Not Knowing is the Most Intimate

The first question

Virendra,

THE HIGHEST PEAK IS THE CULMINATION of all the values: truth, love, awareness, authenticity, totality. At the highest peak they are indivisible. They are separate only in the dark valleys of our unconsciousness They are separate only when they are polluted, mixed with other things. The moment they become pure they become one; the more pure, the closer they come to each other.

For example, each value exists on many planes; each value is a ladder of many rungs.

Love is lust -- the lowest rung, which touches hell; and love is also prayer -- the highest rung, which touches paradise. And between these two there are many planes easily discernible.

In lust, love is only one percent; ninety-nine percent are other things: jealousies, ego trips, possessiveness, anger, sexuality. It is more physical, more chemical; it has nothing deeper than that. It is very superficial, not even skin-deep.

As you go higher, things become deeper; they start having new dimensions. That which was only physiological starts having a psychological dimension to it. That which was nothing but biology starts becoming psychology. We share biology with all the animals; we don't share psychology with all the animals.

When love goes still higher -- or deeper, which is the same -- then it starts having something of the spiritual in it. It becomes metaphysical. Only Buddhas, Krishnas, Christs, they know that quality of love.

Love is spread all the way and so are other values. When love is one hundred percent pure you cannot make any distinction between love and awareness; then they are no more two. You cannot make any distinction between love and God even; they are no more two.

Hence Jesus' statement that God is love. He makes them synonymous. There is great insight in it.

On the periphery everything appears separate from everything else; on the periphery existence is many. As you come closer to the center, the manyness starts melting, dissolving, and oneness starts arising. At the center, everything is one.

Hence your question, Virendra, is right only if you don't understand the highest quality of love and awareness. It is absolutely irrelevant if you have any glimpse of the Everest, of the highest peak.

You ask: IS AWARENESS A HIGHER VALUE THAN LOVE?

There is nothing higher and nothing lower. In fact, there are not two values at all. These are the two paths from the valley leading to the peak. One path is of awareness, meditation: the path of Zen we have been talking about these days. And the other is the path of love, the path of the devotees, the BHAKTAS, the Sufis. These two paths are separate when you start the journey; you have to choose. Whichever you choose is going to lead to the same peak. And as you come closer to the peak you will be surprised: the travelers on the other path are coming closer to you. Slowly slowly, the paths start merging into each other. By the time you have reached the ultimate, they are one.

The person who follows the path of awareness finds love as a consequence of his awareness, as a by-product, as a shadow. And the person who follows the path of love finds awareness as a consequence, as a by-product, as a shadow of love. They are two sides of the same coin.

And remember: if your awareness lacks love then it is still impure; it has not yet known one hundred percent purity. It is not yet REALLY awareness; it must be mixed with unawareness. It is not pure light; there must be pockets of darkness inside you still working, functioning, influencing you, dominating you. If your love is without awareness, then it is not love yet. It must be something lower, something closer to lust than to prayer.

So let it be a criterion if you follow the path of awareness, let love be the criterion. When your awareness suddenly blooms into love, know perfectly well that awareness has happened, SAMADHI has been achieved. If you follow the path of love, then let awareness function as a criterion, as a touchstone. When suddenly, from nowhere, at the very center of your love. a flame of awareness starts arising, know perfectly well...rejoice! You have come home.

The second question

Maneeshi,

KNOWLEDGE IS NOT YOURS, THAT'S WHY. It is borrowed. And can you borrow truth? Truth is untransferable; nobody can give it to you. Not even an alive Master can transmit it to you. You can learn, but it cannot be taught. So what to say about dead scriptures, howsoever holy they may be? They must have come from some original source; some Master, someone awakened must have been at the very source of them -- but now they are only words. They are only words about truth, information about truth.

To be with Krishna is a totally different matter from reading the Bhagavad Gita. To be with Mohammed, attuned, in deep harmony, overlapping with his being, allowing his being to stir and move your heart, is one thing. And just to read the Koran is a far, faraway cry; it is an echo in the mountains. It is not the truth itself; it is a reflection, a full moon reflected in the lake. If you jump into the lake you are not going to get to the moon; in fact, if you jump into the lake even the reflection will disappear. Scriptures are only mirrors reflecting faraway truths.

Now the Vedas have existed for at least five thousand years; they reflect something five thousand years old. Much dust has gathered on the mirror, much interpretation, commentary -- that's what I mean by dust. Now you cannot know exactly what the Vedas say; you know only the commentators, the interpreters, and they are thousands. There is a thick wall of commentaries and it is impossible to just put it aside. You will know only ABOUT truth, and not only that: you will know commentaries and interpretations of people who have not experienced at all.

Knowledge is imparted for other purposes. Yes, there is a possibility of imparting knowledge about the world because the world is outside you, it is objective. Science is knowledge; science, the very word, means exactly knowledge. But religion is not knowledge.

Religion is experience -- for the simple reason that its whole concern is your interiority, your subjectivity, which is available only to you and to nobody else. You cannot invite even your beloved into your inner being. There you are utterly alone -- and there resides the truth.

Knowledge will go on enhancing, decorating, enriching your memory, but not your being. Your being is a totally different phenomenon. In fact, knowledge will create barriers. One has to unlearn all that one has learned -- only then does one reach the being.

One has to be innocent Not knowing is the most intimate. Knowing creates distance.

You ask me, Maneeshi: WHY ISN'T KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES HELPFUL IN FINDING THE TRUTH?

For the simple reason that if you accumulate knowledge you will be starting to believe in conclusions. You will already conclude what truth is without KNOWING it, and your conclusion will become the greatest hindrance. Truth has to be approached in utter nudity, in utter purity, in silence, in a state of innocence, child-like wonder and awe; not knowing already, not full of the rubbish called knowledge, not full of the Vedas and the Bibles and the Korans, but utterly silent...without any thought, without any conclusion, without knowing anything about truth. When you approach in this way, suddenly truth is revealed. And truth is revealed here and now: "AH, THIS!" A great rejoicing starts happening inside you.

Truth is not separate from you; it is your innermost core. So you need not to learn it from somebody else. Then what's the function of the Masters?

The function of the Masters is to help you drop your knowledge, to help you unlearn, to help you towards a state of unconditioning. Your knowledge means you will be always looking through a curtain and that curtain will distort everything. And knowledge is dead.

Consciousness is needed, knowing is needed, a state of seeing is needed, but not knowledge. How can you know the alive through the dead?

A man stepped into a very crowded bus. After a while he took out his glass eye, threw it up in the air, then put it back in again. Ten minutes later he again took out his glass eye, threw it up in the air, then put it back in again.

The lady next to him was horrified. "What are you doing?" she cried.

"I am just trying to see if there is any room up front."

That's what knowledge is: a glass eye. You cannot see through it, it is impossible to see through it.

Drop all your conclusions -- Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, Jaina, Jewish. Drop all the knowledge that has been forced upon you. Every child has been poisoned -- poisoned by knowledge, poisoned by the parents, the society, the church, the state. Every child has been distracted from his innocence, from his not-knowing. And that's why every child, slowly slowly, becomes so burdened that he loses all joy of life, all ecstasy of being, and he becomes just like the crowd, part of the crowd.

In fact, the moment a child is perfectly conditioned by you, you are very happy; you call it "religious education." You are very happy that the child has been initiated into the religion of his parents. All that you have done is you have destroyed his capacity to know on his own. You have destroyed his authenticity. You have destroyed his very precious innocence. You have closed his doors and windows. Now he will live an encapsulated existence. He will live in his inner darkness, surrounded by all kinds of stupid theories, systems of thought, philosophies, ideologies. He will be lost in a jungle of words and he will not be able to come out of it easily.

Even if he comes across a Master, if he meets a Buddha, then too it will take years for him to unlearn -- because learning becomes almost your blood, your bones, your marrow.

And to go against your own knowledge seems to be going against yourself, against your tradition, against your country, against your religion. It seems as if you are a traitor, as if you are betraying. In fact, your society has betrayed you, has contaminated your soul.

Every society has been doing that up to now, and every society has been very successfully doing it. That's why it is so rare to find a Buddha; it is so rare to escape from the traps the society puts all around the child. And the child is so unaware; he can easily be conditioned, hypnotized. And that's what goes on and on in the temples, in the churches, in the schools, colleges, universities. They all serve the past; they don't serve the future. Their function is to perpetuate the past, the dead past.

My work here is just the opposite. I am not here to perpetuate the past; hence I am against all knowledge. I am all for learning, but learning means innocence, learning means openness, learning means receptivity. Learning means a non-egoistic approach towards reality. Learning means: "I don't know and I am ready -- ready to know." Knowledge means: "I know already." Knowledge is the greatest deception that society creates in people's minds.

My function is to serve the future, not the past. The past is no more, but the future is coming every moment. I want you to become innocent, seers, knowers -- not knowledgeable -- alert, aware, not unconsciously clinging to conclusions.

The third question

Pankaja,

IT T IS BECAUSE OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE. Pankaja has written many books; she has been a well-known author. And here I have given her the work of cleaning. In the beginning it was very hurtful to her ego. She must have been hoping some day to get a Nobel prize! And she has been wondering what she is doing here. Her books have been praised and appreciated, and rather than giving her some work nourishing to her ego I have given her very ego-shattering work: cleaning the toilets of the ashram. It was difficult for her to swallow, but she is a courageous soul, she swallowed it. And slowly slowly she has become relaxed.

Pankaja, it is not special to you; it takes time for everybody. And the more successful you have been in life, the more it takes for you to get it, because your very success is nothing but a prop, a new prop for the ego -- and ego is the barrier. The ego has to be shattered, uprooted totally, smashed, burned, so nothing remains of it. It is arduous work, hard work.

And sometimes it looks as if the Master is cruel. But the Master has to be cruel because he loves you, because he has compassion for you. It may appear paradoxical in the beginning -- because if you have compassion, then you can't be cruel. That is the complexity of the work: that if the Master is really compassionate he cannot sympathize with anything that nourishes your ego.

So I have been in every way shattering Pankaja's ego. She has been crying and weeping and freaking out...but slowly slowly things have settled. The storm is no more and a great silence has come in.

In fact, if you think of your many past lives -- such a long long sleep, such a long long dreaming -- then just being here with me for two, three years is not a long time if the silence has started permeating your being. Even if it happens in thirty years' time it is happening soon.

Many people come to me and ask, "Osho, when is my satori going to happen?"

I say, "Very soon" -- but remember what I mean by "very soon." It may take thirty years, forty years, fifty years, but that is very soon. Looking at your long long journey of darkness, if within thirty years we can create the light it is really as fast as it can be.

But things are happening far more quickly. Every situation is being created here so processes can be quickened. It is not too late, Pankaja, it is too early. And I can see the change happening. The spring is not far away; the first flowers have already appeared.

In fact, this was your vocation, but it took so many years of your life to reach me. What you were doing before you came to me was not really part of your heart; it was just a head trip -- hence it was not a fulfillment. Successful you could become; famous, yes, that was possible. But it would not have been a contentment, it would not have been a deep deep joy -- because unless something that belongs to your heart starts growing, contentment is not possible, fulfillment is not possible.

Now you are on the right track. Now things will happen with a faster pace. Speed also is accumulative. If you have watched the spring, first only one flower blooms, and then ten flowers, then hundreds of flowers, and then thousands, and then millions....

Just like that it happens in spiritual growth too. But everybody is stumbling in darkness, groping in darkness. Somebody becomes a poet not knowing whether that is his vocation, his heart's real desire. Somebody becomes a musician not knowing whether that is going to fulfill his life. Somebody becomes a painter.... And people have to become something; some earning is needed and one has to do something to prove oneself. So people go on groping and they become something.

And you are fortunate, Pankaja, that you came to realize that what you were doing was not the real thing for you. There are many unfortunate people -- after their whole lives are wasted, then they recognize that they have been into something which was not their real work. They were doing somebody else's work.

I have heard about a famous surgeon, one of the world's most famous surgeons. He was retiring. Even at the age of seventy-five his hands were as young as they had been before.

He was able to do brain surgery even at the age of seventy-five; his hands were not yet shaky.

Everybody was happy -- his disciples, students, colleagues -- and they were celebrating.

But he was sad. Somebody asked him, "Why are you sad? You are the world's most famous brain surgeon. You should be happy!"

He said, "Yes, I should be happy, I also think so, but what can I do? I never wanted to be a famous surgeon in the first place. I wanted to be a dancer -- and I am the lousiest dancer you can find. My father FORCED me to be a surgeon -- and he was right in a way, because by dancing what can you get? The very idea was silly in his eyes, so he forced me to be a surgeon. I became a surgeon, I became famous. NOW I am retiring, but I am sad -- my whole life has gone down the drain. I never wanted to be a surgeon in the first place, so who cares whether I am famous or not? I would have loved to be just a good dancer, even if unknown, anonymous -- that would have been enough."

While questioning a suspect, the police detective leafed through the man's folder. "I see here," he said, "that you have a string of previous arrests. Here is one for armed robbery, breaking and entering, sexual assault, sexual assault, sexual assault...."

"Yes, sir," replied the felon modestly, "it took me a little while to find out what I do best."

Pankaja, you came to me in the right time. Rejoice! Celebrate! And things have started happening. You were like a hard rock when you came; now you are becoming soft like a flower. The spring is not far away.

The fourth question

Parmananda,

THE BUDDHAS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN LIFE-AFFIRMATIVE, but the religions that arose afterwards have all been life-negative. This is a strange phenomenon, but there is something which has to be understood -- why it happened in the first place. And it happened again and again.

It seems that the moment a Buddha speaks he is bound to be misunderstood. If you don't understand him, that's okay, but people don't stop there: they misunderstand him -- because people cannot tolerate the idea that they don't understand. It is better to misunderstand than not to understand; at least you have some kind of understanding. All the Buddhas have been misunderstood, wrongly interpreted. And whatsoever they were standing for has been forgotten as soon as they were gone, and just the opposite was organized.

Jesus was a lover of life, a very affirmative person, but Christianity is life-negative. The seers of the Upanishads were absolutely life-affirmative people, they loved life tremendously, but Hinduism is life-negative, Buddhism and Jainism are life-negative.

Just look at the statue of Mahavira and you will see that he must have loved his body, he must have loved life and existence. He is so beautiful! It is said about Mahavira that it is possible that never before and never again has a more beautiful person walked on the earth. But look at the Jaina MUNIS, the Jaina monks, and you will find them the ugliest.

What has happened?

Buddha is very life-affirmative. Of course, he does not affirm YOUR life, because your life is not life at all; it is death in disguise. He CONDEMNS your life, but he affirms the real life, the eternal life. But that's how he was misunderstood His condemnation of your false life was taken to be condemnation of life itself. And nobody bothered that he was affirming life -- real life, eternal life, divine life, the life of the awakened ones. That is true life. What life do YOU have? It is just a nightmarish experience. But the Buddhists -- the Buddhist monks and nuns -- have lived AGAINST life.

Parmananda, it is because of this misunderstanding, which seems to be inevitable.... I can see it happening with me. Whatsoever I say is immediately misunderstood all over the world. I really enjoy it! Strange, but somehow seems to be natural. The moment you say something you can be sure that it is going to be misunderstood, for the simple reason that people are going to interpret it according to THEIR minds. And their minds are fast asleep. They are hearing in their sleep; they can't hear rightly, they can't hear the whole thing. Only fragments they hear.

Even a man like P.D. Ouspensky, who lived with Gurdjieff for years, could not hear the whole teaching as it was. When he wrote his famous book IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS and he showed it to George Gurdjieff, his Master, he said, "It is beautiful, but it needs a subtitle: FRAGMENTS OF AN UNKNOWN TEACHING."

Ouspensky said, "But why? -- why fragments?"

He said, "Because these are only fragments. What I have told you you have not heard in its totality. And whatsoever you have written is beautiful...."

Ouspensky was really one of the most skillful writers the world has ever known, very artistic, very logical, a superb artist with words.

So he said, "You have written well, you have written beautifully, but these are only fragments -- and the fragments cannot reveal the truth. On the contrary, they conceal it.

So call it: FRAGMENTS OF AN UNKNOWN TEACHING. The teaching still remains unknown. You just had a few glimpses here and there, and you have put all those glimpses together, you have somehow made a whole out of them, but it is not the truth, it is not the real teaching."

Ouspensky understood it. Hence the book still carries the subtitle: FRAGMENTS OF AN UNKNOWN TEACHING.

What to say about ordinary people? Ouspensky cannot be called an ordinary person; extraordinarily intelligent he was. If fact, it was because of him that Gurdjieff became famous in the world; otherwise nobody may have heard about him. His own writings are very difficult to understand. There are very few people in the world who have read HIS books -- they are very difficult to read. Gurdjieff writes in such a way that he makes it in every possible way difficult for you to grasp what he is saying, what he wants to say.

Sentences go on and on...by the time the sentence comes to a full stop you have forgotten the beginning! And he uses words of his own invention which exist nowhere; nobody knows what the meaning of those words is. No dictionary has those words. In fact, they never existed before; he invented them.

And he writes in such a boring way that if you suffer from insomnia they are good, those books. You read three...four pages at the most you can read and you are bound to fall asleep. I have never come across a single person who has read his books from the beginning to the end.

When for the first time his first book was published -- ALL AND EVERYTHING -- one hundred pages were open and the remaining nine hundred pages were not cut yet. And with a note the book was sold saying, "Read the first hundred pages, the introductory part. If you still feel like reading, then you can open the other pages. Otherwise return the book and take your money back." Even to read those hundred pages is very difficult.

It was a device. It needs great awareness to read. The book is not written to inform you about something; the book is only a device to make you aware. You can read it only if you are very conscious, if you have decided consciously, "I have to go through it from the beginning to the end, and I am not going to fall asleep, and I am not going to stop, whatsoever happens, and whatsoever my mind says I am going to finish it."

If you make that decision...and it is very difficult to keep it for one thousand pages of such nonsense. Yes, here and there there are beautiful truths, but then you will come across those truths only if you go through much nonsense. Gems you will find, but they are few and far between. Once in a while you will come across a diamond, but for that you will have to read fifty, sixty very boring pages.

I have seen thousands of books, but Gurdjieff is extraordinary Nobody have I seen who can create such boring stuff. But he is deliberately doing it; that was his method.

If you went to see him, the first thing he would tell you was to read fifty pages of his book loudly in front of him. That was the greatest task! You don't understand a single word, a single sentence, and it goes on and on and on, and he sits there looking at you.

You have to finish fifty pages, then you can be accepted as a disciple. If you cannot manage this simple feat, then you are rejected.

Ouspensky made him famous in the world, but even Ouspensky could not get to the very core of his teaching -- only fragments. And he understood only in part.

And remember always: truth cannot be divided into fragments; you cannot understand only parts of it. Either you understand the whole of it or you don't understand it at all. But it is very difficult to recognize the fact that "I don't understand." And knowledgeable people -- scholars, professors -- they cannot accept that they don't understand, so they go on misinterpreting.

And the most fatal misinterpretation has been that all affirmative teachings have been turned into negative ones. In fact, you live in a negative darkness. When Buddha speaks he speaks from a positive state of light; by the time his words reach you they have reached into a negative darkness. Your negative darkness changes the color of those words, the meaning of those words, the connotations of those words, the nuances of those words. And then YOU create the church. You create Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Jainism; you create all kinds of "isms" and you create all kinds of religions.

Yes, Parmananda, most religions have a negative attitude towards work because they are against life. Hence they can't be FOR work, they can't be creative. They teach renunciation of life -- how can they teach creativity? And they teach that life is a punishment, so how can they say life is spiritual? You are being punished for your past life karmas, that's why you are born. It is a punishment -- just as in Soviet Russia if you are punished you are sent to Siberia.

In the days of the British Raj in India, if somebody was to be really punished they used to send him to faraway islands: Andaman, Nicobar. The climate is bad, not healthy at all; no facilities to live, nothing grows, hard work. That was punishment.

All these life-negative religions have been telling you, directly or indirectly, that this earth is like Andaman and Nicobar, or like Siberia, and you are prisoners. You have been thrown here, thrown into life, to be punished. This is utter nonsense.

Life is not a prison, it is a school. You are sent here to learn, you are sent here to grow.

You are sent here to become more conscious, more aware. This earth is a great device of God.

This is my approach towards life: life is not a punishment but a reward. You are rewarded by being given a great opportunity to grow, to see, to know, to understand, to be. I call life spiritual. In fact, to me, life and God are synonymous.

The fifth question

John,

PLEASE FORGIVE THE POOR INDIANS. They don t have anything else to brag about. You can brag about other things: money, power, atomic or hydrogen bombs, airplanes, that you have walked on the moon, that you have penetrated to the very secrets of life, your science, technology; you can brag about your affluence. Poor India has nothing else to brag about; it can only brag about something invisible so there is no need to prove it. Spirituality is such a thing you can brag about it and nobody can prove it, nobody can disprove it.

For thousands of years India has suffered starvation, poverty, so much so that it has to rationalize it. It has rationalized it so that to be poor is something spiritual. The Indian spiritual man renounces all comforts and becomes poor. When he becomes poor, only then do Indians recognize him as spiritual. If he does not become poor, how can he be spiritual?

Poverty has become the very foundation of Indian spirituality. The more poor you are, the more spiritual you are. Even if you are unhealthy, that is good for being spiritual; that shows your antagonism towards the body. Torture your body, fast, don't eat, don't fulfill the needs of the body, and you are doing some spiritual work.

So you will look at Indian so-called spiritual saints and many of them will look physically ill, in deep suffering, in self-torture; their faces are pale because of fasting. But if you ask their disciples they will say, "Look, what a golden aura around the face of our saint!" I know such people -- just a feverish aura around their faces, nothing else! But their disciples will say, "A golden aura -- this is spirituality!"

Count Keyserling writes in his diary that when he came to India he understood for the first time that poverty, starvation, ill health, these are necessary requirements for spirituality. These are rationalizations. And everybody wants to be higher than the other, superior to the other.

Now, there is no other way for Indians to declare their superiority. They cannot compete in science, in technology, in industry, but they can compete in spirituality. They are more able to fast, to starve themselves. For thousands of years they have practiced starvation, so they have become very very accustomed to it; it is easy for them.

For the American to go on a fast is very difficult. Eating five times a day -- that means almost the whole day you are eating -- and I am not counting things that you eat in between.... For the American it is difficult to fast, but for the Indian it has become almost natural. His body has become accustomed to it. The body has a tremendous capacity to adjust itself.

The Indian can sit in the hot sun, almost in a state of fire from the showering of the sun, undisturbed. You cannot sit there -- you have become accustomed to air conditioning.

The Indian can sit in the cold weather, naked in the Himalayas. YOU cannot; you have become accustomed to central heating. The body becomes accustomed.

And then India can claim: "This is spirituality. Come and compete with us!" And you cannot compete. And certainly, when you cannot compete, you have to bow down to the Indians and you have to accept that they must have some clue. There is no clue, nothing, just a long long history of poverty.

In a cannibal village in the heart of Africa, the wife of the chief head-hunter went to the local butcher's shop in search of a choice rib for her husband's dinner. Inspecting the goods, she asked the butcher, "What is that one?"

The butcher replied, "That is an American -- seventy cents a pound."

"Well, then what about that one?" asked the woman.

The butcher replied, "That is an Italian -- ninety-five cents a pound. He is a little spicy."

"And," asked the woman, "what about that one there in the corner?"

"He is an Indian,'' replied the butcher. "two dollars a pound."

The woman gasped, "Two dollars a pound? What makes him so expensive?"

"Well, lady," the butcher replied, "have you ever tried cleaning an Indian?"

But that has become spirituality. Do you know? -- Jaina monks never take a bath. To take a bath is thought to be a luxury. They don't clean their teeth; that is thought to be a luxury. Now, to be spiritual in the Jaina sense of the term you have to stop taking a bath, cleaning your teeth, even combing your hair, even cutting your hair. If it becomes too messy, too dirty, you have to pull it out by hand. You can't use any razor or any other mechanical device, because a spiritual person should be independent of all machines. So Jaina monks pull their own hair out. And when a Jaina monk pulls his hair out, mostly once a year, then a great gathering happens because it is thought to be something very special.

I have been to such gatherings. Thousands of Jainas gather together simply to see this poor man, hungry, dirty, pulling his hair out -- crazy! And you will see people watching with great joy and with great superiority: "This is our saint! Who ELSE can compete with us?"

No nation is spiritual. It has not happened yet. One can hope that it may happen some day, but it has not happened yet. In fact, only individuals can be spiritual, not nations And individuals have been spiritual all over the world, everywhere. But ignorance prevents people from recognizing others' spirituality.

One day I was talking to an Indian and I told him that everywhere spirituality has been happening; it is nothing to do with India as such.

He said, "But so many saints have happened here. Where else have so many saints happened?"

I said, "Do you know how many saints have happened in China? Just tell me a few names."

He had not even heard of a single name. He does not know anything about Lao Tzu, he does not know about Chuang Tzu, he does not know about Lieh Tzu.

He does not know anything of the long long tradition of Chinese mysticism. But he knows about Nanak, Kabir, Mahavira, Krishna, Buddha, so he thinks all the great saints have happened only in India. That is sheer stupidity. They have happened in Japan, they have happened in Egypt, they have happened in Jerusalem. They have happened everywhere! But you don't know -- and you don't want to know either. You simply remain confined to your own sect.

In fact, you may have lived in the neighborhood of the Jainas your whole life, but you cannot tell the twenty-four names of their great TEERTHANKARAS. Who bothers to know about the others? Only one name -- Mahavira -- is known; the twenty-three other names are almost unknown. Even Jainas themselves cannot give the twenty-four names in exact sequence. They know three names: the first, Adinatha; the last, Mahavira; and the one before Mahavira, a cousin-brother of Krishna, Neminath. These three are known; the remaining twenty-one are almost unknown even to the Jainas. And this is how it is.

Do you know how many Hassid mystics have attained to God? Do you know how many Zen Masters have attained to Buddhahood? Do you know how many Sufis have attained to the ultimate state? Nobody cares, nobody wants to know. People live in a small, cozy corner of their own religion and they think this is all.

Neither Indians nor anybody else is specially spiritual or holy. Spirituality is something that happens to individuals. It is the individual becoming aflame with God. It has nothing to do with any collectivity -- nation, race, church.

The sixth question

Narotam,

DO YOU I THINK OTHERS ARE IN ANY WAY DIFFERENT from the Jews? Unless love flowers in your being you are bound to remain greedy. Greed is the absence of love.

If you love, greed disappears; if you don't love, greed remains.

Greed is rooted in fear. And of course, Jews have lived in tremendous fear for centuries.

For the two thousand years since Jesus they have lived in constant fear. Fear creates greed. And because they lost their nation -- they lost everything, they became uprooted, they became wanderers -- the only thing they could trust was money; they could not trust anybody else. Hence, naturally, they became greedy. Don't be too hard on them for that.

They are greedy, maybe a little more than others, but that is only a difference of quantity, not of quality.

In India we have MARWARIS, who are the Indian Jews. Jainas are not less greedy...and others too! Maybe they are not so notorious. Jews become notorious because whatsoever they do, they do with a flavor; whatsoever they do, they do without any disguise. They are not very deceptive people -- intelligent but not deceptive. Whatsoever they want to do, they do it directly And they are very earthly people. And that is one of the qualities I appreciate. The earth is our home and we have to be earthly.

A real spirituality must be rooted in earthliness. Any spirituality that denies the earth, rejects the earth, becomes abstract, becomes airy-fairy. It has no more blood in it; it is no more alive. Yes, Jews are very earth-bound.

And what is wrong in having money? One should not be possessive; one should be able to use it. And Jews know how to use it! One should not be miserly. Money has to be created and money has to be used. Money is a beautiful invention, a great blessing, if rightly used. It makes many things possible. Money is a magical phenomenon.

If you have a ten-rupee note in your pocket, you have thousands of things in your pocket.

You can have anything with those ten rupees. You can materialize a man who will massage your body the whole night! Or you can materialize food or you can materialize ANYTHING! That ten-rupee note carries many possibilities. You cannot carry all those possibilities with you if there is no note; then your life will be very limited. You can have a man who can massage your body, but then that is the only possibility you have with you. If you suddenly feel hungry or thirsty, then that man cannot do anything else. But a ten-rupee note can do many things, millions of things; it has infinite possibilities. It is one of the greatest inventions of man; there is no need to be against it. I am not against it.

Use it. Don't cling to it. Clinging is bad. The more you cling to money, the poorer the world becomes because of your clinging, because money is multiplied if it is always moving from one hand to another hand.

In English we have another name for money which is more significant -- it is "currency."

That simply indicates that money should always remain moving like a current. It should always be on the move from one hand to another hand. The more it moves the better.

For example, if I have a ten-rupee note and I keep it to myself, then there is only one ten- rupee note in the world. If I give it to you and you give it to somebody else and each person goes on giving, if it goes through ten hands then we have a hundred rupees, we have used a hundred rupees' worth of utilities; the ten rupees is multiplied by ten.

And Jews know how to use money; nothing is wrong in it. Yes, greed is bad. Greed means you become obsessed with money; you don't use it as a means, it becomes the end.

That is bad, and it is bad whether you are a Jew or a Jaina, Hindu or Mohammedan; it doesn't matter.

Four Jewish mothers were talking, naturally of their sons.

One said, "My son is studying to be a doctor, and when he graduates he will make $50,000 a year."

Said the second, "My son is studying dentistry, and when he graduates he will make $100,000 a year."

The third said, "My son is studying to be a psycho-analyst, and when he graduates he will make $200,000 a year."

The fourth one remained silent. The other ones asked her, "And what about your son?"

"He is studying to become a rabbi," she answered.

"And how much does a rabbi make?"

"

10,000 a year."

"

10,000? Is this a job for a Jewish boy?"

Gropestein's clothing store stood on New York's Lower East Side. One day, Gropestein went out for lunch and left Salter, his new salesman, in charge.

When he came back Salter proudly announced, "I sold that black cloth coat."

"For how much?" asked Gropestein.

"Ninety-eight cents, like it said on the tag."

"Ninety-eight cents?" screamed the owner. "The tag said ninety-eight dollars, you idiot!"

The clerk looked as if he would die of embarrassment.

"Let this be a lesson to you," said Gropestein. "But don't feel bad -- we made ten percent profit."

A famous anti-Semite was dying. He gathered his sons around his deathbed and said, "Sons, my last wish and command is that whenever you need anything, go buy it from a Jew and give him the first price he asks."

The sons in surprise said, "Father, has your mind gone crazy in this your last hour?"

"Ah, no," smiled the anti-Semite wickedly, "he is going to eat himself up he has not asked for more."

The seventh question

Divendra,

THERE IS NO FUTURE OF ANY MORALITY concerning sex. In fact, the very combination of sex and morality has poisoned the whole past of morality. Morality became so much sex-oriented that it lost all other dimensions -- which are far more important. Sex should not really be so much of a concern for moral thinking.

Truth, sincerity, authenticity, totality -- these things should be the real concerns of morality. Consciousness, meditation, awareness, love, compassion -- these should be the real concerns of morality.

But sex and morality became almost synonymous in the past; sex became overpowering, overwhelming. So whenever you say somebody is immoral you simply mean that something is wrong with his sexual life. And when you say somebody is a very moral person, all that you mean is that he follows the rules of sexuality laid down by the society in which he lives. Morality became one-dimensional; it has not been good. There is no future for that morality; that is dying. In fact, it is dead. You are carrying a corpse.

Sex should be more fun than such a serious affair as it has been made in the past. It should be like a game, a play: two persons playing with each other's bodily energies. If they both are happy, it should be nobody else's concern. They are not harming anybody; they are simply rejoicing in each other's energy. It is a dance of two energies together. It should not be a concern of the society at all. Unless somebody interferes in somebody else's life -- imposes himself, forces somebody, is violent, violates somebody's life, then only should society come in. Otherwise there is no problem; it should not be any concern at all.

The future will have a totally different vision of sex. It will be more fun, more joy, more friendship, more a play than a serious affair as it has been in the past. It has destroyed people's lives, has burdened them so much -- unnecessarily! It has created so much jealousy, possessiveness domination, nagging, quarreling, fighting, condemnation -- for NO reason at all.

Sexuality is a simple, biological phenomenon. It should not be given so much importance. Its only significance is that the energy can be transformed into higher planes; it can become more and more spiritual. And the way to make it more spiritual is to make it a less serious affair.

Doctor Biber was perplexed by the case at hand. He had given the sorority girl all sorts of tests, but his results were still inconclusive. "I am not sure what it is," he finally admitted.

"You either have a cold or you are pregnant."

"I must be pregnant," said the girl. "I don't know anybody who could have given me a cold."

This is something of the future.

Clarice and Sheffield were having a mid-afternoon breakfast. Their Park Avenue apartment was completely askew after a wild, all-night party.

"Dear, this is rather embarrassing," said Sheffield, "but was it you I made love to in the library last night?"

"About what time?" asked Clarice.

Another story about the future:

The schoolteacher was complaining rather bitterly to Cornelia about the behavior of little Nathaniel. "He is always picking on boys smaller than he is and beating them up," she said.

"My goodness!" said Cornelia, "That boy is just like his pappy."

"And several times I have caught him in the cloak-room with one of the little girls,"

continued the teacher.

"Just the sort of thing his pappy would do."

"Not only that, but he steals things from the other children."

"The very same as his pappy -- Lord, I sure am glad I didn't marry that man!"

Don't be worried about the future of morality concerning sex. It is going to disappear completely. The future will know a totally different vision of sex. And once sex no longer overwhelms morality so powerfully, morality will be free to have some other concerns which are far more important.

Truth, sincerity, honesty, totality, compassion, service, meditation, these should be the real concerns of morality -- because these are things which transform your life, these are things which bring you closer to God.

And the last question

Paramahansa,

TAKE NO NOTICE!