sufi so much who did this magical thing with his begging bowl – he helped gold coins disappear. You appreciated this man so much. Why do you condemn Satya Sai Baba? Because he does the opposite: he creates gold coins out of nothing. This Sufi did the opposite: he allowed the gold coins to disappear into nothing.

Both are doing the same thing from different corners, from different ends. You appreciated this Sufi so much, and you condemn Satya Sai Baba – why?”

First, this is a parable. There has never been such a man who has done it. Secondly, to help people see that their gold is nothing but dream stuff, that it disappears into nothingness, is to help them towards spirituality. And to give people illusions that gold can be produced out of nothingness is to force them more and more into the world.

This Sufi dervish was helping the king to see the futility of all his possessions. Satyr Sai Baba is simply helping poor people to have desires for gold, is simply helping people to become more worldly, materialistic. The people who have surrounded Satya Sai Baba are materialists. You cannot find a spiritual person there. Why should a spiritual person go there? For what? A spiritual person is not interested in magic, is not interested in occult powers, is not interested in gold either. A spiritual person is finished with all these things! Hence he is spiritual. His search is for something that is beyond death. His search is for self-remembering.

Satyr Sai Baba cannot produce self-remembering out of nothing. Nobody can produce it. Self-remembering has to be created by each individual on his own. It is an arduous journey, a great pilgrimage.

First, the Sufi story is a parable. I am not saying that this is a historical fact. Secondly, Satya Sai Baba’s work is very worldly, trivial, profane; it has nothing to do with the sacred, it has nothing sacred in it. The people who become interested are people who are poor and are searching for some means to become rich, or people who are ill and are searching for some means to become healthy, or people who are crippled, paralyzed, blind, this and that.... But the search is not spiritual.

The spiritual search is not for the outer eyes but the inner. And the spiritual search is not for the outer health but for the inner wholeness.

In a poor country like India, people like Satya Sai Baba can gather a crowd. People are poor and people are hankering for things – but you will not find spiritual people there. That is a totally different dimension.

Remember about all these Sufi stories: they are only parables. They indicate something, they symbolize something. They have a message, but don’t take them as facts, not as historical facts.

The parable:

A CERTAIN SUFI TEACHER WAS EXPLAINING HOW A FALSE SUFI HAD BEEN UNMASKED.

”A REAL SUFI SENT ONE OF HIS DISCIPLES TO SERVE HIM. THE DISCIPLE WAITED ON

THE IMPOSTOR HAND AND FOOT, DAY AND NIGHT. PRESENTLY EVERYONE BEGAN TO SEE

HOW THE FRAUD LOVED THESE ATTENTIONS, AND PEOPLE DESERTED HIM UNTIL HE WAS

COMPLETELY ALONE.”

THE SUFI TEACHER HAS TO EXPOSE THOSE WHO ARE FALSE.

The Master’s work consists in that – that the false has to be exposed. People write to me: ”Why do you expose Satya Sai Baba? or Muktananda, or Shivananda? Why?” The false has to be exposed.

The more you know about the false, the better you will be equipped to understand the real and the true.

And the mind can understand the false more easily. Once the mind has understood what is false, it becomes more and more easy for you to move into the direction of truth. Otherwise there are a thousand and one false doors, and one can go on knocking on doors and wasting one’s time.

A CERTAIN SUFI TEACHER WAS EXPLAINING HOW A FALSE SUFI HAD BEEN UNMASKED.

Who is a false Sufi? One who pretends. One who has no presence yet. One who has not yet overflowing love in his being. One who still hankers for others to love him. One who wants attention.

Try to understand this.

Why do you want attention? Because you are empty. If the husband is not giving attention to the wife, she becomes angry. If the husband comes home and the wife is not giving attention to him, he gets into a rage. Why is there so much hankering for attention? Why do you want so much attention for yourself? Because you are empty. Deep down, you are so poor that if nobody is paying attention to you, you start feeling as if you don’t exist at all. Your whole existence depends on people’s attention.

This is the root cause of politics; this is how a politician is born. Politics is nothing but a strategy to attract attention. The politician is the poorest man in the world, because he needs thousands and thousands of people and their attention, and constantly – only then can he live. That is his food, his nourishment. He devours people’s attentions. Any way, right or wrong, the attention is needed.

And that is the cause of all crime in the world. Politicians and criminals are not very different people.

Psychologically the same type. The politician is trying ways which are acceptable to the society, and the criminal, in his desperation, has started trying ways which are not acceptable to the society.

A man in America killed seven persons, for no reason at all. Strangers! Just went on the beach and shot seven people. He had not met them before. He had not even seen their faces. He was asked in the court ”Why?”

He said, ”I wanted my picture on the first pages of the newspapers. And I am happy! Now I am somebody. Everybody knows about me. I am not dying as a nobody. You can give me any punishment – death is acceptable – but I had lived long enough as a nobody. I would have passed and nobody would have paid attention – now everybody knows that I exist, that I am important.”

Go deep into the criminal’s mind and you will find this. And this is the mind of the politician too. If the politician succeeds slowly slowly he becomes criminal. The more powerful he becomes, the more criminal he becomes. He is saintly only when he is out of power. His saintliness is only when he is powerless. Once he is powerful he does not care; then he starts doing all those things he has always been against.

But everybody is a politician in that sense. If you hanker for attention, watch – you have some politics in you. And politics is poison. If you pass through a street and nobody says hello to you, nobody says good morning, nobody looks at you, how do you feel? A nonentity. It hurts. If it hurts it shows only one thing: that you don’t have any self-awareness. Otherwise there is no need!

The man of self-awareness can live absolutely alone and utterly happy. He can move in the crowd and he will not think even for a single moment that anybody should pay attention to him. In fact, he would like nobody to pay attention to him, so that he can go on doing his thing without any interference from people.

A real Sufi has such presence that he does not ask for attention. The unreal Sufi can be immediately judged if he asks for attention.

A CERTAIN SUFI TEACHER WAS EXPLAINING HOW A FALSE SUFI HAD BEEN UNMASKED.

”A REAL SUFI SENT ONE OF HIS DISCIPLES TO SERVE HIM. THE DISCIPLE WAITED ON

THE IMPOSTOR HAND AND FOOT, DAY AND NIGHT. PRESENTLY EVERYONE BEGAN TO SEE

HOW THE FRAUD LOVED THESE ATTENTIONS, AND PEOPLE DESERTED HIM UNTIL HE WAS

COMPLETELY ALONE.”

Seeing this, that he loved attentions being paid to him, people deserted him. The story must concern people of great understand I g It is an ancient parable. People knew in the old days what it is to be really religious.

The really religious is ego less. The really religious is overflowing with love. He is not a beggar for love or attention. The really religious is one who has effaced himself completely, who has become absent. And when a person becomes absent, God becomes present in him. The more you are absent as you, the more God will be present in you.

A simple device: a disciple was sent to the bogus teacher and told to serve him so much so that the bogus teacher became almost dependent. And people just seeing this disappeared. It was a totally different world. People knew what religious consciousness is all about.

ONE OF THE LISTENERS TO THIS STORY SAID TO HIMSELF, ”WHAT A MARVELOUS IDEA! I SHALL GO AWAY AND DO JUST THE SAME THING.”

NOW THIS MAN is getting interested in exposing somebody. The one side of the illness is that somebody wants atten-tion, importance, superiority, ego-fulfillment. The other side of the story is that others would like to expose him. Why should this man be interested in exposing anybody?

Listening to the story from the Master, he didn’t become in-terested in the Master himself, he didn’t become interested in the search for a real Sufi. He became interested, on the contrary, in going somewhere and finding a bogus divine and exposing him. What are you going to gain out of it? And who ARE you?

If a real Master decides to expose somebody, that’s a totally different matter. It is out of compassion

– out of compassion for the people the fraud is deceiving. And out of compassion for the fraud too – because when you deceive others, you are being deceived yourself too. When a real Master exposes somebody, it is not out of anger. It is not out of enmity: it is out of compassion.

It is reported:

Mahavir had a disciple, his name was Goshalak. He was an impostor. He learnt things from Mahavir.

He was there just to learn a &w things so he could become a Master on his own. Out of compassion, Mahavir continued to teach him – knowing his mind perfectly well, his devious, cunning mind, he continued to teach him.

Then one day he disappeared and declared himself a Perfect Master. Mahavir laughed. He said,

”This is strange, because he is not yet even an imperfect disciple! What to say of becoming a Perfect Master.”

Out of compassion, Mahavir travel led to that town where Goshalak had declared himself. He went to see the man and he said, ”Goshalak, what are you doing?”

But see how people are. Goshalak was so cunning, he said, ”Who are you? I have never seen you.”

He had lived twelve years with Mahavir, and Mahavir says, ”You have not seen me? And twelve years you lived with me?”

And Goshalak said, ”Look! This man thinks he has attained and he cannot understand a simple phenomenon. Yes, the body is the same, but that soul has left. And now God has descended in me.

He is using Goshalak’s body as a vehicle to bring real religion into the world.”

People can be very cunning. Mahavir could not believe his eyes, that somebody can be so cunning.

And this man deceived many people. But how long can you deceive? Finally, at the last moment, his whole life’s story became too heavy on him. And in the last moment he declared. ”I am false. I am the same man who used to be Mahavir’s disciple. I have been deceiving people – I don’t know a thing. Before I die I want it to be known that I was false. Please forgive me, and go to Mahavir. I cannot go now, I am so ill, but I would like to fall at his feet and apologize. It is too late, but I have deceived.”

There is a great desire in people to claim. And the inner riches can be claimed more easily, because to disprove it is very difficult.

A real Master exposes the unreal out of compassion – compassion for the people he is deceiving and compassion for him too, because he is also wasting his life. But this should not be the business of one who has not yet known anything.

ONE OF THE LISTENERS TO THIS STORY SAID TO HIMSELF. ”WHAT A MARVELOUS IDEA!”

Just see: what is said and what is heard are totally different things. People go on hearing what they can hear.

All the girls from the office poured into a crowded cafeteria for the coffee break. One of the girls lit a cigarette and blew ring after ring of smoke. An elderly lady sitting next to her was supremely alloyed.

”Miss,” she said, ”that smoke is a horrible habit. I would rather commit adultery than smoke.”

”So would I,” answered the girl, ”but, you know, there just isn’t time during a coffee break.”

People hear what they CAN hear.

A man walked into a psychiatrist’s office and stuffed tobacco into his right ear.

”Well, it’s obvious that you need me,” said the doctor.

”I sure do,” the man agreed. ”Get a match?”

Never for a single moment believe that you hear that which is said to you. It is very rare, just coincidental that sometimes you hear that which is said to you. Because you have a set mind! and that set mind is there to interpret it.

Roberts became convinced he was a cannibal, and his wife finally persuaded him to visit a psychiatrist.

When Roberts returned home after his first visit, his wife asked,

”So tell me, what is a fancy psychiatrist like?”

”Delicious!” beamed Roberts.

Everybody has a set mind, and you hear from the mind. Unless you learn how to hear, without the mind, how to put the mind aside, you will go on hearing that which has not been said to you.

Now, the Master is saying, ”Don’t be deceived by frauds.” He is not saying, ”Go and expose frauds.”

But this man says, ”What a marvelous idea!” He got hooked with the idea. It appealed to him –

just the idea to expose somebody. Just the idea to prove that somebody is a fraud, just the idea to torture somebody, just the idea to make somebody feel inferior can give you great joy – the joy of torture, violence, sadism.

”I SHALL GO AWAY AND DO JUST THE SAME THING.”

And how can he do just the same thing? He is not being sent by a Sufi Master: he is going on his own. He is not a Sufi! He does not understand a thing – what it is all about, who is a real Master and who is a fraud. Out of context he has taken something.

He tried, he worked hard:

HE WENT TO WHERE A BOGUS DIVINE WAS TO BE FOUND, AND PASSIONATELY DESIRED

TO BE ENROLLED AS A DISCIPLE. AFTER THREE YEARS, SUCH WAS HIS DEVOTION THAT

HUNDREDS OF DEVOTEES HAD COLLECTED. ”THIS SAGE MUST INDEED BE A GREAT MAN,”

THEY SAID TO ONE ANOTHER, ”TO INSPIRE SUCH LOYALTY AND SELF-SACRIFICE IN HIS

DISCIPLE.”

Now, just the opposite happened. Life is very delicate. Unless you move in the right context, you may do the SAME thing but the results may be just the opposite. What actually happened?

For three years he served the Master so obediently that he created the impression in people that if a man can create so much obedience in a certain disciple, such sacrifice, then he must be a great Master. He missed the who!e point.

In the story, the true Sufi had sent a disciple to play a role, to act: ”Act as if you are paying attention to the Master, the false Master. And let him become dependent, more and more dependent on your attentions. And let people see how much he hankers for attention.”

In the second case, just the opposite happened. This man was not aware of what he was doing. He thought he had to serve devotedly. He served! But his service proved to people that this is possible only if there is a real Master, otherwise how can a man for three years serve so deeply and remain so intimate, so close by? Thousands gathered!

SO THE MAN WENT BACK TO THE SUFI FROM WHOM HE HAD HEARD THE STORY AND

EXPLAINED WHAT HAD HAPPENED.

The emphasis is different. In the first, the emphasis was to create a need in the bogus Master; in the second, the emphasis was to serve and be as obedient as possible. The whole thing went topsy turvy . He was angry, of course – three years wasted. Not only wasted, but he became an instrument in gathering thousands of people to a bogus divine.

SO HE WENT BACK TO THE SUFI FROM WHOM HE HAD HEARD THE STORY AND EXPLAINED

WHAT HAD HAPPENED. ” YOUR TALES ARE NOT RELIABLE,” HE SAID, ”BECAUSE WHEN I TRIED TO PUT ONE OF THEM INTO PRACTICE, THE REVERSE HAPPENED.”

METHODS DON’T MEAN A THING. Techniques don t mean a thing. All that matters is the inner awareness with which you work on them.

For example: in the East, for centuries, MANTRA has been used as a technique. And now Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has introduced the same technique into the West, with a SLIGHT difference – but that slight difference is so big that it has destroyed the whole method.

In the East we have used mantra, but the condition is: one should not get LOST into the mantra.

You repeat Ram or Krishna or AUM or Allah or any word – your own name will do – you repeat AUM, AUM, AUM, but you are not to be lost in the repetition. You have to remain a witness. You have to go on watching this sound AUM, AUM, AUM, and you have to remain there a witness, a watcher on the hills.

If you are not there as a witness, then this repetition of AUM and AUM will be just a lullaby. It will give you a good sleep. Nothing is wrong with good sleep, but it will not give you awakening.

It is not accidental that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s transcendental meditation is known in the West as

’non-medical tranquilizer’. That’s exactly what it is. It is GOOD to give you sleep, but it is not good to make you awake. And spirituality is wakefulness, it is not a good sleep.

A good sleep is good in itself. Physiologically good, psychologically good, but it has no spiritual dimension. The spiritual dimension opens when you become wakeful. A real meditator, even while asleep, remains awake. That’s what’s said by Krishna in the Gita: ”When the whole world sleeps, the yogi is still awake.” Not that he sits in SIDDHASANA and goes on chanting Rama, Rama, Rama –

he ALSO sleeps, but only his body sleeps, his psychological mechanism sleeps, but his awareness burns bright.

Now the method is of immense value. But with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s interpretation it has lost all value. It has become just a gimmick, a technique, to help people – a little relaxation. But it is no longer spiritual. It is not meditation, it is not transcendental either. Just a SLIGHT difference, and all changes.

”YOUR TALES ARE NOT RELIABLE,” SAID THE MAN, ”BECAUSE WHEN I TRIED TO PUT ONE

INTO PRACTICE, THE REVERSE HAPPENED.”

”ALAS,” SAID THE SUFI, ”THERE WAS ONLY ONE THING WRONG WITH YOUR ATTEMPT TO

APPLY SUFI METHODS. YOU WERE NOT A SUFI.”

If you really want to understand what Sufism is you will have to become a Sufi. If you want to know what to be a Christian is, you will have to become a Christ – less than that won’t do. And the misery is, as Friedrich Nietzsche says: The first and the last Christian died on the cross. And that has happened to all the great Masters.

People become imitators. When you come in close contact with a Buddha, don’t become a Buddhist

– become a Buddha. When you come close to a Sufi Master, don’t become a Sufist – become a Sufi. And the only way to know is to become.

Just the other day somebody asked... the woman who has asked must be a seeker. She has been asking many questions. I have not been answering. I am waiting for the right moment. She is not yet part of my being. Her questions are right, but I don’t answer questions: I answer questioners. I have been avoiding.

Just the other day she asked: ”Can’t I become a follower without becoming a disciple? Can’t I become a follower without becoming a sannyasin?” There is no way. Then you will be just an outsider, a spectator. You have to be colored in my being. You have to come as close as possible.

The change of the clothes is not significant – it is only a gesture. It is a gesture that shows that you are ready, that even if your being has to be dyed into some new color, you are ready. You show the gesture! By changing the name you simply show that ”I am ready to become discontinuous from my past,” that ”I am ready to renounce my past,” that ”I am ready to take a jump into the future, into the unknown.” That ”I trust you,” that ”I am ready to go with you wherever you are going.” That ”I will not ask any promise, any guarantee.” That ”I am ready to go on this adventure. This risk appeals to me.”

You can be here. You can listen to me without being part of me, but then you will listen in your own way, you will interpret it in your own way. And sometimes it will happen: you may even practice it, but in your own way, and the result will be the reverse. Then don’t be angry at me. Don’t say that the reverse effect has come, that I was saying something else and something else has happened. It has to happen in the total context.

A few people come to me and they say, ”Here we cannot do the dynamic meditation. It looks so crazy.” Particularly Indians, if they are on high posts, they feel afraid.

A few days before, a political leader was here, a minister. He said, ”Just teach me. I will do it in my home. I cannot do it here, because if people see me dancing, shouting, what will they think? And I have to think of the voters too. And if in the newspapers pictures go... screaming and shouting and jumping, I am gone! I will do it at my home.”

I can understand his problem – but in his home he will do it according to his own way. He will make slight changes in it so that the neighbors cannot hear, so the wife does not get too much disturbed, so the children don’t think that daddy has gone mazy. He will change here and there; he will make something out of it – but then the result will be totally different, sometimes even the reverse. And then he will think that I have given something wrong to him.

This is my field! When you do something here, you are doing it in the right context. It is an energy field. You are not alone: hundreds of other people are doing it. You can ride on the wave. You can reach to heights you will never reach alone. Here I am available; here you can trust that nothing will go wrong. At your home, doing meditation alone, you will become afraid; you can become very much afraid. The fear can take grip of you – the fear of going mad, berserk, or something.

Here, become a sannyasin, be part of me, drown in me, let me be drowned in you. Be a Sufi if you want to know what Sufism is. There is no other way. The only way to know is to be – AND in the right context, in the right reference, in the right situation.

I am creating a situation here. This is an Al chemical field. This is not an ordinary ashram. This is a scientific lab. People are being transformed. People are moving into new dimensions, taking quantum leaps, arriving into new spaces. You cannot watch these things from the outside.

And don’t be a fool: don’t watch and don’t think that back home you will try to do it. The reverse effect is possible. And then don’t throw the responsibility on me. Become part of me if it appeals to you. A great door is open... enter into it.

The Master said:

”ALAS, THERE WAS ONLY ONE THING WRONG WITH YOUR ATTEMPT TO APPLY SUFI METHODS. YOU WERE NOT A SUFI.”

If you want to apply my methods, be a sannyasin, so that I will not have to say some day to you: Alas, there was only one thing wrong with your attempt to apply sannyas methods – you were not a sannyasin.

CHAPTER 4

How Can You Deceive?

4 July 1978 am in Buddha Hall

The first question:

Question 1

OSHO, WHY DO I FEEL SO CLOSE AND SO DISTANT FROM YOU AT THE SAME TIME?

VIDYA, IT IS SO, YOU ARE CLOSE AND YOU ARE DISTANT, and at the same time. Your being is close, but your dreaming is not close and cannot be close. You ARE close, but your mind – which is not really you – cannot be close. The more mind you have, the more distant you are.

Right now you are two: one is your authentic being, your essential being, your unchanging, eternal being. You are close. Not only close but you are one with me, because the eternal being is only one.

It is a flight, as Plotinus says, of the alone to the alone. But you are a duality. Your being is hidden behind many layers of becoming. You are like an onion: layers and layers of becoming. You want to be this, you want to be that....

Those layers keep you far away – not only far away but unbridgeable far away, unapproachably far away. I cannot approach you when you are in a dream. The dream is unapproachable. In your dream, you are absolutely lonely. You cannot invite even your beloved, your friend; in your dream you cannot invite even your Master. Your dream is utterly private. Hence, it is false.

Reality is universal. It is not private. Your dream is idiotic – that is the actual meaning of the word

’idiot’: to live in a private world, which does not correspond with reality, to live in IDIOT. The idiot lives in a private world. The wise man lives in the universal – that which is.

And you are living in both! Hence, this split. You will feel close to me when you look at your being, and there will be moments of being. Watching a sunset, suddenly you are close to me. Listening to the song of a bird, suddenly all distance has disappeared. Looking at a flower, and there is not even an inch’s difference between me and you.

These moments of eternity will be there. But then again you fall in the dream, in the sleep, in your private world – then you are far away. Don’t be puzzled by it. This is so with everybody. Slowly slowly, help those moments when you feel close to me, because THEY are the only real moments.

To gain them is to gain the kingdom of God. To miss them is to miss all.

Come out of your IDIOT! Come out of your idiotic world of dreaming! You cannot become anything else than you already are – hence the whole effort is idiotic. You can only become that which you already are. Remember it again and again: you can only become that which you already are. And, hence, there is no need to become because you already ARE it. Rejoice in it! Celebrate it! Be it!

The second question:

Question 2

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DESIRE AND LONGING?

KRISHNA, DESIRE IS DESIRE FOR SOMETHING that is outside you. Desire is objective. Longing is not objective. Longing is for that which wants to explode in you. It is inner, it is subjective. If a rose wants to become a lotus, it is a desire. But if the rose LONGS to become a rose, it is longing. If the seed wants to sprout and become a tree, it is a longing! It is perfectly in order. It is how it should be.

But if a seed wants to become a butterfly, it is a desire.

Desire is absurd: longing is existential. Longing is perfectly beautiful: desire is dangerous. And the distinction is very delicate and one has to be very much alert.

Longing is opening of the inner: desire is accumulation of the outer. Man desires money: man longs for meditation. Man desires power: man longs for purity. Man desires knowledge: man longs for awareness. Man desires the world: man longs for God.

That which is intrinsic to you is longing. Divert your energies from desire into longing. Desire distracts you from your Tao, from your Dharma, from your nature. Desire takes you astray. It allures you into fantasies which are not possible. It drives you crazy, because it gives you hopes which cannot be fulfilled, which are unfulfillable. Time, energy, life, will be wasted, and in the end only frustration in the hands and in the heart.

Longing is fulfillment.

If you want to become a rich man, you are desiring. But if you want to become a sannyasin, it is a longing. Desiring depends on others: in longing there is no need to depend on anybody else. It is your own flowering. It is already there – just it needs the right soil and the right time It is waiting for the spring to come....

The third question:

Question 3

IS IT POSSIBLE TO DECEIVE A MASTER?

YES, IF THE MASTER WILLS SO. Sometimes the Master wants to be deceived. If it is for your growth, he is ready to do anything – even to be deceived. If that is the only way to help your cheating characteristic to surface, he will allow himself to be deceived by you. Otherwise not.

How can you deceive a Master? He knows you – as you your-self don’t know yourself. He knows the secret most desire of your heart. It may not be conscious even to you. He knows the subtle ways of your ego. And you CANNOT deceive. You can try, but from one point or another, from one side or another, they will be revealed. You will say one thing from your mouth: your eyes will say something else.

And the Master is not very much concerned with what you say – he tries to read you through subtle manifestations. He looks in your eyes, he looks at the way you walk, he looks at the way you sit...

from the superficial to the deepest. He is not very much concerned about what you say. Your saying is almost meaningless; it is babbling. You don’t exactly know what you are saying. And even if you know, you don’t mean it. And even if you mean it, the next moment you will change it. It is not worth paying attention to.

That’s why psychoanalysis has to go into your dreams. Rather than watching your day it watches your night. Why? Because in the day you are cunning, deceptive. You live through a masquerade, a camouflage. You have many masks. And it is not that you are deceiving others: you are deceived yourself by your masks. You. believe in your masks. You think these are your faces. You have completely forgotten your original face.

Psychoanalysis looks into your dreams, because in your dreams your constant pretending relaxes.

You come in your true colors.

The Master goes even deeper than psychoanalysis, because there are people who can deceive even in dreams. One can train oneself to dream certain dreams. And now, after one hundred years of psychoanalysis, this fact has become very very apparent. Patients start dreaming according to the expectation of the analyst. If a patient goes to a Freudian, he dreams one kind of dream. If he goes to the Jungian, he starts dreaming another kind of dream. Now this is an accepted fact. How does it happen? Even un-consciously he is trying to be clever, cunning.

When you go to a Freudian, he is waiting for some sexual dream. Even if you don’t dream it, he will impose an interpretation of sexuality on your dream. Your innocent dreams will be painted in such a way that they will look utterly sexual. For example, if you are flying in your dream, the Freudian will say, ”This is nothing but sexuality – flying is a phallic symbol. You want to go high and high and high; you want to reach a climax of sex. It is pictorial. You want to reach to a peak. It simply represents a peak. ’

It may be so, it may not be so, but the analyst has imposed a certain pattern on your dream. Now, slowly slowly, you will start dreaming according to him, because every human being has a deep need to be approved. And when you really dream a Freudian dream, the analyst is so happy that the patient also feels happy that he is doing something really great. Because of this, by and by he will dream more and more sexual dreams, remember more and more sexual dreams. May start editing dreams – and VERY unconsciously. May drop a few things, may add a few things. Will give it a color – a Freudian color.

After six months of psychoanalysis with a Freudian, ALL your dreams will be just sexuality and nothing else.

Go to a Jungian and things start changing. Now, flying is no more a sexual symbol – it is occult.

It is the desire of the human soul to reach to the ultimate. It is esoteric. Another interpretation is enforced, and soon you will have visions of Masters talking to you, pure voices descending upon you, great light, kundalini, lotuses opening within you... and things will start happening. And within six months you will be a perfect Jungian dreamer.

Go to the Adlerian, and the same dream, that you are flying, and the interpretation is different. The Adlerian says, ”Flying high is nothing but an effort to become superior – man suffers from inferiority complexes. To be low is inferior; to fly high, above everybody else, is to be superior.” Another interpretation is enforced on you.

People start dreaming the way they are expected to dream. So even dreaming is not so innocent as you think. The Master cannot depend on your dreaming either. He simply goes beyond ALL your layers; he looks through all the layers. He looks through all the chaos that you are. You are not in order, you are not a discipline. There are a thousand and one contradictions in you, so no one particular idea can be imposed on you.

The Master’s work is not to impose any particular interpretation on you – he has none. He simply tries to see the whole chaos that you are, the whole contradiction that you are, the crowd, the mob, that you are, the so many small selves in you without any real center, the civil war that goes on within you. He goes on seeing it.

And if he feels that it will be helpful for you, then he can be deceived by you – but that is willed by him. You cannot deceive him on your own. There is no way. He has eyes! He is no more blind. He looks through and through. And, in fact, to deceive a Master is impossible, but even to deceive a man who has a little observation is difficult. If you just start a little observation, it will be impossible for anybody to deceive you. Just a LITTLE observation!

For example, a woman says to you, ”I love you.” Watch her eyes – if she really loves you, you will see her eyes changing, her eyes expanding, the black dot in the eye becoming bigger – immediately! if she really loves you. She is opening up. And this is not DONE by her: she is opening up in the eyes because she wants to drink more of you.

Just as eyes change: when you go into the sun the eyes become smaller, because too much sun is not needed to go in. When you come back to the home in the darkness, the pupils dilate, they become bigger; more light is needed to come in. When a woman says to a man, ”I love you,” if she is falsifying, if she is just trying to deceive the man, maybe is interested in his money or in something else, her eyes will not cooperate with her statement. And there is no way to will the cooperation of the eyes. Spon-taneously, if she loves you, pupils dilate, become bigger. She opens up. She wants you to be in.

Just watch people: they say one thing, and their face says another thing. They may be saying one thing with their mouth, and another thing with their hand gesture. Just a little observation and nobody can deceive you.

A Broadway agent returned home and found one of his biggest clients in the arms of his wife. ”Stop sounding like a TV melodrama, Harry,” the client told him, cutting short a tirade of denunciations.

”Let’s treat this situation like adults. We both love your wife. All right, then, let’s play one game of gin rummy – and the winner gets her.”

The agent thought for a moment, then said, ”Okay, but just to make it interesting, let’s play for a dime a point on the side.”

How long can you deceive? How can you deceive?

Danny was an inveterate bargain hunter. He hadn’t a penny to his name, but whenever he saw a bargain he couldn’t resist it.

One day a friend of his came to see him.

Jim said, ”Danny, I’ve got a terrific bargain

for you.

A boat-load has arrived for the Barnum and Bailey Circus and they have an overstock.

They’ve got an elephant on board, a baby elephant, that’s worth at least 2, 000, andIcanlanditforyouforonly300.”

Danny looked at Jim as if he were half crazy. ”What! An elephant! An elephant in my one-room apartment? You must be out of your mind! In the first place, there’s no room for it. And in the second place, how could I feed it? In the third place, what could I do with it? Don’t be nuts!”

”But,” persisted Jim, ”I’m telling you this elephant is worth two thousand bucks and I can get it for you for a mere three hundred, maybe even two hundred and fifty.”

Danny was adamant. ”Get the hell out of here, will you? You’re off your rocker. I don’t need an elephant. I don’t want an elephant. Leave me alone with elephants.”

But Jim knew his friend and he continued hammering away. ”Listen, Danny,” he said, ”the fact is they have an overstock. You know, I think if I put it to them I could get you two elephants for the same two hundred bucks.”

”Now you’re talk in’,” said Danny.

Your reality, your mind, is always there below your skin. It is just skin-deep – scratch it a little and the truth comes out.

You cannot deceive even a man who knows a little observation – how can you deceive a Master?

But if the Master feels it is good for you, it may be helpful for your growth, it may bring something up, it may take you through a breakthrough, then the Master is ready to do anything. Yes, he is ready even to be deceived by you.

The fourth question:

Question 4

OSHO, WHEN I WAS IN KONYA FOR THE DERVISH WHIRLING CEREMONY LAST DECEMBER, I MET A SUFI MASTER – SULYMAN DEDE. HE ASKED ME TO CARRY HIS GREETINGS TO YOU

AND THEN ASKED ME HOW I COULD KNOW THAT YOU WERE A TRUE MASTER. I THOUGHT

THERE COULD BE NO SATISFACTORY REPLY. OSHO, WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE SAID?

IN THE FIRST PLACE, RAGA, Dede would not have asked the question of me. He would have immediately recognized. He has already recognized – that’s why he sends the greetings. He is a man of understanding, of great love and compassion.

But he asked you, not because he has any suspicions or doubts about me – he asked you just to see your response. He asked your not for an answer but for a response – and you missed. It is true there is no way to reply to it satisfactorily, but he was not asking for any reply from your side – he wanted a response.

You could have danced, and he would have understood. You could have hugged him, and he would have understood. A mad laughter would have been THE answer.

It is not a question of intellectual curiosity. He is not an intellectual man at all – he is a real Sufi.

He would have understood it. Sufis know how to understand the ways of lovers. You could have just looked into his eyes with great love. He was not asking anything about me: he was asking something about you. These are the ways of the Masters.

He apparently asked how you could know a true Master. In fact, he was asking, ”Are you a true disciple?” You could have shown your disciple hood. You could have touched his feet. You could have cried in joy – or anything! Not ready-made, not manipulated by the mind, but spontaneous, on the spur of the moment... and he would have been immensely satisfied with you.

The fifth question:

Next time when you go to him, don’t miss. If he asks again, this time DO something. And remember, I am saying DO something. A Sufi Master does not ask for an intellectually satisfying answer: he asks for something existential, an indication.

He was saying to you, ”If you have found a true Master, what happened to you? Show me! Give me a hint! Has love arisen in you? Have you become capable of abandoning yourself in a dance? Have you become capable of seeing the beauty of existence? Has humbleness arisen in you? Have you become prayerful?...”

Question 5

ASSAGIOLI SAYS THAT ALL THE AWARENESS IN THE WORLD WILL NOT HELP UNTIL YOU

CHOOSE – ”IT IS THE WILLINGNESS TO CHOOSE THAT PRODUCES CHANGE AND THUS

GROWTH.” YET YOU TALK OF CHOICELESS AWARENESS.

IS THERE REALLY A CHOICE?

CHARANA, ASSAGIOLI HAS MOVED TO THE OTHER EXTREME in reaction to Sigmund Freud.

His vision is not balanced, cannot be. It is a reaction. Reactions are never balanced. And I say to you that he is far higher in his understanding than Sigmund Freud, but still the imbalance remains.

Sigmund Freud’s whole process was just to make you aware of your deep-rooted problems. If you become aware of your deep-rooted problems, they dissolve – that is Freudian analysis. Nothing else is needed. One has to take a conscious note of one’s unconscious problems. The moment consciousness penetrates the unconscious, a little light arises in the darkness of your being, problems start changing.

Freud was on the right track, but got stuck in the world of dreams. Never went deeper than that.

Let me remind you: wakefulness is the first state, dreaming the second state, sleep the third state, and TURIYA – samadhi – the fourth state. Sigmund Freud created a revolution just by changing the emphasis from the first state to the second. The whole psychoanalytical revolution consists in that.

Up to that point, the Western man particularly had lived with the idea that wakefulness is all. The dreams were never taken into account. The credit goes to Sigmund Freud that he expanded human consciousness. He brought dreams in. He moved into the darkness of the inner world. ONE step, but that one step is pregnant, very pregnant, very potential. But got stuck there.

It takes years of psychoanalysis to make you a little alert. That little alertness helps, but the process is too long. In the East, we have methods which can make you immensely alert within a VERY short period. Vipassana can do within months what psychoanalysis will do in years. And Vipassana works on the third, goes deeper than psychoanalysis. And when you work deeper, the problems that were very important before simply fade away. If dreaming becomes a conscious process, it will change your waking awareness. If in sleep you become conscious, it will change your dreaming awareness.

And there are ways to take the quantum leap from the third to the fourth. That is what is called satori, the quantum leap, when you become aware of the fourth. When you are simply aware, neither of waking nor of dreaming, nor of sleep – but just aware. There is no content to your awareness. This fourth state, TURIYA, is the highest point of consciousness. One who has achieved that, all his problems simply disappear. They need not be changed. There is nothing left to change. No other remedy is needed.

Freud is on the right track, but got hooked and became too much involved in the dreaming world.

And if you become too much involved in the dreaming world, the main goal is forgotten. You start moving sideways. And then there is no end to it. You can go ON analyzing and analyzing dreams for years and for lives... it will help, but the transformation is not going to be total ever. You can solve one thing here, another thing will arrive. You change something on one point, another point goes wrong. But the total situation remains the same.

Assagioli became aware of it and started thinking that just by being aware transformation is not going to happen – you have to will. He reacted to Sigmund Freud. He reacted on two points: one is analysis – he created a new philosophy he called ’psychosynthesis’ – and on another point: just observation is not going to help, because he had seen that Freudian work takes you nowhere.... You change one thing, and another thing goes wrong, but the total remains the same. So he brought will into it, that one has to will. This is moving to the other extreme, because with the will ego enters in.

Will is nothing but an expression of the ego. And through will all kinds of repression... you will start repressing. What IS will? You choose this against that – what are you going to do with that which you are against? You will repress it. The pendulum moved back. Where it was before Freud, it went back again to the same situation.

Assagioli’s insight is beautiful, that analysis is not enough – because analysis only dissects. And by dissecting, you destroy. And by dissecting, you can know only dead things, because in dissection they become dead. If you dissect a flower, how are you going to know the beauty of it? – it will disappear. If you dissect a child, it is dead. ALL dissection is post mortem. So whatsoever you come to through dissection will never give you any clue to life and life’s mysteries. It may help you to understand matter, dead matter, but all that is alive disappears. For that, a more synthetic vision is needed.

Assagioli is right – about THIS point he is right. But about will he is absolutely wrong. If you will, of course you can change. That’s what humanity has been doing in pre-Freudian days, for centuries. You have anger – will compassion, and repress anger. Then anger becomes repressed and compassion becomes cultivated. You have a beautiful personality, but not a beautiful soul. A polished personality, but deep inside is just hell-fire. You look very heavenly on the surface, but in your depth all that you have repressed goes on boiling within. It WILL explode. And it will go on poisoning your life in millions of ways.

Will is not the way. About that, Freud is far more right than Assagioli. The problem with Freud is he never went deeper than the dreaming. But I can understand: he was the pioneer in the West; pioneers cannot go very far. They only break the ice, they only begin. Much has to be done.

But the East has done the whole work. You will be surprised to know: one of the most perceptive Indians of this century, Ananda Coomaraswamy, claims that for one psychological term in English there are four psychological terms in Greek. And for one psychological term in Greek there are forty psychological terms in Sanskrit. For one English term you can find hundreds of psychological terms in Sanskrit, with subtle nuances and differences.

Five thousand years of work.... You may be aware that Eskimos have twelve words for ice – naturally, they live there. They have many many understandings about ice that nobody else has. No other language has twelve words for ice.

Psychology in the East has been the ancient most science. In fact, the only science the East has worked hard for. Our experience down the ages has been this: that awareness is the only remedy.

But it has to become more and more total.

When awareness is total, it transforms. NO other act is needed. Just to SEE a thing totally is to be free of it. To understand is to be transformed. If after understanding a thing something needs to be done, that will be only an indication that you have not understood it yet.

For example: if you really understand that anger is poison, not because I say, not because Buddha says, but you understand by your own observation, meditation, that anger is poison, that it poisons your being, then will you ask, ”Now what to do to drop anger?” If you ask the question ”What to do to drop anger?” that will simply show you have not yet understood. If you have really understood and seen that anger is poison, it is dropped. In that VERY understanding, it is dropped.

Awareness is transformation. No other discipline is needed.

Assagioli falls back again. In one point, he brings something beautiful: synthesis. But on another point, on another account, he falls back: he goes to the old repressive mind – will means repression.

I don’t teach you will. It is because of will that you have become so miserable. It is because of will that you feel guilty. It is because of will that you go on carrying scorpions, snakes and crocodiles and all kinds of things inside you. You have lost all beauty and grace.

What is will? Will means struggle against the whole. The real man of understanding is absolute will-lessness. That’s why Jesus says: THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE. How is Assagioli going to explain it? – THY WILL BE DONE.... Not mine! Because whatsoever is MY will is going to be against God’s will. I have to efface my will completely. I have not to be. When I am in an absolute will-lessness, then God’s will starts functioning.

And about synthesis too – Assagioli’s idea of synthesis is more philosophical than existential. There are two possible kinds of synthesis. One: put together. Mahatma Gandhi did it in India. He tried to put Islam and Hinduism together. He tried to create a kind of synthesis. The motivation was political, so that Hindus and Mohammedans wouldn’t fight. The motivation was not religious: it was political –

so that India would remain undivided. It didn’t work, because political motives can never work. They are dishonest, fundamentally insincere.

And how did he try to make the synthesis between Hinduism and Mohammedanism? Just a superficial synthesis: choose a few theories from the Bhagavad Gita and a few theories from the Koran, and try to show that they mean the same. It is very easy! But to contradict it, there are a thousand things in the Koran and a thousand things in the Gita which are against each other. Don’t talk about them. Don’t bring them in. Just bring those points which correspond.

This is a superficial synthesis.

There is another kind of synthesis – Ramakrishna did it. He practiced all religions, almost all that were available to him. For six months he became a Mohammedan. Just see the difference. What did Gandhi do? – he just looked into the Koran, looked into the Gita, tried to find some intellectual synthesis, and created a kind of synthetic philosophy. But it is not existential, it is in-tellectual. And the motivation is political.

What did Ramakrishna do? He achieved the ultimate samadhi through Hinduism. No man before him has ever done such a thing. And then he said, ”Now I would like to follow the path of Islam.”

His disciples were bewildered. They said, ”For what? You have attained!”

He said, ”Now I want to see whether I can attain from that path too or not. I have come to the peak of the mountain by one path. I will go down into the valley again, and I will start trekking on another path. I would like to see whether I can reach to the same peak.”

It was one of the greatest endeavors in human history. Ramakrishna stands very alone in his effort, solitary. He became a Mohammedan. And when he became a Mohammedan, he stopped going into Hindu temples – he was no more a Hindu! He started wearing Mohammedan clothes, started eating Mohammedan food. He had a Mohammedan cook to make food for him. Practiced Sufism for six months. Then the mosque was his place.

After six months he reached the peak. He declared to his disciples, ”This path, too, leads to the same place. Now I will follow other paths.... ”

He became a Buddhist , he became a Christian... and the strangest thing that he did, the most strange of all these paths was this. In Bengal there is a sect, Krishnaites, who believe in Krishna.

And one of their fundamental beliefs is that Krishna is the only male in existence, and everybody else is just a girlfriend to Krishna – all ARE GOPIS. All! Even men. There is only one man, the center, and all are the girlfriends dancing around him. So the follower of that path has to believe that he is a woman. He may be a man or a woman – that doesn’t matter. This is one of the funda-mentals.

Ramakrishna followed that path for one year... he lived like a woman, in women’s dotes. And the miracle was this, that within a few weeks he started walking like a woman – which is very difficult. It is really difficult, because it needs a totally different anatomy. It is not a question of just belief. The woman walks in a certain way because of the womb. The man cannot walk that way. Because of the womb inside the woman her physiology moves in a different way. But he started walking like a woman. People were puzzled.

Not only that: his voice changed – he started talking like a woman. Not only that: his breasts started growing. His disciples were very much worried. And not only that: the most miraculous thing that happened was that after six months he started menstruating. Regular period! It was unbelievable.

Doctors came and could not believe it was happening – regularly, every month.

He became a woman! And he attained through that path too.

This is existential synthesis. This is REAL synthesis. The Gandhian synthesis is hocus-pocus.

Utterly meaningless. This is real synthesis.

Assagioli has done something which is just intellectual.

What WE are doing here is real synthesis. And not only of all religions, but of all psychologies, all yogas, too. We are trying to move existentially into all the possibilities that any human being has ever moved. We can create here the greatest synthesis that has ever been created anywhere else.

But this synthesis is not intellectual: it is existential. We are living it. When I talk about Sufis, I am a Sufi. And when you listen to me about Sufis, those who really listen to me become Sufis. Then all else disappears. When we move in the world of Zen, we are PART of it! We are not alien and outsiders. When I am speaking on Zen Masters, I am not speaking from the outside. I am not a scholar, and you are not here like students. These are not discourses, these are communions.

When I talk about Zen Masters, I am one! And those who love me, and those who are intimate with me, those who are sannyasins, they become one with that approach. And in that oneness, understanding arises.

And we are moving through ALL kinds of climates, all kinds of paths. Slowly slowly, we will have on the earth not one Ramakrishna but thousands...

The sixth question:

Question 6

WHY CAN’T I SEE ANY MEANING IN LIFE?

LIFE IN ITSELF HAS NO MEANING. Life is an opportunity to create meaning. Meaning has not to be discovered: it has to be created. You will find meaning only if you create it. It is not lying there somewhere behind the bushes, so you can go and you search a little bit and find it. It is not there like a rock that you will find. It is a poetry to be composed, it is a song to be sung, it is a dance to be danced.

Meaning is a dance, not a rock. Meaning is music. You will find I only if you create it. Remember it.

Millions of people are living meaningless lives because of this utterly stupid idea that meaning has to be discovered. As if it is already there. All that you need is to just pull the curtain, and behold!

meaning is here. It is not like that.

So remember: Buddha finds the meaning because he creates it. I found it because I created it. God is not a thing but a creation. And only those who create find. And it is good that meaning is not lying there somewhere, otherwise one person would have discovered it – then what would be the need for everybody else to discover it?

Can’t you see the difference between religious meaning and scientific meaning? Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity; now, do you have to discover it again and again? You will be foolish if you discover it again and again. What is the point? One man has done it; he has given you the map. It may have taken years for him, but for you to understand it will take hours. You can go to the university and learn.

Buddha also discovered something, Zarathustra also discovered something, but it is not like Albert Einstein’s discovery. It is not there that you have just to follow Zarathustra and his map and you will find it. You will never find it. You will have to become a Zarathustra. See the difference!

To understand the theory of relativity, you need not become an Albert Einstein, no. You have to be just of average intelligence, that’s all. If you are not too much retarded, you will understand it.

But to understand the meaning of Zarathustra, you will have to become a Zarathustra – less than that won’t do. You will have to create it again. And each individual has to give birth to God, to meaning, to truth; each man has to become pregnant with it and pass through the pains of birth.

Each one has to carry it in one’s womb, feed it by one’s own blood, and only then does one discover.

Now, you ask me: WHY CAN’T I SEE ANY MEANING IN LIFE?

You must be waiting passively for the meaning to come... it will never come. This has been the idea of the past religions, that the meaning is ALREADY there. It is not! Freedom is there to create it, energy is there to create it. The field is there to sow the seeds and reap the crop. ALL IS THERE –

but the meaning has to be created. That’s why to create it is such a joy, such an adventure, such an ecstasy.

So the first thing: religion has to be creative. Up to now, religion has remained very passive, almost impotent. You don’t expect a religious person to be creative. You just expect him to fast, sit in a cave, get up early in the morning, chant mantras... and this kind of stupid thing. And you are perfectly satisfied! What is he doing? And you praise him because he goes on long fasts. Maybe he is a masochist; maybe he enjoys torturing himself. He sits there when it is icy cold, naked, and you appreciate him. But what is the POINT, what is the value in it? All the animals of the world are naked in the icy cold – they are not saints. Or when it is hot, he sits in the hot sun, and you appreciate him.

You say, ”Look! here is a great ascetic.” But what is he doing? What is his contribution to the world?

What beauty has he added to the world? Has he changed the world a little bit? Has he made it a little more sweet, more fragrant? No, you don’t ask that.

Now, I tell you, this has to be asked: Praise a man because he has created a song. Praise a man because he has created a beautiful sculpture. Praise a man because he plays such a beautiful flute.

Let these be religious qualities from now onwards. Praise a man because he is such a lover – love is religion. Praise a man: because of him the world is becoming more graceful.

Forget all these stupid things! – fasting and just sitting in a cave, torturing oneself or Lying down on a bed of nails. Praise a man because he has cultivated beautiful roses. The world is more colorful because of him. And then you will find meaning.

Meaning comes out of creativity. Religion has to become more poetic, more aesthetic.

And second thing: sometimes it happens that you search for the meaning because you have already concluded. Out of a conclusion you search for it. You have already decided what meaning should be there, or has to be there... and then you don’t find it.

The inquiry has to be pure. What do I mean when I say the inquiry has to be pure? It should be without any conclusion. It should not have any A PRIORI in it.

You ask: WHY CAN’T I FIND MEANING IN LIFE?

What meaning are you looking for? You must be looking for a certain meaning. You will not find it –

because from the very beginning your inquiry is polluted, your inquiry is impure. You have already decided.

For example, if a man comes into my garden and thinks if he can find a diamond there then this garden is beautiful, and he cannot find the diamond, so he says there is no meaning in the garden....

And there are so many beautiful flowers, and so many birds singing, and so many colors, and the wind blowing through the pines, and the moss on the rocks. But he cannot see any meaning because he has a certain idea: he has to find the diamond, a Kohinoor – only then will there be meaning.

He is missing meaning because of his idea. Let your inquiry be pure. Don’t move with any fixed idea. Go naked and nude. Go open and empty. And you will find not only one meaning – you will find a thousand and one meanings. Then each thing will become meaningful. Just a colored stone shining in the rays of the sun... or a dewdrop creating a small rainbow around itself... or just a small flower dancing in the wind.... What meaning are you searching for?

Don’t start with a conclusion, otherwise you have started wrongly from the very beginning. Go without a conclusion! That’s what I mean when I say again and again: Go without knowledge if you want to find truth. The knowledgeable person never finds it. His knowledge is a barrier.

Goldstein had never been to a show in the legitimate theater. For his birthday, his children decided to give him a present of a ticket for the Jewish theater.

The night after the show, they came to visit him and asked him eagerly what he thought of the show.

”Ash,” he answered, ”it was simply nonsense. When she was willing, he wasn’t willing. And when he was willing, she wasn’t willing. And when they both were willing, down came the curtain!”

Now, if you have a fixed idea, then you are only looking for it, only looking for it.... And because of this narrowness of the mind, all that is available is missed.

Meaning has to be created. And meaning has to be searched for without any conclusions. If you can drop your knowledge, life will suddenly take on color, it will become psychedelic. But you are continuously carrying the load of your scriptures, books, theories, doctrines, philosophies... you are lost in all that. And everything has become mixed, hotchpotch. And you cannot even remember what is what.

Your mind is a mess. Clean it! Make it a blank. The empty mind is the best mind. And those who have been telling you that the empty mind is the Devil’s workshop are the Devil’s agents. The empty mind is closer to God than anything. The empty mind is not the Devil’s workshop. The Devil cannot do without thoughts.

With emptiness the Devil cannot do anything at all. He has no way Into emptiness.

So many thoughts in the mind, mixed up; nothing seems to be clear; you have heard so many things from so many sources – your mind is a monster. And you are trying to remember, and you have been told to remember: Don’t forget! And, naturally, the burden is so much that you cannot remember.

Many things you have forgotten. Many things you have imagined and added on your own.

An Englishman visiting America attended a banquet and heard the Master of Ceremonies give the following toast:

”Here’s to the happiest moment of my life,

Spent in the arms of another man’s wife – my mother.”

”By Jove, that’s ripping,” the Englishman thought to himself. ”I must remember to use it back home.”

Some weeks later when he returned to England, he attended a church luncheon and was asked to give a toast. In thunderous tones he addressed the crowded room:

”Here’s to the happiest moment of my life,

Spent in the arms of another man’s wife...”

After a long pause the crowd began to grow restless, glaring at the speaker indignantly. The speaker’s friend sitting next to him whispered, ”You had better explain yourself quickly.”

”By Jove,” the speaker blurted out, ”you will have to excuse me. I forgot the name of the bloomin’

woman.”

That is happening. You remember this – Plato has said this. And you remember that – Lao Tzu has said that. And you remember what Jesus has said, and what Mohammed has said... and you remember many things. And they have all got mixed up. And you have not said a single thing on your own. Unless you say something on your own, you will miss the meaning.

Drop the knowledge and become more creative. Remember, knowledge is gathered – you need not be creative about it; you have only to be receptive. And that’s what man has become: man is reduced to being a spectator. He reads the newspapers, he reads the Bible and the Koran and the Gita; he goes to the movie, sits there and sees the movie; he goes to the football match, or sits before his TV, listens to the radio... and so on and so forth. Twenty-four hours a day he is just in a kind of inactivity, a spectator. Others are doing things, and he is simply watching. You will not find meaning by watching.

You can see a thousand and one lovers making love and you will not know what love is – you will not know that orgasmic abandonment by watching. You will have to become a participant. Meaning comes through participation. Participate in life! Participate as deeply, as totally, as possible. Risk all for participation. If you want to know what dance is, don’t go and see a dancer – learn dancing, be a dancer. If you want to know anything, participate! That is the true and the right way, the authentic way, to know a thing. And there will be great meaning in your life. And not only one-dimensional –

multi-dimensional meanings. You will be showered by meanings.

And life has to be multi-dimensional, then only is there meaning. Never make life one-dimensional.

That too is a problem.

Somebody becomes an engineer, and then he thinks all is finished. He becomes identified with being an engineer. Then his whole life he is just an engineer. And there were millions of things available. But he moves only on one track, becomes bored. Is fed up. Is tired, wearied. Goes on dragging. Waits only for death. What meaning can there be?

Have more interests in life. Don’t be always a businessman. Sometimes play too. Don’t be just a doctor or an engineer, or a headmaster, or a professor – be as many things as possible! Play cards, play the violin, sing a song, be an amateur photographer, a poet.... Find as many things as possible in life, and then you will have richness. And meaning is a by-product of richness.

I have heard a very meaningful story about Socrates:

Socrates, while awaiting death in prison, was haunted by a dream that kept urging him, ”Socrates, make music!” The old man felt he had always served art with his philosophizing. But now, spurred on by that mysterious voice, he turned fables into verse, indited a hymn to Apollo, and played the flute.

In the face of death, philosophy and music briefly went hand in hand, and Socrates was as blissful as never before.

He had never played on the flute. Something inside him persisted, ”Socrates, make music!” Just in the face of death! It looked so ridiculous. And he had never played, he had never made music.

A part of his being had remained suffocated. Yes, even a man like Socrates, had remained one-dimensional. The denied part insisted, ”Enough of logic – a little music will be good, will bring balance. Enough of argumentation – play on the flute.” And the voice was SO persistent that he had to yield to it.

His disciples must have been puzzled: ”Has he gone mad? Socrates playing on the flute?” But to me it is very significant. The music could not have been very great, because he had never played.

Absolutely amateurish, childish it must have been – but still something was satisfied, something was bridged. He was no more one-sided. For the first time in his life, maybe, he was spontaneous. For the first time he had done something for which he could not supply any reason. Otherwise, he was a rational man.

Just the other night I was reading a story about the great Hassidic mystic, Baal Shem: It was a holiday, and the Hassidim had gathered to pray and to have a communion – sat sang – with the Master.

A man had come with his retarded child. He was a little worried about the child, the boy. He may do something, so he was keeping an eye on the boy. When the prayers were said, the boy asked his father, ”I have got a whistle – can I play on it?”

The father said, ”Absolutely no – where is your whistle,” because he was afraid. He may not even listen to his ’no’. He showed the whistle and the father kept his hand on his pocket, the boy’s pocket. Then there was dancing, and the father forgot and he also started dancing. And Hassids are dancers, joyous people – the cream of Judaism, the very essence of Judaism is with them, with those mad people.

When everybody was praying to God and dancing, suddenly the boy could not resist any more. He took out his whistle and blew on it. Everybody was shocked! But Baal Shem came, hugged the boy, and said, ”Our prayers are heard. Without this whistle, all was futile – because THIS was the only spontaneous thing here. All else was ritual.”

Don’t allow your life to become just a dead ritual. Let there be moments, unexplainable. Let there be a few things which are mysterious, for which you cannot supply any reason. Let there be a few doings for which people will think you are a little crazy. A man who is a hundred percent sane is dead. A little bit of craziness by the side is always a great joy. Go on doing a few crazy things too.

And then meaning will be possible.

The last question:

Question 7

I CANNOT SURRENDER TO GOD, AND IT IS NOT MY EGO BUT SELF-RESPECT. AM I WRONG?

THERE IS NO SELF. Self is another name for the ego. And what do you mean by ’self-respect’?

There is a quality of consciousness – it can be called ’reverence’ – but it is always unaddressed. It is not for the self, not for the other. It is simply reverence for life.

When it is addressed it is just a rationalization. And man is clever at finding beautiful words for ugly things. We can always hide our wounds and put flowers on them. And that’s what you are doing –

and you are also aware of it. That’s why you ask: AM I WRONG? You know you ARE wrong.

And I am not saying don’t respect life – be full of respect for ALL life. Your life is included in it! You are not excluded from it. But it has to be reverence for all life. When it is only for the self, then what is it for the other?

And what exactly is this self?Just another name for the ego – ego is not anything else. The idea of I... and the idea is false, because whenever you go in it is never found there. Nobody has ever found any self. Just go and see... you will not find it.

Bodhidharma was asked by Emperor Wu, ”I am very much disturbed by my ego, by this self. And I have tried everything, but I cannot get rid of it. Help me!”

Bodhidharma said, ”Come early in the mowing tomorrow, three o’clock in the morning. And come alone, and don’t forget to bring your self with you – and I will finish it forever.”

The emperor was afraid. This man looked mad. ”How can anybody finish the self? And what does he mean when he says, ’Don’t forget to bring it’?”

The whole night he could not sleep, tossed and turned. Many times he decided not to go, and he had said, ”Come alone” – and he was a very dangerous looking man. In China he was known as the Barbarian Buddha. He had very dangerous eyes. If he looked into your eyes, then for months you would not be able to sleep. And he looked murderous – and he WAS a murderer. He murdered many disciples. Many people became enlightened through him. And he was really a hard taskmaster.

Three o’clock, in the dark, alone, to be with this man... and one never knows – he was unpredictable.

When he had entered China, he had come with one shoe on one foot, the other shoe on his head.

The emperor was puzzled and he said, ”What are you doing?”

He said, ”I am trying to show you – this is the way I am. Just to give you a taste of what type of man I am, so you know from the very beginning with whom you are dealing.”

Now, to go to this man in his mountain cave in the dark.... M any times he decided not to go, but the attraction was also great – because this man was no ordinary man. Yes, on the surface he looked very hard, but deep down there was the kindest heart possible. He was all compassion. Even if he was hard, it was because of his compassion.

Finally, he had to go. And the moment he reached in front of Bodhidharma... he was sitting there with his staff, and he said, ”You have come?.Where is your ego? Where is your self? Have you brought it with you? I am going to finish it forever.”

The emperor said, ”What are you talking about? Is the self a thing that I can bring with me?”

Bodhidharma said, ”Then what is it?”

The emperor said, ”Of course, it is something inside.”

Bodhidharma said, ”Okay, inside or outside, it makes no difference. My staff can reach anywhere!

You just sit in front of me, close your eyes, and try to find it. And the moment you have found it, just tell me that ’I have found,’ and I will kill it.”

Shaking and trembling, the emperor sat before Bodhidharma. Hours passed. The sun started rising.

He looked and looked... he had to look! because this man was sitting there with his staff. He could hit hard. And by the morning when the sun was rising, he was totally a different man. Bodhidharma said, ”Now you can open your eyes. Where is it? For three hours you have been looking.”

We touched Bodhidharma’s feet and said, ”I cannot find it. I looked hard – I have never looked so hard. Your presence made me look HARD. I SEARCHED with all my energy possible. I was not holding anything back, but I did not find it.”

And Bodhidharma laughed and he said, ”So you see? I have finished it forever.”

It is not! When you don’t look it is. When you look, it is not. Go in... and you will not find any ego, any self, anything. What you will find is eternal, infinite life, and then there is really respect for it. But it has nothing to do with you or me – it is reverence for life.

Albert Schweitzer used to use this term, ’reverence for life’. It is synonymous with religion. But, please, don’t get into rationalizations.

Harry Robinson had just entered the parlour of a familiar bagnio when, to his utter shock, he spotted his own father coming down the stairs. Harry reeled back in surprise. ”Dad!” he cried out. ”What in God’s name are you doing in a place like this?”

Cold Robinson was equally stunned, but quickly recovered. ”Now son,” he said, nonchalantly brushing off his suit, ”for twenty lousy bucks, would you want me to bother your dear, hard-working mother?”

People can always find rationalizations for ANYTHING and everything.

A Jewish mental patient was causing quite a stir in the institution because he wouldn’t eat the food.

”I’m kosher!” shouted Moskowitz. ”I won’t eat this food. I want kosher meals!” So the staff hired a Jewish woman from the community to cook special kosher meals for Moskowitz. Everybody was envious, for Moskowitz’s meals were much better than theirs.

Friday night rolled around, and Moskowitz pushed back his chair after a delicious chicken dinner, and lit up a big cigar. This was too much for the director, who called Moskowitz into his office.

”Now, see here, Moskowitz. You’re getting away with murder. You get the best meals because you claim you only eat kosher food. And now, on Friday night, on your Sabbath, you flout your religion and smoke a cigar!”

Moskowitz merely shrugged his shoulders. ”Why are you arguing with me?” he said. ”I’m crazy, ain’t I?”

Remember, the mind is very cunning. It can always find rationalizations. It can call ego ’self’, ’soul’.

It can call egoistic attitudes self-respect, and hide itself behind those words.

You have to be hard. You have to expose your mind to the very roots. only then is there a possibility of your being exploding in bloom. The mind has to be dropped, and it is dropped only when it is exposed. It is a cheat, it is a fraud.

CHAPTER 5

Love Needs No Time

5 July 1978 am in Buddha Hall

A SCHOLAR SAID TO A SUFI, ”YOU SUFIS OFTEN SAY THAT OUR LOGICAL QUESTIONS ARE

INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO YOU. CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT THEY SEEM LIKE

TO YOU?”

THE SUFI SAID, ”HERE IS SUCH AN EXAMPLE. I WAS ONCE TRAVELLING BY TRAIN AND

WE WENT THROUGH SEVEN TUNNELS. OPPOSITE ME WAS SITTING A PEASANT WHO

OBVIOUSLY HAD NEVER BEEN IN A TRAIN BEFORE.

”AFTER THE SEVENTH TUNNEL, THE PEASANT TAPPED ME ON THE KNEE AND SAID, ’THIS

TRAIN IS TOO COMPLICATED. ON MY DONKEY I CAN GET TO MY VILLAGE IN ONLY ONE

DAY. BUT BY TRAIN, WHICH SEEMS TO BE TRAVELLING FASTER THAN A DONKEY, WE HAVE

NOT YET ARRIVED AT MY HOME, THOUGH THE SUN HAS RISEN AND SET SEVEN WHOLE

TIMES.’”

TRUTH CAN BE APPROACHED IN TWO WAYS: ONE IS LOGIC, ANOTHER IS LOVE. And both are diametrically opposite to each other They speak different languages. They are untranslatable Logic cannot make itself comprehensible to love, and vice versa Love looks illogical to logic, irrational, a little bit mad. Logic looks irrelevant to love, because it goes round and round but never penetrates the reality. Love thinks about logic as a futile exercise, a gymnastics of the mind, a game – but to no purpose because it leads nowhere. It is non-conclusive.

It is just chasing your own tail. You can go on chasing for ever and ever, you can become very much obsessed by it, but ultimately your hands remain empty. You have not arrived.

Love and logic have to be understood. If you don’t understand them rightly, their methods, their approaches, their visions, you will remain confused.

Logic is very convincing – and there is the danger of it. It is convincing and yet non-conclusive. It gives an appearance, it pretends. It is knowledge, information, but never wisdom. And only wisdom liberates.

Love cannot convince you. It is unconvincing, because it is vague, it is cloudy, it is a mystery. It is not a syllogism. It cannot appeal to your mind – but it can satisfy your being. It can quench your thirst. It can give you all that you need. It can nourish. This is the problem.

The nourishing love is illogical, and the pseudo food of logic is very convincing. And these are the two things which make philosophy and religion separate. It is here that philosophy and religion part ways.

You will be surprised to know that the word ’Sufism’ comes from the same root as ’philosophy’. Both come from the same root, from SUF, Sufism, SOPHIA, philosophy. But the meaning is not only different but diametrically opposite. Sufism is not a philosophy, and philosophy has nothing of the beauty of Sufism in it. What happened? We have to understand man’s inner structure.

Mind is divided into two hemispheres. One hemisphere thinks, is logical. The other hemisphere loves, intuits, is not logical. One hemisphere proceeds methodologically. The other hemisphere jumps... without any methodology. It takes quantum leaps. One hemisphere is always a continuous track. The other is a discontinuity.

Your left-side brain is logical – prose, male, aggressive, violent, ambitious. Your right-side brain is feminine – non-ambitious, poetic, aesthetic. Your right hand is connected with the left hemisphere, and your left hand is collected with the right hemisphere. That’s why the right hand has become so important.

The right hand has become so important because we have made logic the king. The left hand is neglected, ignored, is thought to be lower, in the East is thought to be almost untouchable. Why?

The question is not of the hands – deep down the question is about the division of your brain.

The right hand seems to be right, and the left hand seems to be wrong. This is an ugly state of affairs.

The left hand has much to contribute. And without its contribution life becomes a drag, a drudgery, because without poetry there can be no joy, and without intuitiveness there can be no celebration.

And without the sensitivity for beauty, life becomes meaningless. Maybe it can become a successful business, but it remains deep down existentially a failure. And unless you succeed existentially, you have failed, utterly failed. And it is very unfortunate that very few succeed existentially. Those who succeed, they are the Sufis, they are the Buddhas.

To succeed existentially means to live moment-to-moment in utter joy. Logic cannot allow you. Joy itself appears to logic as illogical. Misery seems to be more logical. All the logicians are agreed upon the fact that life is a misery. It is a pain in the neck, it is anguish, it is despair. All the logicians are agreed upon it that the only fundamental question to be faced by man is suicide.

Those who can dance and sing and celebrate and jubilate look mad. Jesus looks mad! Rumi looks mad. Me era looks mad. These are the Sufis, these are the lovers. They have a totally different vision of life.

Just as the human mind is divided into two, love and logic, exactly the same way the whole earth has become divided into two: the East and the West. The West has chosen the path of logic and the East has chosen the path of love.

The earliest reference of a Western philosopher to Indian philosophy is that of Megasthenes, the Ambassador of Seleucus Nicator at the court of Chandragupta, who reported in the third century B.C. that he had visited ’gymnosophists’ in India – the naked wise men of India. He calls them

’gymnosophists’ – he is talking about the Jains. They are not sophists at all.

A sophist is exactly against the Sufi. A sophist is one who exults in argumentation, who loves to argue, whose whole life is devoted to reasoning. His whole life is dedicated to only one thing: how to conquer the opponent. By right means or wrong means is irrelevant – the question is: how to defeat the opponent.

The sophist has no trust in truth. The sophist is not a seeker of truth. The sophist is one who goes on trying to prove himself right. The sophist does not believe that there is anything like truth. His definition of truth is ’that which can be logically proved’ – then it is true. If it cannot be logically proved, then it is untrue.

Megasthenes is basically the Western mind. He must have seen Jains. And it was very close; Mahavir had died only three hundred years before – Jainism was still alive. Buddha had lived only a few years before – still there was some fragrance of Buddha and Mahavir in the country. Still people were full of the joy that Mahavir and Buddha had exploded in the world. The light had not disappeared completely. But Megasthenes missed.

The Western mind thinks in logic, in terms of logic. He calls them ’gymnosophists’. They are not sophists at all – they are Sufis.

A Sufi is one who is not trying to prove his opinion to be true, who is always ready to surrender his opinion for truth. From whatever source the truth comes he is ready to surrender. The sophist is one who, even if he sees that the other is holding a true opinion, will go on fighting, will try to prove that he is right.

The sophist tries to prove that ”I am right.” And the Sufi tries to discover WHAT IS RIGHT. Their orientation is different. But I can understand Megasthenes, why he calls Jains sophists. The Western mind has always looked at things from the very beginning.... The earth has become divided just like the brain is divided.

Clement of Alexandria, a Christian Gnostic of the second century, suggests in his writings that the Greek philosophy was an importation from India. There is every possibility that what Clement of Alexandria says IS right, but the nature of philosophy changed. When it moved from the East to the West, the color, the meaning, the texture, the taste – everything changed. It is almost impossible now to think that the Greek philosophy was originally a branch of Indian philosophy. The change has become so big – they seem unbridgeable.

Clement seems to be right, that it was imported from India. There are historical proofs. Clement himself says that Pythagoras, one of the greatest mystics of Greece, visited India, studied under Brahmin sages – not only that – was also initiated into Buddhist mysteries as a disciple. There are enough proofs in Pythagoras’ teachings that something of the Buddha is present in him.

But the moment things go from the East to the West, they change their color. The context changes.

The whole noe-sphere is different. When love has to be understood logically, something goes wrong.

The spirit is lost – only a corpse remains in your hands.

Because of this difference between Sufism and sophistry you will also note that in the East personalities have never been important. Indian philosophy is not tied to personalities. Little is known about the lives of the philosophers. The philosopher in the East has been a discoverer, not a formulator, of truth. Truth is as ancient as existence itself. Nobody can claim that one has discovered it. It has been discovered many times – the most one can say is that ”I have rediscovered it.” And one of the conditions to rediscover is that you should disappear. There should not be the claimer, the I.

The West has its Platonism, Hegelianism, Kantism. In India there is no parallel. You cannot come across anything like ’Patanjalism’, ’Shankaraism’ – no, not at all. The Philosophy is not rooted in the ego of the individual. The individual disappears. Truth comes, floods one’s being.... But the logical mind cannot take that much of a risk. It always remains in control. It possesses the truth.

And truth by its very nature cannot be possessed. So whatsoever the logical mind possesses is not truth but an OPINION about truth. It is not the real thing. It is just a carbon copy of it, a reflection.

In small things the differences have become great. For example: the Western concept of zero, the mathematical zero, has reached the West from India. Zero is an Indian discovery. But the meaning has changed. In the Western mind the zero means nought. In Buddhism zero – SHUNYA – does not mean simply a mathematical nought: it means the existential state of no-self. It means selflessness.

It means empty of oneself.

And in Hinduism the zero – BINDU – is a solid dot symbolizing a fertile seed. It is the productive point of potentiality, the matrix of the negative and the positive. Once, Ramana Maharshi, when asked to sign an autograph book, made only a dot in the center of the page with the remark, ”In the BINDu all is contained. I too am included in it – so there is no need to sign separately.”

Now the same concept, zero, in the West becomes just a mathematical, logical concept. In Buddhism it is existential selflessness. In Hinduism – the SAME concept – it is a solid matrix of all that is possible.

Remember it, that how you look at things makes much dif-ference. Whether you look with full loving eyes....

It is said about a great Hassidic mystic, the Baal Shem, that ordinarily he would not use specs, but whenever he talked to a philosopher, a logician, he would immediately put his specs on his eyes. It was strange; people were watching it.

A disciple one day asked, ”What is the matter? Ordinarily you never put specs on. We disciples go on discussing with you a thousand and one things, but whenever a logician comes, you always put specs on your eyes.”

And he laughed. And what he said is very significant. He said, ”To you I need not look as separate.

To you I can remain in my state; I need not descend from there. My eyes have lost all distinctions.

You and the tree and the rock are all one. When I am talking to a disciple, there is no need to make any distinction. I am talking to the disciple and to the tree and to the rock, and to the stars and to the sky... all is one. Because I talk from the standpoint of love. I flood you with my love, and I become flooded with your love. But when a logician comes, I have to descend. I have to put specs on my eyes so I become blind, so I lose that enormous vision. My eyes become narrowed, because the logician insists on distinctions; things should be debarked and defined. Love knows no definition, no demarcation.”

Bawl Shem is right. This is my experience too. Talking to a sannyasin, being with a sannyasin, is a totally different phenomenon. But talking to somebody who has come with great knowledge in his mind, who is ready to fight, to argue, who is hankering for some opportunity and excuse to collide, is a totally different experience. It is ugly. There is no communion. There is no meeting of the hearts.

Love opens a different door to reality. Logic also opens a door. The door of logic becomes science; the door of love becomes religion. That’s why Western philosophy is disappearing. The reason why Western philosophy slowly slowly is reduced to science? – because science has taken over.

Western philosophy has no purpose left. At the most it can remain in the shadow of science as a servant. It is no more the master. And nobody else is responsible – it itself is responsible for it. That was its insistence: logic, fact.... Now science is more logical and more factual, so philosophy seems only a kind of primitive science, a rudimentary science. And, of course, when more sophisticated science has come, what is the point of philosophy?

So, in the West, philosophers are at a loss: now what to do? Their whole job is gone. Departments of the great Western universities are becoming more and more empty; students no longer turn up.

There is nothing there! And philosophers, at the most, have become just logical analysts; linguistic analysis has become their whole work. Now they don’t ask whether God exists or not – their question is: What do you mean when you use the word ’God’? Their question is about the word ’God’, not about God himself – what do you mean when you use the word ’God’? The meaning of the word....

Not much philosophy is left. It is disappearing, it is a dying subject. Science has taken over.

Philosophy, if it enters from the door of logic, is bound to disappear sooner or later into science, because what philosophy does, science can do better. Philosophy can live only if it enters through the door of love. Then nobody can take its temple. Then it is real SOPHIA – real wisdom.

A FEW THINGS BEFORE WE ENTER INTO THIS SMALL PARABLE. If you look through love, it is not that the reality changes – reality is the same. Whether you look from logic or from love, the reality remains the same – but you are different. And when you are different, of course, you see different things. When somebody looks with the vision of a poet at the full moon, it is a totally different experience – uplifting, elevating, ecstatic. When somebody looks at the moon with the eyes of an astronomer, there is no uplifting, there is no prayer felt. The heart doesn’t beat faster. You don’t feel any ecstasy. You don’t become warmed up. You don’t feel connected. It is the SAME moon! but you are blind, closed....

I had a professor when I was a student at university. He was a world-famous chemist, and his idea was this: that chemistry is the only real science. And one day will come when all other sciences will disappear, because chemistry can explain EVERYTHING. It can explain life, it can explain love, it can explain poetry – because reduced to facts, all is chemical. Existence is chemical.

One day I was following him – he was unaware – he had gone for a walk. It was a full-moon night.

He was holding his wife’s hand, and I followed him. I didn’t allow him to know that I was there. It was a full-moon night, and he forgot that he is a chemistry professor and a great chemist, and he kissed the wife... and I said ”Stop!” He was shocked. And when he saw me he said, ”What do you mean by

’stop’? It is my wife.”

”That is not the point,” I said. ”But what are you doing? – this is just chemistry. And a man of your understanding kissing a woman? Just a small chemical transfer from here to there? Just a few germs from her lips to your lips, from your lips to her lips? What are you doing? Are you affected by the moon? Have you become a lunatic or something? And why are you holding her hand? How can you explain it chemically?”

But there are people who are trying to explain things chemically, physically, electrically. They only destroy life’s mystery.

I told the professor, ”Whenever you kiss your wife, remember me, and remember your philosophy.”

After three, four weeks, I saw him again and I said, ”How are things going?”

And he said, ”You have disturbed me VERY much – because it really happens. When I kiss my wife, I remember you.... ”

Life is not reducible to chemistry, is not reducible to logical syllogism. Life is far bigger. Its mystery is infinite. Only love CAN understand it. Only love has that infinity to cope with it. Everything else is very finite. Only love can dare to move into the indefinable, to move into the subtle.

Love changes your vision so radically that many things disappear.

One: in deep love, time

disappears. And time is one of the barriers to knowing reality. When time disappears, things are transparent.

Have you not observed it: when you are miserable, time seems to be going very slow? When you are happy, time moves faster. When you are REALLY in ecstasy – samadhi – time disappears. In that timelessness you are present to reality, face to face. Only in that timelessness does the real encounter with reality happen. For the first time you see eye to eye.

Time depends upon the state of development of the individual. The more advanced a person is in his total human development, the less is his awareness of time. The perfected person has no consciousness of time. Time simply means that you are not in the present. Time means past and future. When time disappears, YOU ARE here now. And only then the contact with reality....

Logic functions in time: love functions in timelessness. Logic needs time: love needs no time. And only love can reveal to you the nature of eternity.

IN ECSTASY, ALL THAT IS PAST AND THAT IS FUTURE DRAWS NEAR TO THE PRESENT. TIME

SHRINKS, THE LINE BETWEEN THE ETERNITIES DISAPPEARS, ONLY THE MOMENT LIVES, and the moment is eternity. IN ITS UNDIVIDED LIGHT APPEARS ALL THAT WAS AND ALL THAT

WILL BE, SIMPLE AND COMPOSED. IT IS THERE AS A HEARTBEAT IS THERE, AND BECOMES

PERCEPTIBLE LIKE IT.

Yes, exactly like that: IT IS THERE AS A HEARTBEAT IS THERE, AND BECOMES PERCEPTIBLE

LIKE IT. God is a heartbeat – the heartbeat of the whole. God cannot be known through reasoning: God can only be felt through the heart, because God is a heartbeat of the whole.

You will have to find a synchronicity with the heartbeat of God. You will have to fall in rhythm. You will have to attain to a kind of harmony. Hence, Sufis are so mad about music, singing, chanting, dancing. Not reasoning, but dancing – because only in dance do you start falling with the heartbeat of the whole. Only in dance does the moment of grace arrive when you are not and God is. Only in dance does the separation between the mind and the body disappear – and you are one whole, one piece, all together, no more fragmentary.

If you can dance deeply, so deeply that the dancer disappears in the dance, this is prayer. And once you have known what prayer is, then ALL is prayer. Then teaching, talking, listening, eating, sleeping... all are one. Then all is prayer. All action is one, and the infinite life enclosed in every action. This is what Hassids call AVODA – service through ecstasy. In all the deeds of the awakened one – speaking and looking and listening and going and remaining standing and Lying down – the boundless is clothed.

But the first experience comes either through singing or dancing or meditating. In short, the first experience always comes when time disappears.

Logic cannot allow time to disappear. It is a very illogical experience to let time go and to be without time. When you are without time, you are with God. Naturally, when time disappears, mind disappears. They are two aspects of the same coin.

Samadhi is the burning of all knowledge, of all mind. Not only of the knowledge but of the knower too. All disappears into the fire of samadhi... the knowledge, the known, the knower. It is an Armour of ecstasy. And only in this fire, that which is is known.

Repetition, the power which weakens and discolors so much in human life, is powerless before ecstasy, which catches fire again and again from precisely the most regular, most uniform events and yet always remains new, utterly new, radically new. Ecstasy overcame a mystic in reciting the scriptures each time that he reached the words: And God spoke....

It used to happen to Ramakrishna also. Just the mention of the name of God – Rama, Krishna, Allah – and he would fall into samadhi. He would disappear from the world of time into the world of timelessness.

Small things start having immense significance.

But all depends on a great change within you – you have to move from logic to love, from the head to the heart, from philosophy to SOPHIA.

This small story:

A SCHOLAR SAID TO A SUFI, ”YOU SUFIS OFTEN SAY THAT OUR LOGICAL QUESTIONS ARE

INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO YOU. CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT THEY SEEM LIKE

TO YOU?”

FIRST, WHO IS A SCHOLAR? The scholar is one who has become interested in the non-essential.

The scholar is one who has lost track of the essential and has become distracted in the details of the non-essential. He works hard, he devotes his whole life, but to rubbish. If you look at his work, you will appreciate his sincerity. But if you look at the outcome, you will laugh at his stupidity.

People go ON working, year in, year out, their whole lives, for things which don’t matter at all.

Once a great scholar came to me. His whole life he had devoted to a single purpose: whether Krishna is really a historical person or not. Now, how does it matter? Even if it is proved, to his heart’s content, that he is historical, then what? That’s exactly what I asked him.

I asked him, ”You are nearing sixty. You have worked your whole life, almost thirty-five years you have been working – even if it is proved that Krishna is a historical person, what are you going to do?”

He was at a loss how to answer. He said, ”I have never thought about it. In fact, nobody has asked me this question. Everybody has been appreciating me, my work.”

He had looked into scriptures, into old inscriptions on stones, rocks, archaeology... and thousands and thousands of ways to prove it. Still he had not been able to prove it absolutely. But he said,

”Nobody asked me. Everybody has been appreciating my work.”

I told him, ”Whether it is proved that Krishna existed historically OR that he never existed, it is not going to change your life in any way, so what is the point. Why are you wasting your life? If you feel that what Krishna has said is significant, live it. If you think it is insignificant, then even if he was historically there, it is useless to waste your time.”

The East has never been scholarly. The West has brought that disease to the East also. Now thousands of people in the universities go on working in research... they go on and on writing things. And a man may work for years on Kabir and he has never meditated according to Kabir.

Look at the absurdity of it! And he is trying to understand Kabir. How can you understand Kabir unless you experience his ways of being?

A scholar is a man of great intelligence but gone astray. He has put his intelligence to a use which is useless. By the same effort, by the same endeavor, he himself could have become transformed. By the same effort, he himself may become a Kabir or a Krishna. And he was just working on whether Krishna was historical or not.

I told the old man, ”The only way to prove whether he was historical is to create Krishna-consciousness in yourself. If you can create Krishna-consciousness in yourself, then it is proved that this is possible. If it is possible for you, why is it not possible for somebody else? If I can become a Buddha, that’s the only way to prove that Buddha existed. To prove that Buddha existed, one has to exist as a Buddha – there is no other way.” But then that is the way of the Sufi, not the way of the scholar.

A SCHOLAR SAID TO A SUFI...

The Sufi thinks only of the essential. He discards all that is non-essential. He looks only for the diamonds; he does not collect rubbish, he is not interested in junk.

THE SCHOLAR ASKED THE SUFI, ”YOU SUFIS OFTEN SAY THAT OUR LOGICAL QUESTIONS

ARE INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO YOU.”

Logical questions ARE incomprehensible to the Sufi – because they are stupid questions! The logical person asks: Prove what prayer is. It is incomprehensible. It cannot be proved. He should ask: Teach how to pray. Then it is not a logical question, it is existential.

You cannot ask: Prove what love is. You can only ask: Help me so that I can love.

The logical question is incomprehensible to the Sufi, to the knower. One who knows looks at logical questions as childish curiosities. His vision is totally different.

I have heard, it is told, that the great mystic, Baal Shem, once remained standing on the threshold of a house of prayer and did not want to enter. He spoke in aversion: ”I cannot enter there. The house is full to the brim of teaching and prayer.” And when his companions were astonished – because it appeared to them that there could be no greater praise than this – he explained to them: ”During the day the people speak words here without true devotion, without love and compassion, words that have no wings. Because the words are spoken without devotion and because they have no wings, they remain between the walls, they squat on the floor, they grow layer by layer like decaying leaves, until the decay has packed the house to overflowing and there is no longer room for me in there.

”The house is too full of teaching, and too full of prayer. People go on praying, and their hearts are not in those prayers. Those prayers are dead; they cannot fly; they have no wings – they cannot reach to God. So though it is a house of prayer, a temple, I cannot enter in it – it is too full of prayer and words. There is no space in it.”

The scholar is like that – too full of words, decaying, layer upon layer. The scholar stinks of dead words. He has spoken great words, but with no love, with no devotion. Hence those words have no wings; they are like stones hanging around his neck. He is being drowned by his words, by his philosophies, by his doctrines, by his dogmas. And the scholar may even be a man of prayer, he may go to pray, but his prayer is also false. It is a ritual. It has no spontaneity.

I love one story by Tolstoy. I have told it many times, but I love it so much...

Once in Russia it became very well known: Three mystics appeared, and they were miraculous people. They lived beyond a lake in the mountains. Thousands of pilgrims started moving towards them, and whosoever came from there was touched, moved, came radiant, came vibrant, brought something of the invisible with him.

The whole country was aflame with the desire to go and see the mystics. Naturally, the arch priest became very much disturbed: ”Who are these mystics?” And in Christianity, before a person can be called a saint, he has to be certified by the church. Now, this seems to be the most absurd thing in the whole world: a saint needs to be certified by the church. The English word ’saint’ really comes from ’sanction’, because it has been sanctioned that he is a saint.

”Without any sanction from the church, how have these people become saints?” The arch priest was angry – and jealous too.

He went to see those mystics. He had to go in a boat. When he reached there, he saw three simple people sitting under a tree – very simple villagers. They touched his feet; all the three saints touched his feet. He was very happy. And he said, ”So you are the people! You have declared that you are saints?”

They said, ”No, how can we declare? We don’t know anything about sainthood. We are poor people, illiterate. People are creating rum ours about us – we don’t know. We don’t know a thing! We are very blessed that you came. Bless us!”

He said, ”What prayer do you do? What scriptures do you read?”

They said, ”We are absolutely illiterate. We cannot read. And nobody has ever taught us any prayer.

You teach us.”

”But you must be praying,” the priest asked.

They looked at each other, felt ashamed. One said to the other, ”You tell him,” and the other said to the third, ”You tell him.”

And the priest said, ”But why are you looking so ashamed and guilty? What is your prayer? Tell me!”

And they had to tell, and they said, ”We have made a prayer of our own. We are stupid people, forgive us. Don’t be angry. We don’t know any prayer, so we have constructed one. Our prayer is simple. We pray.... ” In Christianity, God is a Trinity – God the Father and the Holy Ghost and the Son – so they said, ”We say to God: You are three, we are three – have mercy on us. This is our prayer. But please don’t be angry with us. We are really ignorant people.”

Even the priest laughed. He said, ”Never heard such a prayer. You fools! You drop it, you stop it!

and I will tell you the authorized prayer.”

It is a long prayer... the ancient Russian Orthodox Church has a very long prayer. He repeated the whole prayer. They listened, but they said, ”This is too long. We cannot remember it – you will have to tell it again.”

And thrice they said, ”Please, once more, otherwise we will forget.”

So thrice he repeated; very happy he felt, and he went back into the boat. Just in the middle of the lake, he was very much puzzled – the boatman was very much puzzled – those three villagers were coming running on the water. And they said, ”Wait! We have forgotten the prayer.... Please, once more.”

Now the priest had to fall at their feet, and he said, ”Excuse me, your prayer is right – it has been heard! I have prayed so long, but I cannot walk on water. Your prayer is perfectly right, you continue: You are three, we are three – have mercy on us. And whatsoever you want to do, you DO, because your prayer has reached!”

Prayers have wings when they are of the heart. Words have wings when they are spontaneous, when they come from your natural being.

Scholars are poor people – stuffed with knowledge, but all knowledge is dead. A Sufi is one whose words have winos, whose prayers have been heard, because his prayers have arisen out of his heart. They are not logical constructions; they have nothing to do with the logical mind. They are feminine.

A SCHOLAR SAID TO A SUFI, ”YOU SUFIS OFTEN SAY THAT OUR LOGICAL QUESTIONS ARE

INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO YOU. CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT THEY SEEM LIKE

TO YOU?”

THEY ARE INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO THE SUFIS, because logic is not their world, logic is not their game. It is a game! It has its rules. Let me tell you a few stories.

A rabbi, a priest, and a minister were playing poker. Suddenly, the police burst into the room.

”Sorry, gents, but gambling’s illegal,” said one of the officers, and he hustled the religious trio down to court.

”I’m sorry about this,” said the judge, ”but now that you’re here there’s only one thing to do. Since you’re all men of the cloth, I think I can trust your word. So I’ll ask you if you were gambling, and whatever you answer, I’ll believe you. We’ll start with you, Father.”

”Your Honour, surely it is important to be certain that we define what we mean by gambling. In a narrow but entirely valid sense, what we describe as gambling is only truly so if there is a desire to win money, rather than merely to enjoy the suspense of the fall of cards. In addition, we might confine gambling to situations where the loss of money would be harmful, as...”

”Okay, Father,” the judge interrupted. ”I see that in the manner in which you define the word you were not gambling. Now how about you, Reverend?”

The minister said, ”I entirely agree with my learned colleague.”

”Fine,” said the judge. ”And now you, Rabbi. Were you gambling?”

The rabbi looked at his two friends, and then back at the judge, and asked, ”With whom, Your Honour?”

Logic has its ways. It is a beautiful game. You can enjoy it. But those who are interested in reality are not interested in such games.

A poor tailor was beside himself. His wife was sick and perhaps dying. He called on the only doctor nearby.

”Please, save my wife, doctor! I’ll pay anything!”

”But what if I can’t cure her” asked the doctor.

”I’ll pay whether you cure her or kill her, if only you’ll come right away!”

So the doctor promptly visited the woman, but within a week, she died. Soon a bill arrived charging the tailor a tremendous fee. The tailor couldn’t hope to pay, so he asked the doctor to appear with him before the local rabbi to arbitrate the case.

”He agreed to pay me for treating his wife,” stated the physician, ”whether I cured her or killed her.”

The rabbi was thoughtful. ”Well, did you cure her?”

”No,” admitted the doctor.

”And did you kill her?”

”I certainly did not!” expostulated the physician.

”In that case,” the rabbi said with finality, ”you have no grounds on which to base a fee.”

One can enjoy logic. One can enjoy logic-chopping too. But never be befooled – it cannot lead you to truth. You have to surrender ALL logicalness. That’s why it is very incomprehensible to the Sufis. They have dropped all logicalness. They are mad people, drunk with the divine. So whenever somebody asks a logical question, they condemn it.

THE SUFI SAID, ”HERE IS SUCH AN EXAMPLE. I WAS ONCE TRAVELING BY TRAIN AND

WE WENT THROUGH SEVEN TUNNELS. OPPOSITE ME WAS SITTING A PEASANT WHO

OBVIOUSLY HAD NEVER BEEN IN A TRAIN BEFORE.

”AFTER THE SEVENTH TUNNEL, THE PEASANT TAPPED ME ON THE KNEE AND SAID, ’THIS

TRAIN IS TOO COMPLICATED. ON MY DONKEY I CAN GET TO MY VILLAGE IN ONLY ONE

DAY. BUT BY TRAIN, WHICH SEEMS TO BE TRAVELLING FASTER THAN A DONKEY, WE HAVE

NOT YET ARRIVED AT MY HOME, THOUGH THE SUN HAS RISEN AND SET SEVEN WHOLE

TIMES.’”

THE SUFI IS SAYING: according to the peasant, his statement is logical.

According to HIS

experience it is logical. But to those who know that we have passed through seven tunnels it will be absurd.

The Sufi is saying: When a scholar talks logically, according to HIS experience, according to his learning, scholarship, it looks very logical. But to the man of understanding, who has passed through all the tunnels of the mind, and has come into the openness of the being, it looks absurd – just like this story.

It is incomprehensible to the Sufi, because his experience is of a totally DIFFERENT kind of reality.

And he is right! because he knows the world of the scholar. He knows both worlds. He has also lived in the world of the mind, in the world of time, in the world of thought and logic. He knows all about it perfectly. And then he moved beyond it. He is a witness to both; whatsoever he says has to be far more important than the assertions of the scholars.

Remember it. A man who has only slept and has never known what awakening is, to him dreams are true. Because in sleep everybody thinks dreams are true. But the man who has known both the dream and the awakening, to him dreams are untrue. Listen to the one who has known both. That has been the Eastern experience. We don’t pay any attention to what the scholar says, because what he says is the experience of us all. It is nothing new! Maybe he is more articulate, maybe he is more clever, maybe he can bring more footnotes to his statements, he can quote scriptures – but what he says is qualitatively the same. Quantitatively he may be better, but there is no difference between him and other people.

But when a Buddha arises, a Sufi is born, a Christ-consciousness walks on the earth, it is qualitatively different.

And one thing to be remembered again and again: Buddha has lived in your world too; he has also dreamt like you. He has also been be fooled by the dreams like you. Now he has become awakened.

He knows both. Hence, whatsoever he says is far more true than the statements of those who have known only one kind of world.

Beware of being dragged into scholarship. Beware of your own logicalness. Beware of reason. It is reason that has made your life dry. It is reason that has destroyed all the juice of your being. It is reason that has become your suicide. Beware of it! Go beyond it... because only beyond it is the world of truth. Only beyond it is the kingdom of God. And unless you have known the kingdom of God, don’t be contented – remain discontented.

This divine discontent makes one a disciple. And this divine discontent, sooner or later, becomes such a fire that it burns one’s ego utterly. And when you are no more, the Sufi is born.

Scholarship is an addition to you. You remain the same. You become more and more informed. To be a Sufi, you have to pass through a death experience. It is not an addition to you: it is a new birth.

It is a rebirth.

Jesus says: Unless you are born again you will not enter into the kingdom of my God. And do you know to whom these words were said? They were said to a great scholar, Nicodemus. He was a famous professor of those days; he was far more knowledgeable than Jesus himself. Jesus was illiterate, a poor man’s son, a carpenter’s son. Nicodemus was rich, famous, a well-known scholar, respected. Why does Jesus say to him: Unless you are born again...? The scholar has to die, only then is the Sufi born. And to be a Sufi is to live in the kingdom of God.

Be discontented with all that you know. There is a knowing which is not knowledge. There is a wisdom which is not scholarship. But to attain to it you will have to empty yourself completely of all that you think is knowledge. Say goodbye to the scholar, say goodbye to the mind, and let the no-mind enter in you.

That no-mind is the door to the kingdom of God.

CHAPTER 6

Be Rejoiced in Me

6 July 1978 am in Buddha Hall

The first question:

Question 1

WHAT IS IT TO BE MASTER OF ONE’S SEXUAL ENERGY?

VEERESHWAR, TO THINK IN TERMS OF DUALITY IS ALWAYS DANGEROUS. To divide yourself in two is to move towards a split. You are one! How can there be a master and a slave? The very idea is poison. And it has poisoned humanity down the ages. Never divide yourself, otherwise you will be in a conflict, a civil war – fighting with yourself. And that is utter stupidity.

To fight with oneself is to dissipate energy unnecessarily. It IS a wastage. The same energy can become a jubilation.

I don’t teach you how to become master of your sexual energy. What I teach you is: how to remain one, how not to divide yourself. Never divide yourself into the body, the mind, the soul the matter, the lower, the higher, the sacred, the profane, this worldly, other-worldly. Never divide! These are just different names... the disease is the same. Division is the disease.

And once you divide, you are in conflict, friction. Then joy disappears. Then life becomes an agony, a misery. And there is no victory possible. How can you be victorious over yourself? It is impossible.

That’s why your monks, your mahatmas, SADHUS, look so sad. Their life is a life of futility. And what is the fundamental? Where have they missed? They divided themselves.

I teach you undivided existence. Remain undivided! Never think yourself separate from your sexual energy, or anything for that matter. You ARE it! You are your sexual energy. You are your love energy. You are your consciousness. You are your body. You have many aspects! Your diamond has many aspects to it. And all those aspects together make you precious.

But this idea has persisted down the ages – and particularly about sexual energy. Why? Because sex has the greatest appeal. Hence the egoist always finds it attractive to fight with. If one can win over one’s sex, then one is a winner. Sex seems to be the greatest challenge to the egoist.

Remember, it is not a challenge to the spiritualist. For the spiritualist there is no challenge. For him, life is a let-go, a relaxation, I a total acceptance. But for the egoist, life is always a challenge. Either the challenge has to come from the outside, or it has to come from the inside. Either he has to climb Everest, because Everest is there like a challenge... it hurts. No purpose is being served by reaching Everest. Only one purpose: that man has conquered it.

Or the egoist turns inwards. There are egoists whose journey is outward and egoists whose journey is inward. For the inward egoist, the ego finds the greatest challenge in the sexual energy – because the attraction is great, immense, unconquerable – fight with it! But fighting with it, you will be simply destroying yourself and all the beauty of the sexual energy too is lost.

The sexual energy has not to be conquered: the sexual energy has to be used in creative ways.

There is no fight, but it is a great treasure. And much IS possible through it – in fact, all is possible through it. On different levels it is the same energy that becomes love, that becomes prayer.

A man who is born without any sexual energy will not be able to love, will not be able to feel compassion either, will not be able to pray – because prayer is the highest form of sexual energy. If you fight with sex, you will never be able to transform it into prayer. Fight never transforms anything.

Transformation needs friendship – befriend it! It is your energy, it is you.

Don’t think in terms of master and slave. Use it as your potential. Raw energy it is. It can be refined.

It can be sublimated. It can reach to higher peaks that you have not even dreamt of. It can become, finally, your experience of samadhi. But never start with enmity – befriend, persuade, observe. Try to understand it, what it is – its attraction, its joy, its exhilaration. The small momentary ecstasies that become possible through it.

What exactly happens when you make love? For a moment, time disappears... and that moment, that timeless moment, gives you immense joy. That’s a glimpse into samadhi. Sex is not your enemy: it is the window to God. Of course, it opens and closes. All that you see is lost, but that is no reason to be angry with it. It is through it that you became aware that something beyond the mundane IS

there. Even if it was a momentary glimpse when you were lost, completely lost... the ego was no more functioning. You were expanded. Those moments of sexual orgasm are first glimpses – crude, primitive, rudimentary – of God.

So, Veereshwar, I cannot tell you how to master it. There is no way to master it. In mastering it, you can destroy it, and in destroying it you will be destroying yourself and nobody else. Once your sexual energy is destroyed, you will become juice less, your life will be dry, your life will be a desert.

Then no more roses, no more lotuses... then you are no more an oasis. You will live a kind of death.

You will carry your grave around yourself.

Go into it. Listen to its message. Be very silent. Sex is sacred! When you enter into it, you are entering the greatest temple there is. You are on holy ground – put ALL your mind and worries away.

Go dancing, with joy, with prayer, with gratitude, and you will come out of it renewed, rejuvenated, reoriented, with fresh visions, insights, intuitions.

The second question:

Question 2

THIS MORNING WHEN YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT MISSING THE MASTER, I FELT A STUBBORN DETERMINATION NOT TO MISS YOU. I’M GOING TO SIT HERE TILL I GET

ENLIGHTENED – IF IT TAKES FOREVER!

ANAND MADAN, THEN YOU WILL MISS ABSOLUTELY. Enlightenment is not something that you can get by your stubbornness. That is the barrier! It comes when you are vulnerable. It comes when you are not even aware of it. It comes when you are not even desiring it. It takes you always unawares. It comes so silently that you cannot hear the sound of its footsteps.

And it NEVER comes when you are looking directly for it. It comes indirectly. You are singing a song, and you are lost in the song... and it is there. You were not thinking of it! You were absorbed in the song. Or you were dancing, and you had abandoned yourself in the dance... and it is there. Or you were painting, or working in the field, or just sitting silently doing nothing... and it is there.

It always comes when you are not directly looking at it. It comes indirectly. It is a very subtle and delicate phenomenon. The more stubbornly you look for it, the more it is certain that you will miss it.

Be here with me! just be here with me – with NO idea of enlightenment. It is GOING to happen. But it is not going to happen according to you. You cannot manipulate it. You cannot be in control of it.

It happens when it happens. It comes out of the blue. It is not caused by you. If it is caused by you, and your efforts, and your will, then it will be smaller than you. It is bigger than you.

When it comes, it is not like the feeling when a dewdrop falls into the ocean. No. On the contrary, it is the feeling as if the ocean has fallen into the dewdrop. The whole sky falls into you.

If you are stubbornly waiting for it, you are too hard. There Is no space in you. You are too tense.

The very desire for it is enough of a barrier. One has to forget all about it. One has to forget SO

deeply that the very word becomes irrelevant, and one day one is surprised – it HAS come. The guest has come, uninvited.

You say, Madan: THIS MORNING WHEN YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT MISSING THE MASTER, I FELT A STUBBORN DETERMINATION NOT TO MISS YOU.

This stubborn determination comes from your will, from your ego. And these are the barriers! Who is preventing your enlightenment? Nobody except yourself. Otherwise, you are a Buddha from the very beginning. How have you missed what has always been yours? How do you go on missing it?

By your search you go on missing it.

But it happens: when I am saying, ”Don’t miss a Master,” a stubborn desire can arise in you that ”I am not going to miss. I will put all my effort and all my energy into not missing” – and you have missed.

My words have to be understood, not in the dictionary sense – you have to be very sympathetic with me.

When I am saying something, don’t cling to its apparent mean-ing. Go into its existential sense.

When I am saying don’t miss a Master, I am saying relax with a Master, be with a Master. Forget yourself IN the Master. Let the Master surround you. Let him become your atmosphere, your climate.

Live in him, think of him. Be in constant remembrance of him. And forget all about yourself!

This concern for enlightenment is an ego concern. You are still self-centered. To be with a Master means to forget yourself. Ordinarily, we are Belt:centered. Whatsoever we do we are doing for ourselves. To be with a Master means you start forgetting the old language of self-centeredness.

You start doing things for the Master – because he says so. Sometimes even absurd things!

Ajit has asked a question because people ask him, ”Why do you wear orange?” And he says, ”I try to explain to them, but I know deep down that they are not convinced.”

There is no way to convince anybody, and there is no need either. The problem is not with orange: the problem simply is that you cannot say, ” Now I am a disciple, and I don’t know. I have left everything to my Master. If he says, ’Wear orange,’ I will wear orange. If he says, ’Walk naked in the streets,’ I will walk naked. I don’t know any reasons any more. You go and ask the Master. I have dropped my self-centered style of life.”

That is the meaning of sannyas. That’s what initiation is all about: you drop your self-centered style of life. You have always lived according to yourself. The day you become joined with a Master, you start living according to him.

And he is not obliged to explain everything – because there are many things which cannot be explained. And there are many things which can be explained only when explanation will not be of any use – when you have experienced something, they can be explained. But then there is no point.

And there are a few things a Master goes on asking his disciples to do which are PATENTLY absurd.

That is their very reason, that they are patently absurd. They help the disciple to move away from his self-centering. He simply becomes an obedience, he becomes a yes-sayer. In that yes-saying, the Master is not missed.

It is not a question of stubbornness, because stubbornness will only emphasize your self-centeredness. It will become even more concentrated. It is a question of LOSING it.

You have lived according to yourself long; you have seen what it means to live according to yourself.

To become a disciple means now you are fed up with it. You want to relax. You want to simply follow somebody. In trust, in love, in intimacy, you want to become a shadow. And the paradox is: the moment you forget your self-centering, your real center arises. The moment you become just a shadow to the Master, for the first time you become an individual. This is the paradox. The moment you have forgotten yourself completely, you are enlightened.

So, please, don’t become stubbornly determined – that is becoming harder than before. And the hardening of your psychology will make it more difficult.

You say: I AM GOING TO SIT HERE TILL I GET ENLIGHTENED.

You can sit here for ages and you will not become enlightened that way. And enlightenment is possible in a single moment! if you are not there. Sit here in such a way that you are not there. That is the true way of sitting here. Nobody sitting inside, with no stubborn desire, no idea of achievement, no goal-orientation. Just a pure sitting! just enjoying this moment. This moment being with me...

these birds, these trees, these people. For NO other motive! Just for its own sake. And then THIS

moment is benediction. Then this moment is enlightenment.

This silence... when you are not there, nobody sitting there, but just a pure sitting, no effort on your part, an effortless waiting... no desire on your part, all desiring has disappeared... JUST BEING

HERE... and this is what is needed.

And it is not that you become enlightened: suddenly you recognize you have always been enlightened. You just never allowed a moment for it to surface. You were so desirous, you were so ambitious, you were in such a turmoil. You never allowed this still small voice to arise in you. It has always been arising, but the tumult of your desires is great – you have become a market-place.

Your mind is constantly chattering. It can chatter about money, it can chatter about meditation. It can chatter about politics, it can chatter about religion. It can chatter on anything. It can start thinking about enlightenment, what it is, how to attain it... and you are missing all the time!

Please, don’t be a fanatic about it. Relax.

The director of a modeling agency was interviewing a young woman for a job. After the usual questions, he ogled her and asked, ”Are you a virgin?”

”Yes,” she replied coyly, ”but I’m not a fanatic about it!”

Just please don’t be a fanatic about it. Enlightenment is a very very easy simple phenomenon, the MOST ordinary experience. It has nothing to do with extraordinary experiences.

Let me remind you again and again: it is the MOST ordinary experience – because it is your nature.

When you attain it, you cannot brag about it. When you attain it, it is not a great thing that you have done. The really great thing is how you go on managing NOT to attain it – this is a miracle!

The third question:

Question 3

OSHO, WHY ARE YOUR WORDS SO PUZZLING?

I AM SAYING SO MANY THINGS. I have to say them because I am talking to so many people.

And I am talking to ALL kinds of people. Mahavir was talking to only one type – his words are not puzzling. Buddha was talking to only one kind of people – his words are not puzzling. I am talking to ALL kinds of people.

I have not chosen a particular type to work with. My work is universal; it is not sectarian. It is easy to talk to a particular type. Then you can remain consistent. But when you are dealing with so many types, you have to look to different needs, you have to answer different needs. You have to respond to different minds.

So if you read me, my words can be puzzling. One day I say one thing, another day I say another thing. To one person one thing, to another, immediately afterwards, I may say just the opposite. The reason is: my concern is not about any answers – I have NO answers in particular. I don’t believe in ready-made answers. I look into the person and I respond to him. My answer is according to his need. And tomorrow he may come, and he may ask the same question, and my answer may be different – because tomorrow his need may be different. Maybe the words are the same, but tomorrow I will reflect his tomorrow; today I reflect his today. I am just a mirror!

If you look into me, you will find your face reflected in it. I don’t have a fixed idea to give to you. I am not teaching a philosophy here. Rather, I am teaching you a state of no-mind. I am not interested in creating a certain face for you. My whole effort here is to destroy ALL your faces so your original face surfaces, so you come to know exactly how God made you.

Much has to be withdrawn from you. I am not giving you knowledge: I am taking your knowledge away.

And then, when I say something to you, I say one thing – you may understand another.Words cannot be very exact. And the higher you move into the world of consciousness, the less exact they become. At the lowest, they are very exact. In mathematics they are very exact. Two plus two is four. Mathematics is an exact science. Metaphysics is not – it cannot be. The higher you go, the vaguer the words become. At the highest peak of understanding, words are almost meaningless.

But still they have to be used, because you cannot understand anything else.

Soon I hope the day will come when you will be able to understand my silence. It is happening, slowly slowly. I am watching it happening. When I feel that now silence can become a communication –

you can just be with me in silence, AND YOU will get something, and you will be thrilled, and the ecstasy will arise in you, and you will be overwhelmed – then any day I can stop using words.

But words are dangerous tools. I may mean one thing, you may understand another.

A man was reading the menu in a restaurant and asked the waitress, ”What kind of soup do you have today?”

”Oh,” she answered, ”we have turtle soup and pea soup.”

”I’ll have turtle soup,” he answered.

The waitress yelled into the kitchen, ”One turtle soup.”

But the diner said, ”Just a minute. I changed my mind. Do you mind changing the order? Can you give me pea soup instead?”

”Of course,” she said. And she yelled to the cook, ”Hold the turtle and make it pea.”

Now it will depend on you what meaning you give to it. Words can mean many things, and in different contexts the meaning can be very puzzling. Each word is spoken in a certain context. The context is hidden; you only hear the word. Without the context, the word has no meaning. What I am saying to you today will not have the same context again, because this morning is never going to be repeated.

These people who have gathered to listen to me will not be exactly the same again gathered here.

The birds that are singing around will not be in the same place again. This morning is unrepeatable.

rut my words will remain – they will lose all context; they will become independent of context. And then you will have to find meaning, give meaning to them .

They can be puzzling....

I have heard:

Two partners in the garment industry were having business problems; it looked as if they might have to declare bankruptcy. But at the brink, a particular line of dresses seemed to lure a buyer. A West Coast outlet wanted to buy the whole line, at a price which would put the partners well into the black.

The partners were overjoyed.

”The only thing is,” warned the buyer, ”I have to have the deal approved by the home office. I’m sure they’ll agree, but I do have to check with them. I’m going back tomorrow. If you don’t hear from me by Friday closing time, you can be sure everything’s okay.”

The week went by slowly, and Friday crawled. The two men sat without moving at their desks, unable to concentrate on any kind of work. Without this deal, they would definitely go under. They sweated the hours out, minute by minute.

Two o’clock went by, three o’clock, then four o’clock, and now they were close to pay dirt. Four-thirty came, and they were holding their breath. Suddenly, a messenger burst into the office. ”Telegram!”

he said. The men froze in terror.

Finally, one of the partners stood up. Slowly he opened the telegram, and read it quickly. Then came a shriek of joy. ”Harry! Good news! Your brother died!”

The meaning is always in a context. Out of the context, there is no meaning. But words go on living.

Krishna said something to Arjuna – in a particular context. Now Hindus go on repeating it. Buddha said something to his disciples in a particular context – Buddhists go on repeating it. The man of understanding will not become so obsessed with words. Words are not so meaningful as you think.

And you should not give very solid meanings to words. A solid word is a dead word. The word has to remain fluid. It has to change according to circumstances. It is a flow. But people use words like frozen things. And I can understand their difficulty, because the ordinary life will become impossible if words are not frozen. It will become impossible to deal with it. But as far as the higher world, the higher flights into the timeless, into the spaceless, are concerned, words are just very arbitrary.

So, please, don’t get puzzled by my words. Find me in my words! Forget the words. Find me and forget the words. Use the words as approaches towards me; don’t be hooked by them. Then they will not puzzle you and they will not confuse you.

The fourth question:

Question 4

OSHO, I TURN AT EVERY SOUND TO SEE IF HE IS THERE. THERE IS A GREAT WAITING FULL

OF JOY INSIDE ME. OSHO, WHERE IS THE BELOVED ONE?

PARMITA, HE IS EVERYWHERE! HE IS ALWAYS. He is here in me, in you, in all the people who have gathered here. But you must be looking for some God which is not of this world. You must be looking for some God – Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan. But you are not really looking for the beloved.

The beloved is ALWAYS here. He is the breath in your heart, he is the beat in your heart. He is the green in the trees, and he is the red in the flowers. He is in the waves of the ocean. And he is in the stars in the night. And he is the silence of the darkness. And he is the joy of light.

But you must have some idea of God. You can go on looking for that idea and you will never find it

– you will wait in vain. Drop the idea! and the beloved is here. Your idea is hindering the path.

The beloved is not a person: the beloved is life itself. Don’t think of God as a person sitting somewhere on a golden throne. Think of God in the butterfly and in the creeper. Think of God in the river and in the mountains. Think of God in ALL this manifestation! Think of God as the world.

God HAS become the world! Your scriptures say God created the world. I say unto you: God has become the world. Now there is no God anywhere else. The singer is in the song now, anal the painter is in the painting. But you are looking for the painter somewhere else, and he has dissolved himself into the painting....

Have you heard one very famous Chinese Zen story?

A great king was in great love with the beauty of the Himalayas. He called all the great painters of his kingdom, and told them to make paintings of the Himalayas, and whoever’s painting was the best would have half of the kingdom and would have the king’s daughter in marriage.

Thousands of painters worked, day in, day out, year in, year out. Three years’ time was given. Many paintings were made; they were beautiful paintings. The king was at a loss: ”How to choose which one is the best?”

Finally, the oldest painter came with his paintings; those paintings were hung on the wall and the king went to see them. Immediately, intuitively, he knew, ”These are the best.” He had seen beautiful paintings, but nothing compared to these. They were so alive! And the king watched, and he asked the painter, ”I see one small footpath going behind the mountains – where does it go?”

And the painter said, ”Let me see...!”

And he went into the painting, and on the footpath behind the mountain... and disappeared, and never came back.

It is said in China that a painting, if it is true, has to be like that: the painter can go into it and disappear. Only then is it true! This story is just a parable. But God has created the world Ann has disappeared into it. It is exactly true about God.

Parmita, don’t WAIT for the beloved.... But thousands of people have been waiting for thousands of years, with great longing and passion. Their waiting has helped – not that they came to know God, but their waiting helped them to become more alert.

Judaism, particularly, has used waiting as a methodology for awareness. It is Judaism’s parallel to vipassana. But remember, the waiting is not for God – there is no God to come – the waiting is just a device. When you are waiting, you become, of course, more alert.

Have you ever waited for a friend? In the mowing he is to come, and you cannot even sleep during the whole night. You toss and turn, and you look again at the clock. Maybe night is over and it is already mowing and you have to go and pick up the friend from the station...?

Have you waited for your beloved? Then any movement on the street and you rush out. It may be just the wind knocking on the door, and your heart beats faster; and you open the door: maybe she has come or he has come? Or a postman walks by and you rush and look out of the window....

Whenever you wait, you become aware. If waiting can become absolute, total, it will create a great flame of awareness.

It is said of the great mystic, Zusya, that he awaited the arrival of the Messiah and redemption with such fervor, passion and eagerness that when he heard a tumult in the street he was at once moved to ask what it was and whether the messenger had not come. And each time he went to sleep, he commanded his disci-ples to awaken him at the very moment when the messenger came.

One day he said, ”If the Messiah should come today and say to me, ’Zusya, you are better than others,’ then I would say to him, ’Sir, then you are not the true Messiah.’”

His whole life he waited, and with such eagerness that even in the night he was afraid, ”I may be asleep and he may come.” One disciple had to wait continuously by his side, so if the messenger came, Zusya could be awakened immediately – because he would not like to miss a single moment.

See the passion, the longing, the love.

But the question is: Did the Messiah come? That is not the point. The point is that Zusya became more and more alert, more and more aware. He became so alert and aware that it is said that one day he said, ”If the Messiah should come to me today and say to me, ’Zusya, you are better than others,’ then I would say to him, ’Sir, then you are not the true Messiah – because now I myself that there is no better, no worse, there is no higher, no lower. That all is one. That there is nobody to be redeemed and nobody as the redeemer.”’

Waiting, waiting, waiting, becoming aware and aware, one day the heart opened, and he knew God is everywhere. There is no need for any Messiah to come. God has already come! God’s presence is already there.

So, Parmita, don’t ask: Where is the beloved? Ask: WHERE IS HE NOT? Jesus says to his disciples: Break a stone and you will find me there. Remove a rock and you will find me there. Where is he not?

You say: I TURN AT EVERY SOUND TO SEE IF HE IS THERE.

Yes, he is there! Even when the wind knocks on your door he has knocked. And when the dog starts barking in the neighborhood , HE is barking. And when a friend comes to see you, he has come to see you. Because there is nobody else except him...

The fifth question:

Question 5

I TRY TO FOLLOW RELIGION IN MY OWN WAY, BUT NOTHING SEEMS TO HAPPEN. WHAT

SHOULD I DO?

HOW CAN YOU FOLLOW RELIGION IN YOUR OWN WAY? You have to drop yourself. Then whatsoever happens is religion. It is not a question of deciding. You cannot decide. How can you decide what is right, what is wrong? Drop yourself. Let life take possession of you. Let life decide. Give your hand to God, or to life, or to existence... and follow it in trust.

You must be a very clever and calculating man. You are even trying to follow religion in your own way. And whatsoever you are doing, you have been doing, is nothing but your mind game. How can you reach anywhere?

It is simple!

You say: NOTHING SEEMS TO HAPPEN.

Now change your approach towards religion. Religion is not a thing to be decided by you: religion is a state of let-go.

Man’s mind is so cunning – it can always find rationalizations for whatsoever it wants to do. If it doesn’t want to do, it can find anti-reasons; if it wants to do, it can find ALL that supports it.

Just watch your mind. Your mind decides first this has to be done, and then it gathers arguments for it.

A former secretary turned hooker bumped into an old school chum.

”How can you go into such a profession?” asked her friend.

”Don’t be silly,” answered the call girl. ”We provide a vital service. We’re a wife to those who have none, and a refuge to those who do.”

Even if you are doing something absolutely wrong you can find good reasons for it.

A bearded old Jew entered a delicatessen and pointed to a slab of ham behind the glass counter.

”A quarter pound of the corned beef, if you please.”

The counter man noticed the beard and thought it his duty to inform the old man. ”I’m sorry, sir,” he said quietly, ”but that’s ham!”

”And who asked you?” retorted the Jew.

Mind is very clever, very cunning. It can go on doing whatsoever IT wants to do. And it can always find arguments for it.

So when you say: I TRY TO FOLLOW RELIGION IN MY OWN WAY, what is your own way? Truth cannot be according to you. You will have to be according to truth. Truth has no obligation to fit and adjust with you. You will have to fit and adjust with truth.

And if you try your own way, nothing is ever going to happen to you. And finally you will repent.

Now, try a totally different approach. Be in a let-go. Let God decide. Put your mind aside. Become a little more intuitive rather than being intellectual;Don’t be so rational. Religion is available only to those who can go deeper than reason. To go deeper than reason is to go beyond reason. And religion is available only beyond. What you call religion ordinarily is nothing but mind fabrications.

Nothing has happened, nothing is going to happen... remember.

And you ask: WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Drop this I. If you can find a Master, become a disciple. You have been a disciple to yourself too long now. Find a man whom you can trust. Find a man whose presence soothes you, calms you, cools you. Find a man whose presence revives hope in you, resurrects you. Find a man whose presence becomes an inspiration to you and again life-seems to have meaning. Then surrender. Be a disciple.

You have been trying both things together yourself, on your own. You are the Master and you are the disciple. You will become more and more confused. This is not the way to reach.

And I am not saying people cannot reach without Masters – once in a while it happens, a person reaches without a Master. But for that even more courage is needed. Because to trust a man is not SO difficult, it is human. To trust existence is very difficult. It needs a greater heart-and greater guts. To leave oneself into the hands of existence... just as Jesus said in the last moment: Thy will be done. If you can do that, there is no need to have a Master. But if you cannot even surrender to a Master, it will be impossible to surrender to existence itself.

A Master is a device where you learn how to surrender, where you learn the joys of surrender, where you learn the beauties of surrender. And then more courage gathers necessarily. And one day you can take the quantum leap and you can start trusting existence. Then one becomes like a dry leaf in the wind. If the wind blows north, the leaf goes north. If the wind goes south, the leaf goes south.

If the wind stops, the leaf waits and rests on the ground. The leaf has no idea of any destiny, no direction, no goal, nowhere to go.

That is the ultimate surrender.

Lao Tzu became enlightened watching a dry leaf falling from a tree. He was sitting under the tree.

The leaf was ripe, a breeze came, and the leaf dropped. It fluttered, came slowly slowly like a feather, rested on the ground... then a stronger wind came and it was taken up... it moved with the wind with no resistance. And the truth happened: Lao Tzu became enlightened. From that moment, he became a dry leaf in the wind.

Yes, without a Master also it is possible – but to trust a LEAF will take real guts.

The sixth question:

Question 6

OSHO, IN ME I FEEL THE NEED FOR A MASTER AND I FEEL THAT THE THINGS THAT YOU

LET YOUR DISCIPLES DO ARE ALSO GOOD FOR ME. WHAT MAKES YOU SO SPECIAL THAT

I SHOULD TAKE YOU AS A MASTER, THAT I SHOULD SURRENDER TO YOU?

RUINEMANS, FIRST THING: THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM, that you need a Master. I don’t need a disciple. I already have enough. I am not interested. So I am not persuading you to become a disciple. In fact, I make ALL sorts of arrangements to dissuade people so that they can escape.

It is not easy to come close to me. I have made all kinds of barriers between you and me. I am not interested in disciples – unless somebody’s need is really intense. I am here, not for the crowd and the mob, but only for the chosen few.

You say: IN ME I FEEL THE NEED FOR A MASTER AND I FEEL THAT THE THINGS THAT YOU

LET YOUR DISCIPLES DO ARE ALSO GOOD FOR ME.

If you feel the need for a Master, search for a Master. Hopefully some day you may find one.

You ask: WHAT MAKES YOU SO SPECIAL THAT I SHOULD TAKE YOU AS A MASTER?

I am not special at all. You forget about me. I am a very ordinary person. If you are interested in special Masters, you will have to search somewhere else. The very idea of being special is an egoistic idea. And, yes, I know: disciples like to become attached to very special people. That is a vicarious way of fulfilling their own ego, that ”I am a disciple of a very special Master.”

So let me make it clear from the very beginning: I am a very ordinary man. You need not be interested in me at all. I am not special. You will have to search somewhere else. The very idea of finding a special Master is an egoistic idea. Why special? What is special in life? Either all is special or nothing is special.

I can agree with both statements: either all is special or nothing is special. But I cannot agree with the statement that somebody is special and others are not special. God exists everywhere, in everybody. And God is our nature.

I am an ordinary man. So if you want to have a special Master, you are in wrong company here; you will have to find somewhere else. You will have to look for some magician. You are not really interested in disciple hood. Your interest is in a kind of ego trip.

You ask: WHAT MAKES YOU SO SPECIAL THAT I SHOULD TAKE YOU AS A MASTER, THAT I SHOULD SURRENDER TO YOU?

I am not interested in your surrender at all. And when a disciple surrenders to the Master, he does not surrender to the Master – the Master is just an excuse. The disciple only surrenders. Because he cannot surrender without a Master, hence the Master is an excuse.

The Master does not take your surrender! It is one-way traffic. When you surrender to me, you surrender – that’s all. I don’t take your surrender; I don’t go on gathering your surrenders. I am just an excuse, just to help you get rid of a foolish ego, an illusory ego.

How can the surrender be of any significance to the Master? because the ego is false, so is the surrender. If ego itself is false, what value can your surrender have?

Just think of a man who believes that he is Napoleon. And he is not! And he thinks that he has a great kingdom. And then a Master persuades him to surrender his kingdom – and he surrenders!

And he says, ”Okay, I surrender my kingdom and from now onwards I will not be Napoleon.” Do you think the Master is getting something?

In the first place the man had nothing but just an idea. The Master is not getting anything; of course, the man is losing much: his kingdom, his being a Napoleon, etcetera.

You say: WHAT MAKES YOU SO SPECIAL THAT I SHOULD TAKE YOU AS A MASTER?

I am not special, so you need not worry about me. I am very ordinary. And if you can surrender to somebody who is absolutely ordinary, your surrender will have some meaning. To surrender to somebody special is not surrender. Again you are enjoying that you have become identified with a great Master. You are also somehow great – the reflected glory of the Master.

I am a nobody! If you join hands with me, you will become a nobody – that’s all I can promise to you.

I am a nothingness – if you join hands with me you will become a nothingness. I have disappeared.

If you come close to me, beware... you will have to disappear. To be intimate with me is to be intimate with your ultimate death.

That’s what real surrender is: dying as an ego. But when you die as an ego, you are born as divine.

So the crucifixion of the ego is the resurrection of the soul.

And I am not interested in your surrender because I don’t see that you have anything. You don’t have anything – you have only fallacies, illusions, dreams. But you are asking, Ruinemans, as if you are going to surrender something great, so you have to make everything sure: ”Whether this man is somebody special so that I should surrender my kingdom. Who is this man? Why should I surrender to him?”

Surrender is not to anybody in particular – surrender is simply surrender! It only means that ”I am tired, wearied, burdened with my ego. I have lived with it and it has tortured me enough. Enough is enough! I want to get rid of it, but how to get rid of it? Where to put it?”

One has lived with it so long that it is very difficult to separate oneself from it. The Master becomes a help. He says, ”Okay, give it to me. If you cannot put it anywhere, give it to me and I will take care of it, I will preserve it.”

Feeling trust, love, you can give your ego to the Master. But what are you giving? There is nothing in fact.

Two madmen were talking to each other. One man had his fist closed and asked the other, ”Can you tell me what I have in my fist?”

The other brooded, meditated, and said, ”A white elephant.”

The first looked into his fist and said, ”Then you must have looked – while I was closing my fist you must have looked. Otherwise, how did you come to know?”

In your fists there is nothing, no white elephant – just empty ideas, empty identities about who you are. A Master is nothing but a situation. So if you really feel you need, then search.

And these discourses must be of great help to you, because this is the series about the Perfect Master. You will need a Perfect Master – and I am not a Perfect Master. I am a very very imperfect Master. You need something so special that you will not find it.

That’s why people believe in dead Masters, because with the dead Masters they can create as much speciality as they want. I cannot walk on water, that is true. Jesus can walk – and I know perfectly well he never walked: he knew the right rocks! But you can believe he is special, he walks on water.

People believe in dead Masters because with dead Masters they are free to have all kinds of imagination.

I am a very ordinary man, as ordinary as you are. But I am celebrating myself. I celebrate myself, I sing myself. And I can remind you that you can also celebrate yourself, and you can also sing yourself. And if an ordinary man like me can celebrate, that should give you a great joy – because you can also celebrate – you need not be special. You can ALSO be enlightened without walking on water.

If you understand, you will be rejoiced in me – because a man just like you has become a celebration.

It is a great promise: you can also become one. Nothing special is needed. All that is needed is already with you. You just have to be reminded.

A True Master is nothing but a reminding.

The last question:

Question 7

OSHO, FOUR YEARS AGO WHERE I WAS LIVING THERE WAS IN THE OUTHOUSE A POSTER.

ON IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE OF THE OCEAN AND THESE WORDS WHICH HAVE

REMAINED WITH ME: ’I AM MOVING AND NOT MOVING AT ALL. I AM LIKE THE MOON

BENEATH THE WAVES THAT EVER GO ROLLING.’

DURING DISCOURSE YESTERDAY,FOR THE FIRST TIME, I SAW WHERE THAT UNMOVING

PLACE IS IN ME. WILL YOU SPEAK ABOUT IT MORE?

YOGA DIVYA, IT IS NOT SOMETHING TO BE SPOKEN ABOUT. And don’t think about it – just feel it. If you start thinking about it you will lose track again. It is a feeling space within you; it has nothing to do with thought. Thought will be a disturbance. Feel it! Sit silently, feel it, rejoice in it, laugh with it, cry and weep with it, but don’t think about it.

The moment you think about it you have gone farthest from it, the farthest possible. Because thinking always takes you away from things.

A rose flower is there and you start thinking about it... then miles and miles of distance between you and the rose flower. Thinking is a kind of distance. Thinking creates distance. If you really want to be with the rose flower, forget thinking. Be with the rose flower! Cry with it, sing with it, dance with it, BE with it – and you will know.

This knowing has nothing to do with thought.

I cannot say anything more about it. You have found a beautiful spot within you. Avoid thinking!

Be closer and closer to that spot. Yes, there is a space where I AM MOVING AND NOT MOVING

AT ALL. I AM LIKE THE MOON BENEATH THE WAVES THAT EVER GO ROLLING. Yes, there is that kind of eternity in you. Time moves only on the surface. There is some place in you which is beginning less, endless. There is some place in you where changes have never occurred.

Since I have come to know this space within me, not a single thing has happened – no crisis, no accident, no incident, nothing at all. Since I became established in this space, all has been just the same – although on the surface thousands of things have changed. The wheel goes on moving, but at the very core nothing moves.

This is what is known as the center of the cyclone...

CHAPTER 7

The Lion’s Roar

7 July 1978 am in Buddha Hall

AT THE TIME OF KING MAHMUD, THE CONQUEROR OF GHAZNA, THERE LIVED A YOUNG

MAN BY THE NAME OF HAIDAR ALI JAN. HIS FATHER, ISKANDAR KHAN, DECIDED TO OBTAIN

FOR HIM THE PATRONAGE OF THE EMPEROR, AND HE SENT HIM TO STUDY SPIRITUAL

MATTERS UNDER THE GREATEST SAGES OF THE TIME.

HAIDAR ALI, WHEN HE HAD MASTERED THE REPETITIONS AND THE EXERCISES, WHEN HE

KNEW THE RECITALS AND THE BODILY POSTURES OF THE SUFI SCHOOLS, WAS TAKEN BY

HIS FATHER INTO THE PRESENCE OF THE EMPEROR.

”MIGHTY MAHMUD,” SAID ISKANDAR, ”I HAVE HAD THIS YOUTH, MY ELDEST AND MOST

INTELLIGENT SON, SPECIALLY TRAINED IN THE WAYS OF THE SUFIS, SO THAT HE MIGHT

OBTAIN A WORTHY POSITION AT YOUR MAJESTY’S COURT, KNOWING THAT YOU ARE THE

PATRON OF LEARNING OF OUR EPOCH.”

MAHMUD DID NOT LOOK UP, BUT HE MERELY SAID, ”BRING HIM BACK IN A YEAR.”

SLIGHTLY DISAPPOINTED, BUT NURSING HIGH HOPES, ISKANDAR SENT ALI TO STUDY THE

WORKS OF THE GREAT SUFIS OF THE PAST, AND TO VISIT THE SHRINES OF THE ANCIENT

MASTERS IN BAGHDAD, SO THAT THE INTERVENING TIME WOULD NOT BE WASTED.

WHEN HE BROUGHT THE YOUTH BACK TO THE COURT, HE SAID, ”PEACOCK OF THE AGE!

MY SON HAS CARRIED OUT LONG AND DIFFICULT JOURNEYS, AND AT THE SAME TIME

TO HIS KNOWLEDGE OF EXERCISES HE HAS ADDED A COMPLETE FAMILIARITY WITH THE

CLASSICS OF THE PEOPLE OF THE PATH. PRAY HAVE HIM EXAMINED, SO THAT IT MAY BE

SHOWN THAT HE COULD BE AN ADORNMENT OF YOUR MAJESTY’S COURT.”

”LET HIM,” SAID MAHMUD IMMEDIATELY, ”RETURN AFTER ANOTHER YEAR.”

DURING THE NEXT TWELVE MONTHS, HAIDAR ALI CROSSED THE OXUS AND VISITED

BOKHARA AND SAMARKAND, QASR-I-ARIFIN AND TASHQAND, DUSHAMBE AND THE

TURBATS OF THE SUFI SAINTS OF TURKESTAN.

WHEN HE RETURNED TO THE COURT, MAHMUD OF GHAZNA TOOK ONE LOOK AT HIM AND

SAID, ”HE MAY CARE TO COME BACK AFTER A FURTHER YEAR.”

HAIDAR ALI MADE THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA IN THAT YEAR.

HE TRAVELLED TO INDIA; AND IN PERSIA HE CONSULTED RARE BOOKS AND NEVER

MISSED AN OPPORTUNITY OF SEEKING OUT AND PAYING HIS RESPECTS TO THY TREAT

DERVISHES OF THE TIME.

WHEN HE RETURNED TO GHAZNA, MAHMUD SAID TO HIM, ”NOW SELECT A TEACHER, IF

HE WILL HAVE YOU, AND COME BACK IN A YEAR.”

WHEN THAT YEAR WAS OVER AND ISKANDAR KHAN PREPARED TO TAKE HIS SON TO THE

COURT, HAIDAR ALI SHOWED NO INTEREST AT ALL IN GOING THERE. HE SIMPLY SAT AT

THE FEET OF HIS TEACHER IN HERAT, AND NOTHING THAT HIS FATHER COULD SAY WOULD

MOVE HIM.

”I HAVE WASTED MY TIME, AND MY MONEY, AND THIS YOUNG MAN HAS FAILED THE TESTS

IMPOSED BY MAHMUD THE KING,” HE LAMENTED, AND HE ABANDONED THE WHOLE

AFFAIR.

MEANWHILE, THE DAY WHEN THE YOUTH WAS DUE TO PRESENT HIMSELF CAME AND

WENT, AND THEN MAHMUD SAID TO HIS COURTIERS, ”PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR A VISIT

TO HERAT; THERE IS SOMEONE THERE WHOM I HAVE TO SEE.”

AS THE EMPEROR’S CAVALCADE WAS ENTERING HERAT TO THE FLOURISH OF TRUMPETS, HAIDAR ALI’S TEACHER TOOK HIM BY THE HAND, LED HIM TO THE GATE OF THE TEKKIA, AND THERE THEY WAITED.

SHORTLY AFTERWARDS, MAHMUD AND HIS FOUR TIER AYAZ, TAKING OFF THEIR SHOES, PRESENTED THEMSELVES AT THE SANCTUARY.

”HERE, MAHMUD,” SAID THE SUFI SHEIK, ”IS THE MAN WHO WAS NOTHING WHILE HE WAS

A VISITOR OF KINGS, BUT WHO IS NOW ONE WHO IS VISITED BY KINGS. TAKE HIM AS YOUR

SUFI COUNSELLOR FOR HE IS READY.”

THIS IS THE STORY OF THE STUDIES OF HIRAVI, HAIDAR ALI JAN, THE SAGE OF HERAT.

RELIGION IS A RISK, A REBELLION, AND A REBIRTH, RELIGION is not a consolation, it is not conformity, it is not convention. Religion is not part of the world – it is something of the beyond.

Religion cannot be learnt: it can only be imbibed. There is no study which is going to help you to become religious. All studies lead astray.

Religion is not a kind of learning. On the contrary, it is unlearning. Not that you have to know more, but that you have to come to a point where all knowing disappears, and you become innocent, and you are a child again. And again the wonder is fresh and the mystery of life is revealed to you.

The knower lives in his mind. And the mind goes on pretending that is knows. And because the mind pretends that it knows, it demystifies existence. Knowledge is the most irreligious phenomenon there is in the world – because without the experience of the mysterious there is no possibility of being in contact with God. The mystery is the door.

Knowledge has to be dropped so that you can open your eyes again like a child – fresh, young, full of wonder, knowing nothing, or, only knowing that you know nothing.

These few things have to be understood before we can enter into this beautiful story.

Why do I call religion a risk? and not only a risk but the greatest? Why? Because you have to lose yourself. There are other risks in life, but they are small risks. You have to lose your money, or you have to lose your prestige, or you have to lose your wife... or this or that. But in religion, nothing less than your totality is required – you have to lose yourself. Naturally, one shrinks back one is frightened. It is a jump out of the ego and into the ego less abyss. It is a discontinuity with the past, with all that you have thought you are. It is a breakthrough.

You lose your identity – it is a great crisis in identity. You have known yourself as this or that – a name, a form, a society, a nation – religion requires that you lose all your identity. A religious person is neither an Indian nor a Chinese, neither a Hindu nor a Mohammedan. A religious person is neither black nor white. All these things are stupidities.

Then WHO IS a religious person? He is not a person at all, but only a presence. He drops his personality. He cannot say who he is. He cannot define himself. But in that indefinable state of consciousness, he knows who he is. This is a paradox: those who know who they are don’t know; and those who are ready to risk their whole identity and come to a point where they don’t know who they are, only they are the people who become capable of knowing. It is a gamble.... Very few people have that much courage.

Religion is not for the cowards. For the cowards is politics. Religion is not for the inferior. For the inferior is politics. The WHOLE political world depends on the inferiority complex. When a man feels himself to be nothing, nobody, he starts projecting himself in the world of ambition – politically he wants to become somebody, a president, a prime minister. Or, money wise he becomes a millionaire, famous. Or he wants to become a Nobel Laureate, or something....

These are the ways of ambition. And why does ambition arise in the first place at all? It arises out of the inferiority complex. You feel inferior within yourself, you feel nobody. It hurts. It is like an open wound. You want to hide it. You become occupied in ambition. You rush away from yourself as far as you can. You want to forget yourself! You want to get occupied in the world of money, power, prestige.

Religion is for those who are ready to go into this nothingness of their being, who DON’T think that they have to be somebody. ALL that they want is to know who they are. They don’t want to be somebody. They don’t project. They simply want to enter into the innermost shrine of their being and to see what is there. If it is nothingness, then it is nothingness. Then nothingness is beautiful.

Then THIS is our nature. Then there is no problem, it is not a wound. One need not search for any medicine for it; it needs no healing.

The ambitious person runs out, afraid to encounter nothingness. The religious person rushes in to know ”What is this nothingness that I am?”

Risk is there. Death is there. But out of this death is resurrection, is rebirth. But if you go to the temples and the churches and the mosques, you will find a totally different kind of person praying there – he is cowardly. His God is out of fear. He is as ambitious as anybody else. He is seeking support of the God so that he can succeed in his ambition. He is not interested in God himself. He wants to exploit God too, in some way or other. He has a motivation. He is cowardly, and out of his cowardliness he has created a great religion, ritual – the priest, the church.

Religion is in the hands of irreligious people. A Mahavir, a Buddha, a Mohammed, a Mansoor, a Rumi, a Kabir, a Nanak – -these are not people who are afraid. These are NOT people who are praying out of fear! They are praying out of love, not out of fear. They are praying out of sheer joy.

They are praying out of thankfulness. They are not asking for anything from God – because God has already given all that is needed.

The real religious person needs to be immensely courageous to enter into his nothingness . and inside there is a GREAT nothingness... as vast as the sky, as infinite as the sky.

There is an outer sky and there is an inner sky. The worldly person moves out, the religious person moves in. To move out is very easy, because millions are moving there. You can become part of the crowd; you need not have any individual courage of your own. You can simply ride on the mob psychology. All the people are doing something – you can become part of it. Man is an imitator. If anything proves that man comes from the monkeys it is his tremendous capacity to imitate.

But to go in, you are alone. Absolutely alone. Nobody can be there with you, not even a friend.

Great courage is needed for this internal journey – the courage to be alone. But only those who are ready to be alone will be able to know what God is – because God is found in your innermost aloneness. God is the innermost center of your aloneness.

God is not found as an object: God is found not as the sought but as the seeker. God is NEVER

found there: God is always found HERE. Never then: always now. God is not a goal, distant from you: God is your very consciousness, your very being, your very existence.

But for that, this courage is needed – courage to be alone, courage to drop the attachment to the crowd, courage to drop ambitions, projections, courage to be a non-entity. That’s why the other day I said: I am a very ordinary person, extraordinarily ordinary. And I would like you also to become extraordinarily ordinary – because in that VERY ordinariness, God is found. To try to be somebody, to try to be special, is the way of ambition and the way of the ego. And the ego never meets God.

That’s why the other day I told you that I am not perfect – or, I am perfectly imperfect. And that’s what I would like you to be too. Imperfect – perfectly imperfect. Then you can relax. Then there is no way to go anywhere, and no need. Then there is no ideal to be fulfilled. Then you are not constantly trying to improve upon yourself – you simply relax. You are in a let-go. And when you are in a let-go, a prayer arises from the very ground of your being – which is not DONE by you. It arises as fragrance arises out of flowers, as light falls from the stars. It naturally arises! And when prayer is natural, it has tremendous beauty, tremendous power. It liberates.

Be courageous. And let me repeat: the greatest courage is to be non-ambitious.

Religion is not a formality; it is not a kind of behavior; it is not a certain etiquette. You can learn the behavior of the religious people. You can go through the whole act of being religious. You can bow down in the temple, you can pray, you can even manage tears to flow down your cheeks. And deep down you know you are not in it. It is just a put-on act. Maybe you have become very skillful in it.

You have done it so long that it looks almost natural, but it is not. Your heart is not in it.

You can say to your wife during the day a hundred times, ”I love you.” But if your heart is not in it, you know that these words are dead, that these words have no wings. And you know that moment also when you really love, and you say, ”I love you.” And the difference! And the difference is immense.

The words are the same; there is no way to detect any difference in the words. No phonetic analysis, no analysis of the sound, is going to find any difference. But you know: when you love, those words are no more ordinary – they are radiant, they have a luminosity, they are aflame. Your heart beats in them, they are alive.

And when you are just repeating it because it has to be repeated – because there are books in the world like Dale Carnegie’s books and Napoleon Hill’s books, which go on saying that even if you don’t love, go on repeating – it helps. It lubricates relationship. Maybe they are right, it lubricates, but it is not the true thing. You may live a smooth life, but just to live a smooth life is worthless. One has to live a life of passion and prayer and love – not just a smooth life. One has to live a life of adventure, of exploration. NOT just a smooth life! One has to live totally. One’s life torch has to burn from both ends – even though it is only for one single moment, but then that single moment is eternity. When you live at the optimum, then you know what life is. And then you know the celebration of it and the benediction of it.

Religion is not a formality. Avoid formalities. If you really want to be religious some day, avoid formalities. The greatest danger with formality is that if you become accustomed to formality you will never become aware that you are missing the real thing. The man who carries false coins and thinks they are real coins will not search for the real. That is going to be his misfortune.

Never be formal about religion. Never be a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan – these are all formalities. Be prayerful, but not in a formal way. Let prayer arise. Wait for it. Long for it! Search for it!

Imitation is borrowed. Formality is borrowed. OTHERS teach you what to do. And religion requires a mature person, not just a person who is like a parrot.

It is not a formality because it is not part of culture, civilization, society. In fact, religion is basically asocial – not anti-social but asocial. It takes you beyond society. You are caught up by the society, you are conditioned by the society. The society is your prison It does not allow you to move out of its boundaries. It gives you enough rope so that you can have a certain feeling of freedom, but you are not free. No society allows freedom. No society exists for freedom. The name of freedom is being ex-ploited, but no society is free.

To have a free society will mean to have no society at all – then there will be pure individuals. And all that we know as society will be just a formal arrangement: like the post office and the railway department – a formal arrangement. No imposition of any inner structure. No imposition of any obedience, but a help, a nourishing help, so that everybody can become himself. Not that he has to conform to a certain mould.

No society yet exists which is religious, not even the Indian society. Indians like the idea very much, and their so-called gums go on roaming around the world and declaring to the world that India IS

religious – it is all nonsense. Formally they are right, but religion has nothing to do with formality.

Religion is rebellion; it is the spirit of rebellion. Rebellion of the individual. Rebellion of the soul.

Search for freedom, and ultimate freedom. Great courage is, of course, needed. Guts are needed.

That’s why so many people think they are religious, but very few are. Only once in a while do you find a religious person.

AND REMEMBER THAT RELIGION IS NOT SCHOLARSHIP. You to can learn the Vedas and the Bible and the Koran, and you can become REALLY efficient, yet you will not be religious. The same work can be done by a computer in a far better way. Only one thing the computer cannot do, and that is: it cannot feel. The computer can think. Now we have machines which can think, but no machine can feel.

Religion has something to do with the feeling part of your being, not with the thinking part of your being. You can study, you can become very knowledgeable, you can be burdened with great knowledge, but all this burdening slowly slowly will dry the juices of your heart. This knowledge will be like rocks, and your heart will flow no more. Your heart will be too much surrounded by rocks.

It needs a little freedom to flow. It is a small stream of love. Arid only that small stream of love knows how to go to God. No rock can go to the ocean – only that small stream of love knows how to reach the ocean. And it needs no maps, no guidebooks. It simply knows. The knowing is intuitive.

Every man simply knows how to love – there is no need to teach him. What is needed then? All that is needed is a loving atmosphere where the spirit can be imbibed. That’s what happens when you go to a Master, when you enter a Sufi TEKKIA – a Sufi school, or a Buddhafield, or when you enter into the energy world of a Master: you are going into a magnetic field where love is flowing, where many hearts are dancing, where minds have been put aside, where feeling has become supreme.

Just all that you need is a climate.

The Master is a climate, an atmosphere, in which you suddenly become aware of your own potential.

Not that the Master gives you something – there is no need! All that is needed has always been given to you by God. But in the presence of the Master, some chord in your heart starts responding, as if somebody is playing music and the very hearing of it and a dance arises in you. Your whole body wants to dance. You are in the grip of the music; it has touched and moved your heart. You are connected, bridged.

A Master is a musician. He sings a song. He lives a song. He vibrates, pulsates a certain melody.

And those who are intimate with him, those who allow themselves to be close to him, those who can be in a kind of let-go with him, those who relax with him... this is what sat sang is: relaxing with a Master, dropping your tensions. There is a pool of energy; if you drop your tensions, suddenly you will become aware of your own pool too.

A very famous ancient story:

It happened, a small group of sheep was passing through a valley. A lioness jumped from one side to the other side, from one hillock to another hillock. And just while she was jumping, she gave birth to a child. The child fell into that small group of sheep.

The child was brought up by the sheep. Naturally, the child knew from the very beginning that he was a sheep. He never became aware of his being a lion – although he was a lion! Just by forgetting, your nature does not change. He became very big, but the growth came so slowly, so slowly, that the sheep also accepted him – he was a freak child, it appeared. Something strange, eccentric, a little bit off the track, outlandish, but in every other way he was a sheep. Absolutely vegetarian he was, and walked like sheep, and lived with sheep, and talked like sheep.

One day this miracle was seen by another lion. An old lion passing by looked at this miracle – he could not believe his eyes. It was impossible! The young lion was walking with the sheep and the sheep were not afraid. They were going so together in such great friendship – he could not believe his eyes! He had never heard of such a thing.

He rushed to catch hold of the lion. ”What has gone... has he gone mad or something?” And the sheep escaped, and the sheep lion also escaped, naturally – so much afraid, trembling. But the old lion became very curious, and somehow he got hold of him, took him to the river. And he was NOT

willing to go. He was shrinking back and holding back, and he was saying, ”Just leave me, please.

Leave me alone! Let me go with my people.”

I know this story, because this is what I go on doing to you every day, and you say, ”Leave me alone.

Let me be a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian – let me go to my people! Where are you taking me? I am just a sheep, and I am perfectly happy. Don’t disturb me!”

But the old lion persisted He forced the young lion to the river, and there they both looked into the river, the silent river, no ripples. It was like a mirror. And the old lion said, ”Look, you are not a sheep.

Look in the river!”

Just the look... and do you know what happened? A great lion’s roar, suddenly! This is what Zen people call ’sudden enlightenment’. It was not a gradual process. Not that he said, ”Okay, I will think about it.” Not that ”First I will have to go to school and study how to be a lion.” Not that ”Sir, I am very grateful to you – let me become your disciple. And, slowly slowly, one day, in this life or in some other life, I will attain to this enlightenment. I am grateful that you have showed me the path.”

Nothing of this sort.

Just SEEING his face and seeing the old lion’s face similar, a roar exploded. In a single moment! In fact, in no time, with no interval of time. Timelessly. Instantly. Immediately... the sheep disappeared and there was a young lion.

This is the meaning of being with a Master.

You are not what you think you are. You have been taught you are this and that. You are not these small identities, these small egos. You are vast. You are infinite. You are eternal. TAT-TVAM-ASI: Thou ART That! Not less than that. You are gods and goddesses. But you have fallen into many traps.

SO IT IS NOT a question of studying. Religion has to be imbibed from someone who has arrived. It is from a Master to a disciple. It is not from the book to the student. It is from the ALIVE Master to the alive disciple. It is a transmission of insight.

The Master is not a person but only a climate, a music, a silence. If you love, you also become silent

– because whatsoever you love, you become like that. Remember it! Be very cautious in loving something, because whatsoever you love, you will become that.

The man who loves money, becomes money. He thinks only in terms of money and nothing else.

The man who loves things, possessions, himself becomes a possession and nothing else, becomes a thing. Love something great! If you love a flower, it is better than loving money. If you love the moon, it is better than loving a house. If you love a woman, a man, a child, it is better than loving power and prestige.

But if you can find a Master and fall in his love, then that is the door to the divine – because on this earth, nothing is closer to God than a Master. And the difference between you and the Master is not of quality: the difference is only of remembrance.

Remember again the old lion and the young lion. What is the difference? There is no existential difference, no difference at all fundamentally. But there IS a difference, a small difference, but that makes all the difference. The young lion has forgotten who he is. His heart has forgotten the language of a lion. He knows no more how to roar, how to shake the mountains with his roar. In the presence of the old lion, he imbibed, he recognized. Looking in the eyes of a Master, you will recognize who you are. Walking with the Master, you will recognize who you are. Just think of sitting with a Buddha... how long can you go on thinking that you are a sheep? Sooner or later the lion’s roar....

This story has many beautiful points to be understood:

AT THE TIME OF KING MAHMUD, THE CONQUEROR OF GHAZNA, THERE LIVED A YOUNG

MAN BY THE NAME OF HAIDAR ALI JAN. HIS FATHER, ISKANDAR KHAN, DECIDED TO OBTAIN

FOR HIM THE PATRONAGE OF THE EMPEROR, AND HE SENT HIM TO STUDY SPIRITUAL

MATTERS UNDER THE GREATEST SAGES OF THE TIME.

YOU WILL HAVE TO GO SLOWLY INTO THE STORY, because these stories are not just stories to be read and forgotten. They are reminders. They are devices. They are keys. They have many meanings. And you will have to be very very patient and sympathetic with each single word.

THE FATHER, ISKANDAR KHAN, DECIDED TO OBTAIN FOR HIS SON, HAIDAR ALI, THE

PATRONAGE OF THE EMPEROR...

That’s what fathers have always been doing. Their own ambitions they go on projecting through their children. Maybe he wanted to become somebody important in the King’s court and he could not. Now he is poisoning his son. Now he is trying to make his son carry the load that he has been carrying his whole life. Now he is getting old, frustrated, knows that he has failed.

Nobody’s ambitions are ever fulfilled. The ambitious person always fails, has to fail. If the ambitious can succeed, then there will be no need of Buddhas. Then Buddhas will be irrelevant.

Ambition fails. You have heard the proverb: Nothing succeeds like success. I say unto you: Nothing fails like success. When you have succeeded, then you know that you have failed. All the money that you wanted is there, and you are as poor as ever – in fact, more so. All the power that you always wanted is there, but deep inside you you are the same beggar – immature, ugly, unenlightened. You have become famous, the whole word knows you, who you are, but you yourself don’t know who you are – so what is the point?!

Jesus says: You can have the whole world as your possession, but if you have lost your soul, then what is the point of it all? The kingdom is there, but the king is dead. And that’s what happens in success: you go on selling the king for the kingdom. Finally, the kingdom is there but the king is no more. That’s what I call the ultimate failure of success.

And every parent fails in some way or other – unless he becomes a Buddha. But then it is totally different. I would like to tell you the story...

When Buddha became enlightened, the first thing he did was to come back to his family – so that they could see what had happened to him. It was natural, human, to remember his wife his child, his old father. Now he has something to share, and he would like to share it with everybody. And it is natural that he should remember all those that he has loved before.

But the wife was very angry – that too is natural and human. One night suddenly this man had escaped, not even telling her. She was a woman of great caliber, intelligence, and a woman who was very proud. A beautiful woman! one of the most beautiful of those days. And the wound was deep. And you will be surprised that the wound was not that Gautam Siddhartha left her – that was not the problem. She had loved this man so tremendously that if he wanted to go to the forest for his inner search, she would have allowed. The wound was that he didn’t say anything to her, that he didn’t trust her – that was the wound. See the difference! She was no ordinary woman.

This was the thing that was hurting her: ”Why could he not believe in me?” If he had asked, if he had said, ”I am no more interested in the world and the kingdom and you and the child. Suddenly I have become disillusioned, and I would like to go to the forest to search into my inner world: who am I?”

she would have allowed. Of course, with tears in her eyes, but she was a courageous woman – she would not have prevented. And she had loved the man: love always gives freedom.

So that was not the problem! that Buddha escaped. The problem was that he didn’t say a thing. He escaped like a thief.

When Buddha came, naturally, she was angry. She burst into a rage, and this was the central point.

She said, ”Why didn’t you tell me? I would not have prevented you and you know me – you know me perfectly. We had lived many years together. Had I ever prevented you from anything? I had loved you so deeply and so immensely that even if you wanted to go to the forest alone, I would have allowed you. I would have suffered! but that would have been my problem. But I would not have become a barrier to your search. Why didn’t you tell me?!”

That was the constant question she was asking. And then, in her anger, she called her son. When Buddha left, the son was only one month old; now he was twelve years old and he was constantly asking, ”Where is my father? Who is my father?”

She called the boy and said, ”Rahul” – Rahul was his name – ”this is your father. He escaped like a coward. This man has given birth to you. Now ask for your heritage!”

She was taunting, because Buddha was now a beggar – what heritage? What had he got? The woman was really angry and she said to the child, ”Ask for your heritage! This is your father – what has he to give to you?”

And Buddha laughed, and do you know what he did? He initiated the child into sannyas. He gave him his begging-bowl and he said, ”I had come really for this. I have found, and I would like my son also to find. And, Yasodhara” – that was the name of his wife – ”be finished with this anger. It is pointless now, because the man you are being angry with is no more. I have died and I am reborn.

I can understand your rage, but the man who had left you one night is no more. With whom are you talking? LOOK again at me!”

Although her eyes were full of tears, she looked at Buddha – and recognized: ”Yes, this is not the man. Looks the same, physically the same, but a different spiritual quality – the dim ate of a Master is there.” And all her anger disappeared. And the lion’s roar... she fell at Buddha’s feet, asked for initiation, became a sannyasin.

The parents can give only that which they have. When parents are disillusioned, they help their children to become disillusioned with the world. When parents remain unfulfilled, ambitious, they give all the poison that they have carried all along. From one generation to another, the poison goes on passing. And it becomes more and more potent the older it becomes. It is like alcohol: the older it becomes, the more potent it becomes.

ISKANDAR KHAN DECIDED TO OBTAIN FOR HIM THE PATRONAGE OF THE EMPEROR, AND

HE SENT HIM TO STUDY SPIRITUAL MATTERS...

As if spirituality is something to be studied. The father must have been a very unspiritual person, certainly. Otherwise, why should he want his son to become part of the court of the king? What a stupid thing to think about! Must have been a very ignorant man; otherwise, who would like his son to be ambitious? who would like his son to be a politician? Politics is neurosis – with a beautiful name. The political person is a mad person, and the world is not going to be at peace unless the importance of politics disappears. It has become all-important; it has become the central core of life.

Religion is thrown into the margin. It seems everybody wants to be powerful. Nobody is desirous of peace.

The religious person desires peace, and peace brings power. And the politician desires power, and power only brings conflict, neurosis, anxiety....

If the father had really loved the child he would not have thought this. But ordinarily every parent thinks that he loves the child that’s why he is planning. What better course can a father plan?

... AND HE SENT HIM TO STUDY SPIRITUAL MATTERS UNDER THE GREATEST SAGES OF

THE TIME.

Spirituality is not a kind of scholarship. It is nothing that you can study: it is something that you have to be. It is not like accumulation; it is transformation, it is not information. It is not that you remain the same and you come back home with more knowledge, with great certificates. You never come back the same. You come back a totally different person, with a new vision of life, with a new understanding, with peace in the heart, with a great silence and harmony in the being. You come in tune with Tao, in tune with the whole. You come no more as an ego, but as a part of the divine plan, of the divine whole.

HAIDAR ALI, WHEN HE HAD MASTERED THE REPETITIONS AND THE EXERCISES, WHEN HE

KNEW THE RECITALS AND THE BODILY POSTURES OF THE SUFI SCHOOLS, WAS TAKEN BY

HIS FATHER INTO THE PRESENCE OF THE EMPEROR.

Now the boy went, mastered all the repetitions – whatsoever Sufis say, he learnt it by heart, by rote

– and learnt all the exercises.

You can learn all the Yoga exercises and that is not going to make you a yogi. It will give you a better physique, better health. It is not going to give you a better soul. That is a totally different matter. It has nothing to do with body postures. It has something to do with the inner alchemy. Your consciousness has to grow higher, you have to become MORE aware. And that is the purpose of Sufi exercises. Those are not exercises, but from the outside they look like exercises. And that is the purpose of Yoga exercises too. But that purpose remains hidden. It is revealed only between a Master and a disciple. If you go just to learn the exercise, you can learn. You will become a good gymnast. And Sufi exercises particularly are basically for remembrance: how to remember oneself more.

The Sufi may be dancing, but while he is dancing, at the center he remains absolutely unmoving –

the center of the cyclone. The dance is the cyclone, his whole body is in movement, fluid. flowing, dynamic, but at the center, the witness is there silently watching, undisturbed, undistracted.

From the outside you can learn the exercise. From the outside you will never become aware of what is happening inside. And the inside is the true story.

HE MASTERED THE REPETITIONS AND EXERCISES, AND WHEN HE KNEW THE RECITALS

AND THE BODILY POSTURES OF THE SUFI SCHOOLS, WAS TAKEN BY HIS FATHER INTO

THE PRESENCE OF THE EMPEROR.

”MIGHTY MAHMUD,” SAID ISKANDAR, ”I HAVE HAD THIS YOUTH, MY ELDEST AND MOST

INTELLIGENT SON, SPECIALLY TRAINED IN THE WAYS OF THE SUFIS, SO THAT HE MIGHT

OBTAIN A WORTHY POSITION AT YOUR MAJESTY’S COURT, KNOWING THAT YOU ARE THE

PATRON LEARNING OF OUR EPOCH.”

NOW LOOK AT THE ABSURDITY OF IT. A Sufi won t bother to become part of a king’s court. He will avoid. In every way he will escape – even if the king is after him – because the court is the most mischievous place to be, the ugliest place to be, the most ill place to be. It is hell!

I have heard:

A great political leader died and went to that great eternal resting place. Upon arriving there, he was surprised at how similar the terrain was to home. ”My goodness,” he said to the nearest person, ”I never expected heaven to be so much like New Delhi!”

”Mister,” said the man, ”I’m sorry to inform you, but this is not heaven.... ”

Your capitals are the closest representations of hell. Your parliaments are more mad than any madhouses.

Why would a Sufi bother to be in a court? But this man, the father, said to the King:

”MIGHTY MAHMUD, I HAVE HAD THIS YOUTH, MY ELDEST AND MOST INTELLIGENT SON, SPECIALLY TRAINED IN THE WAYS OF THE SUFIS...”

Now, it is not a training at all! To be a Sufi is not a training. It is a sudden illumination... the lion’s roar. It is not a training, it is not a gradual process, it is not learning. A TEKKIA – a Sufi school – is not really a school in the ordinary sense, because the learning is not learning but unlearning.

When you go to a Sufi Master, he teaches you how to unlearn. He makes your slate clean. He effaces all that is written there. He makes you blank. Great fear arises!

Just the other night, Radha was there. Just a few days before, great fear arose in her, because she saw some abyss just in front of her... as if she is near a precipice, and the mind is losing its grip on her. Thousands of thoughts buzzing around, but getting distant and distant and farther away.

One becomes very much afraid because one has lived with these thoughts so long. One is perfectly at ease with these thoughts. Without them you will suddenly feel you are no more. They constitute your identity. Radha became very much afraid, so much afraid that she got a high fever. The fever had nothing to do with the body. It was not a fever of the physiology: it was a spiritual fever. Just OUT of fear, a great trembling came.

This moment comes to every disciple. Sooner or later, the Master leads you to the precipice, where your mind simply disappears and you ore left with a state of no-mind. This is not a training: this is really untraining. This it not learning: this is unlearning.

The Sufi Master does not help you to become more knowledgeable – he helps you to become absolutely innocent, IGNORANT. Yes, ignorant. He takes all the garbage from your head.

But the father said to the Emperor:

”I HAVE HAD MY MOST INTELLIGENT SON TRAINED SPECIALLY IN THE WAYS OF THE SUFIS, SO THAT HE MIGHT OBTAIN A WORTHY POSITION AT YOUR MAJESTY’S COURT...”

Now look for the motivation. Even if people pray, they pray for ugly things. One goes to a Sufi Master to learn something so that he can have a better position in the King’s court. People use religion also for irreligious purposes. This is sacrilegious. This is a sin – it is an unforgivable crime. God cannot be used for any other purposes. All purposes can be used for God, but God for none. God has to remain the supreme purpose, the supreme meaning, the ultimate end.

But it happens. That’s how our minds are.

MAHMUD DID NOT LOOK UP...

MUST HAVE BEEN A MEN OF UNDERSTANDING. It is not worth looking up at all, because if the boy has really been with a Sufi Master he would not be ready to come to the court. That would be absolutely certain.

MAHMUD DID NOT LOOK UP... it is not even worth looking at the boy... BUT HE MERELY SAID,

”BRING HIM BACK IN A YEAR.”

SLIGHTLY DISAPPOINTED...

Naturally. The father was putting much hope in his son. Just the other night a beautiful, intelligent woman was saying to me that she had come here with great expectations, and she is disappointed.

Now, what expectations can you have? And whatsoever expectations your mind weaves and spins are GOING TO BE WRONG! because your mind is wrong. And I am not here to fulfill anybody’s expectations.

If I fulfill YOUR expectations, how am I going to transform you?

I have to DESTROY your

expectations. I have to destroy the very mind that creates those expectations.

If you come to me, never come with expectations, otherwise you will be disappointed – because I have no obligation to fulfill your expectations in any way. In fact, if I see that there are some expectations, I do things DELIBERATELY to destroy those expectations. That is the price you have to pay to be with me.

SLIGHTLY DISAPPOINTED, BUT NURSING HIGH HOPES...

because it is only a question of one year more –

... ISKANDAR SENT ALI TO STUDY THE WORKS OF THE GREAT SUFIS OF THE PAST...

See the point! The man is utterly foolish. Now he sends the son to study the works of the past Masters. Religion is a spark; you can get it only from an alive Master, not from the dead ones.

Christ cannot help you. Buddha cannot help you. You will have to find a living Christ, a living Buddha – because the spark has to jump from one living heart into another living heart. Buddha helped many, but only when he was alive. And Christ helped many, but only when he was alive. A Master can help only when he is alive.

And there are people who were not even helped when Buddha was alive, and they are thinking now that they will be helped when-he is gone. You go on missing living Masters, and then you hope that you will be able to have some contact with the deed Masters? You are very cunning. This is the way to avoid the contact. You can go on pretending that you are such a religious person – you worship Buddha end you pray to Buddha and you read the Dhammapada and you recite his sayings, and you follow whatsoever he has said, you cultivate your character according to him, you live as he wanted his disciples to live... but all this is bogus, because the living fire is no more there.

Your lion’s roar can be provoked by another living lion – there is no other way.

... TO STUDY THE WORKS OF THE GREAT SUFIS OF THE PAST the son was sent again, AND

TO VISIT THE SHRINES OF THE ANCIENT MASTERS IN BAGHDAD... shrines!... SO THAT THE

INTERVENING TIME WOULD NOT BE WASTED.

The father must have been a businessman – ambitious. Business people think time is money, time should not be wasted. And their whole life is just a sheer wastage and nothing else.

Now this is a wastage! sending a young, alive boy to the shrines of dead Masters or to study classics.

But there are people whose whole mind remains businesslike: ”Use this time. Gather a little more knowledge. Go to the shrines. Be blessed by the old Masters so that you can attain to a high post in the court of the King.”

WHEN HE BROUGHT THE YOUTH BACK TO THE COURT, HE SAID, ”PEACOCK OF THE AGE!

MY SON HAS CARRIED OUT LONG AND DIFFICULT JOURNEYS...”

Yes, long and difficult journeys – but none of them is a Sufi journey. Because the Sufi journey is an inward journey! You need not go to Baghdad. You need not go anywhere. All that is needed is: you have to STOP going, and you have to fall into your own original source. You have to go in.

Lao Tzu has said: To know God one need not even leave his room... because God is in your innermost shrine.

”MY SON HAS CARRIED OUT LONG AND DIFFICULT JOURNEYS, AND AT THE SAME TIME

TO HIS KNOWLEDGE OF EXERCISES HE HAS ADDED A COMPLETE FAMILIARITY WITH THE

CLASSICS OF THE PEOPLE OF THE PATH. PRAY HAVE HIM EXAMINED...”

As if a Sufi understanding can be examined by anybody, as if there can be an examination for a Buddha.

”... SO THAT IT MAY BE SHOWN THAT HE COULD BE AN ADORNMENT OF YOUR MAJESTY’S

COURT.”

Sufism is not something that can be shown, proved, examined, certified, sanctioned. It is so interior.

It is so unavailable to the outer senses and outer criterions that only one who is a Sufi will recognize it. Nobody else can recognize it. If you are fast asleep, how can you recognize that somebody is awake? If you have never been awake, what do you know about wakefulness? What criterions are there? What values to use to judge? How to evaluate?

”LET HIM,” SAID MAHMUD IMMEDIATELY, ”RETURN AFTER ANOTHER YEAR.”

And why does Mahmud go on giving another year? Because to learn patience is one of the greatest qualities of a Sufi. To be utterly patient, infinitely patient, not in any hurry – that is the quality of a prayerful person. He does not ask: he waits. And in his waiting he is fulfilled. And those who ask, they go on asking and their asking is never fulfilled.

Jesus says: Ask and it shall be given to you. Sufis have a far profounder saying: Ask and it will not be given to you. Ask not – wait! and it shall be given to you. Wait in trust. Wait in deep understanding that when it is needed it will be given to you. God is the giver. When the real need arises, it WILL

be given, not a single moment will be lost.

DURING THE NEXT TWELVE MONTHS, HAIDAR ALI CROSSED THE OXUS AND VISITED

BOKHARA AND SAMARKAND, QASR-I-ARIFIN AND TASHQAND, DUSHAMBE AND THE

TURBATS OF THE SUFI SAINTS OF TURKESTAN.

Still moving into the world of the dead, going to the tombs of the ancient sages. Masters can always be found, alive, breathing, aflame with God. You need not go to tombs. The world is not yet so poor; God has not forsaken the world. God goes on sending his messengers. God goes on transforming people so that they can transform others. It is a chain. There is no need to go to Buddha – but you can find a Buddha.

But this is how our mind functions – mind is always interested in the past, never in the present. The mind is afraid of the present, because the present will destroy it. The present will take you beyond the mind. The past cannot destroy the mind: the past makes the mind more and more strong.

WHEN HE RETURNED TO THE COURT, MAHMUD OF GHAZNA TOOK ONE LOOK AT HIM...

Why now one look? He has at least been patient. At least one quality of the Sufis is settling.

MAHMUD LOOKED AT HIM AND SAID, ”HE MAY CARE TO COME BACK AFTER A FURTHER

YEAR.”

HAIDAR ALI MADE THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA IN THAT YEAR. HE TRAVEL LED TO INDIA, AND IN PERSIA HE CONSULTED RARE BOOKS AND NEVER MISSED AN OPPORTUNITY OF

SEEKING OUT AND PAYING HIS RESPECTS TO THE GREAT DERVISHES OF THE TIME.

Now things are changing. Haidar Ali is moving from the past to the present. The patience is bringing fruits. He is becoming aware of the futility of what he has been doing up to now.

He went to Mecca, he went to India, he went to Persia, consulted... and missed not a single opportunity OF SEEKING OUT AND PAYING HIS RESPECTS TO THE GREAT DERVISHES OF

THE TIME. Started moving in the search for those who were still alive – and there were many. They are always there. They wait for the seekers; they become available only to the disciples.

But still one thing was wrong: he went to many, from one to another. This is not the way to imbibe the spirit of a Master. One has to be with one in deep intimacy. You can go on moving from one to another, and you will never imbibe anybody’s spirit. One day you are with Buddha, another day you are with Christ, another day you are with Krishna... you will learn no-thing. How can you learn Krishna’s flute in one day? How can you learn Buddha’s silence in one day? How can you learn Christ’s compassion in one day? These are not seasonal flowers – they don’t grow so fast. These are like ancient cedars of Lebanon – they are huge trees, they take time, hundreds of years to penetrate deep into the earth, to rise high into the sky. They are not seasonal flowers! To attain to God is the greatest enterprise, the most arduous journey, and the greatest treasure.

You cannot just go on visiting and asking for blessings. There are a few people always like that.

Here also they come. They come for one day and they say, ”Osho, bless me.” And I ask, ”How long are you going to stay?” They say, ”I am going back tomorrow morning.” ”Why have you come? For what?” ”Just for your blessing.”

Blessings help, but only to those who are patient. Blessings help, but only those who are ready to risk, who are not in such a hurry. But people are stupid. They may waste years in the university to attain to a stupid degree, but to be with a Master they think one day is enough, a blessing is enough.

It is not. Great surrender is needed.

Something his changed in Haidar Ali. Now he is moving amongst the alive. But still one thing is wrong: he is moving too fast.

WHEN HE RETURNED TO GHAZNA, MAHMUD SAID TO HIM, ”NOW SELECT A TEACHER, IF

HE WILL HAVE YOU, AND COME BACK IN A YEAR.”

THIS MAN, MAHMUD. SEEMS TO BE OP GREAT UNDERSTANDING. Now he says, ”NOW select a teacher.” He had not said that up to now, because up to now Haidar Ali was moving with the dead.

How can you select? and there is no point in selecting: you are dead, your Masters are dead... how is life going to happen? If you want to give birth to a child, you don’t get married to a dead woman, or do you? You would like a young alive woman who can become a mother. Life happens only through the alive.

Mahmud could see it. Some shine had come to the young man’s eyes, some fragrance. He had moved amongst gardens where flowers were blooming. He said, ”Now, select a Master – this is no way. You have become a rolling stone; you will not gather any moss. Select a Master!”

And one very beautiful thing he says: ”IF HE WILL HAVE YOU.” Because you alone cannot select a Master. It does not depend only on you; in fact, it does not depend on you at all. You can only say, ”I am available, Master. If you choose me, I am ready – but if you choose me.” It is always the Master who chooses. It is not a question on the disciple’s part to choose. How can you choose? What do you know? Who is the Master? Who is the right Master? Out of your confusion, whatsoever you do will bring more confusion. Out of your chaos, whatsoever you do will bring more chaos.

The Master chooses.

But the disciple has to make himself available. That’s what Mahmud says: ”NOW SELECT A MASTER, IF HE WILL HAVE YOU – if somebody is ready to have you, if somebody is ready to accept you.”

Remember always: when a Master accepts you, you have been blessed. But foolish people think otherwise: they think THEY are surrendering. Just the other day somebody was asking: ”Why should I surrender to you?” as if you have something to surrender, something very precious. You have nothing.

The Master takes away things that you don’t have, and gives you things that you already have. He helps you to get rid of illusions – and the ego is the greatest illusion. But when a foolish person goes to a Master, he thinks he is putting the Master under some great obligation, he is obliging the Master

– he is surren-dering. ”Look! A man of my caliber is surrendering.”

Remember always: if you are chosen you are fortunate.

”NOW SELECT A MASTER, IF HE WILL HAVE YOU, AND COME BACK IN A YEAR.”

WHEN THE YEAR WAS OVER AND ISKANDAR KHAN PREPARED TO TAKE HIS SON TO THE

COURT, HAIDAR ALI SHOWED NO INTEREST AT ALL IN GOING THERE. HE SIMPLY SAT AT

THE FEET OF HIS TEACHER IN HERAT, AND NOTHING THAT HIS FATHER COULD SAY WOULD

MOVE HIM.

This is becoming a Sufi. Now he is aflame. Now he is no more the same old young man. He is a totally new being – he is reborn.

The Master has taken him in his womb, created him anew.

This is rebirth. Iskandar Khan still thinks he is his son – he is no more.

When a man meets a Master, all other relationships are dissolved. Then there is no more any father, no more any mother, no more any son, wife, husband. Then all relationships ARE dissolved.

Then all other relationships are only drama, games. Then all relationships are dissolved into one relationship... and that is with the Master.

Now what does he care about the court? Haidar Ali showed NO interest at all! When you have known the real treasure, when you have seen the real kingdom, who bothers about stupid things?

HE SIMPLY SAT AT THE FEET OF HIS TEACHER IN HERAT...

Now THIS is his kingdom, and this is his court. The Sufi Master’s satsang is called ’his court’, because it is his kingdom; he is the emperor there. And he goes on sharing his kingdom, his infinite treasure. Now just to be at his feet is more than anything else. What to say about being a part of the king’s court? Even if it were proposed that he should become the king, he wouldn’t listen. He HAS

become the king – and of a kingdom that even death cannot take away.

And to be at the feet of the Master is the greatest joy there is. It is heaven. In that love, in that intimacy, in that relatedness, all that has always been missing is no more missing – one has come home.

HAIDAR ALI SHOWED NO INTEREST AT ALL IN GOING THERE. HE SIMPLY SAT AT THE FEET

OF HIS TEACHER IN HERAT, AND NOTHING THAT HIS FATHER COULD SAY WOULD MOVE

HIM.

”I HAVE WASTED MY TIME, AND MY MONEY, AND THIS YOUNG MAN HAS FAILED THE TESTS

IMPOSED BY MAHMUD THE KING...”

He has passed. But according to his father’s understanding, he has failed. To pass in the world of a Sufi is a totally different phenomenon.

Buddha had failed in the eyes of his father – and anybody would think so, the majority would agree with Buddha’s father. He was born a king and now he has become a beggar – what more failure...?

When a beggar becomes a king we call it success. But those who know, they know Buddha has succeeded.

MEANWHILE, THE DAY WHEN THE YOUTH WAS DUE TO PRESENT HIMSELF CAME AND

WENT, AND THEN MAHMUD SAID TO HIS COURTIERS, ”PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR A VISIT

TO HERAT – THERE IS SOMEONE THERE WHOM I HAVE TO SEE.”

The same young man who used to come again and again – and the first time Mahmud had not even looked at him. Something has happened! The day has come, and the day is gone, and the father went to Herat to bring the boy, and the boy has not come.

The message must have reached him that the father thinks the boy has failed, that the father has abandoned the whole affair.

AS THE EMPEROR’S CAVALCADE WAS ENTERING HERAT TO THE FLOURISH OF TRUMPETS, HAIDAR ALI’S TEACHER TOOK HIM BY THE HAND, LED HIM TO THE GATE OF THE TEKKIA, AND THERE THEY WAITED.

Now, even the Master cannot convince him, that he has to go – the Master has to take him by the hand. The disciple is drunk, he is no more. He is utterly fulfilled. He won’t listen even to what the Master is saying. The Master has to take him physically by the hand.

SHORTLY AFTERWARDS, MAHMUD AND HIS COURTIER AYAZ, TAKING OFF THEIR SHOES, PRESENTED THEMSELVES AT THE SANCTUARY.

”HERE, MAHMUD,” SAID THE SUFI SHEIK, ”IS THE MAN WHO WAS NOTHING WHILE HE WAS

A VISITOR OF KINGS, BUT WHO IS NOW ONE WHO IS VISITED BY KINGS. TAKE HIM AS YOUR

SUFI COUNSELOR – FOR HE IS READY.”

Only a Master can recognize whether a disciple is ready or not. Only one who is awakened can see whether others are awakened or not. The Master gives him as a gift to Mahmud, and says:

”HERE, MAHMUD, IS THE MAN WHO WAS NOTHING WHILE HE WAS A VISITOR OF KINGS...”

This is the beauty of this world of God: when you rush after desires you remain a beggar; when you stop rushing, all that you have been rushing for starts coming to you of its own accord. When you ask, it is not given. When you don’t ask, it showers on you.

There is a tremendously beautiful saying of Jesus. I am never tired of quoting it again and again.

Jesus says: Those who have, more shall be given to them. And those who don’t have, even that which they have will be taken away from them.

A strange statement to make – very strange. Because our ordinary mathematics, arithmetic, socialism, communism, etcetera will say that: Give to those who don’t have. But Jesus says: Those who have, more shall be given to them; and those who don’t have, even that which they have shall be taken away from them. This is the fundamental law. If you are happy, more happiness comes to you. If you are joyous, you attract more joyousness. Like attracts like. If you are miserable, more misery starts moving towards you.

YOU CREATE your world. Don’t make anybody else responsible for it – it is always you who are responsible.

The Master said:

”THIS IS THE MAN WHO WAS NOTHING WHILE HE WAS A VISITOR OF KINGS, BUT WHO IS

NOW ONE WHO IS VISITED BY KINGS. TAKE HIM AS YOUR SUFI COUNSELOR – FOR HE IS

READY.”

THIS IS THE STORY OF THE STUDIES OF HIRAVI, HAIDAR ALI JAN, THE SAGE OF HERAT.

And then he became known as the Sage of Herat.

This is a small story, but if you ponder over it it will reveal many secrets to you. It will reveal to you the true meaning of religion. It is a flame that jumps from the heart of the Master to the heart of the disciple. It is a transmission beyond words, beyond scriptures.....

CHAPTER 8

The Bell Tolls for Thee

8 July 1978 am in Buddha Hall

The first question:

Question 1

YOU HAVE SPOKEN EXTENSIVELY ON KNOWLEDGE. KINDLY EXPLAIN THE THINGS THAT

ARE INCLUDED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF BEING.

ANAND VEETRAG, BEING NEVER DEVELOPS. BEING SIMPLY IS. There is no evolution. There is no time involved in it. It is eternity. It is not becoming. Spiritually, you never develop, you cannot.

As far as the ultimate goal is concerned, you are already there. You have never been anywhere else.

Then what is development? Development is only a kind of awakening to the truth that you are. The truth does not grow: only recognition grows, remembrance grows.

That’s why I have not talked about the development of being. I talk about all the hindrances that are preventing your recognition. And knowledge is the greatest hindrance. Hence I have talked about it extensively. It is the barrier.

If you know that you know, you will never know. If you know that you know, what is the point of knowing? You can go on sleeping and dreaming.

The moment you recognize that you don’t know, that recognition of ignorance goes like an arrow into the heart, pierces you like a spear. In that very piercing, one becomes aware – in that very shock.

Knowledge is a kind of shock-absorber. It does not allow you to be shaken and shocked. It goes on protecting you. It is an arm our around you. I speak about knowledge, against knowledge, so that you can drop the arm our, so that life can shock you into awareness.

Life is there ready to shock you every moment. Your being is there inside you ready to be awakened any moment, but between these two there is knowledge. And the more of it there is, the more your self-awakening will be delayed.

Become unknowledgeable.

And never think of spirituality as a growth. It is not a growth. You are already Gods, Buddhas, from the very beginning. It is not that you have to become Buddhas: the treasure is there – only you don’t know where you have put it. You have forgotten the key, or you have forgotten how to use the key.

You are so drunk with knowledge that you have become oblivious of all that you are. Knowledge is alcoholic; it makes people drunk. Then their perception is blurred, then their remembrance is at the minimum. Then they start seeing things which are not, and they stop seeing things which are.

That’s why, Veetrag, I have not talked about how to evolve your being. Being is already as it should be, it is perfect. Nothing is needed to be added to it, nothing can be added to it. It’s God’s creation. It comes out of perfection, hence it is perfect. Just withdraw all the hindrances that you have created.

And our whole society goes on working, endeavouring, to create hindrances.

A child is born. Immediately we start creating hindrances in him. We create comparison m him: ”Somebody else is more .beautiful than you, and somebody else is healthier than you, and somebody else’s child – look! look at his marks, at his grades, at his intelligence, and what are you doing?”

We start creating comparison. Comparison brings inferiority and superiority – and both are illnesses, hindrances. Now the child will never think about himself; he will always think in comparison to somebody else. The poison of comparison has entered in him. Now he is going to remain miserable.

Now the bliss of being will become more and more impossible.

Everyone is born unique. No comparison is possible. You are you, and I am me. A Buddha is a Buddha, and a Christ is a Christ. And no comparison is possible. If you compare, you create superiority, inferiority – the ways of the ego. And then, of course, great desire arises to compete, great desire arises to defeat others. And you remain in fear of whether you are going to make it or not, because it is a very violent struggle: everybody is trying the same – to become the first!

Millions of people are trying to become the first. Great violence, aggression, hatred, enmity, arises.

Life becomes a hell. If you are defeated, you are miserable. And there are many more chances of being defeated. And even if you succeed you are not happy, because the moment you succeed you become afraid. Now somebody else is going to take it from you. The competitors are all around, violently after you.

Before you succeeded you were afraid whether you were going to make it or not; now you have succeeded, you have the money and the power, now you are afraid – somebody is going to take it away from you. Before you were trembling, now you are trembling. Those who are failures are miserable, and those who are succeeders, they are miserable.

In this world, it is very difficult to find a happy man – because nobody is fulfilling the condition of being happy. The first condition is: drop all comparison. Drop all stupid ideas of being superior and inferior. You are neither superior nor inferior. You are simply yourself! Three exists NO ONE like you with whom you can be compared. Then suddenly you are at home.

And we start poisoning the children’s minds with knowledge. We start teaching them things that they don’t know. We teach them about God. We are teaching them a lie. This God is not going to be a true God – they don’t know. We are forcing them to believe. And belief will become their knowledge.

And belief CANNOT really become knowing; it will be only a pretension. Their whole life they will think they know, and they will never know. The foundation has been laid in untruth.

We teach children that ”You have an immortal soul.” What nonsense you are teaching to them! And I am not saying there is no immortal soul, and I am not saying that there is no God, mind you. I am saying these things should not be taught as beliefs. They are existential experiences. The child has to be helped to explore into his inner world.

Rather than helping him in exploration we hand him ready made knowledge. That ready-made knowledge becomes his greatest problem. How to drop it?

That’s why I have spoken extensively on the stupidity of knowledge. It is ignorance masquerading as knowledge. The moment you drop it you will be again a child – fresh, alive, vibrant, curious; full of wonder will be your eyes. And your heart will start throbbing again with the mystery of life. AND

the exploration begins – and with that, the awareness. More and more you become aware of this inner consciousness that you have been carrying all along, but it has become too much stuffed with knowledge. So whenever you go in, you never find consciousness; you always find some content floating in consciousness. Knowledge is like clouds in the sky.

Right now, there are so many clouds in the sky. If you look at the sky you will not find the sky at all, only clouds and clouds.

That is the state of a knowledgeable man’s mind: thoughts, scriptures, great theories, dogmas, doctrines, float like clouds, and he cannot see the pure sky.

Let these clouds disappear. And they are of your own making; they are there because you are clinging to them. They are there because you go on holding onto them. Loosen your grip, let them go, then there is a pristine clarity of the sky, the absolute infinity of the sky. That is freedom. That is consciousness. That is TRUE knowing.

A great Western philosopher, one of the greatest, David Hume, has written... hearing again and again from the great mystics, ”Know thyself!” he says, ”I also tried one day to know myself. I closed my eyes and went in. I found a few desires, a few thoughts, memories, dreams, imaginations... and things like that. But I could not find anybody else there. I could not find myself.”

This is the true depiction of almost everybody’s mind, except a few Buddhas. If you go in, what will you find? Contents, clouds moving around. And even such an intelligent person like David Hume could not see the point: Who is it who is looking at the contents? Who is this awareness that is finding a few memories, desires floating around? Of course, THIS witness cannot be a desire. THIS

witness cannot be an imagination. THIS witness cannot be any thought. All is passing in front of this witness. And he was looking for the witness! Now, you cannot look for the witness as an object.

The only way to know the witness is to drop ALL content and become utterly empty. When there is nothing to see, your capacity to see turns upon itself.

That’s what Jesus calls conversion. When there is nothing e!Be to see, one starts seeing oneself.

When there is nothing to hinder, the consciousness is pure, and in that purity it becomes self conscious .

And when I use the word ’self-conscious’ I don’t mean your self-consciousness.

Your self-

consciousness is not self-consciousness – it is just ego-consciousness. You don’t know who you are; how can you be self-conscious? Your self-consciousness is a disease You become self-conscious only when you are facing people. If you are to deliver a speech you become self-conscious. And because of that self-consciousness, you become SO disturbed, almost paralyzed. Or if you are playing a part in a drama, you become self-conscious.

Your self-consciousness is nothing but the desire of the ego to perform a dying so perfectly that everybody appreciates it.

When I am talking about self-consciousness I mean when all has disappeared and there is no other content left the mirror reflects itself.

It is like when a small candle is burning in a room. It reflects the walls, it reflects the furniture, it reflects the painting on the wall, it reflects the roof For a moment think: the walls have disappeared, the painting is no more, the roof has disappeared – ALL has disappeared, only the small candle is burning. Now what will it reflect? It will only reflect itself; it will only be self luminous.

This is the state of being.

Drop knowledge. Drop comparison. Drop false identities And this WHOLE process is negative!

Drop this, drop that... and go on dropping. Go on dropping till nothing is left to drop... and then it is there, God is there.

The second question:

Question 2

BELOVED OSHO, WHEN YOU SPEAK OF THE BEAUTIFUL QUALITIES OF A DISCIPLE AND

THE DEEP INTIMACY BETWEEN HIM AND THE MASTER, WHEN YOU TELL US OF THE GUTS

AND COURAGE OF THE DISCIPLE AS HE FACES THE ABYSS, WHEN YOU DESCRIBE THE

ECSTATIC TRANSFORMATION WHICH HAPPENS TO THE TRUE DISCIPLE WHO JUST WAITS

PATIENTLY AND SILENTLY... I DESPAIR.

WHEN YOU TALK OF THE SPIRITUAL FEVER, ALL I GET IS A COLD.

DEAR MASTER – ARE YOU SURE YOU CHOSE ME?

YES, YATRI, I AM ABSOLUTELY SURE – I HAVE CHOSEN YOU. But you are still hesitating. You have not chosen me yet. Not that you don’t want to choose me – you want and yet you are hesitating.

You have been standing for all these years on the threshold – in a kind of constant hesitation. Your hesitation is chronic. And you know you cannot go back. You cannot go back – that is impossible –

but you are not going forward either. Hence the despair.

When I talk about the trust, the love, the patience, of the disciple, I am talking about you as much as about anybody else. And you have the potential! But you are completely oblivious of your potential.

You can grow into a huge tree of love and trust, but you are so hesitant that you won’t allow your seed to drop in the soil and disappear.

And your hesitation is nothing special. EVERY intelligent person is hesitant; it is part of intelligence.

The mind wants to take everything into account before it takes a step. That’s why it happens sometimes: fools prove more courageous than the so-called intelligent. And it happens sometimes that fools reach faster than the so-called intelligent. Fools act and the intelligent person simply contemplates; he never acts. But just by contemplating a thing, nothing ever happens. And if contemplation becomes your chronic habit, then you are caught into it. Then one thing leads to another, and you go on moving in a circle. And the circle i5 vicious.

Yatri, you are an intelligent person. That is your problem. That can become your great joy too! If you take the jump... it is difficult for the intelligent person to take the jump, but if he takes it, then naturally his flowering is far greater than the flowering of the unintelligent. His experience is multi-dimensional. And it is not only that his experience is a great celebration to him, he is also capable of sharing it with others. He can communicate it to others. The unintelligent may reach, but will not be heir to share; will be able to know, but will not be able to show.

So with the intelligent there is a problem: the problem is how to act, because the intelligence goes on keeping him hesitant, goes on keeping him in a state of paralysis: ”To be or not to be? To do or not to do?” And he goes on thinking about pros and cons, and there is no end to it. This is his problem! But if HE takes the jump, then there is great beauty in his jump. He will know, and he will be able to express it too. He will be able to spread it too .

And there is a kind of bliss when you spread, when you share, when you start overflowing.

You ask me, Yatri:

DEAR MASTER – ARE YOU SURE YOU CHOSE ME?

I have chosen you, otherwise you would not have been here. Even though I have chosen you, you are only half here. Left to yourself you would not have been here at all. You are not here because of you – that much is absolutely certain. You are here because of me. And you are here in a reluctant way, as if always ready to escape, as if always ready to find an excuse to escape.

This is wasting opportunity. This is wasting something immensely valuable. The time that is wasted will not come back again to you. Gather courage! And I tell you: you have nothing to lose. Gather courage – you have all to gain and nothing to lose.

Even then, people are so much afraid. Even then, they go on thinking whether it is worth taking the risk. And they never think that they have nothing to lose – so why be so afraid? What risk? Risk is there if you have something to lose. Risk IS in remaining hesitant, because one day I am here...

one day I may not be here. Who knows about tomorrow? And when I am gone, then you will repent.

But then it will be pointless, it will be too late.

I have chosen you. And I have chosen you because I know the potential.

Just the other night, I gave sannyas to a beautiful woman, Avodha. She said she had not come here to take sannyas. She had not even thought about it. It is just out of the blue. I told her I have chosen her. It is not her choice. She had come here almost like a driftwood. Her coming was accidental.

She had come without knowing what was going to happen – out of curiosity, intellectual interest.

She is a therapist, must have become curious about what is happening here. She had come to see.

She had come to be a spectator, a watcher. She had not come to become committed and to become involved. But it has happened.

I have chosen her. She has great potential. She has a great possibility to open up, to bloom. I have chosen her; my work is done from my side. Now she can become a Yatri – she is also very intelligent. She can start hesitating. That will be wasting time. She can take the jump, and I hope she will take it. This has been my experience, that women are more courageous than men, because they know how to love. They know how to sacrifice all for love. Their love has a kind of totality in it.

Man’s love remains a fragment of his life. Yes, an important part, but only a part; one thing amongst many things. But with a woman it is all her life, her whole heart, her whole being.

It is not just accidental that many more women became enlightened with Bud&a than men. Many more women became enlightened with Mahavir than men. Many more women have become enlightened down the ages than men. But you will be surprised: their names are not known. All the great Masters seem to be men. Very rarely, once, few and far between, you find one Rabia, one Meera, one Lalla – but very rarely. Why has this happened?

The capacity of the woman is to receive. Women have been the greatest disciples ever. That comes naturally to them – to receive. They are wombs, receptivities. They can absorb. They can drink the Master as totally as possible. Women are cannibals! They can eat the Master, they can digest him.

They become great disciples. But to be a Master is difficult for them, because to be a Master you have to do just the reverse: you have to start giving. That comes easier to a man. Receiving is very difficult for a man. Giving is not difficult, it is easier. That’s how biologically, psychologically, he is made.

So let me say it to you: many more women have become enlightened down the ages than men, but still more men became Masters than women. It is a natural capacity.

So, I don’t feel that Avodha will miss like Yatri. Yatri also need not miss any more – enough is enough! Take the jump. You can TAKE it! Everybody can take it. God is everybody’s birthright .

The third question:

Question 3

WHY ARE YOU SO MUCH AGAINST RITUALS AND RULES?

BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT RELIGION, and they cannot be religion. I am against rituals, but that does not mean that a religious person cannot go into a ritual. But when a religious person goes into a ritual, it is not a ritual at all. His heart is in it; then his words have wings.

So remember it: I am against the ritual when there is no heart in it. Then it is a ritual! But if there is a heart... just remember those three mystics, those three Russian mystics, praying to God: ”You are three, we are three – have mercy on us!” This too is a ritual, a simple one, of their own invention; this too is a prayer – but their heart was in it.

A famous story about Moses:

He was passing through a forest. He saw a man praying. But the man who was praying was saying such absurd things that he could not go further. He had to stop the man. What he was saying was profane, sacrilegious. He was saying to God: ”God, you must be feeling sometimes very alone – I can come and be always with you like a shadow. You can depend on me You need not be alone.

Why suffer loneliness when I am here? And I am not a useless person either – I can be of much use, I can be handy. I will give you a good bath. I can massage too. I am a shepherd. And I will take all the lice from your hair and your body...”

Lice? Moses could not believe his ears: ”What is he talking about?”

”And I will cook food for you. And do you know what? – everybody likes what I cook. It is delicious.

And I will prepare your bed and I will wash your clothes. And I can do a thousand and one things!

And when you are ill I will take care of you. I will be a mother to you, a wife to you, a servant, a slave

– I can be Al kinds of things. Just give me a hint so I can come .”

Moses stopped him and said, ”Listen! What kind of prayer is this? What are you doing? To whom are you talking? Lice in God’s hair? He needs a bath? And you are saying ’I will rub your body and make it absolutely clean’? Stop this nonsense. This is not prayer. God will be offended by you.”

Looking at Moses, the man fell at his feet. He said, ”I am sorry. I am an illiterate, ignorant man. I don’t know how to pray. Please, you teach me!”

So Moses taught him the right way to pray, and he was very happy because he had put a man on the right track. Happy, puffed up in his ego, Moses went away.

And when he was alone in the forest, a very thundering voice came from the sky and said, ”Moses, I have sent you into the world to bring people to me, to bridge people with me, but not to take my lovers away from me. And that’s exactly what you have done. That man is one of the MOST intimate to me. Go back! Apologize. Take your prayer back! You have destroyed the whole beauty of his dialogue. He is sincere. He is loving. His love is true. Whatsoever he was saying, he was saying from his heart. It was not a ritual. Now what you have given to him is just a ritual. He will repeat it but it will be only on the lips; it will not be out of his being.”

I am not against prayer, I am against the ritualistic prayer – BECAUSE IT IS NOT PRAYER, that’s why I am against it. Don’t learn empty gestures. Let your gestures be alive, spontaneous. Otherwise, deep down you know that this is a ritual, deep down you know that this is just a formality you are performing. And if that is your feeling inside, what is the point of going into it?

During a race riot in Detroit, the police stopped a black man driving an automobile which had a white pillow-case flying from the radio antenna.

”What’s that for?” asked a patrolman.

”It’s a white pillow-case,” explained the driver, ”to show that I’m neutral!”

The policeman quickly frisked him and discovered a pistol in his pocket.

”Neutral, eh?” said the cop. ”Then what’s this gun for?”

”In case somebody don’t believe it,” said the driver.

But that’s what your rituals are. Deep down, you know that they are rituals. You yourself don’t believe in them. They have been taught to you, you have been conditioned for them. You go on repeating them mechanically, robot like. If you don’t repeat them, you feel something is missed; if you repeat them nothing is gained. And there is no understanding behind them.

”No,” said Clarabelle. ”Ah’m not that kind of girl. Besides, the grass is wet, Mama said I shouldn’t, and two bits ain’t enough.”

What you have been told by others is never going to become your true life. It will remain superficial.

And not only that: your true life will remain absolutely against it. And all the rituals that you have learnt, you have learnt from others who had learnt them from somebody else. They don’t know what they are doing. They don’t know what they are teaching you.

So on the surface you learn one thing: deep down you learn quite another. Deep down, you learn falsity. Deep down you learn hypocrisy.

His grandmother watched the boy eat his soup with the wrong spoon, grasp the utensils with the wrong fingers, eat the main course with his hands, and pour tea into the saucer and blow on it.

”Hasn’t watching your mother and dad at the dinner table taught you anything?”

”Yeah,” said the boy. ”Never to get married.”

People are learning on two levels: on one level what you are teaching, on another level what you are. Small children are very perceptive; they go on seeing all the falsities. You cannot cheat a small child; he is very intuitive. He knows! And even if he allows you to cheat him, he knows that you are cheating and he knows that he is being cheated and he is allowing it, but he is just playing a game.

He is enjoying it! You think you are cheating him, he thinks he is cheating you.

I am against rituals because they have killed the spirit of religion in the world. But I am not saying don’t pray, but let the prayer arise. Let it be of your own. Let it be of your own feeling. Don’t repeat it parrot-like.

I am not against rules, but the rules should arise out of your understanding. They should not be imposed from the outside. I am not against discipline! but discipline should not be slavery. All true discipline is self-discipline. And self-discipline is never against freedom – in fact, it is the ladder to freedom. Only disciplined people become free, but their discipline is not obedience to others: their discipline is obedience to their own inner voice. And they are ready to risk anything for it.

Let your own awareness decide your life-style, life-pattern. Don’t allow anybody else to decide it.

That is a sin: to allow anybody else to decide it. Why is it a sin? – because you will never be in it. It will remain superficial, it will be hypocrisy.

The fourth question:

Question 4

BELOVED OSHO, UNLIKE YASHODHARA, SHEELA HAS INFORMED ME THAT SHE WON’T BE

MAD IF I LEAVE HER AND DON’T TELL HER – JUST AS LONG AS I LEAVE.

CHINMAYA, YASHODHARA WAS NOT MY SANNYASIN. Sheela is. So beware – don’t leave her in the hope that she will be sad or mad. If you leave her there is going to be celebration. Orangelujah!

Great celebration! So there is no point in leaving her.

The fifth question:

Question 5

IS THERE ANY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN UNDERSTANDING AND ENERGY?

SANTOSH, YES. THERE IS great relationship. In fact, to call it relationship is not right – because energy IS understanding. They are not two things.

What kind of energy is understanding? When the energy is unoccupied, it becomes understanding.

When energy is occupied, it remains ignorance, it remains: unconsciousness.

For example, your sex energy is occupied with a woman or with a man. It will remain ignorance –

because the energy is focussed on the object, it is going outward, it is extrovert. If the energy is freed from the object, where will it go? It will start falling into the subject, into your inner source. And energy falling back into the source becomes understanding, becomes awareness.

And I am not saying be against sex. No. But let sex be more a subjective phenomenon than an objective phenomenon. And that is the difference between sex and love. Love is subjective, sex is objective.

You become interested in a woman or in a man as an object. And sooner or later the interest will be finished, because once you have explored the object, then nothing is left. Then you are ready to move to somebody else. Yes, the woman looks beautiful but how long can she look beautiful?

An object is an object. She is not yet a person to you. She is just a beautiful object. It is insulting.

You are reducing a soul into an object, a subjectivity into an object. You are trying to exploit, .you are turning her into a means. Your energy will remain ignorant. And you will go on moving from one woman to another, and your energy will go on remaining in a circle. It will never come back home.

Love means you are not interested in the woman or the man as an object. In fact, you are not there to exploit her. You are not there to get something from her. On the contrary, you are so full of energy, you would like to give some energy to her. Love gives. Sex only wants to get.

And when love gives, it remains subjective, it remains rooted into oneself. Lovers help each other to be more and more themselves. Lovers help each other not to disappear, but to become authentically individual. Lovers help each other to be centered. Love is respect, reverence, worship. It is not exploitation. Love is understanding. Because energy is unoccupied with the object, it remains free, untethered to anything. And that brings the transformation. It accumulates inside you.

And remember: just as it happens in the world of physics, so it happens in the world of metaphysics.

After a certain quantity of energy... the qualitative change happens. The qualitative change is nothing but quantitative change.

For example, if you heat water up to a hundred degrees it evaporates. Up to ninety-nine it has not evaporated; it is still water – hot, but still water. But beyond a hundred, it evaporates – it is no more water. It has changed its form. The transformation has happened.

Just like that, when your energy accumulates and you don’t go on wasting it on objects.... And people ARE wasting it on objects. Somebody is interested in money – he puts his whole energy on the money. Of course, he accumulates much money, but in accumulating it he dies, dissipates, becomes empty, becomes a beggar. Money goes on accumulating and he goes on becoming more and more beggarly. Somebody puts his energy into politics, into power. He becomes a prime minister, but deep down he is a beggar. He may be the greatest beggar in the country....

If you put your energy into objects, you will live a life of non-understanding, unawareness. Don’t put your energy into objects. Let energy fall into your being. Let it accumulate. Let your life become a great reservoir. Let your energy just be there without any occupation. And at a certain point... the jump, the quantum leap, the transformation. And energy becomes luminous, turns into awareness, becomes understanding.

You ask, Santosh: IS THERE ANY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN UNDERSTANDING AND ENERGY?

Yes, there is. It is energy that becomes understanding. So when you are depleted of energy, you start losing your understanding. When you are tired, your intelligence is less. You have observed it. In the mowing your intelligence is more fresh than in the evening. In the morning you are more understanding, more compassionate, more loving, than in the evening.

Have you observed? – beggars come in the morning to beg. They understand the psychology. In the evening, who is going to give to them? People are so angry by that time, so frustrated with life. In the mowing, they have rested the whole night, a deep sleep, the energy is fresh – eight hours accumulation of energy. They have more understanding, more compassion, more love, more sympathy. It is possible to persuade them to give something to you. They have, so they can give.

By the evening, they don’t have; they have lost all they had. They are dead tired.

Children are more understanding – have you observed. it or not? – than the old people. Old people become very very hard, cruel, cunning. Their whole life they have remained occupied with objects.

ALL old people become Machiavellian. Young children are innocent, trusting, closer to Buddhas.

Why? – the energy is overflowing.

Young children learn things so fast. Why? The energy is there, hence the intelligence. The older you become, the more difficult it becomes to learn a thing. They say it is difficult to teach an old dog new tricks. Why? It should not be so, because the dog knows so many tricks, he can learn a few more. It should be easier for him because he has learnt so much. He has practiced learning so much that he can learn a few more easily. But that is not so.

Children learn fast. If a child is born in a town where five languages are spoken, he starts learning all five; he becomes efficient in all five languages. They all become his mother languages. A child has infinite capacity to learn. And the reason is only one: his energy is still overflowing. Soon it will be dissipated in life.

The man of meditation becomes the man of understanding because his energy accumulates. He is not wasting it. He is not interested in trivia; he does not put any energy at all into petty things. So whenever the time arises to give, he has to give.

Energy is understanding. Be conscious of it and use your energy very consciously, and use your energy in such a way that you don’t simply go on wasting it.

The sixth question:

Question 6

WHAT IS THE EGO?

IT IS A FALSE ENTITY. It is not. There are two great falsities in the world. One is ego and another is death. These two things exist not. And they are not separate, they are joined together. They are aspects of the same coin; two aspects of the same untruth.

If you have ego, then you will be afraid of death, then death is bound to come – because you are clinging to a falsity. How long can you cling to it? Sooner or later you will have to see that it is false.

You can go on avoiding, you can go on delaying and postponing, but not for ever.

Death is the death of the ego. And ego is not in the first place. So a person who becomes free of ego also becomes free of death. Then there is nobody to die!

It is like: a great wave in the ocean believes that ”I am, and I am separate from the ocean.” This is ego. Soon the great wave will disappear in the ocean. Then it will feel death. And even while it is there, high in the sky, dancing the dance, whispering with the winds, having a dialogue with the sun, still the fear will be there, that sooner or later it is going to die. Because other waves are dying! And just a moment before they were alive.

You are living amongst people who are dying, continuously somebody or other dies. THE BELL

TOLLS FOR THEE. Don’t send anybody to ask FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS – IT TOLLS FOR

THEE. Whenever somebody dies, it brings home the truth that you are going to die. But WHY

did somebody die? Why in the first place? Because the wave believed itself to be separate from the ocean. If the wave knew that ”I am not separate from the ocean,” where is death? That wave becomes a Sufi. That wave becomes a Buddha. The wave who knows that ”I am not separate from the ocean. I am the ocean. SO HUM – I am that;” then there is no death.

Ego is a false entity. It is needed – just as your name is needed. Your name is a false entity.

Everybody is born without any name. But we have to give a certain name, otherwise it will be impossible in the world – how to call him? How to address him? How to send a letter to him? How to give money or borrow money from him? How to drag him to the court? It will be so impossible if everybody is nameless. It will be sheer chaos! This world cannot exist; it will be a totally different kind of world.

And it will be very difficult to remember who your wife is and who your son is and who your husband is. All will be chaos. Names are needed, labels are needed. But they are false. They are utilitarian, but they are not true. When you give the name to the child, you are giving a name to the nameless.

And exactly like that is the ego. The name is for others to use and the ego is for yourself to use. You will have to say ’1’. You will have to say, ”I am thirsty.” The reality is only that there is thirst. But if you go and suddenly declare in the marketplace, ”There is thirst!” then it will be very difficult – who is thirsty? Where is it? You have to say, ”I am thirsty.” That ”I am thirsty” is just utilitarian. In reality all that is is thirst, hunger, love. These things are true, but the ’I’ is just needed to manage your life.

If you understand this, there is no problem. You can use it and you can know that you are not separate from existence. I also use the word ’I’ – Bud&a uses it, Krishna uses it, Christ uses it. It cannot be dropped. There is no need to drop it! You just have to see the point that the word is utilitarian – useful in day-to-day life, but has no existential status.

Don’t be befooled by the word. Don’t start believing that the word is the reality. But it happens. I have heard Charles de Gaulle was a very egoistic person, as politicians are bound to be. A story is told about him:

One winter night upon retiring, his wife shivered and said, ”My God, it’s cold.”

Yielding slightly, de Gaulle replied, ”In bed, Madam, you may call me Charles.”

People can start believing. Then you have given the word a reality which is not there, which does not belong there.

The MacGregor of Scotland were all big, husky, country men. They knew the wilds of their own surroundings, but had little use for the finer aspects of civilization. When a problem arose with respect to their land rights, the head of the clan – known as The MacGregor – sent to the university in Edinburgh for an attorney.

The city lawyer was pale and slight next to the clansmen, but he had the expertise they needed, so he was generously thanked and invited to share the MacGregor’ gargantuan dinner. Entering the huge dining hall, the lawyer was pointed to one end of the table overflowing with food.

The lawyer, not wanting to usurp the master’s place at the head of the table, said, ”Oh, sir, I could not sit in the chair of The MacGregor himself.”

”You may sit,” The MacGregor assured him, ”since it is he himself who invites you to do so.”

Looking around at the tall sons beside him, the lawyer backed off further.. ”Only The MacGregor should sit at the head of the table,” he said.

The MacGregor laughed heartily and clapped the attorney on the back. ”Sit where you are told, you foolish little man, for wherever The MacGregor sits, THERE is the head of the table.”

The ego is just a belief in your specialness, in your personality, a BELIEF in yourself – and the belief is utterly false, not based in truth at all.

I am not. You are not. Only God is. Know it, and then you can use the word. But then it is just a word. It does not denote any reality. Only one is. Many are appearances. Many are false. Falseness consists of many and multiplicity. Truth consists of one.

The seventh question:

Question 7

BELOVED OSHO, I CANNOT LOOK INTO YOUR EYES. AS SOON AS I SEE YOU MY EYES

CLOSE. AND I DON’T KNOW IF IT IS COWARDICE AND FEAR OR A NATURAL HAPPENING.

PLEASE TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON.

ARUP, SO IT HAS HAPPENED! IT IS NOTHING BUT PURE LOVE. Don’t make it a problem. Don’t think about it – allow it. The more you love me, the more it will happen, because love can know even with closed eyes, love can see even with closed eyes.

Without love, even open eyes are not open. And with love even closed eyes are open. And when the outer eyes close, the inner eye opens.

And how long are you going to see me with the outer eyes? Sooner or later you have to dissolve into the inner.

You are fortunate, Arup, it is a blessing. Don’t make a problem out of it.

The mind is such that it goes on making problems even out of blessings. And if you make a problem out of it, there are many people to give you advice. Somebody will say, ”This is cowardice.”

Somebody will say, ”This is fear.” Somebody will say something else – and the mystery of it will be lost. It is nothing but love.

And it always happens: when you love, even eyes become a hindrance. Even to see with open eyes makes you feel the distance. When eyes are closed, all distance disappears. Then there is no space between you and me.

And this will happen to women more and more. Even in ordinary love when the woman is in the embrace of the man, she closes her eyes. Women are not voyeurs. Men are. When a man is making love to a woman, he wants to see what is happening – only then he can believe. Seeing is believing! If he cannot see, he cannot believe. He wants to keep the light on. Not only that: there are foolish people who keep automatic cameras in their bedrooms so that later on they can see ”Really it happened?!”

But women almost always close their eyes, because to close the eyes you go beyond space and beyond time. Suddenly the outer disappears, and only the inner world remains.

The eighth question:

Question 8

WHENEVER I GET A GLIMPSES AN INSIGHT, IT’S ALWAYS WHEN I AM SITTING ON THE

TOILET. DOES THIS MAKE ME A SHITTY DISCIPLE?

KRISHNA, YOU ARE! BUT DON’T BE WORRIED – it has happened to a few very great people before you. Martin Buber had his first satori on the toilet. You are in good company.

And the last question:

Question 9

IT MAKES ME FEEL VERY SAD WHENEVER YOU SAY THAT A BUSINESSMAN CANNOT BE

RELIGIOUS, BECAUSE I AM IN BUSINESS. IS THERE NO POSSIBILITY FOR ME?

A BUSINESSMAN IS ONE THING, and to be in business is quite another. You can be in business AND religious, but you cannot be a businessman AND religious And they are poles apart. They are not synonymous. I am not saying that you have to renounce all your businesses to become religious. I am never in favor of any renunciation of the world. But when I say a businessman cannot be religious I mean something totally different. I mean the psychology – not the work that you do in the market-place, but the psychology, the mind.

The mind of a businessman is always bargaining, always greedy, always thinking of the profit, always in the future, always interested in petty things, mundane objects. When I say, ”Don’t be a businessman,” I mean drop this psychology.

And you can drop the marketplace and go to the Himalayan caves – that won’t help because I have seen great mahatmas who have renounced business, but they are still businessmen. Their psychology is the same. Maybe now they don’t think in terms of the coins of this world, but they think in terms of the coins of the other world. Maybe they don’t think in terms of having a bigger house here, but they think in terms of having a better house in paradise. Maybe they are no more interested in things of this world, but what difference does it make? They are still interested in things; their motivation is still that of greed.

Don’t be greedy. Be generous! Don’t be accumulative – be sharing! That is real renunciation. And then you live wherever you are, and you do whatsoever you are doing. And don’t live for the future

– live in the moment, for the moment. Then you are not a businessman. You may be IN business.

Don’t feel sad. In fact, nobody need feel sad with me. All that I am asking you is not to change outer things at all, but inner attitudes, approaches, visions.

Finkel spent all morning trying to contact Saperstein and Shapiro, an important account. But when he asked for Saperstein, the secretary told him the man was out. And when he asked for Shapiro, the secretary told him he was tied up.

He’d called back five times, when he’d finally had enough. ”What kind of business is this?” he fumed at the secretary. ”One partner is out all morning, and the other is tied up for hours on end. What’s going on there?”

The secretary apologized, ”I’m sorry, Mr. Finkel. But, you see, whenever Mr. Saperstein goes out, he ties Mr. Shapiro up.”

This is the mind of a businessman.

Or meditate over this:

Benny had worked as a tailor for many years. Came the time when he wished to retire, but his savings account was spare.

”Miriam,” he confided to his wife, ”I’m tired. I want to retire, but I don’t know how we’re going to afford it.”

”Don’t worry,” said Miriam, ”I have plenty of money.” And she produced a bankbook with regular deposits stretching back the entire forty years of their marriage.

”Where did this come from?” cried Benny in amazement.

”Well,” said Miriam softly, ”every time, during the last forty years, that we made love, I put five dollars away.”

Benny threw his arms around his wife, and impulsively cried out, ”Oh, Miriam! For heaven’s sake, you should have told me. If I had only known, I would have given you all my business.”

This is the mind of a businessman.

Be in business – that is not a problem – but don’t be a businessman. Think of greater things. Think of higher things. Think of beauty, love, truth, God. Think of meditation, satori. All these happen only when you are not greedy. All these happen only when you are in the moment, utterly in the moment.

All these happen only when you are relaxed and you have no tension.

This is what I mean when I say don’t be a businessman.

And the really really last question:

Question 10

BELOVED MASTER, THANK YOU.

GYAN BHAKTI, THIS IS PRAYER. This is the beginning of real sannyas. This is the inner initiation.

When you stop thinking and you start thanking. If you can thank, all becomes possible – even the impossible becomes possible. If you can thank, then doors open. They open only for those who live in gratitude.

God gives his keys only to those who are grateful. God’s keys remain unavailable to those who complain. And all thinking is a kind of complaining.

Thanking is the most beautiful flower that arises in one’s soul. And, Gyan Bhakti, I have been watching you... slowly slowly, the bud is opening. It is becoming a flower. Soon you will have wings.

Soon your whole life will become a fragrance. Soon, not only one flower, but millions will bloom in you.

When one flower has bloomed, know well, the spring has come.

CHAPTER 9

A Stranger to Yourself

9 July 1978 am in Buddha Hall

IT IS RELATED THAT THE SUFI MASTER, IBRAHIM BEN ADAM, WAS SITTING ONE DAY IN

A FOREST CLEARING WHEN TWO WANDERING DERVISHES APPROACHED HIM. HE MADE

THEM WELCOME, AND THEY TALKED OF SPIRITUAL MATTERS UNTIL IT WAS DUSK.

AS SOON AS NIGHT FELL, IBRAHIM INVITED THE TRAVELLERS TO BE HIS GUESTS AT

A MEAL. IMMEDIATELY THEY ACCEPTED, A TABLE LAID WITH THE FINEST OF FOODS

APPEARED BEFORE THEIR EYES.

”HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN A DERVISH?” ONE OF THEM ASKED IBRAHIM. ”TWO YEARS,”

HE SAID.

”I HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING THE SUFI PATH FOR NEARLY THREE DECADES AND NO SUCH

CAPACITY AS YOU HAVE SHOWN US HAS EVER MANIFESTED ITSELF TO ME,” SAID THE

MAN.

IBRAHIM SAID NOTHING.

WHEN THE FOOD WAS ALMOST FINISHED, A STRANGER IN A GREEN ROBE ENTERED THE

GLADE. HE SAT DOWN AND SHARED SOME OF THE FOOD.

ALL REALIZED BY AN INNER SENSE THAT THIS WAS KHIDR, THE IMMORTAL GUIDE OF ALL

THE SUFIS. THEY WAITED FOR HIM TO IMPART SOME WISDOM TO THEM.

WHEN HE STOOD UP TO LEAVE, KHIDR SIMPLY SAID, ”YOU TWO DERVISHES WONDER

ABOUT IBRAHIM. BUT WHAT HAVE YOU RENOUNCED TO FOLLOW THE DERVISH PATH?

”YOU GAVE UP THE EXPECTATIONS OF SECURITY AND AN ORDINARY LIFE. IBRAHIM BEN

ADAM WAS A MIGHTY KING, AND THREW AWAY THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SULTANATE OF

BALKH TO BECOME A SUFI. THIS IS WHY HE IS FAR AHEAD OF YOU. DURING YOUR THIRTY

YEARS TOO, YOU HAVE GAINED SATISFACTIONS THROUGH RENUNCIATION ITSELF. THIS

HAS BEEN YOUR PAYMENT. HE HAS ALWAYS ABSTAINED FROM CLAIMING ANY PAYMENT

FOR HIS SACRIFICE.”

AND THE NEXT MOMENT KHIDR WAS GONE.

Religion is a radical change of vision. It is not just a change of outlook. It is not just a change of ideology – it is a change of the very being itself. Hence it is radical – radical means of the roots.

Religion is not a kind of renovation it is discontinuity from the past, it is a quantum leap Hence it is a revolution It is not just evolution You don’t grow from irreligion into religion, you can’t prow It is not a growth at all.

Growth implies the old has remained – not only that it has not gone: it has become i proved. It is more sophisticated now, more cultured, more decorated, more valuable.

Religion is not a renovation. It is a death! and a rebirth.

Ibrahim was a great king. Religion came to him as a death and a rebirth. One night, he was just tossing and turning in his bed – as rich people, kings, are bound to. Sleep was far away. Sleep is a prerogative of the poor, the privilege of the poor. Only The poor can afford sleep. They have nothing to worry ah out, that’s why.

Ibrahim was a great king. A thousand and one worries were always waiting. He had been suffering from sleeplessness for years. Physicians had been of no help. Suddenly he heard somebody walking on the roof of the palace. Naturally, he became afraid. Kings are very frightened people.

When you have, you have to be afraid – the fear of losing it. Those who don’t have may be fearless; but those who have, how can they be fearless? He became afraid... maybe some enemy, some spy.

He shouted loudly, ’Who is there?’

And the man laughed, and the laughter was either of a madman or of a Buddha. Because only two kinds of people can laugh that laughter – laughter that comes from the very belly, laughter that has no politics in it, laughter that is not manipulated, laughter that is not managed by the mind. Laughter that comes from the deepest core of one’s being.

A child can laugh like that, or a madman, or a Buddha. Ibrahim was more shaken. He said, ”Who are you there? and why are you laughing? Answer the question: who are you there and what are you doing there?”

And the strange man said, ”Don’t be worried. I have lost my camel and I am looking for it.”

Now, camels are not lost on the roofs of palaces. How can they reach there? ”The man must be mad, utterly mad.” Ibrahim called the guards, told them to catch hold of this man, but they could not get him. They tried hard, but he was not found anywhere. He simply disappeared. As suddenly as he had appeared, he suddenly disappeared.

The king could not sleep. His other worries were there, now this new worry was there: ”Who is this man? And what did he want? And why did he laugh? And his answer is a puzzle.”

The next day, when he was sitting in his court on his throne, he was still thinking of the strange laughter. It was such a laughter that you could not forget easily. It had that ring of mysteriousness around it. It had penetrated deep down into the very heart of Ibrahim. He had even felt many times jealous – he was not capable of that kind of laughter, that wild, spontaneous laughter. And was the man joking?

And then suddenly he heard the same voice at the gate. A man was quarreling with the gate guard, and the voice was exactly the same. And the man was saying, in a very authoritative way, ”I want to stay in this house – this is a serai!” And the guard was trying to convince him: ”This is not a serai –

this is the palace of the king, his personal residence!”

But the man persisted, and so loudly that even the king could hear what was going on. And the man was saying, ”This IS a serai. And don’t try to be fool me!”

The king asked the guard, ”Bring the man in. Maybe he is the man who was searching for his camel in the night on the roof. Now he is calling my palace, my personal residence, a serai – a free house for people to stay in. Bring him in.”

The man was brought in. Not only did his voice have the ring of authority, not only was his laughter that of a madman or of a Buddha – his very presence was radiant, luminous. His eyes were aflame with something unknown. He was no ordinary man. The way he walked in, Ibrahim felt, ”He looks more like an emperor than I do – his grace, his elegance.” And he was a beggar! His clothes were just in tatters, but behind those clothes was a radiant being. Something divine! Something very rare that only happens once in a while. The king felt great awe.

He stuttered. He said, ”Why? What are you saying to my guard? And how can you say that this is a serai. This is not! This is my personal house. Are you mad or something?”

And the man laughed again, the same laughter, and he said, ”What nonsense are you talking about?

This is a serai – because once I had come before too and on this throne, the same throne, I had found somebody else. And he was also saying that this is HIS personal residence. Where is that man?”

Ibrahim said, ”You must be mad – he was my father. Now he is dead. I have inherited his kingdom and his palace.”

And the man said, ”But I had come once more also, even before that, and there was another man, and he had also claimed that this is his personal house. I have been coming many times, and I always find a NEW man claiming.”

Ibrahim said, ”That was my grandfather.” But now Ibrahim could feel the truth of the man’s statement, what he was trying to show.

And the man laughed again and he said, ”Still you say this is your personal house, your personal residence? People go on changing... one day I came, I found A; another day I came, I found B; today I have come, I have found C. And tomorrow, I say to you, I will come and you will NOW be here! That’s why I say this is a serai.”

The truth was so dear and so loud. It was not only a question of Ibrahim’s being convinced ideologically, philosophically, no – existentially he was converted. He fell at the feet of that beggar and said, ”You stay in the serai – I am going. I have renounced it all. Once I have understood that this is a serai, then what am I doing here? Then I have to search for my home. So I go on my search and you can stay here. And I am grateful to you.”

This is how religion came to Ibrahim; he never looked back. He simply went out of the palace, out of the capital, out of the kingdom. Never looked back. It was not a renunciation calculated, clever, cunning; it was not renunciation out of mind. It was existential. It was not because: Unless you renounce the world you will not find God. No. There was no logic in it. It was not a calculated step.

All calculated steps are cunning. And you cannot reach God by your cunningness.

Calculation is arithmetic, logic, but it is not love. And the door to God is not logic but love. Calculation is of the mind, and the mind is the barrier. You are disconnected from God by your mind. You cannot be connected through it. One has to drop it. And one has to drop it suddenly, not gradually. When you drop it gradually, you are simply saying that you are not yet existentially convinced.

When you come across a snake on the path, you don’t gradually move away – you simply jump!

It is an existential question. You don’t philosophically meditate over it, whether jumping is right or not: ”How to jump? Whom to consult? What scriptures to follow? What maps will be helpful?”

No – you simply jump! You don’t give a single moment’s time for the mind to function. Action comes spontaneously and totally. And when action is total, it is revolutionary. And when action is spontaneous, it is religious – then it is revolution, then it is a radical change of vision.

When your house is on fire, you simply run out of it! You don’t ponder over the matter about the pros and cons. You don’t take calculated steps. You forget all formalities, etiquette. You may be taking a bath, you may be naked, and if the house is on fire, you simply run out of the house naked. You completely forget that this is not right. You don’t have time.

Mind needs time. Spontaneity is timeless. Religion is a timeless transformation.

This is the first thing to understand: that religion is not a change of outlook, but a change in insight.

It is seeing the world in a totally new way, an utterly new way. It is rebirth. It is not a change of your philosophy; your stupid philosophies have no meaning. Religion is not philosophical at all. Religion is absolutely non-philosophical. It does not think about truth: it lives it.

Philosophy is an exorcise in futility. Jean-Paul Sartre has said: ”Man is a useless passion.” I don’t agree. Man is not a useless passion, but philosophy is. Philosophy is a useless passion.

I have heard:

Visiting his famous philosopher friend’s house, a man observed a beautiful picture frame on the wall.

But there was no picture in it – just the bare frame. He asked his philosopher friend, ”What is the meaning of this framed blank canvas?”

The philosopher said, ”Oh, that’s a very special picture of the Egyptians chasing the Israelites across the Red Sea.”

Scratching his head, the questioner responded, ”But I just don’t understand, actually, where the Red Sea is in the picture.”

”The waters have already parted to allow the Israelites to cross,” said the friend.

”Is that so? Well, then, just where are the Israelites?”

”They have already passed over to the other side of the sea.”

”Oh, I understand. Well, where are the Egyptians who are chasing the Israelites?”

”Ah ha!” the friend replied, ”they haven’t yet arrived!”

Philosophy is just an empty canvas. You can imagine a thousand and one things on it, but in fact there is nothing. You can imagine gods, hells, heavens; you can imagine a thousand and one things. It is all imagination. It is day-dreaming. And you can also find reasons, arguments, proofs, for whatsoever you say. You can even make people silent by your arguments. But philosophy remains an exercise in futility.

Religion is existential. It is non-philosophic. It is not thinking about God: it is experiencing God. It has nothing to do with about and about. Its approach is direct. It does not go in rounds. It simply hits the target. It moves like an arrow, straight.

Jesus says to his disciples: ”Straight and narrow is my way.” Straight... the shortest distance between two points – that is the meaning of ’straight’. Philosophy is zigzag, the LONGEST distance between two points – that’s what philosophy is. Religion is the SHORTEST distance between two points, the straight line, absolutely straight. It does not waste a single moment in unnecessary questions.

And it is narrow. Why narrow? Because only one can walk on it. Religion is absolutely personal.

You cannot take your wife with you or your children with you. You cannot move in crowds. Hence, crowds are never religious. You may call those crowds Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian – crowds are never religious. The very psychology of the crowd is political, it is never religious. Only individuals are religious.

A Buddha is religious, but Buddhists are not. A Krishna is religious, but Hindus are not. A Christ is religious, but Christians are not. What are Christians then? They have created a politics in the name of religion. The mob mind always creates politics. It is ambitious, imitative, mediocre.

The religious person moves alone. He is not a sheep: he is a lion. He moves alone. Hence the path is straight AND narrow. You cannot have your friends with you. The deeper you go in your being the more alone you are. When you reach to the innermost core of your being, you will be alone there. Absolutely alone. There will not even be a God separate from you – you will be God... AHAM

BRAHMASMI, ANA’L HAQ. There from your very ground of being arises the feeling: I am God, I am the truth – I am the real.

God is never encountered as an object. You find him as the center of your subjectivity. The path is really narrow.

Kabir has said: PREM GALI ATI SANKARI, TAMAI DO NA SAMAYA – the path of love is very narrow, it cannot contain two. Lovers become one. If there is love, they become one. If there is no love, they remain two.

The path to God is love. The path to God is not mind, logic, argumentation, philosophy. It is intuitive.

It is of the heart.

You can change your philosophy but it will not change you. You will remain the same. I have seen Christians becoming Hindus, Hindus becoming Christians, and I have not seen any change at all.

You can go to the church or to the temple or to the GURUDWARA – how is it going to make any change in you? The one who goes remains the same. The church changes, the structure of the building is different, but the structure of the mind that goes to the church or to the temple is the same. You bow down to Krishna or you bow down to Mahavir – Mahavir and Krishna are irrelevant.

The one who is bowing down, the structure of his mind, the pattern of his mind – that’s the question.

That’s why I say religion is not a change of outlook but a revolution in insight.

A merchant moved down youth from New York into one of the backwater towns. He seemed to be doing rather well, but then at about the beginning of April, the sales started to slacken very noticeably.

Sam Cohen pondered and pondered about the cause of the decline in business. Suddenly he realized, as he walked the streets, that every other establishment on Main Street had an Easter sign out front and that all the windows were especially dressed for the holiday.

Sam was in a quandary. He was a religious Jew – how could he, in good conscience, pay obeisance to Easter? He was up all night thinking. The next mowing he arose and his face was beaming. He had worked out the solution.

That afternoon, Cohen’s general store also contained an Easter sign. It read: ”Christ is risen, but Cohen’s prices are still the same.”

Outwardly you can change a thousand and one things... but Cohen’s prices are the SAME. Christ may have risen, let him rise – that is none of Cohen’s business. His prices remain the same. Watch your own life. You have also changed many times ideologically – but have you really changed? Has any radical change happened to you? Don’t go on changing formalities! That is just a pretension and a deception. And remember, you are not deceiving anybody else – you are only deceiving yourself.

Become Ibrahim, become a man like Ibrahim. A sudden light-ning... and he saw the point. And the point has always to be seen that way. Of course, it needs courage, it needs guts. That’s why I say religion is not for the cowards – it is for the courageous.

This man must have been of immense courage. He proved that he was an emperor. He proved that he was not an ordinary man. He proved that he had intelligence. Intelligence is always quick.

Intelligence can see things immediately. Only mediocre minds go on thinking and thinking and never come to any conclusions. And even if they come to conclusions, those conclusions remain of the mind – they never change their existence. They remain superficial. They never change their basic, fundamental structure. They never change their gestalt.

I have heard – a very ancient story:

There was a great church. The church was very old, it was falling. It had to be supported from every side. And the rains were coming. And the people who used to go to the church were very much afraid even to go into it – it could fall any moment it was so ancient. Just a stronger wind and it used to shake and tremble.

But they were much attached to it, as people are always attached to old things – the nostalgia, the past, the golden past. People are very much attached to the rotten, to the dead, to the old. Hence they remain rotten, dead and old. People are very much attached to the past. That’s why they don’t live really – they are already in their graves.

But now something had to be done, because the worshipers had stopped coming. The trustees had a meeting. Of course, not inside the church – outside, far away from the church, under a tree, they met. Very reluctantly they passed a resolution – in fact they passed four resolutions in sequence.

The first resolution was ”We decide – very reluctantly, against our will – that the old church has to be dismantled. Second resolution – passed unanimously, that too very reluctantly – that we pass that we have to build a new church. And third – also passed unanimously – that we will make the new church exactly like ,he old; in fact we will use all the material of the old church for the new church; we will not use any new thing in the new church. All the bricks and the doors and the windows and the glass of the old church have to be used in the new church. We will make it an exact replica of the old. We will make it exactly in the same place, on the same foundations. And fourth resolution –

and that too passed unanimously – that until the new is built, we will not dismantle the old.”

This is how people live – a dull, mediocre life, a dusty, lifeless existence. Always afraid to change.

Religion requires courage, because it is revolution. It is the revolution. All other revolutions are just called revolutions – they are not, because they are superficial. Communist, socialist, fascist – all other revolutions are superficial. They don’t touch the intrinsic quality of the man. They leave the man intact; the man remains the same: as jealous as before, as possessive as before, as ignorant as before, as stupid as before... they don’t touch the man at all. They only change things in the outside world, in the social structure.

The real revolution is religion, because it changes the intrinsic subjectivity of man – it changes consciousness. But for that, courage is needed. One has to be a man of guts, a man like Ibrahim.

SECOND: RELIGION IS renunciation of all that which belongs to the ego. It is not really renunciation of the world: it is renunciation of the world that the ego creates. A great misunderstanding exists: people think the religious person has to renounce the world. How can you renounce the world?

Wherever you will be you will be in the world – in the marketplace or in the mountains. How can you renounce the world? You cannot go out of it. And who are you to renounce it? It is GOD’S world.

HE has created it – how can you renounce it? Who are you? You are not the master of it. You can renounce only that of which you are the master.

I have heard:

A full-moon night, and two hippies were sitting under a tree, stoned. The full moon in the night...

and one hip pie looked at the moon and said, ”I would like to purchase this beautiful thing.”

The other said, ”But I am not willing to sell it, so forget all about it!”

How can you renounce the world? It is yours? Just see the foolishness of the very idea of renouncing the world. All that can be renounced is the world that your ego has created. You cannot renounce things, but you can renounce possessiveness. You cannot renounce the world, but you can renounce the idea that ”I own it.” You can only renounce this false egoistic trip.

Religion is renunciation of the false, that really does not exist at all – of the ego, of knowledge, of prejudices, of expectations, of desires. Yes, religion is renunciation of all these things – these are your creations – but not renunciation of the world. Not renunciation of the trees and the people, and the moon and the sun. Who are you to renounce them? You can renounce only that which you have dreamt. You can renounce only the illusory. You can renounce only your illusions. And these are all your illusions – prejudices, theories, dogmas, ideologies, opinions, desires. These are your creations – etcetera, etcetera...

I have heard:

Courageous liberator of five countries, Simon Bolivar, was a man of bold daring, and the people of South America loved him.

On one campaign, Bolivar planned to spend the night in a nearby town. A military assistant sent a note ahead to the owner of that town’s hotel, requesting for his leader ”A room with special accommodations, food, etc., etc., etc.”

At nightfall, Bolivar went to the hotel and was treated to a specially prepared meal. Afterwards, the hotel keeper showed the great liberator the hotel’s finest room, and Bolivar indicated he was pleased.

Then the Venezuelan was ushered into yet another room – in which sat three beautiful naked girls.

Bolivar turned to his host and asked who the girls were.

”The senoritas?” the hotel keeper said. ”They are the three etcetera”.

So please don’t misunderstand my etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I am using etcetera because each mind fabricates its own illusory world. Somebody lives in greed, somebody lives in anger. Somebody lives in passion, somebody has no desire for sex but is mad after money. Money is his sexual passion. Somebody lives only to love people – his love is for people – and there are people whose love is only for things. It is a kind of perversion.

There are as many perverted worlds in the world as there are minds. That’s why I am saying etcetera, etcetera, etcetera... they cannot be counted; they are uncountable. Each mind fabricates, secretes its own dreamy world. And all that is meant by renouncing it is to be awake and dream no more.

That’s why Ibrahim didn’t look back. He never talked about it. He never claimed that he had renounced the kingdom – never in his whole life. That is real renunciation. If after you renounce something you claim that you have renounced, then this is not real renunciation – you are still clinging; you are still holding the idea that it was yours and you have renounced it and you have done some great favor to God.

Ibrahim never talked about it. He moved amongst beggars; he lived like a beggar. Nobody knew about it, that he had been an emperor. Once renounced, if renunciation is out of understanding, you never mention it – it is finished! There is nothing to mention. It was a dream! In the mowing you wake up and you don’t go on talking about your dreams. Within seconds they are forgotten. Just like that, he woke up.

And who was the man who walked on the roof and suddenly disappeared? And who was the man who was fighting with the guard and wanted to stay in the serai, and was insisting ”This is not a palace”? Sufis have a special name for him – they call him Khidr. Khidr simply means your innermost guide; it is not an outer phenomenon. It is not somebody outside – it is your own inner still small voice. If you are silent, you will hear it. If you are honest, you will hear it. If you are sincere, you cannot miss hearing it.

Ibrahim was a sincere man, a very honest man, was trying to live as authentically as possible. It was his own inner voice! This is just a parable – because when the inner for the first time speaks to you it seems as if it is outer.

The outer Master only helps your inner guide. That’s all. The outer Master is only a mirror so that you can see your inner. The outer Master functions only as a catalytic agent. Hearing his voice, seeing his being, being in his presence, something is triggered, and slowly slowly your inner Master takes possession of you.

The real Master – the Perfect Master – never makes you de-pendent on him. And if any Master makes people dependent, if any Master creates dependence in people, if he makes people dependent on him, he is not a true Master. He is a kind of exploiter; he is trying to dominate you in the name of religion. He is trying to enslave you; he is a jail or – he cannot give you freedom. He will depend on you. Whosoever wants you to be dependent on him, depends on you, remember. The master is a slave of his own slave. And the man who possesses things is possessed by his things.

And only one who does not need you, who is not dependent on you, can help you to be independent

– and that is the function of a Master.

Just the other day, somebody asked, ”I em in need of a Master.” I told him, he may have even felt hurt, ”You may be in need of a Master, but I am not in any need of disciples.” He may have felt hurt; he may have misunderstood it.

Somebody has written a letter to me saying, ”Osho, you were too hard on the man!” I was not. I was simply being true. And sometimes truth is bitter. If I need disciples, then I will not be able to make you independent; then I will make you more and more dependent on me – you are my need. No, I don’t need you! My whole function here is to help you to be yourself.

My whole function is to be a catalytic agent to you. You are not able to contact your own inner Khidr, your own inner guide. I am in contact with my own inner guide. Being with me, you can learn the knack of it – that’s all. Once you have learnt the knack of it,.you will be surprised: my voice and the voice of your inner Master is the same.

Just the other day, Maneesha had asked a question: How to know whether a sannyasin is a real sannyasin or not? This is the way to know – when, slowly slowly, you start feeling it, that what I say to you is also your inner voice, then you are a true sannyasin. When, slowly, my voice and your inner voice are never separate, are never different... maybe you cannot hear it, or you hear it in a vague way. You cannot see it dearly, or you see it through a dark curtain, but when I show it to you, suddenly it becomes dear to you, then it is no more vague, then the dark curtain is removed.

You will know whether you are a real sannyasin or not only by this criterion. When you start feeling the synchronicity between me and you, when there is a constant communion, then you are coming closer and closer. You are becoming more and more real.

At the ultimate point, there is no difference between the Master and the disciple. Not at all! What the Master says is what the disciple would have said. The Master may be more articulate – he is.

He sings the song that the disciple has also heard but is not yet able to sing. It is a distant music.

But the moment the Master sings it, it comes closer and closer. Every day it happens.

That’s why I go on speaking to you. It is not to impart knowledge, no, not at all. It is just to trigger the process so your inner guide starts functioning. Then you will be surprised: you ask a question, and you also have the answer, immediately. And when I give you the answer, you will be surprised

– it is exactly the same as you had heard it.

These are the criterions. Slowly slowly, you will find you are becoming truer and truer, more and more a sannyasin, more and more a disciple. There are no outer criterions; it is an inner process.

And you cannot judge anybody else. You can judge only yourself. And go on evaluating yourself daily, how much closer you are coming.

When the voice of the Master is your voice, then you have arrived home. Then you are in tune with the inner Master. That inner Master Sufis call ’Khidr’.

It was Khidr who walked on the roof. It was Khidr who knocked on the door and insisted.

And third, before we enter into this beautiful story: religion is innocence, it is trust, it is faith. It is trust in the whole and the goodness of the whole. It is a let-go, it is surrender. The moment Ibrahim moved out of his palace, he lived a surrendered life. Now he had no idea where to go, what to do.

Now he had no idea of his own – no direction, no desire. Now he was utterly in the hands of God.

This is what a Sufi has to be: in the hands of God.

It is said of Ibrahim:

One day he fell into the river, just slipped. It was muddy and it had rained, and he slipped and fell into the river. A few people were watching. They inquired, ”Can you swim or not? Should we come?”

He said, ”Just wait – wait as I am waiting.” And he wouldn’t swim, and he wouldn’t try to come out of the river, and he started drowning, and somebody said, ”Are you mad or what? If you don’t know how to swim, we can come!”

He said, ”You wait! just as I am waiting... if he wants to save me he will save. If he does not want to save me, who am I to bother to be saved?”

This is trust.

Mohammed used to distribute all that his disciples would bring as gifts to him – by the evening he would distribute all. That had been his whole life’s practice. But the night he was dying, his wife was, naturally, afraid, apprehensive: ”Maybe in the middle of the night the physician has to be called, or some medicine has to be purchased...” Just five DINERS – five rupees – she saved.

In the middle of the night, Mohammed, who had never been restless in his life, became very restless.

The wife said, ”Should we call the physician?”

He said, ”It is not a question of the physician. It seems something is wrong around me; something that has never been before. Something is new! What is it? I cannot figure it out. Do you know?”

The wife was feeling guilty – she had saved five rupees. She said, ”Just one thing is new: I have saved five rupees, in case in the middle of the night we need it.”

Mohammed said, ”Then it must be that. You just go out and give those five rupees to somebody.”

But she said, ”In the middle of the night, whom am I going to find outside? There will be no beggar in the middle of the night.”

Mohammed said, ”You just go! and trust him.”

She went out... and a beggar was standing there. And he said, ”I have forgotten the way. I was going to some other town and I have entered into this strange place. And I have nowhere to stay and no money for food, and I have been hungry for three days. Can you help me?”

She gave those five rupees to the man. She came in and Mohammed said, ”Do you see? If a man can come in the middle of the night to take five rupees, if we need he will send somebody to give money to us – you don’t be worried. You mistrusted, you distrusted – that was my restlessness.”

He became calm again. He covered his face with the blanket, and it is said immediately he left the body, in utter silence, in utter grace. That small thing was hindering... something was coming between him and God.

Sufism is based on trust. Ibrahim left the palace, trusted God, lived according to him. Wherever he led, he went; whatever he wanted, he did. On his own he disappeared. And this is how a religious person has to be. On one’s own one has to disappear. The moment you are not, God takes possession of you.

And you are misery, and God is bliss. You are emptiness, and God is fullness. Unless you are gone, utterly gone, you will remain empty. Unless you are gone, utterly gone, you will remain miserable.

You cannot be blissful: you are misery. Your presence is misery: your absence is all that is needed on the path of Sufism – FAN A they call it. Disappear! Don’t be: let God be.

Now, this beautiful parable:

IT IS RELATED THAT THE SUFI MASTER, IBRAHIM BEN ADAM, WAS SITTING ONE DAY IN

A FOREST CLEARING WHEN TWO WANDERING DERVISHES APPROACHED HIM. HE MADE

THEM WELCOME, AND THEY TALKED OF SPIRITUAL MATTERS UNTIL IT WAS DUSK.

FIRST THING: a SUFI IS ALWAYS IN THE STATE OF SITTING – even when he is walking, even when he is running. He is always in that inner state of sitting, what Zen people call ’sitting in Zen,’

what they call ’zazen’ – just sitting and doing nothing. And the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.

The Sufi’s whole effort is not to move – not to move in desire, because that is real movement. First desire moves or you move in desire, and then other movements follow. The Sufi sits; deep inside he is always sitting. Even while walking he is not going anywhere. He is doing God’s work, but in his own being he is just meditating. There is no desire for any movement. There is no effort to become anything – that is the meaning of sitting: no becoming – he is being. He is not trying to be more rich; he is not trying to be more pious, he is not trying to be more religious either, he is not trying to be more ascetic, he is not trying anything. He is simply relaxing in his being – that is sitting.

It is a special state. And whenever you come to a really religious person you will find it. Even walking, he does not walk. He remains still. Even talking, he does not talk – he remains silent. This is the paradox of the religious man. Eating, he does not eat. Sleeping, he does not sleep.. These things go on only on the surface , on the periphery. In the center noodling ever happens. In the center it is always the same.

IT IS RELATED THAT THE SUFI MASTER, IBRAHIM BEN ADAM, WAS SITTING ONE DAY IN

A FOREST CLEARING WHEN TWO WANDERING DERVISHES APPROACHED HIM. HE MADE

THEM WELCOME...

And a Sufi is a welcome to all. His heart is always in a state of welcome. He knows nothing else; he knows only welcoming, because he knows only God comes. Forms may be millions, but it is always God who comes to you. He may come as a breeze, or he may come as rains, or he may come-as a fragrance of a flower, or he may come as a person. He may come as day or as night, as summer, as winter, but it is always God who comes because there is nobody else. Hence the Sufi remains always in a state of welcome.

HE MADE THEM WELCOME, AND THEY TALKED OF SPIRITUAL MATTERS UNTIL IT WAS

DUSK.

This is SATSANG. When Sufis meet, they talk about God, they talk about love, they talk about prayer

– they create a milieu, they create a certain climate. When you meet you also talk, you also create a certain climate – you gossip about people, you condemn people, you talk about politics – you talk about things which are useless. And, of course, whatsoever you talk about creates you. Either poisons you or nourishes you.

All your talk is poisoning. Watch: when you meet with people what do you talk about? Remember, only talk about something higher. Talk about something that can become a nourishment. Talk about divine things! Talk about things of the beyond. They will create a climate around you; they will create a certain energy around you, they will create a vise. And what-soever you talk about, you listen to, you become. Slowly, it becomes a transforming force.

So, when Sufis meet, when devotees meet, BHAKTAS meet, they talk about God. Nothing else matters. All is childish – all else is childish. A mature person only talks of higher values – of good, of truth, of beauty. They sing songs, mad songs of love for God. They drink from each other’s being and become drunk. They help each other. And it is of immense value.

When there are a few persons sitting together, sharing their inner experiences, they start riding on each other’s waves; a tidal wave is created and they become complementary to each other. You may be missing something; it may have happened to some-body else – his insight may bring a light to you. You may have been doing something wrong, and somebody else has done something else, and it has helped, it has worked.

Let this be so for my sannyasins too. Stop talking of worldly things, of film actors and actresses and politicians – which are even worse. Don’t gossip. Discuss gospel. Meditate over what Jesus has said, what Buddha has said. Tell stories of these strange visitors to the earth. Talk about these strange revolutions in consciousness. Talk about Buddha and Krishna and Mohammed and Lao Tzu and Zarathustra, and you will be immensely enriched.

Create a milieu of the spiritual.

AS SOON AS NIGHT FELL, IBRAHIM INVITED THE TRAVELERS TO BE HIS GUESTS AT

A MEAL. IMMEDIATELY THEY ACCEPTED, A TABLE LAID WITH THE FINEST OF FOODS

APPEARED BEFORE THEIR EYES.

Remember, this is a parable. This is simply an indication, a way of saying, that God cares for those who trust in him – that’s all. Don’t take it literally. Great misunderstanding arises when you start taking things literally. Then you become very much concerned about meaningless things: whether Jesus walked on water or not; whether he created wine out of water or not; whether he made unhealthy people healthy or not; whether he called Lazarus out of his grave and revived him or not.... You become interested in stupid things. These are parables.

Jesus certainly made people whole and healthy – he gave eyes to those who had none, he gave ears to those who had never heard a thing. He CERTAINLY revived people out of their graves – that’s where everybody is living. It is not only a question of Lazarus: you are also in the same situation, living in a grave. He certainly resurrected dead people. But these are parables!

To hear is not to listen – he helped people to hear AND to listen. To see just as you see is not enough, because with these eyes you can see only matter and the essential is missed, the spiritual is missed. He made people able to see the spiritual. He helped people to see the invisible – and that is the only point worth seeing.

If there is anything worth seeing, it is God. And those who have not seen God, they are all blind.

If there is anything worth hearing, it is a Buddha, or a Lao Tzu – and those who have not heard a Buddha, they are deaf. And if there is any life, it is to live moment-to-moment in trust, in love, in joy, in celebration, in prayer, in thankfulness.

In short: to live means to live in God – consciously, totally. And those who are not living that way, they are dead. They are WORSE than dead! because they THINK they live, and they are not alive.

They are not yet even born. They are only seeds, potential but not actual. A Jesus has to happen to them, a Master has to happen to them, only then will they fall in the soil. A gardener is needed

– only then will the seed die and be born as a tree. And then there will be great rejoicing, great flowering, and great fulfillment, great fruition.

So never become literal. About religion that is one of the dangers, that people take it literally.

Followers, believers take it literally, and those who are against, they also take it literally. Both are agreed upon that point. I insist again and again: never take religious parables literally – they are far more true than literal facticity. And always remember: facts are nothing – truth is far more profound.

Truth is there.... For example, in this story:

AS SOON AS NIGHT FELL, IBRAHIM INVITED THE TRAVELERS TO BE HIS GUESTS AT

A MEAL. IMMEDIATELY THEY ACCEPTED, A TABLE LAID WITH THE FINEST OF FOODS

APPEARED BEFORE THEIR EYES.

Ibrahim is not a magician. What is meant by this sudden appearance of the finest food? It is not a fact: it is a truth. A fact is a very poor thing, a momentary thing. An event is just a momentary thing.

It is not historical, it is metaphorical. It is a truth. Yes, God cares for those who relax themselves; God cares for those who remain in a let-go.

Food is just a symbol of nourishment: God is a mother to those who have renounced their egos, those who have become again like small children – then God takes care. Existence is not indifferent to you. If you trust existence, existence takes every care of you.

This is the truth! And this truth has to be told in such ways that people can understand. Hence, truth has always been clothed in parables. Parables can be remembered, stories people enjoy, stories people tell to each other; even children can understand them. They have many layers of meaning.

Children can under-stand them, and even the wisest of the wise may not be able to understand them totally, absolutely. This is the beauty of a parable. Everybody can understand it on his own level of being.

God is nourishment. God is care. God is motherly.

”HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN A DERVISH?” ONE OF THEM ASKED IBRAHIM.

A WRONG QUESTION, SYMBOLIC OF A WRONG MIND. Religion is not a question of time, not a question of ’how long’ – it is a question of depth. How intense? How deep? It can happen in a single moment. And it may not happen in centuries or in many lives. Time is irrelevant. Time does not count. The heart counts.

See the wrong question:

”HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN A DERVISH?”

They are very much impressed. Such a miracle! Foolish people are always impressed by wrong things. They have missed the point – they have missed the point of trust. They have brought the question of time. What does trust have to do with riffle?

This is my observation. I have been observing thousands and thousands of seekers from all over the world. Somebody comes, and IN A SINGLE MOMENT there is a transformation. In a single moment life takes a jump. And then somebody else remains for years and goes on remaining the same.

It is not a question of time. Never think in terms of time. Think in terms of intensity, of totality. Time is again a mind question. The heart knows no time. The heart knows only now. Only the mind knows time: past, future, present... the mind knows time.

”HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN A DERVISH?” ONE OF THEM ASKED IBRAHIM. ”TWO YEARS,”

HE SAID.

This is a symbolic answer. Sufis talk of two steps. There are only two steps to reach the ultimate.

And one has to be taken by the seeker and the other is taken by God himself. So for you there is only one step. If you take one step, the other is taken by God. And what step does one have to take? One has to be surrendered, that’s all. No practice is needed. No effort is needed – because all effort is of the ego, and all practice is nothing but refinement of the ego.

That’s why you will find people who cultivate character or are very disciplined, or very virtuous, have done this and that fasting and ascetic practices, and have been to the mountains and the caves, and have lived religiously – you will find a great pious ego in such people. Their humbleness is false.

True humbleness never comes out of practicing.

Only one step is enough. A sudden understanding that ”I am part of the whole – why am I fighting? I come from the whole – why am I fighting? And I will be going back to the whole – why am I fighting?

I am a wave in the ocean – WHY should I fight the ocean? What is the point? The ocean mothers me, and finally I will go back to the ocean and disappear in it. For the moment I have risen, but I am not separate, so why be worried?”

Why struggle? Why bring your will into it? Surrender, relax... be with the ocean. Flow with it. This is the single step. And once you have taken this step, the other step is taken by God of his own accord. God comes only when you are in utter relaxation.

Ibrahim says symbolically: ”TWO YEARS.”

”I HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING THE SUFI PATH FOR NEARLY THREE DECADES AND NO SUCH

CAPACITY AS YOU HAVE SHOWN US HAS EVER MAN TESTED ITSELF TO ME,” SAID THE

MAN.

He is cultivating, following the Path, for three decades. A long journey. Of course, expectations are there: ”Now things should be happening. And this man has followed for only two years!”

This looks unjust.

I love an ancient Indian story:

Narada, the great Indian mystic, is going to see God. Playing on his VEENA, he passes a forest, and comes across a very old sage sitting under a tree.

The old sage says to Narada, ”You are going to God – please ask one question from me. I have been making all kinds of efforts for three lives, now how much more is needed? How much longer do I have to wait? When is my liberation going to happen? You just ask him!”

Narada laughed and said, ”Okay.”

As he progressed, just by the side, under another tree, a young man was dancing with his EKTARA, singing, dancing – very young. May have been only thirty. Jokingly, Narada asked the young man,

”Would you also like any question to be asked of God – I am going. The old man, your neighbor, has asked.”

The young man did not reply. He continued his dance – as if he had not listened at all, as if he was not there at all.

After a few days, Narada came back. He told the old man, ”I asked God. He said three lives more.”

The old man was doing his JAPA on his beads. He threw the beads. He was in a rage. He threw the scriptures that he was keeping with him, and he said, ”This is absolutely unjust! Three lives more?!”

Narada moved to the young man who was again dancing, and he said, ”Although you had not answered, and you had not asked, just by the way I asked God about you too. But now I am afraid

– whether to tell it to you or not? Seeing the rage of the old man, I am hesitating.”

But the young man did not say anything; he continued to dance. Narada told him; ”When I asked, God said, ’Tell the young man that he will have to be born AS many times as there are leaves on the tree under which he is dancing.’”

And the young man started dancing even more ecstatically, and he said, ”So fast?! There are so many trees in the world and so many leaves... only this much? Only these leaves? Only this many lives? I have already attained! When you go next, thank him.”

And it is said the man became liberated that very moment. That very moment he became liberated!

If there is such test, such totality of trust, time is not needed. If there is no trust, then even three lives are not enough. And my feeling is that old man must be around somewhere on the M.G. Road! He cannot have become liberated yet. Even three lives won’t do. Such a mind can’t become liberated.

Such a mind is what hell is.

”I HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING THE SUFI PATH FOR NEARLY THREE DECADES AND NO SUCH

CAPACITY AS YOU HAVE SHOWN US HAS EVER MANIFESTED ITSELF TO ME,” SAID THE

MAN.

IBRAHIM SAID NOTHING.

Nothing can be said about these things. A real seeker is silent about what is happening. A real seeker is silently thankful. He cannot claim anything; he cannot brag about it. Ibrahim did not say a single word.

WHEN THE FOOD WAS ALMOST FINISHED, A STRANGER IN A GREEN ROBE ENTERED THE

GLADE. HE SAT DOWN AND SHARED SOME OF THE FOOD.

KHIDR IS KNOWN AS THE STRANGER. It is your innermost soul, but you have become so alienated from it that it has become a stranger. The people who are strangers to you have become your wives, friends, husbands, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters – the people who are strangers to you. And the REAL person inside you has become a stranger. Everything is topsy-turvy. You don’t know who you are, and you know everything else. You have great knowledge about the world, and no acquaintance with yourself. Hence, Khidr is known as The Stranger.

When for the first time your inner guide speaks to you, you will not be able to believe that it is coming from you! You will think it is coming from somewhere else. That’s why mystics think that God has spoken from the clouds, from the sky. He speaks always from your innermost core, but you have gone so far from yourself that he looks as if he is the stranger and he is coming from a very distant, distant source.

In reality, you have become a stranger to yourself.

Sufis say that Khidr is a stranger, and Sufis have chosen the color green, so Khidr uses the green robe. Just as in India we have chosen ochre, orange, as the color of the sannyasin, Sufis have chosen green as the color of THEIR sannyasins. Both are beautiful. Both have significance.

Green is the color of the trees and red is the color of the flowers. In India, we have looked to the ultimate, the flowering, and have chosen the color of the ultimate. Sufis have looked to the immediate, the color of the trees, and have chosen it. But in the final understanding, the immediate is the ultimate, and the ultimate is the immediate – because in the green is hidden the red, and the red is nothing but an expression of the green. The flower and the foliage are not separate – both are beautiful.

Khidr moves in a green robe.

HE ENTERED. HE SAT DOWN AND SHARED SOME OF THE FOOD.

ALL REALIZED BY AN INNER SENSE THAT THIS WAS KHIDR, THE IMMORTAL GUIDE OF ALL

SUFIS. THEY WAITED FOR HIM TO IMPART SOME WISDOM TO THEM.

’By an inner sense’ – you can understand these things only by an inner sense. If that sense is not functioning, you cannot understand at all. If you come to a Master and if you have the inner sense functioning, even if it is a little bit, you will understand. Immediate understanding will be there.

Immediately you will be bridged. But if that inner sense is not functioning, intellectually you can listen, you can try to analyze, but your understanding will remain just intellectual, poor. It will not connect you, it will not bridge you.

BY AN INNER SENSE THEY ALL REALIZED THAT THIS WAS KHIDR.

The green robe, the freshness of the green, the youth of the green, the aliveness of the green, the silence of the green... and the presence... by an inner sense, by intuition.

Remember: science is intellectual, religion is intuitive. They are basically and fundamentally different. So the man who becomes too much rooted in science becomes incapable of understanding religion. This is one of the problems modern humanity is facing. We are teaching science to every child, and, unknowingly, we are making every child incapable of understanding religion. And I am not saying don’t teach science to children – science HAS immense value – but remember to teach religion TOO, so that they can keep a balance. Because science can only give them more power of the outer world – it will not give peace. Science can give riches from the outside, but it will keep them inwardly beggars.

Create a balance.

Teach science, but also create an atmosphere in the schools, colleges, universities where people can meditate, pray, where people can also start growing their inner sense. Don’t destroy their inner sense; otherwise, you have destroyed their humanity, you have dehumanized them. Then they will be just like robots. They will be just zombies. They will go to the office and work, they will go to the factory and work, they will produce but there will be no creativity.

They will produce, but there will be no joy. They will live and they will always wonder, ”For what are we living?” They will live but there will be no meaning in their lives, no poetry in their lives.

Just look at people: they are living, but what kind of life is this? Just dragging, somehow dragging.

A great weight on their heads, and continuously feeling that the whole thing seems to be pointless, continuously feeling that all seems to be just accidental – there is no meaning. And when there is no meaning, how can there be joy and celebration?

Teach science, certainly, it is a must, but it is not a11. There is something beyond it too. Prose is good, but a man who does not know poetry is missing something of immense value. Mathematics is good, but a man who has no sensitivity for music is not a real man. Production is good, but man is not just a machine – some creativity some creative expression is needed. And that always comes through the inner sense.

ALL REALIZED BY AN INNER SENSE THAT THIS WAS KHIDR, THE IMMORTAL GUIDE OF ALL

SUFIS. THEY WAITED FOR HIM TO IMPART SOME WISDOM TO THEM.

One has to wait for wisdom. One cannot ask for it. If you ask, you will get only knowledge. Wait, and wait patiently. Wisdom comes only when you are ripe. Wisdom comes of its own accord. God gives you only that much which you can contain and absorb – never more. They waited....

WHEN HE STOOD UP TO LEAVE, KHIDR SIMPLY SAID, ”YOU TWO DERVISHES WONDER

ABOUT IBRAHIM. BUT WHAT HAVE YOU RENOUNCED TO FOLLOW THE DERVISH PATH?

”You have not renounced anything. You are the same person. You are continuous with your past. There has been no breakthrough” – renunciation means a breakthrough – ”What have you renounced?

” YOU GAVE UP THE EXPECTATIONS OF SECURITY AND AN ORDINARY LIFE.

”Yes, you have given something – just your dreams, expectations of security – and an ordinary life.

You had nothing to give. Religion has been cheap for you. You have not paid any price for it.

”IBRAHIM HEN ADAM WAS A MIGHTY KING, AND THREW AWAY THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE

SULTANATE OF BALKH TO BECOME A SUFI. THIS IS WHY HE IS FAR AHEAD OF YOU. DURING

YOUR THIRTY YEARS, TOO, YOU HAVE GAINED SATISFACTIONS THROUGH RENUNCIATION

ITSELF. THUS HAS BEEN YOUR PAYMENT. HE HAS ALWAYS ABSTAINED FROM CLAIMING

ANY PAYMENT FOR HIS SACRIFICE.” AND THE NEXT MOMENT, KHIDR WAS GONE.

Remember these words:

”YOU GAVE UP THE EXPECTATIONS OF SECURITY AND AN ORDINARY LIFE.

”You have not given up anything special. You had nothing. And you have given these things, which are nothing, with great expectation for other-worldly rewards. And you have been waiting for those rewards. Your renunciation is motivated. It is out of greed.”

People are religious either out of greed or out of fear, and then they are not truly religious.

”IBRAHIM WAS A MIGHTY KING, AND THREW AWAY THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SULTANATE

OF BALKH TO BECOME A SUFI.”

”... AND THREW AWAY...” Listen to the words! He had not even renounced – he THREW it away.

When you renounce, you think it has some great value. You make much fuss about it. He simply threw it away! Seeing that it has no meaning, seeing the falsity of it, he simply threw it away.

The renunciation of Ibrahim is of immense significance – he never looked back. He forgot all about it, as if it had never existed at all.

”THIS IS WHY HE IS FAR AHEAD OF YOU.”

God takes care of him. His trust is infinite.

”AND DURING YOUR THIRTY YEARS, TOO, YOU HAVE GAINED SATISFACTIONS THROUGH

RENUNCIATION ITSELF.

”And you have been bragging around. And you have been talking about your renunciation. And you have not renounced anything! In fact, those who talk about renunciation have not renounced anything.

Those who have really renounced don’t talk about it.

But you have been gaining

satisfactions out of it, claiming that you are great sannyasins, Sufis. You have been gaining the respect of people, respectability; you have been worshipped, you have become famous, you are known as well-known dervishes.... Nobody knows about Ibrahim. You have been fulfilling your ego, so that is your price.

”THIS HAS BEEN YOUR PAYMENT. HE HAS ALWAYS ABSTAINED FROM CLAIMING ANY

PAYMENT FOR HIS SACRIFICE.

”When the sacrifice is out of pure love, it claims nothing. It is sheer joy in giving. He has given all to God in sheer joy, in the understanding that ’It really belongs to him – it never belonged to me.’ It is not that he has obliged God. It is not that he has done anything great... he has not done anything!

He has simply understood a truth. And in that understanding, great love has arisen in him. That love makes one a Sufi.”

There are two kinds of love: the love of a man for his wife, for his beloved, which ought properly to express itself in secret and not where spectators are, for this love can only fulfill itself in a place secluded from other creatures; and the love for brothers and sisters and for children and friends and comrades and companions, which needs no concealment.

Similarly, Sufis say there are two kinds of love for God: the love through prayer and meditation – this love ought properly to be consummated in silence, in privacy, just as you love your beloved; and that love that expresses through action and service to others.

The man of God, a Sufi – the word ’sufi’ comes from SUFA; SUFA means purity, cleanliness, clarity

– the man of inner purity lives love in two dimensions. One is the private dimension, utterly private, personal, intimate, just as you love your woman or your man – in seclusion. You don’t want it to be public. To make it public will be profane, trill be sacrilegious, will be a crime. In meditation, in prayer, the Sufi contacts God in absolute privacy.

Sufis say: Don’t pray before others – not even before your wife. In the middle of the night when all is asleep – your family is asleep, your wife is asleep – wake up in the middle of the night, sit in your bed, and pray to God. Don’t let anybody know, because the mind is very cunning: it can make an ego-trip out of that too. It can start bragging: ”Look! what a great meditator I am.”

Pray to God, meditate on him, in secrecy, in privacy – alone.

And the other dimension is of service, of loving his creatures – the trees, the mountains, the people, the rivers. Pour your love openly to his world, and pour your love in privacy to him – and you become a Sufi.

And the function of a Master is to give you these two dimensions of love. And the Perfect Master is one in whose presence this process is triggered, and you start growing in these two dimensions of love. The ultimate crescendo of these two loves is freedom – freedom from misery, freedom from mind, freedom from body, freedom from coming again into the world – freedom from ALL kinds of imprisonments. That freedom is the goal.

Keep the goal always in your vision. And, slowly slowly, go on dropping all that goes against that vision. Fall in harmony with the vision of this ultimate goal of freedom. Become more and more free.

And from the very first step one has to become free.

The real Master, the Perfect Master, about whom we have been talking all these twenty days – the Perfect Master helps you to become free, he gives you freedom. Love always gives freedom....

CHAPTER 10

Exactly in the Middle

10 July 1978 am in Buddha Hall

The first question:

Question 1

YOU MAKE IT ALL SOUND SO EASY. BUT IS IT? IS IT REALLY? IT SEEMS TO ME THAT

THE WHOLE THING IS OUT OF OUR HANDS. WE HAVE NO MORE CHOICE TO SURRENDER

THAN TO BE IN THE EGO. I LIVE MY LIFE AND SOME DAYS I’M HAPPY AND SOME DAYS I’M

SAD, BUT I’M NOT ENLIGHTENED. THERE MUST BE SOME TRICK, SOME ALCHEMY. PLEASE

ENLIGHTEN ME.

DHARMEN, you have found it! this is the trick, this is the alchemy: to understand that nothing is in our hands is what is meant by surrender. Surrender is not something that you have to do or you can do. If you do it, how is it going to be surrender? It is not an act. It cannot be by its very nature. The very definition of surrender is that you cannot do it. Seeing the point, that nothing is in our hands –

to be this way or that, to be egoful or to be egoless – seeing this, surrender happens. What is left then? If you have really seen this, you have understood the very secret.

Language creates the problem, because language turns everything, twists everything, into something other than it is. The moment I say ”Surrender!” you start thinking ”How to do it?” This is a linguistic fallacy. When I say surrender, this is exactly what I am saying: I am saying nothing is in your hands. In fact, you are not there behind your hands either. All is happening.

Yes, some days you are sad, and some days you are happy – and there is nothing to do. So some days be sad, and some days be happy – this is surrender. When happy, enjoy it, live it, dance it, sing it. When happy, don’t be worried about sadness. There is no point – you cannot do anything about it. When sad, be really sad! Cry tears of sadness, sing sad songs. And DON’T try to become happy – it is not in your hands.

A Zen Master was asked, ”What do you do when it is hot?”

He said, ”I perspire.”

”And what do you do when it is cold?”

He said, ”I shiver.”

So, when hot, perspire. When cold, shiver. When alive, live! When dead, die! What is in your hands? Nothing is in your hands. To think that ”Something is in my hands” is the way of the ego.

That’s what ego is. Ego says, ”You can do this. Why are you sad? You can be happy. It is within your capacity. You can become more perfect, you can become more beautiful, you can become more good. You can become a saint. Why are you not doing something?”

The ego always prods you, goads you into doing: ”Do something!” It creates the fallacy that it is within your hands to change, that you are the master of your destiny. That is the way of the ego.

That is the fallacy!

Nothing is in your hands.

The moment you see the fallacy, it disappears. The moment you see that there is only a rope and no snake... the snake was just a projection in the dark. Out of fear you had seen it. When you come close and you bring a lamp and you see that it is a rope, the snake is no more there! The question is dissolved. Seeing that nothing can be done, surrender has happened.

This is the whole secret of it. And, Dharmen, you have understood it. But still your ego is playing tricks with you. The ego is saying, ”There must be some way to do it. There must be a trick! There must be something hidden, esoteric, that you don’t know. There must be a key that can unlock the door.”

There is no key, there is no lock, there is no door. Nothing has to be unlocked because nothing has been locked from the very beginning.

Your question is beautiful, Dharmen. If you can understand your question, all questions will dissolve

– because your question carries the answer!

You say: YOU MAKE IT ALL SOUND SO EASY.

It IS easy! What can I do? It is not in my hands to make it difficult. It is easy because it is not an act.

Only if you have to do something can it be difficult. When you have NOT to do anything, how can it be difficult? How can non-doing be difficult? ’Difficult’ – the very word is relevant only with doing.

Non-doing is an under-standing, is an insight, a sudden vision. And that’s what has happened to you in this question.

You say: YOU MAKE IT ALL SOUND SO EASY. BUT IS IT? IS IT REALLY?

You don’t want to believe in it. You don’t want to believe in its easiness. See the point! You WANT it to be difficult, then you will be very happy. If I say, ”It is very difficult, Dharmen,” you will relax, you will be relieved. If I say, ”It is almost impossible,” a burden is removed from your head. Then you will say, ”Then it is okay. Then I can travel. Then there is challenge. Then my ego can do many things –

it is difficult and I am going to do it.”

The more impossible it looks, the more appealing it is to the ego. Hence, I cannot say it is difficult, because I don’t want to support your ego in ANY way. It is easy – it is absolutely easy. But the moment I say ’easy’ you become uneasy. You start feeling, ”Then? Then there is nothing left as a challenge.” Then you are not attracted towards it. If it is SO easy that even a child can do it – in fact it is so easy that only a child can do it! – then your ego feels hurt. You want something arduous, some uphill task. It should be the Everest – so only you can reach and nobody else, If it is difficult, competition is possible. If it is difficult, fight and war art possible. If it is difficult, then politics is possible. Then only a few aye going to reach, not all. You can fight, you can plan, you can maneuver, you can invent strategies to pull others’ legs and not to allow them to reach, to use others’ heads as steps so that you can reach.

And if it is so difficult that only one can reach, then you will feel very thrilled: you can be that one!

A possibility is there that you can be that one, that special one. That’s why people are interested in becoming the prime minister of India or the president of America. Why? Do you think they gain something? All that they gain is they reach a place where only one can reach – that’s all. It is such a stupid game, but the joy is that out of millions of people only one can reach there. That’s the only joy. Nothing is achieved! And only fools are attracted. But ego IS foolish. And the greater the fool, the greater the ego – and vice versa: the greater the ego, the greater the fool.

The foolish man’s whole interest is in the difficult. Make things difficult and he becomes interested.

People solve crossword puzzles just for that one single reason – because it is difficult.

When I say it is easy, it is so easy, that you are not even needed to move your hands, you need not even go outside your room... so says Lao Tzu. It is SO easy that you need not even open your eyes. It is so easy that it can happen in a single moment. It is so easy that you need not compete, need not practice, need not cul-tivate.... Just WATCH inside: when I am saying it is so easy that it is possible just now, you start losing interest in it. Your ego says, ”Then what is the point? If it is so easy that everybody can achieve it, then it is not worth it.”

Just think: if there were Kohinoor diamonds on every beach of the ocean, and they were just like pebbles, available everywhere, would there be any value in the Kohinoor diamond? The value is there only because it is the ONLY one. There is no other diamond like it. It is rare, so rare that only one can possess it.

Man’s ego always wants the difficult. Make things difficult and many people will become interested.

That’s why more people are interested in Yoga – it is a difficult gymnastics. People are interested in difficult things. You can make them do ANYTHING. If you tell them: ”Stand on your head for thirty years,” they will stand. Just ONE joy has to be there, that nobody else has been able to stand on his head for thirty years: ”I am the only one – I am the Kohinoor diamond. I am no ordinary person.”

When I say it is easy, I kill your ego, I destroy your ego. I pull the very earth from underneath your feet. You fall flat on the ground.

That’s why you cannot believe it, Dharmen. But my difficulty is that I cannot be untrue – it is so. It is easy. The easiest thing in the world is God – HAS to be! because we live in him, we breathe in him. He surrounds us just like a fish is surrounded by the ocean. He is everywhere! and ONLY he is. Each breath that you take in, you take God in. He circulates in your blood, he beats in your heart, he walks when you walk, he sits when you sit. He is ONE with you!

And it is easy because he has not to be attained – it is already the case. But then the ego loses interest. That’s why you ask:

YOU MAKE IT ALL SOUND SO EASY. BUT IS IT?

Somewhere your ego goes on hoping that ”Osho must be joking. It can’t be that easy. It HAS to be difficult.”

BUT IS IT? IS IT REALLY? IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE WHOLE THING IS OUT OF OUR HANDS.

And that’s what I have been telling you all along. It is out of your hands because you don’t have any hands except the hands of God! The moment you think yourself separate from God, everything is out of your hands. And the moment you think yourself one with God, everything is in your hands.

But those hands are no more YOURS – they are the hands of God.

For man everything is impossible: for God everything is possible. For the part, everything is impossible: for the whole everything is possible.

IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE WHOLE THING IS OUT OF OUR HANDS.

That’s what I have been insisting, day in, day out, year in, year out, that nothing is in your hands.

Relax. Don’t try to cling. Don’t try to impose your will, because nothing is in your hands. Don’t be deceived by this will. It takes you into dreams and fantasies.

When it is summer, it is summer. And when it is winter, it is winter. And when it is sunny, it is sunny.

And when it is cloudy, it is cloudy. Just today it is very cloudy... enjoy it! Enjoy all climates. Enjoy all moods of nature. They are all in a deep harmony. Everything is needed to make this world a perfect world. Just sun and sun every day won’t do.

I have heard an ancient parable – must be very ancient because God used to live on the earth in those days. Slowly slowly, he became very tired of man, because people would torture him continuously. In the middle of the night, somebody would knock and say, ”Why have you done this?

Why not do it this way?” Everybody was advising; everybody was praying and their prayers were contradictory. A man would come and would say, ”Today let there be sun, because I am going to wash my clothes.”

And somebody else would come and he would say, ”Today let there be rain, because I am going to plant trees.” Now what to do? They were driving God mad!

He had to disappear from the earth. He had to escape just to survive. He had to become invisible.

One day a man came, a farmer, an old farmer, and he said, ”Look, you may be God, and you may have created the world, but one thing I must say to you: you are not a farmer, and you don’t know even the ABE of farming. And your whole nature and the functioning of your nature is so absurd, and this I say out of my whole life’s experience. You have to learn something.”

God said, ”What’s your advice?”

The farmer said, ”You give me one year’s time, and just let things be according to me, and see what happens. There will be no poverty left!”

God was willing and one year was given to the farmer. Now it was according to his will that everything was happening. Naturally, he asked the best, he thought only of the best – no thunder, no strong winds, no dangers for the crop. Everything comfortable, cozy, and he was very happy. The wheat was growing so high! No dangers were there, no hindrances were there; everything was moving according to HIS desire. When he wanted sun, there was sun; when he wanted rain, there was rain, and AS much as he wanted. In the old days, sometimes it rained too much, and the rivers would be flooded, and the crops would be destroyed; and sometimes it would not rain enough and the land would remain dry, and the crops would die... and sometimes something else, and sometimes something else. It was rare, very rare, that things were right. But this year everything was put right, mathematically right.

The wheat was growing so high that the farmer was very happy. He used to go to God and say,

”Look! This time the crops will be such that for ten years if people don’t work there will be enough food.”

But when the crops were cut, there was no wheat inside. He was surprised – what happened?! He asked God, ”What happened? what went wrong?”

God said, ”Because there was no challenge, because there was no difficulty, because there was no conflict, no friction, because all was good, you avoided all that was bad, the wheat remained impotent. A little struggle is a must. Storms are needed, thunder , lightning is needed. They shake up the soul inside the wheat.”

This parable is of immense value. If you are just happy and happy and happy, happiness will lose all meaning. You will become tired of it. You will be fed up with it. You remain interested in happiness because there are sad moments too. Those sad moments keep you interested in happiness. You cannot go on eating only sugar and sugar and sugar – something salted is a must, otherwise all taste will be lost.

If you are just happy, just happy, just happy... you will have diabetes from happiness. You will become impotent. You will be bored, utterly bored – your life will not have meaning. It will be as if somebody is writing with white chalk on a white wall. He can go on writing, but nobody will ever be able to read it. You have to write on a black board, then it comes clear and loud. The night is as much needed as the day. And the days of sadness are AS essential as the days of happiness.

THIS I call understanding. Once you understand it, you relax – in that relaxation is surrender. You say: ”Thy will be done.” You say: ”Do whatsoever you feel is right. If today clouds are needed, give me duds. Don’t listen to me. My understanding is tiny. My will is foolish. What do I know of life and its secrets? Don’t listen to me! You just go on doing your will.”

And, slowly slowly, the more you see the rhythm of life, the rhythm of duality, the rhythm of polarity, you stop asking, you stop choosing. Not that by choosing anything changes – nothing changes, just you become frustrated. Everything remains the same. If the river is going north, the river is going north; by your choosing that the river should go south, you become miserable, that’s all. The river continues to go north!

Your will, your choice, your action, makes NO difference at all. But one difference, certainly, it makes

– no difference in the situation of the world, in existence – but one difference in your psychology: you become frustrated, because the river is not going north, or going north, and you have the opposite direction in your mind. You are failing. Not that the river intends to make you a failure – the river has nothing to do with you. The river is simply going north.

The man of understanding goes with the river, flows with the flow, moves with the wind. Slowly slowly, the understanding that ”Nothing is in my hands” becomes surrender. And that surrender brings great benediction. That surrender brings bliss.

Dharmen, you have found the secret! This is the secret. Live with this secret, and see the beauty.

Live with this secret, and you will be suddenly surprised: How great is the blessing of life! How much is being showered on you every moment! But you are living in your expectations, in your small, tiny, trivial desires. And because things are not fitting with your desires, you are miserable.

Misery has only one meaning, that things are not fitting with your desires – and things never fit with your desires, they cannot. Things simply go on following their nature.

Lao Tzu calls this nature Tao. Buddha calls this nature Dhamma. Mahavir has defined religion as the nature of things. Nothing can be done. Fire is hot and water is cool. Don’t try to impose your will on the nature of things. That is what the stupid man goes on doing – and creates misery for himself, creates hell. The wise man is one who relaxes with the nature of things, who follows the nature of things.

And when you follow the nature of things, no shadow is cast. There is no misery. Even sadness is luminous then, even sadness has a beauty then. Not that sadness will not come – it will come – but it will not be your enemy. You will befriend it, because you will see its necessity. You will be able to see its grace, and you will be able to see WHY it is there and why it is needed. And without it you will be less not more.

This is the meaning of surrender. You go on misunderstanding me. When I say ”Surrender!” you think you have to do something. No. I am saying: You have nothing to do, you cannot do, there is no way of doing anything... see this! This is surrender.

The second question:

Question 2

DOES BEING IN THE PRESENCE OF A MASTER REALLY CHANGE A MAN?

YOU ARE CHANGED BY EVERYTHING! The sun rises in the morning, your sleep disappears. Not only yours – trees are awake, birds start singing, the earth wakes up. When the sun sets in the evening, you start falling asleep – not only you, but trees and birds and rivers and mountains. The whole earth plunges into sleep. When you listen to great music, is some chord in your heart touched and moved or not? Listening to great music, do you become music or not? Seeing a dancer, does not a great desire arise in you to dance? to participate? Does not your energy start becoming a dance? Listening to a poet, listening to great poetry, for a few moments, you attain to a poetic vision.

Some doors open, some mysteries surround you.

Exactly the same happens, on a more total level, in the presence of a Master – because the Master is a musician and the Master is a poet and the Master is a painter and the Master is a potter and the Master is a weaver... and the Master is all things together. A Master is a multi-dimensional phenomenon.

To be in the presence of the Master, to be really in the presence of the Master, to be open, vulnerable, available, available to his touch – then his magic starts flowing into you. And this happens every day to you! Still the mind goes on suspecting. Still the doubt goes on raising its head.

Have you not been transported into other worlds being with me? Has not it happened to many of you? Is it not happening right now? Are you the same person when you are away from me?

Have you not felt that something changes, something starts happening to you, strange, unknown, some energy starts moving, some light starts descending, some silence blooms inside you, some unknown song starts flowing in your being, as the wind that passes through the pines? Have you not heard this sound of running water? through my words, through my silences? Just looking at me, sometimes with open eyes and sometimes with closed eyes, has not it happened again and again to you?

But, I know, the question arises. The more it happens, the more mind creates doubts: Maybe it is just hypnosis? That’s what people say all around the world about me, that ”This man is a hypnotist.”

Many people are afraid to come, because if they come and if they are hypnotized then what? The mind says, ”Maybe this is just hypnosis.” The mind says, ”Maybe you have fallen into an illusion.

Maybe this is just a delusion, some magic – otherwise, why does it disappear?”

When you go away from me, when I am not with you and you are not with me, when you forget about me, why does it disappear? The mind, naturally, asks these questions. It disappears because you have not yet learnt how to remain on those high planes of being, how to remain in those plenitude.

With me, with great courage, unaware of where you are going, you start moving.... As if a small child goes with his father into the forest – unafraid of the wild animals, unafraid of the strangeness, up afraid of everything! He knows his father is with him. His hand is in his father’s hand. The father may be afraid himself, but the child is not. The father may be worried whether he is on the right track, whether he will be able to reach home, but the CHILD is not. WHY should he be worried? He trusts the father; his trust is absolute. The father may look a little disturbed, but the child is thrilled with the adventure. He is looking at the trees and the flowers, and collecting wild flowers and running after butterflies.

But let the father go and leave the child alone in the forest, and immediately all joy disappears.

Now he is alone. He cannot trust himself. Now where is the right path? Now he cannot run after butterflies; now butterflies have no more colors – in fact they don’t exist any more. Now there are no wild flowers; there are only wild animals behind each tree, and ghosts and things like that. And now he is afraid, and it is getting darker and the sun is going to set soon. And he starts crying. He is NO

more in that wondrous state.

What has happened? Only one thing has happened: he is no more in trust.

When you are with me there is trust, and trust transforms. When you are alone, the trust is lost – you are not yet capable of trusting yourself. That’s the function of a Master, to help you, slowly slowly, so that you can trust yourself, so that the Master is no more needed. The function of a true Master is to prepare the disciple in such a way that sooner or later the Master is no more needed, and the disciple can remain on his own in those higher planes of being – where joy is and grace is.

Those higher planes of being are called paradise or heaven. The highest is called MOKSHA, Nirvana. From that point there is no coming back; it is a point of no return. But the first glimpses are possible only with somebody who knows the path, with somebody who has gone to that peak and come back to the earth.

In the ancient scriptures, two types of enlightened people are talked about – and it will be significant to understand in reference to the concept of the Perfect Master.

In the Buddha tradition, one is called the ARHAT – one who becomes enlightened, reaches to the highest peak of consciousness, but knows not how to come back to the earth, how to relate to people. He never becomes a Master. He is enlightened, as much as any other Buddha, but he never becomes a Master. Because to become a Master not only is enlightenment needed – enlightenment is a must – but a second process is also needed. the capacity to come back to the valleys.

So two things are needed that make a person a Master. First, that he should go to the peak, to the sunlit peaks of consciousness; and second, that he should be able to find his way back to the dark valleys. Because people are living there! If you shout from the peaks, nobody is going to listen. Your voice will never reach to the people. They are worlds apart. The Master has to come back down, he has to descend into the dark, dismal valleys where people are living and groping. He has to become like them again. If you want people to go to the peak, first you will have to come to the valley.

So the Buddha tradition says: two types of enlightened people exist. One is called ARHAT – one who becomes enlightened and remains there and forgets all about the people who are groping in the dark, suffering in misery, in ignorance. And the other is called BODHISATTVA – the BODHISATTVA becomes the Master, he comes back. The moment he has reached the peak, immediately he starts descending. He remembers that many are there who will need his support. Many are there who will need him as a guide. Now he knows the path, now he can lead many people to the peak.

It is going to be a difficult task. To convince people that the peak exists is a difficult task. To convince people that ”It is possible. You can reach the peak,” is very difficult. They have lived in darkness for so many lives, for millions of lives, that they know only darkness. They can’t believe that light is possible. They have always been blind! There is no word for light in their language. And if you talk about light, they think either you have gone mad or you are just being poetic.

That’s what was reported to Buddha’s parents. When he became enlightened, rum ours started reaching the palace, the old man: ”Your son has become enlightened.” Those who were negative about Buddha, they said, ”He has gone mad.” And those who were not negative, who were sympathetic, they said, ”He has become a poet.”

At the most, people can believe that you must be creating great poetry, you have great imagination.

You can visualize sunlit peaks, you are really a great visionary. You can see God in your vision, and paradise, and the angels – you are a great visionary.

But the mystic is not a visionary. What he sees is not a vision: what he sees is tangible reality. But how to convince the people who have not known? How to tell them what light is if they have never opened their eyes? If you tell them, ”It is white,” they will ask, ”What is white?” If you tell them, ”It is like snow, pure white,” they will think light is a very cold thing and wet. Light is neither cold nor wet.

But don’t be hard on people. What can they do? They have to translate everything into the language of the valley.

So the first distinction: a few people never come back from the peak, seeing the impossibility of it all, that nobody is going to trust them, nobody is going to believe them. And why bother? They have arrived... they disappear into the light.

The second type, the BODHISATTVA, who becomes a Master, has infinite compassion. He starts moving down, back into the darker world which he has left behind. Where people are just like crawling worms, where people are not yet people, have no consciousness, are living like robots.

And those people are not going to forgive this man who has come from the sunlit peaks – they will crucify him, they will kill him, they will poison him, because this man will disturb their comfort, their convenience. They have started to believe that darkness is all, and now here comes this man with the message that ”No! Darkness is not all. There are sunlit Himalayan peaks, and I have been there.”

Now this man disturbs their sleep, disturbs their cozy arrangement. Now this man AGAIN creates a longing in them to search for the peaks. They cannot forgive this man. Hence, Jesus is crucified, Mansoor is murdered, Socrates is poisoned, Buddha is stoned, Mahavir is driven out from each place wherever he goes. Why are people so antagonistic towards the Masters? There is a reason in it.

This man brings some news that creates a very very great desire in them, and that desire will disturb their whole arrangement. They have a wife, children they have, the shop, the factory, everything is going well. Somehow they have managed, and now comes this man to disturb everything. Now NO

more does the wife seem to be so attractive, no more do the children seem to be so attractive, no more the money, the power politics... now a dream is released in them. And the touch of the Master is such that even if you are against him, he moves your heart. Even if you DON’T want to listen to him, something hits you, something goes into your heart like a seed and starts sprouting there.

The difficulty for the Master is how to speak to you about those peaks. The Perfect Master is one who manages. The Perfect Master is one who somehow manages to say things which cannot be said, somehow creates devices. If things cannot be said, then he tries to SHOW them to you, he creates situations in which some glimpses of the peak can come to you.

The Perfect Master is one who tries the impossible, and succeeds in it.

A Buddha is a Perfect Master. A Jesus is a Perfect Master. A Mohammed is a Perfect Master – so is Kabir, Nanak. A Perfect Master is one who has succeeded in the impossible task of convincing blind people that light exists, of convincing deaf people that music exists – and not only exists but is worth searching for.

IN THE PRESENCE OF A MASTER, YOU ASK, DOES IT REALLY HAPPEN THAT A MAN

CHANGES?

What to say about man? – sometimes even animals have been known to change.

Not many years ago, just a few years ago, there was a great Master, Ramana Maharshi – a Perfect Master, In his DARSHANS – because he was a silent man, would speak rarely and very few words

– each morning when he would sit for the darshan for one hour and people would come to sit with him, a cow would also come. The cow was so regular that no other disciple was so regular – the cow was just like Teertha! Regular.... It might rain, it might be summer, it might be winter – whatsoever!

– the cow might be ill, or healthy, whatsoever, but the cow was bound to come at the exact time.

She would come and stand in the verandah and look inside through the window, her head inside the window, and remain there for one hour, sometimes with open eyes and sometimes with closed eyes. And sometimes tears flowing... it has become a miracle!

One day the cow was very ill and could not come – so Ramana had to go! He had never gone to visit any other disciple, but for that poor cow he had to go. And all the disciples said, ”What are you doing, Bhagwan?” And he said, ”But I have to go. She was so regular. And I know she wants to come – the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

And when he went, she was just sitting in the direction of his room looking at the window from far away. She could not get up, she was dying. And when Ramana reached, she closed her eyes and tears started flowing. She died. That cow was the first animal in the whole history of humanity or of consciousness that was given a farewell as is given to an enlightened person. Ramana was present there.

Somebody asked Ramana, ”Is this cow going to be born as a man?”

Ramana said, ”No. She will not need to be born as a man – she has passed beyond that. She is not going to be born at all. She has attained enlightenment.”

Yes, it is possible. What to say about man? Even animals, if they are receptive... and cows ARE

very receptive. That’s why in the East they have become sacred. It is not for no reason at all – they ARE very receptive, open. They can grow in consciousness. NO other animal can take this jump that the cow can take.

It was for no other reason than this that they became an essential part of all the ashrams in the East in the old days. They created a certain atmosphere – of purity, innocence.

Listen to this story:

Izzy’s friend Yosef said he had found a parrot that not only would speak, but could speak Hebrew.

Izzy was skeptical, but when he went to Yosef’s house, they put a yarmulke on the bird’s head, and the parrot immediately recited the full Friday night services.

Izzy was amazed, and begged his friend to let him buy the bird. After much cajoling, Yosef agreed.

For the price of ten dollars, Izzy was able to take away the ’dovvining’ bird.

On Rosh Hashanah, Izzy took the bird to the synagogue. He passed the word around that his parrot could sing the prayers. Everyone laughed at his pretensions, and he extracted wagers of ten to one that his bird couldn’t follow the service for even three minutes.

When the prayers began, Izzy put a yarmulke on the parrot’s head and commanded him to sing. But the bird was silent.

”Go, pray, like you did for Yosef,” Izzy urged. But the parrot wouldn’t open its beak.

”Pray, you numbskull! I have a bet on you!” But the parrot wouldn’t utter a word. Finally, Izzy had to admit defeat, and left the synagogue downcast and deep in debt.

When he got home, he lashed into the bird. ”So you shame me in front of everybody, eh? So you make me lose ten to one bets? So you pretend you don’t know how to pray? Why did you do that?”

Finally, the parrot spoke up. ”Don’t be stupid!” said the parrot. ”Comes Yom Kippur, you’ll make a killing!”

If the parrot lives with a Jew, the parrot becomes a Jew, remember. If you live with the Master, something of the Master starts entering in you....

The third question:

Question 3

ONE DAY YOU SPOKE TO US ABOUT PERFECTION AND CREATIVITY. WHAT IS THE

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ARTISTIC CREATIVITY AND PERFECTION? IS NOT CREATIVITY

IN MUSIC, PAINTING AND POETRY AN ATTEMPT TO REACH PERFECTION IN VISIBLE AND

AUDIBLE FORM? IS THE ARTIST SIMPLY CREATING A MORE REFINED EGO AS THE SO-CALLED SAINTS YOU OFTEN TALK ABOUT?

YES, AKAM, ORDINARILY the artist is the most egoistic person in the world. But then he is not a true artist either. He has used art as a means for his ego trip. Artists are VERY egoistic, constantly bragging about themselves, and constantly fighting with each other. And everybody thinks that he is the first and the last. But this is not true art.

The true artist disappears utterly. These people are only technicians; I will not call them artists but technicians. I will not call them creators; I will only call them composers. Yes, to compose a poem is one thing, to create a poem is quite another. To compose poetry one needs to know language, grammar, rules of the grammar – rules of poetics. It is a game with words. And if you know the whole game, you can create poetry. It will not be very poetic, but it will have the appearance of poetry. Technically, it may be perfect, but it will have only the body – the soul will be missing.

The soul happens only when the artist disappears into his art – he is no more separate. When the painter paints with such abandon that he is not there, that he even feels guilty to sign his painting

– because he knows he has not done it. Some unknown force has done it through him. He knows that he has been possessed – that has been the experience of all the really great artists down the ages: the feeling of being possessed. The greater the artist, the more clear the feeling is.

And those who are the greatest – a Mozart, a Beethoven, a Kalidas, a Rabindranath – these who are the greatest, they are absolutely certain that they have been nothing but hollow bamboos, and God has been singing through them. They have been flutes, but the song is not theirs. It has flowed through them, but it comes from some unknown source. They have not hindered – that’s all they have done. But they have not created it. The paradox!

The real creator knows that he has not created it. God has worked through him. He has possessed him, his hands, his being, and he has created something through him. He has been instrumental.

This is real art, where the artist disappears – then there is no question of ego. And then art becomes religion. Then the artist is a mystic – not only technically right but existentially authentic.

You ask me: ONE DAY YOU SPOKE TO US ABOUT PERFECTION AND CREATIVITY. WHAT IS

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ARTISTIC CREATIVITY AND PERFECTION?

First, the less of the artist is in it, the more perfect it is. When the artist is absolutely absent, then the creativity is absolutely perfect. In THIS proportion, you have to remember. The more the artist is present, the less perfect the product will be. If the artist is too much present, the product will be nauseating, it will be neurotic. It will be just ego – what else can it be? Ego is neurosis.

And one thing more to be remembered: ego always wants to be perfect. Ego is a very perfectionistic one. Ego always wants to be higher and better than others. Hence it is perfectionist. But through ego perfection is never possible. So the effort is absurd. Perfection is possible only when the ego is not. But then one never thinks of perfection at all.

So the real artist never thinks of perfection. He has no idea of perfection. He simply allows himself into a surrender, into a let go , and whatsoever happens happens. The real artist thinks certainly of totality, but never of perfection. He wants to be totally in it, that’s all. When he dances, he wants to disappear into the dance. He does not want to be there, because the presence of the dancer will be a disturbance in the dance. The grace, the flow, will be disturbed, obstructed. When the dancer is not there, all rocks have disappeared, the flow is very silent, smooth.

The real artist certainly thinks of totality – how to be total? – but never thinks of perfection. And the beauty is: those who are total, they are perfect. And those who think of perfection are never perfect, never total. Rather, on the contrary: the more they think of perfection, the more neurotic they become. They have ideals. They are always comparing, and they are always falling short!

If you have an ideal that unless this ideal is fulfilled, you will not think yourself perfect, how can you be total in your act? If you think, for example, that you have to be a dancer like Nijinsky, then how can you be total in your dance? You are constantly looking, watching yourself, trying to improve, afraid to commit any fault... you are divided. A part of you is dancing, another part of you is there –

judgemental, standing by the side condemning, criticizing. You are divided, you are split.

Nijinsky was perfect because he was total. It used to happen that when he danced and he would take leaps in his dance, people could not believe their eyes, even scientists could not believe their eyes. His leap was such that it was against the law of gravitation – it should not happen! And when he fell back, he would come so slowly, like a feather... that too is against the law of gravitation.

He was asked about it again and again. The more people asked, the more he became conscious of it, the more it started disappearing. A moment came in his life when it stopped completely, and the reason was that he became conscious of it – he lost his totality. Then he understood it, why it had disappeared. It used to happen, but it used to happen only when Nijinsky was completely lost into the dance. In that complete loosening, in that complete relaxation, one functions in a totally different world, according to different laws.

Let me tell you about one law which sooner or later science is going to discover. I call it the law of grace. Just as there is a law of gravitation... three hundred years ago it was not known. It was functioning even before it was known; the law need not be known to function. The law was always functioning. It has nothing to do with Newton and the apple falling from the tree. Apples used to fall before too! It is not that Newton discovered the law and then the apples started falling. The law was there, Newton discovered it.

Exactly like that another law is there: the law of grace, that uplifts. The law of gravitation pulls things downwards: the law of grace lifts things upwards. In Yoga they call it levitation. In a certain state of abandon, in a certain state of drunkenness, drunk with the divine, in a certain state of utter surrender, egolessness, that law starts functioning. One is uplifted. One becomes weightless.

That was happening in Nijinsky’s case. But you cannot make it happen, because if you are there it will not happen. Ego is like a rock around your neck. When the ego is not there, you are weightless.

And have you not felt it sometimes in your own life? There are moments when you have a kind of weightlessness. You walk on the earth but still your feet don’t touch the earth – you are six inches above. Moments of joy, moments of prayer, moments of meditation, moments of celebration, moments of love... and YOU ARE weightless, you are uplifted.

And I say, sooner or later science will have to discover it, because science believes in a certain principle: the principle of the polar opposites. No law can be alone: it must have its opposite.

Electricity cannot function with only one pole, positive or negative; both are needed.

They

complement each other.

Science knows it, that EACH law has its opposite to complement it. Gravitation must have a law opposite to it to complement it. That law, tentatively, I call grace – any other name may be possible in the future. Because scientists, if they discover it, they will not call it grace. But that seems to be the most perfect name for it. God uplifting you.

The real artist never thinks of perfection, but his act is so total that perfection is born out of it. The pseudo artist, the technician, always thinks of perfection, and because he thinks of perfection, he is not total, perfection is not born out of him.

This can be of immense help to you, in all walks of life – particularly for those who are inquiring into the reality of God, truth. Think of .totality! and perfection will come automatically on its own. Never think of perfection, otherwise you will go neurotic. All perfectionists become neurotic.

The fourth question:

Question 4

OSHO, WHAT IS INNER SENSE?

A boy was constantly scratching his head. His father looked at him one day and said, ”Son, why are you always scratching your head?”

”Well,” the boy responded, ”I guess because I am the only one who knows it itches.”

THIS IS INNER SENSE. Only you know. Nobody else can know. It cannot be observed from the outside. When you have a headache, only you know. You cannot prove it. When you are happy, only you know – you cannot prove it. You cannot put it on the table to be inspected by everybody, dissected, analyzed.

In fact, the inner sense is so inner that you cannot even prove that it exists. That’s why science goes on denying it, but the denial is inhuman. Even the scientist knows that when he feels love, he has an inner feeling. Something IS there! And it is not a thing, and it is not an object; and it is not possible to put it before others. And STILL it is.

Inner sense has its own validity. But because of the scientific training, people have lost trust in their inner sense. They depend on others. You depend so much that if somebody says, ”You are looking very happy,” you start feeling happy. If twenty people decide to make you unhappy, they can make you unhappy. They just have to repeat it the whole day whenever you come across them, they have to say to you that ”You are looking very unhappy, very sad. What is the matter? Somebody died or something?” And you will start suspecting: so many people are saying that you are unhappy, you must be.

You depend on people’s opinions. You have depended on people’s opinions SO much that you have lost all track of inner sense. This inner sense has to be rediscovered, because all that is beautiful and all that is good and all that is divine can only be felt by the inner sense.

Stop being influenced by people’s opinions. Rather, start looking in... allow your inner sense to say things to you. Trust it. If you trust it, it will grow. If you trust it you will feed it, it will become stronger.

Vivekananda went to Ramakrishna, and he said, ”There is no God! I can PROVE it – there is no God.” He was a very logical, skeptical man, well-educated, well-educated in the Western philosophical thinking. Ramakrishna was an uneducated, illiterate person. And Ramakrishna says,

”Okay, so prove!”

Vivekananda talked much, all the proofs that he had. And Ramakrishna listened, and then he said, ”But my inner sense says he is – and that is the final authority. All that you are saying is argumentation. What does your inner sense say?”

Vivekananda had not even thought about it. He shrugged his shoulders. He had read books, he had collected arguments, proofs for and against, and he had tried to decide whether God exists or not according to these proofs. But he had not looked in. He had not asked his inner sense.

It is so stupid, but the skeptical mind IS stupid, the logical mind is stupid.

Ramakrishna said, ”Your arguments are beautiful, I enjoyed. But what can I do? I KNOW! My inner sense says he is. Just as my inner sense says I am happy, I am ill, I am sad, my stomach is hurting, that today I am not feeling well, so my inner sense says God is. It is not a question of debate.”

And Ramakrishna said, ”I cannot prove it, but if you want, I can show you.” Nobody had told Vivekananda before that God can be shown. And before he could say anything Ramakrishna jumped – he was a wild man – he jumped and put his feet on Vivekananda’s chest. And something happened, some energy jumped, and Vivekananda fell into a trance for three hours.

When he opened his eyes, he was a totally different man.

Ramakrishna said, ”What do you say now? God is or God is not? What does your inner sense say now?”

He was in such tranquility, such stillness, as he had never known before. There was such jubilation inside, such well-being such overflowing well-being.... He had to bow down and touch his feet and say, ”Yes, God is.”

God is not a person but the ultimate sense of well-being, the ultimate sense of being at home, the ultimate sense that ”I belong to this world and this world belongs to me. I am not alien here, I am not an outsider.” The ultimate sense – existential – that ”This whole and I are not separate.” This experience is God.

But this experience is possible only if you allow your inner sense to function. Start allowing it! Give it as many opportunities as possible. Don’t look always for outside authorities, and don’t look for outside opinions. Keep yourself a little more independent. Feel more, think less.

Go and look at the rose flower, and don’t just repeat parrot like, ”This is beautiful.” This may be just opinion, people have told you; from your very childhood you have been hearing, ”The rose flower is beautiful, is a great flower.” So when you see the rose, you simply repeat, like a computer, ”This is beautiful.” Are you really feeling it? Is it your inner feeling? If it is not, don’t say it.

Looking at the moon, don’t say that it is beautiful – unless it is your inner sense. You will be surprised that ninety-nine percent of the stuff that you carry in your mind is all borrowed. And within that ninety-nine percent of stuff, useless rubbish, the one percent of inner sense is lost, is drowned. Drop that knowledgeability. Recover your inner sense.

It is through the inner sense that God is known.

There are six senses: five are outer; they tell you about the world. I say something about the light; without eyes you will not know light. Ears say something about the sound; without ears you will not know anything about the sound. There is a sixth sense, the inner sense, that shows and tells you something about yourself and the ultimate source of things. That sense has to be discovered.

Meditation is nothing but the discovery of the inner sense.

The last question:

Question 5

OSHO, SOMETIMES I INDULGE IN SEXUALITY AND THEN FEEL VERY MUCH FRUSTRATED.

THEN I MOVE TO ANOTHER EXTREME. I BECOME A CELIBATE, BUT SOON I START FEELING

FRUSTRATED AGAIN AND START MOVING TO THE OTHER EXTREME. THIS IS A VICIOUS

CIRCLE I AM CAUGHT IN. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

ALMOST EVERYBODY IS CAUGHT in some vicious circle or other – because mind cannot exist without a vicious circle. Somebody eats too much, gathers fat, becomes worried, starts dieting, fasting, eats less, feels hungry, becomes worried, starts eating more... and so on and so forth.

Mind exists like the pendulum of a clock: it goes from one extreme to the other extreme. And you cannot get out of the vicious circle by moving to the other extreme, because the other extreme is part of the vicious circle. When the pendulum is going to the right, in fact it is gathering momentum to go to the left. When the pendulum is going to the left, it is gathering momentum to go to the right.

This is the vicious circle, VERY subtle.

When you are feeling frustrated with indulgence in sexuality, what is happening? You are becoming interested in celibacy, in all those great ideas of BRAHMACHARYA, that celibacy is life, that celibacy is energy. Then you will start reading books on celibacy, and you will feel very much convinced. Not that those books are right. You are feeling convinced because you are frustrated with your sexual indulgence. You will become a celibate, but this is another extreme.

Soon, your sexual energy will become dammed; soon you will feel sexuality ready to burst forth.

Now, you will start thinking of magazines like Playboy and pornography. And if you don’t look into those magazines, you will create your own private pornography in your dreams. Or, whenever you are sitting with closed eyes trying to meditate, nothing else will happen – just pornography. Now the energy has gathered so much momentum it wants to move to the other extreme. And sooner or later you will have to move.

You ask me: WHAT TO DO?

Learn the middle way. Learn the golden mean. Learn to remain exactly in the middle. And once the pendulum stops in the middle, the whole clock stops. If you stop in the middle, the mind disappears.

Mind is time, the clock.

A story:

The star salesman was doing great. Rubin and Cohen were shipping dresses at an enormous rate.

It’s true that Sid Metofsky drew S400 a week, but he was certainly piling up the orders.

Only one thing bothered the partners.

On top of his draw, and on top of a heavy expense

account for travel, every so often Metofsky sent in an extra item of 50withanotation :

”Amanisnotmadeofwood.”

When this expense item appeared for the third time, Cohen looked at Rubin and he said, ”What should we do about this?”

”Well, considering the business he’s sending in, we just better overlook it and pay up,” answered Rubin.

But the following week, three tabs came in for fifty smackers each, and each tab read: ”A man is not made of wood.”

Rub in counsel led forbearing, but Cohen lost his temper. ”Three times in two days!” he bellowed.

”Miss Jacobs!” he called to his secretary. ”Send a telegram to Metofsky. ’Dear Sid: Wood, no. But a man is not made of iron either.”’

One has to stop somewhere exactly in the middle. And it is very very simple if you understand.

Be natural. Be spontaneous. Be simple. When feeling hungry, eat. And when not feeling hungry, DON’T eat. People are very strange: when they are not feeling hungry, they go on eating; when they are feeling hungry, they fast. You go against nature, hence you suffer. Just move slowly, silently with nature.

Again, this is what I call surrender! Accept all that is natural. Forget all that your mahatmas have been telling you. Think of mahatmas as pathological; don’t listen to them – they have corrupted your minds. A mahatma is a guy who takes great lab our to crack a nut, then eats the shell, and throws the real thing – and starts teaching others also to do the same.

Beware of mahatmas. Be just ordinary, and see the beauty of being ordinary.Just be simple! neither worldly nor other-worldly, neither materialist nor spiritualist, neither against money nor for money.

Just BE simple and natural! Just accept whatsoever is, and move according to your natural capacity, potentiality.

And don’t decide a program me for your life. Be moment-to-moment. Don’t make a schedule.

Don’t make a style. Don’t create a character! Just slowly slowly, moment-to-moment moving, living, challenging, accepting, responding, slowly slowly great awareness arises. And one starts coming closer and closer to the middle of it all.

And the day it happens, when you are exactly in the middle, mind stops. And to be beyond mind is to be in God. That’s the work my sannyasins have to do. You are not to become indulgent, you are not to become celibate. You are not to create any structure upon yourself. You have to live without structure, with consciousness, with creativity, with sensitivity. And you have to live moment-to-moment, with no ideals, with no perfectionist neurosis. And the great day is not far away when suddenly one day you will find the pendulum is not moving either way.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10