Only Now

Question 1:

GOD IS NOT A GOAL, hence there can be no way to God. All ways are wrong. God is right now, this very moment. God is always in the present, now and here, and always now and here. There can be no way to God.

The very idea of the way is fallacious. The way means you have postponed; the way leads to tomorrow, and the tomorrow never comes. The way means you have projected into the future: God is somewhere else and you have to travel. Then religion becomes a journey. And religion is not a journey, it is already the case.

God has not to happen to you. God has happened because you are alive. What is life?

Who is breathing in you and who is conscious in you? God is not to be known, God is the knower. God is not the object that you have to see, God is the SEER in you. This is the most fundamental thing I would like you to remember.

What I am teaching here is not a way, it is a totally different phenomenon. Hence I am not creating a religion, I am not creating a sect -- I am simply waking you up to the reality of God. Even while you are asleep God is within and without; even in your sleep you are in God.

It is like if a man is asleep and it is spring and the flowers are blooming and the birds are singing and the trees are green, celebrating -- but the man is asleep. He is unaware of the spring, he is unaware of the flowers, of the birds' songs; he is unaware of everything that is happening. But that does not mean that it is not happening. He may be unaware, he may be asleep, but the spring has come, it is there. Any moment the man can open his eyes; any situation may help him to be awake. And suddenly he will be surprised that there was no need to go anywhere -- all was already here.

That s how it happens when a man really wakes up -- not that one has to travel somewhere. All traveling is dreaming, all pilgrimage is dreaming, desiring. And your so- called religions have made God a goal, and your mind is perfectly satisfied with that because mind can exist only if there is a goal. The mind needs a tension, the mind needs a way to remain tense. If there is a goal then mind can remain desiring -- unfulfilled, frustrated, hoping one day to get it.

This is how mind can nourish itself, and it can dream about the joys of finding God and the beauties and the blessings. It can create paradise in imagination -- and all these are simply dreams of the mind. The moment you think of the future, you have slipped out of reality and fallen into the ditch of dreaming. My effort here is to bring you out of your sleep and dreaming.

Zareen, I am not teaching a way, so you cannot claim that my way is the best way -- it is not a way at all. You cannot say that this is the only way, because I am saying there is no way at all. I am simply trying to make you alert to that which is already there. It is beating in your heart, it is God beating in your heart. It is pulsating in your being; every fiber of your body, of your being, is alive. That aliveness is God.

God is not a person but only the presence. Feel it now! If you can ever feel it you can only feel it now -- now or never. Hence I don't give any opportunity for your mind. You would like me to say something about how to find God, where to find God, where to go.

You will be perfectly happy if I give you ways, goals, faraway, distant goals; you will be tremendously happy. Why? Because the goal helps you to remain the same as you are, the goal helps you to remain asleep and dreaming. It becomes a new dream, a new desire, a new ambition: How to attain God? It becomes a new ego trip.

I am shattering your egos, because your egos are a kind of shell that surrounds you and keeps you oblivious of the reality. It keeps you encapsulated within yourself, does not allow you to open your eyes and see what is happening.

God is this total existence happening. Be silent and know. There is nowhere to go, there is nothing to achieve, no ambition has to be fulfilled. God has already decided to be inside you; that's why you are alive.

So, Zareen, don't get unnecessarily confused. I am not proposing a way in competition with the Mohammedan and the Christian and the Hindu and the Parsi. What I am saying has nothing to do with Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism. What I am saying is simply a statement, a naked, bare statement of the fact that YOU ARE GOD! already, as you are.

Nothing has to be changed at all. Only one thing has to happen and that is not a change really but just the other side of you. One side is sleep, the other side is awakening. One side of you, one aspect of your coin, is sleep, darkness, the night part; the other side is the day part. Just wake up...and you will 'he surprised that there was no need to desire anything. God has already given it to you. He has given himself: he lives in you, he resides in you. If I can help you to remember this, that's all.

Zareen, that's why you feel the difference but you cannot figure it out. This is the difference. All religions are ways; all religions are new directions for the ego, new projections, new desires, and sometimes far more dangerous than the ordinary desire is. A man desiring money is not in such a mess as a man who desires God, because money can be FOUND by desiring; money can ONLY be found by desiring, and God can never be found by desiring. God can only be found by non-desiring.

So miserable is the man, most miserable is the man who desires God. The man who is greedy for money is not in such a great mess; he is far more sane -- because money can be found only if you desire and work hard for it, compete, struggle. If you desire political power, then be madly after it; that is the only way to attain it. It will not come if you go on sitting IN your room waiting for it; it will never knock on your door. You can wait for millions of lives -- nobody will come and knock on your door and say to you that you have been chosen to be the prime minister of the country or the president. You will have to fight for it, you will have to be very violent, aggressive; only then is it possible.

But if you go in search of God you will miss. The very search will be the cause of your missing. Where are you going? He is inside and you are going outside. All going is going outside. Go to Jerusalem or Kaaba or Kashi or Girnar or Bodh Gaya: wherever you go, it is outside. All going is extrovert. Ingoing is not a going at all.

What is ingoing? When you don't go outside, you are in. It is not really a going at all; not even a single step has to be taken. There is no space inside where you can walk and go in.

When it is said, "Go in," it is said only metaphorically. What is actually meant is: Stop going out. Stop completely, a full point, no more going outside. Then suddenly you are in -- where else can you be when you are not going outside? When you are not going to Kaaba and to Jerusalem and to Kashi, where will you be? You will simply be inside, you will find yourself inside. Your outgoing was preventing you from finding yourself.

Stop seeking: that is the only way to find God. Stop desiring: that is the only way to find God.

I am giving you an insight, not a religion. And you are not my followers, remember, Zareen. Nobody here is my follower -- -friends, of course, but nobody is a follower. The orange color creates the illusion that people are following me. Just to avoid that, I cannot wear orange myself. I love the color, but if I start wearing orange then it will become a logical proof that you are following me. Certainly, you are not following me; I am a white person, you are orange people -- what connection can there be?

You are not my followers but friends. And because I love orange, out of your love you have accepted it. It is not a uniform; it is not that by wearing orange you become part of a certain sect or church. There is no church, no sect. Because I love orange, just out of love for me you are wearing orange. That is just a gesture of love, nothing else.

Zareen, you are not my follower, nobody is. But certainly you have chosen to be with me.

That is your choice. You have fallen in love with a madman, and when you fall in love with a madman a little bit of madness is bound to enter in your heart. That's what is happening here. I am drunk, I am making you drunk. What else can I do? But this is not a religion. Hence you can love me and you can love Jesus, and there is no conflict. In fact by loving me you are bound to love Jesus. By loving me you will find for the first time the real taste of Jesus. By being with me you can love Buddha. In fact for the first time you will have an insight of what Buddha is. By being with me, in communion with me, you will be in communion with Zarathustra, with Lao Tzu, with Mahavira, with Mohammed. But this is a totally different approach I become the door, and when you enter in me you find all the Buddhas -- because it is like the ocean: you can taste it from anywhere, it is salty. If you taste me, you have tasted all the Buddhas; it is the SAME taste.

You cannot find Mohammed in the Koran, and you cannot find Jesus in the Bible. You cannot become really religious by becoming part of a church -- Catholic, Protestant -- it is impossible. These are the mischievous people who have been creating a very ugly humanity. You can be a Jew only if you hate Jesus. You can be with Moses only if you are not with Jesus; that is a condition. And if you are with Jesus then you cannot be with Buddha; that's a condition.

That's why they go on claiming, "This is the ONLY way" -- so even the idea that there are other possible ways drops from your mind. You are conditioned in such a way by every religion that "This is the only truth THE ONLY truth, THE truth," and the conditioning becomes so strong, steel-like, that it becomes impossible for you to think that there can be other ways, absolutely impossible. Unless you are very intelligent, alert, watchful, unless you look at your conditioning and become a witness, it is impossible.

I was born in a Jaina family and, naturally, just as everybody else is conditioned, the conditioning was imposed on me. But I was continuously watchful, continuously alert, hence I was not caught by the conditioning. And the conditioning is so subtle that once you are caught in it you become incapable of thinking, seeing; anything that goes against your conditioning, you become deaf to it.

For example, a Jaina cannot think that Jesus is enlightened -- impossible. His conditioning will not allow him. And his conditioning is very logical in his mind, and you cannot argue with him. He will say, "Jesus eats meat: how can an enlightened person eat meat?" And how are you going to convince him? He has some logic there.

Jesus drinks wine. He not only drinks wine but he also turns the whole sea into wine so the whole world can become drunk. It is a beautiful story, Jesus turning the whole sea into wine. Can an enlightened person do that? Not according to the Jainas. If there was a sea full of wine the Jaina TEERTHANKARA would come and do the miracle and turn it into water -- and pure water, mind you, filtered water. And that too you are allowed to drink only in the day, not in the night. If you are really a Jaina you won't drink it at night, not even water.

My grandmother would not even allow poor tomatoes in the house, because they look like meat -- just the appearance! Only when she died could tomatoes enter into the house.

You will be surprised Jainas don't eat potatoes. Now, what have these poor potatoes done? But their ideas: anything that grows under the earth has not to be eaten; only things that grow in the open, in the sun, because anything that grows in darkness creates darkness in you. Logic! It is TAMAS; it will create TAMASIC energy in you; it will create a certain energy that will pull you towards the earth, downwards. The potato is a secret agent of the earth -- beware! Eat things that grow upwards towards the sun; they will help you to be uplifted, your energy will be sattvic, pure. You will be under the law of levitation. The potato pulls you downwards, it is heavy.

And once you are conditioned from your very childhood, that's how it starts appearing.

Then eat a potato and you w ill feel very heavy and pulled downwards -- all these things will happen and then you will know that the teaching is right.

Up to my eighteenth year I had not eaten in the night. Then I went with a few friends to see a fort, far away in the jungles. They were all Hindus, and the fort was such a beauty that the whole day they were not interested in preparing food. I was the only Jaina, and I could not insist, because thirty people were not interested in cooking food in the day. So I kept quiet. In the night they cooked food. Now, the whole day's wandering in the forest, in the ruins of that old ancient castle -- I was tired, hungry; I had never known such hunger. But my eighteen years' conditioning: you cannot eat in the night....

And then they started preparing beautiful food, and the smell of the food and so close by.... And they all started persuading me; they said. "Nobody is here, and nobody will tell your family, your parents. Nobody will ever know." I resisted -- but the more I resisted, the more I was tempted. Finally I yielded, I ate. The food was delicious, but the whole night I suffered hell. I vomited at least seven times. That eighteen years' conditioning is not an easy thing to get rid of. I could not digest that food; my whole body revolted. Until all the food was thrown out I could not sleep. And then it was certainly a proof that whatsoever I had been told was right.

But those thirty people, they slept well. I had only one consolation -- that they would all suffer in hell. The whole night I was preparing for their hell, as bad a hell as possible. I was suffering my hell, and they were sound asleep and snoring. I was consoling myself, "It's okay -- just a few days more, then I will be in paradise and you will be in hellfire.

Then you will know. The pleasures of this life are momentary," I was telling myself.

Your so-called religions only condition you against other religions. They make you antagonistic, they create conflict. They don't allow you to create a brotherhood, they don't allow you to create a humanity.

Godfarb was invited to a birthday party for the parish priest. Wanting to show his desire to be a good member of the community, he went to a jewelry store to get the good father a birthday present.

"What would you recommend?" asked Godfarb of the store clerk.

"How about this lovely crucifix with Christ on it?"

"Do you think he would like that?"

"Absolutely."

"How much is it?"

"One hundred and fifty dollars."

"One hundred and fifty dollars!" exclaimed Godfarb. "Have you got one without the acrobat on it?"

Jesus looks like an acrobat -- if you are a Jew, that's how it is. To a Jaina. Mohammed is not even worthy of being counted among the saints -- what to say about the messengers of God? According to the Buddhists, even Mahavira, the TEERTHANKARA of the Jainas, is not worthy of being counted as a holy man, not even a moral man, because he moves naked -- this is utter immorality. Buddhists cannot forgive him. This is exhibitionism, this is neurosis; the man is pathological!

You have been given ideas in the name of religions. I am not giving you any idea; I am trying to take all ideas away from you.

Just the other day there was a question saying: "Osho, sometimes you give wrong information to US." SOMETIMES? My whole effort here is to destroy all the information that you have. All information is wrong. So I am not interested in giving you RIGHT information, because all information has to be taken out. You have to be left without information. When you are without information, without knowledge, not knowing what is what, in that state of not-knowing you bloom. God starts opening up within your being.

I am not teaching a way, I am not giving you a system of thought, a philosophy -- just the contrary. I am against all knowledge, all philosophy, all systems of thought, all theologies, all religions. And by dropping all, you can be in communion with me. It is a communion, not a following.

A communion means I respect you, I love you as equals. You are NOT inferior, just asleep! Your sleep does not make you inferior at all, your sleep simply gives you dreams.

In fact, when Buddha became enlightened somebody asked him, "What have you gained?"

He said, "I have not gained anything, but I have lost many things. I have lost my desires, my dreams, my sleep, my anger, my greed, my ambition, my ego -- I have lost so many things. And I have gained nothing, nothing at all. But by losing all those things I have come home. I have become just myself -- a purity, a clarity, a cloudless sky."

I am not giving you anything; on the contrary I am taking things away from you. In fact, if you think in terms of things, you are far superior to me, because you have many more things which I don't have. You have a big ego...I cannot compete with you. You have great greed, possessiveness, jealousy, anger. You have a thousand and one things. I am a poor man compared to you, very poor, nothing to claim -- or ONLY nothing to claim.

And if you are courageous enough, you are going to become a nothing yourself sooner or later.

Zareen, I am not teaching a way, I am not giving you a goal. I am taking all ways away, all goals away.

The second question

Question 2:

Mahendra Singh,

MY WHOLE EFFORT is to give you a consciousness, not a character. Consciousness is the real thing, character the false entity. Character is needed by those who don't have consciousness. If you have eyes, you don't need a walking-stick to find your way, to grope your way. If you can see you don't ask others, "Where is the doer?" Character is needed because people are unconscious. Character is just a lubricant; it helps you to run your life in a smooth way.

George Gurdjieff used to say character is like a buffet. Buffers are used in railway trains; between two compartments there are buffers. If something happens, those two compartments cannot clash with each other; these buffers prevent them from clashing with each other. Or it is like springs: cars have springs so you can move smoothly -- even on an Indian road. Those springs go on absorbing the shocks; they are called shock absorbers.

That's what character is: it is a shock absorber. People are told to be humble. If you learn how to be humble it is a shock absorber. By learning how to be humble you will be able to protect yourself against other people's egos. They will not hurt you so much; you are a humble man. If you are egoistic you are bound to be hurt again and again. The ego is very sensitive, so you cover up your ego with a blanket of humbleness. It helps, it gives you a kind of smoothness, but it does not transform you.

My work consists of transformation. This is an alchemical school: I want to transform you from unconsciousness into consciousness, from darkness into light. I cannot give you a character; I can only give you insight, awareness. I would like you to live moment-to- moment, not according to a set pattern given by me or given by the society, the church, the state. I would like you to live according to your own small light of awareness, according to your own consciousness. Be responsive to each moment.

Character means you have a certain ready-made answer for all the questions of life, so whenever a situation arises you respond according to the set pattern. Because you respond according to the ready-made answer it is not a true response, it is only a reaction.

The man of character reacts, the man of consciousness responds: he takes the situation in, he reflects the reality as it is, and out of that reflection he acts. The man of character reacts, the man of consciousness acts. The man of character is mechanical; robotlike he functions. He has a computer in his mind, full of information; ask him anything and a ready-made answer rolls down from his computer.

A man of consciousness simply acts in the moment, not out of the past and out of the memory. His response has a beauty, a naturalness, and his response is true to the situation. The man of character always falls short, because life is continuously changing; it is never the same. And your answers are always the same, they never grow -- they can't grow, they are dead.

You have been told a certain thing in your childhood; it has remained there. You have grown, life has changed, but that answer that was given by your parents or by your teachers or by your priests is still there. And if something happens you will function according to that answer which was given to you fifty years before. And in fifty years so much water has gone down the Ganges; it is a totally different life.

Heraclitus says: You cannot step in the same river twice. And I say to you: You cannot step in the same river even once, the river is so fast-flowing.

Character is stagnant; it is a dirty pool of water. Consciousness is a river.

Mahendra Singh, that's why I don't give my people ANY code of conduct. I give them eyes to see, a consciousness to reflect, a mirrorlike being to be able to respond to any situation that arises. I don't give them detailed information about what to do and what not to do; I don't give them ten commandments. And if you start giving them commandments then you cannot stop at ten, because life is far more complex.

In Buddhist scriptures there are thirty-three thousand rules for a Buddhist monk. Thirty- three thousand rules! For every possible situation that may ever arise, they have given a ready-made answer. But how are you going to remember thirty-three thousand rules of conduct? And a man who is cunning enough to remember thirty-three thousand rules of conduct will be clever enough to find a way out always; if he does not want to do a certain thing he will find a way out. If he wants to do a certain thing he will find a way out.

I have heard about a Christian saint: somebody hit him on his face, because just that day in his morning discourse he had said, "Jesus says if somebody slaps you on one cheek, give him the other." And the man wanted to try it, so he hit him, really hit him hard on one cheek. And the saint was really true, true to his word: he gave him the other cheek.

But that man was also something: he hit even harder on the other cheek. Then he was surprised: the saint jumped on the man, started beating him so hard that the man said, "What are you doing? You are a saint, and just this morning you were saying that if somebody hits you on one cheek, give him the other."

He said, "Yes -- but I don't have a third cheek. And Jesus stops there. Now I am free; now I will do what I want to do. Jesus has no more information about it."

It happened exactly like that in Jesus' life also. Once he told a disciple, "Forgive seven times." The disciple said, "Okay." The way he said, "Okay," Jesus became suspicious; he said, "Seventy-seven times I say."

The disciple was a little disturbed, but he said, "Okay -- because numbers don't end at seventy-seven. What about seventy-eight? Then I am free, then I can do what I want to do!"

How many rules can you make for people? It is stupid, meaningless. That's how people are religious, and still they are not religious: they always find a way to get out of those rules of conduct and commandments. They can always find a way through the back door.

And character can at the most give you only a skin-deep, pseudo mask -- not even skin- deep: just scratch your saints a little bit and you will find the animal hidden behind. On the surface they look beautiful, but only on the surface.

I don't want you to be superficial; I want you to REALLY change. But a real change happens through the center of your being, not through the circumference. Character is painting the circumference, consciousness is transformation of the center.

Once a carpenter was working in a church and he hit his thumb with a hammer. "Fuck's sake!" he yelled.

The Vicar happened to be passing and heard him. "You cannot use that kind of language here. This is a house of God," he admonished.

"Pardon, Vicar, but what's a man to say when he whacks his thumb with a hammer?"

"You can say, 'God preserve me,' or 'Jesus help me,'" suggested the Vicar.

Later, when the carpenter was sawing a piece of wood, he sawed right through his finger, which dropped to the floor. "God preserve me!" cried the carpenter, and the finger jumped back upon the hand and healed itself.

"Fuck's sake!" exclaimed the Vicar.

The third question

Question 3:

Anand Marita,

THE ORDINARY GOD is nothing but a projection of your fear. It is not love, it is not trust -- because love knows nothing of fear, and trust knows nothing of fear. Just as light has never seen darkness, love and trust have never met fear But in all the languages of the world there are expressions like 'godfearing'; the religious person is known as 'godfearing'. That is sheer nonsense. A religious person cannot be godfearing, he can only be godloving. If he is godfearing he is not religious yet. How can you fear God?

But your priests have made so much fuss about hell, punishment, karma; they have made so much fuss about a God who is a very angry God -- if you disobey him he will throw you into hellfire, and for eternity. It is the priest's work to create fear in you, because once fear is there you can be exploited. A fearful person will go to the church, to the mosque, to the temple, but he is not going to God, he is going to the priest really, and the priest exploits his fear.

A really religious person has a totally different approach towards life: it is not of fear, it is of tremendous love. His God comes out of his love, his God is nothing but another name for his total love. His God is another name for his total orgasmic joy with existence.

And that's what is happening to you, Marita. Here, being with me, a sannyasin, meditating, love is arising, trust is arising. But at the same time you are feeling fear. This fear is totally different; it is not the fear created by the priests, because I don't create any fear in you. And it is not the fear of death either, because you don't know anything about death -- how can you be afraid of something you don t know at all? To be afraid you have to be at least acquainted a little bit -- you cannot be afraid of the absolutely unknown, and death is absolutely unknown.

It is not fear of death either. It is something else which you have not yet been able-to figure out -- it is the fear of a dying ego which appears like death. It is a death in a way, because you are so much identified with the ego, with the idea of 'I', that when the 'I'

starts evaporating you feel as if you are dying -- obviously. Your identification is disappearing, you are passing through an identity crisis. Don't cling to the ego, let it go -- because the death of the ego is not your death. The death of the ego, on the contrary, is your real birth.

Marita, you are coming closer and closer to the birth, to the real birth. You will be reborn.

But you can be reborn only when death is gone, when ego is gone. With ego, death also disappears, remember -- because you have never died. How can you die? You are not born either. You are God! You are divine energy! You have been here forever, and you will be here forever. Birth and death are only of the body and the mind, and between the body and the mind exists the ego. It is a creation, a conspiracy of body/mind: When the ego disappears your death disappears too. Once the ego is gone, you will be surprised that you are eternal, that you have been here always and always, and you will be here always and always. You are part of the truth which cannot die.

Marita, you are coming close to something immensely valuable. But your mind is creating a problem; it is saying to you that it is fear of death. It is not fear of death, it is fear of ego disappearing. Allow it to go.

I say to you: This is how it has happened to me. This is how it is happening to many of my people. This is how it has always happened to all the Buddhas, down the ages: the ego dies -- but everybody hesitates before the ego dies. We are so much identified with it that the death of the ego appears as if WE are dying. We are not dying.

It is like when the child is getting ready to be born when nine months in the mother's womb are over. The child must be feeling a great fear -- because this was his life. This nine months' womb life, this is the only life he knows. And he is being thrown out of the womb: he must be feeling like he is being expelled from the Garden of Eden. He clings; he does not want to get out of the womb. He is afraid of the unknown.

But nature does not allow him to succeed. He can cling for a few hours and create pain for the mother -- because he clings to the womb and the womb is ready to expel the child because he is ready to go into the wider world. He is now mature enough; there is no need for him to be protected in a womb. And what kind of life can one have in a womb?

There is no life at all. Twenty-four hours the child is asleep; he is as if in a coma. But still this is the only life he knows, hence the clinging.

Marita, you know only one life, the life of the ego. It is not much of a life -- it is only suffering, misery, sleep, dream -- but that's the only life you know. A moment comes when one becomes mature through meditation and you have to be expelled out of the ego.

That is the second birth. In India we call such a person DVIJ -- twice-born. A Buddha is a DVIJ. One birth is from the mother, the physical, the biological birth. Another birth is through the Master, the spiritual birth, the religious birth.

Marita, feel blessed. You are coming closer to a very vital point, a turning-point in your life. Don't cling to the ego -- relay, let go. Let the ego disappear; it is not you. And then for the first time you will know who you are. For the first time the mystery of your being will be revealed to you. And from there onwards you start living; before that you were just sleeping.

The fourth question

Question 4:

Shivananda,

I DON'T KNOW ENGLISH AT ALL. In fact I don t know any language really. That's why I can go on speaking so easily, unafraid, unworried, undeterred by languages grammar, etcetera. I am not a great orator. I simply go on saying to you whatsoever happens in the moment.

That's why sometimes Napoleon turns into Nero, Nero turns into Napoleon; Greek becomes Latin, Latin becomes Greek. You are listening to a drunkard! It is a miracle that I can utter a few sensible words and you can make some sense out of it.

Sometimes I even laugh about what I have said to you. Just the other day...whenever I see Pradeepa bowing her head down, then I know that I must have told something wrong.

Just a few days ago I was saying 'cropping the reap' instead of 'reaping the crop'.

Pradeepa is my criterion: then I just look at her and I know I have done it again.

But what more can you expect from someone who is utterly drunk?

An elderly gentleman with a walrus mustache, frock coat, and bowler hat jiggled the telephone receiver. "I say, operator," he said, "I want to talk to Sir Reginald Barrett in Grosvenor Square, London."

"I'm afraid I can't hear you, sir," said the operator.

"Sir Reginald Barrett, Grosvenor Square, London," said the party.

"I still can't hear you," said the operator. "I guess you are English, aren't you?"

"My dear madam," said the gentleman, "if I were any more English I could not talk at all."

Fortunately I don't know much English. Hence I can talk undeterred by any linguistic barriers. This is not English English, this is not American English, this is not even Indian English -- it is simply Rajneesh English. It HAS to be strange.

And what about my Italian!

Scene: Father visiting his son in jail.

Father: "You-a no-a good-a bumma, you! I raise you to be-a a good-a kid-a!"

Son: "Please, Father, don't talk like that."

Father: "I'm-a ashame-a. You-a, you-a no good-a son!"

Son: "Father, please, don't talk that way."

Father: "Why-a I no talk-a this-a way?"

Son: "Because you are not Italian!"

I am neither Italian nor English nor Indian nor Chinese, and I have to talk all these languages. So I go on winging the wong number.

The fifth question

Question 5:

Samadhi,

I DON'T KNOW AT ALL. If some time you come to know, please tell me.

The sixth question

Question 6:

Bodhi,

THE DEVIL IS NOTHING BUT THE OTHER SIDE OF God. The religions have been praising God and condemning the Devil, and the Devil is the other side of God. The word 'devil' is beautiful; it comes from a Sanskrit root which means divine. 'Divine' and 'devil'

both come from the same root, DEV: in Sanskrit it becomes DEVADATA -- gods. The Devil and the Divine, both are the same -- but if you repress one part of God, one aspect of his being, sooner or later it is going to assert itself.

Now there are churches, in the West particularly, churches devoted to the Devil.

Disciples of the Devil are growing, mushrooming all over the world. The First Church of Satan is there in America, where people gather and worship Satan. Satan means 'devil', that is Arabic for 'devil'. All kinds of bizarre things are going on in the world, but the reason for them and the responsibility is that of the priests. For centuries they have been repressing God's aspects. You cannot repress anything forever; sooner or later it will assert itself.

In the East, particularly in India, there is no Devil worship at all. It cannot happen -- because we have accepted it, we have never rejected it. The Indian trinity, TRIMURTI, the three faces of God, have to be understood. Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh: these are the three faces of God. Brahma is the creator God, the aspect that creates, Vishnu, the aspect that maintains the world, the existence, keeps it running, and Mahesh, the destroyer who destroys the world.

Now, Christians cannot conceive of Mahesh as God. God has to be always the creator.

The Christian concept of God as creator makes it a very limited one. Then whose responsibility is it to destroy things? -- because there is destruction too, and no creation is possible without destruction. Creation is possible only through destruction. God gives life -- and who gives death? Somebody has to be responsible for death too, but God cannot be responsible for death.

Christians are so afraid; their God is partial. The Indian idea of God is more total: with one hand he creates, with the other hand he destroys too. He is good and he is bad too; he is light and darkness both, life and death both. And if God is both, then only can God be transcendental. When you are both, you transcend both.

You ask me: THE DEVIL SEEMS TO BE AS POPULAR AS MAO TSE TUNG THESE DAYS. WHY? WHY IS THE DEVIL SO ATTRACTIVE?

It is because of a long long repression through Christianity. The Devil aspect of God has been completely denied. Now after twenty centuries of repression it has become very strong, it has gathered too much energy -- it is exploding all over the place. It is certainly becoming more and more attractive. God seems to be poor compared to the Devil.

Christians, particularly the priests, have been talking so much about God that they have made the word almost sickening, nauseating. They have talked so much about God and their God is so sweet, only sweetness is allowed to God. Their God has no salt; it is pure white sugar, which is another name for poison. So the Christian God has created a kind of diabetes all over the world. It is false because it is partial, and the other part will take revenge.

God has to be accepted in its totality. This whole existence is divine: don't reject anything. Everything is good in its place. Salt is needed as much as sweetness. Even bitterness has its own place, its own joy, its own taste. The thorn on the rosebush has its own function; it is a bodyguard to the rose, it protects the rose. Don't deny it, don't prune all the thorns, otherwise the roses will die.

Life exists through polar opposites. And this has been a fallacious step, that we have chosen only one pole: God is only positive Then the negative has to be given to some entity, some fictitious entity, the Devil. The Devil does not exist. There is no hell, all is paradise. Yes, there are two situations: you can fall asleep in the paradise or you can be awake, but there is no hell.

I deny hell absolutely. And if there is misery in life, it is part of life. If there is death, it is a process of life, it is a renewal of life; it gives you a new body, a new model. The old rotten body is taken away and you are given a fresh new model. Death is not against life but in the service of life. Even what we know as bad is in the service of good. Yes, if you are wise enough you can transform poison into medicine. And if you are foolish even medicine can be dangerous, it can become poison.

The West will have to change its idea of God. And the Western idea is no longer Western -- it has spread all over the world. Christian missionaries have done such mischief; they have drowned all other kinds of religion; almost half the earth they have changed into Christianity. They have destroyed all variety. They have given a very singular, one- dimensional idea of God to humanity. And their idea of God is very juvenile, it is not even mature. And their idea of God is anthropocentric, it is made in the image of man.

And they have been trying hard to make God a great saint. Their whole effort has created this situation: the denied part is ready now to explode. Denial is always dangerous; repression is dangerous. We have to pay tremendously for it.

Accept both the polarities. The negative and the positive are both needed for the electricity to happen; the good and bad are both needed for the world to go on; they are like the two wheels of a bullock cart. The sinner and the saint are both needed. That's my approach I love the sinner as much as the saint -- and if I have to choose, if I am forced to choose, I will choose the sinner rather than the saint, because the sinner is at least authentic. You cannot find a pseudo-sinner -- have you ever heard the word 'pseudo- sinner'? Pseudo-saints are there; in fact ninety-nine point nine percent of saints are pseudo -- because there is rarely a Jesus or a Buddha. That phenomenon is very rare; WE have made it rare. We have made it almost impossible for anybody to be a Jesus or a Buddha; we create all kinds of hurdles. And even if somebody becomes a Jesus, we don't tolerate him -- we kill the man the moment we become aware....

Jesus lived only three years as Christ. For thirty years he was in preparation, in meditation, in search. After thirty years when he attained his satori, he went to the marketplace and started giving the message that he had attained. It took three years for it to become known to people that this man had attained. They killed him immediately.

When Mansoor attained godhood he declared, "Ana'l Haq! am God!" His Master, Junaid, said, "Keep quiet. I know, you know, that's enough. No need to tell it to anybody -- otherwise you will be in danger and you will create danger for me and for other disciples also. Yes, I accept," said Junaid, "I can see you have attained. But let it be a secret between me and you."

But Mansoor could not keep it a secret; it is very difficult to keep it a secret. Nobody has ever been able to keep it a secret. There would be moments when he was in deep ecstasy and he would start shouting again "I am God!" Soon the news spread. The priests went to the king and they said, "This is sacrilegious. This man has to be destroyed, this man has to be killed!"

First you don't allow anybody to become a Jesus or Mansoor, and if one somehow escapes from your bondage and becomes one you kill him. And you go on preaching something which is absurd, pseudo. You create a saint against the sinner; he is bound to be pseudo because he has not absorbed the sinner into himself. He has no foundation -- he is a house without any foundation, he is a house made on the sands. The sinner becomes the foundation. Unless the sinner is absorbed and transformed you will not find a true Buddha. Your saints are pseudo, bogus. only on the surface, pretenders.

If I am forced to choose I will choose the sinner, because the sinner has all the energies which can be transformed into a saint. But the saint has cut himself from all the sources of energies; he has become a plastic flower. He is almost hopeless; his case is hopeless.

This calamity has happened -- this Devil becoming too attractive -- because of the priests denying God all reality, making God an abstraction. God is not an abstraction, God is not a person; God is the total harmony of existence. And in that harmony, in that orchestra, all the instruments are involved -- the bad, the dark, the death, they also have to play their parts. They become the background, they become the context.

You don't see stars in the day -- why? Do you think all the stars disappear? They are there in the sky; they have not disappeared. It would be too much work every morning to disappear and every evening to come back; it would create unnecessary trouble. They are there! Just because of the sunlight, the background is missing in which you could see them. When the night comes and the darkness comes, the background becomes available.

In the dark night they shine forth. The darker the night, the more shining stars and the more stars you will be able to see.

God is both -- the darkest depth and the lightest height. Once this is accepted the Devil loses all attraction, the Devil dies. The Devil becomes a fertile land for God to grow; the Devil becomes a fertilizer. You can accumulate fertilizers in your house, you can accumulate manure in your house, and your house will stink. Spread the manure in the garden, and the same manure will sprout into beautiful flowers, the same manure will release great fragrance. Manure has not to be accumulated in the basement of your house, it has to be spread in the garden, in the open, in the sun.

We have been repressing anger, greed, sex -- everything that has been thought to be bad in some way we have been repressing in the basement of our being, in the unconscious.

And that's why every human being is stinking. Bring it into the light! Let it become manure, let it be a fertilizing phenomenon in your life, and you will have great flowers blossoming in you. You will attain to the one-thousand-petalled lotus.

The last question

Question 7:

Madira,

HAVE A LOOK AT THE WORLD -- and certainly they are running the world! that's why the world is in a mess. The knowledgeable people are running the world and they are the most ignorant people -- knowledgeable about superficial things. And sometimes these knowledgeable people are so ridiculous.

Once I was talking on Mahavira. A great scholar, well-known all over the world, particularly on Mahavira, came to listen to me. After the discourse he stood up and he said, "I have one question to ask. My question is: Mahavira and Buddha were contemporaries -- who was older and who was younger? I have spent thirty years of research on this project, but I have not been able to come to a clear-cut decision. A few scriptures say Buddha was older and a few scriptures say Mahavira was older, and there seems to be no way to decide. I am very much impressed," he said, "by what you said about Mahavira. Can you throw some light on my problem?"

I said, "You wasted thirty years of your life! How does it matter who was older and who was younger? What are you going to do if you come to a clear-cut conclusion? One thing is certain: whosoever was younger or older, you have wasted your life -- thirty years! In these thirty years you could have become a Buddha or a Mahavira. Mahavira became a Mahavira in twelve years' meditation, Buddha became a Buddha in six years' meditation."

I said to the man, "If you had worked on meditation you would have become Buddha five times! Thirty years wasted -- and Buddha became Buddha in six years. You would have been a Buddha five times over. And don't ask such foolish questions; it doesn't matter."

But that's how knowledgeable people are concerned. He was very angry at me, he became very antagonistic to me. He started writing articles against me. Now he is dead. So first he was wasting his life in searching for who was older, Buddha or Mahavira, and then he wasted his life in writing articles against me. The poor man, I really feel sorry for him.

The learned people know only the superficial, which has no significance.

Carruthers was visiting a small English town to do business. As his first appointment was not until twelve noon he decided to play a round of golf early in the morning. The golf course was right on the edge of town, and he was first off.

He sliced his first ball, and it went over the hedge that ran parallel to the first fairway. He did not bother to go and look for it; he played another ball which went straight down the middle.

On returning to the club house at the end of the game the club professional approached him saying, "Excuse me, sir, were you by any chance the first off this morning?"

"Yes, I was," replied the businessman.

"And did you slice your first ball over the hedge to the right?"

"Yes, I did, as a matter of fact, old man," replied the businessman.

"Well," said the professional, "that hedge runs parallel to a very busy street, and your ball landed on the head of a cyclist. The cyclist swerved into the middle of the road, and in order to miss the cyclist a car swerved in front of a bus; and in order to miss the car, shopfront of a jeweler's. The shop collapsed, and in the process a lot of very valuable jewelry has disappeared."

"Oh, my God!" cried the businessman, shaking at the knees. "What shall I do?"

"Oh, no problem, old man," said the professional. "Just make sure that you keep your right hand a little further round the handle, and everything will be fine."

That's how the professional, the expert, the knowledgeable person, works. He knows everything about the meaningless, the insignificant; he goes into insignificant details and he goes on missing the central thing.

I am not against the pundits and the learned people, I am simply compassionate towards them.

Semyonov, a local party secretary, stopped Kagonovich on the street. "Comrade," he asked, "why don't you come for ideological instruction every Tuesday and Thursday evening?"

"I don't need it," said Kagonovich.

"Who was Karl Marx?" asked Semyonov.

"I don't know."

"Who was Vladimir Lenin?"

"I don't know."

Semyonov went on and on. Finally Kagonovich interrupted, "You ask me who is this and who is that. Let me ask you! Who is Rudolf Ulyanov?"

"I don't know," replied the secretary.

"Ah!" said Kagonovich. "But I know that one. While you are at ideological instruction every Tuesday and Thursday night, Rudolf Ulyanov is screwing your wife!"

Be Still and Know