Chapter 24

[The tantra group is present. One participant said she was sick and had many pains. She had been a devotee of a swami in Rishikesh for three years. She had served him, become pregnant by him and had an abortion. She still loves him and is afraid of him. She would prefer to remain in Poona.]

And are you having any love relationship here with somebody?... To have one will help; otherwise the mind will go on thinking of him.

[She answers: I find I compare every man with Swamiji. It's very difficult.]

Comparison is not good, never good, because each individual is so different, so unique. Never compare two individuals, it is unfair to both. Enjoy all kinds of people - that will give you more richness. A person who can enjoy only a rose flower and no other flowers will be poor; you will think he is obsessed. The rose flower is beautiful, has great beauty, but there is no need to be obsessed with it. There are millions of flowers, millions of fragrances and all are unique. A man should be able to enjoy all these varieties.

[She replies: Swamiji used to say all the time that Radha only had eyes for Krishna.]

And Krishna is for all the Radhas! What foolishness! It does not apply to Krishna? You didn't ask, 'What about Krishna?' Radha is only for Krishna, and Krishna? - for him all kinds of Radhas, sixteen thousand Radhas! him? It should apply to both. This is the male chauvinistic mind; this is not a beautiful mind at all. That is not even respectful of people. It is the old condemnatory mind which has been keeping the woman down, oppressed, repressed. It has been telling people, this kind of mind, that a woman has to love only one man. And what about the man? - they don't say anything about him. Then they call it Krishna's leela, then it is play. But why can only Krishna have a play?

Why not Radha? Why this inequality?

This just shows the male egoistic standpoint; and the so-called spiritual people are all male chauvinists. They may not be aware but all their scriptures are full of condemnatory remarks about women. They can either worship the woman as mother or they can condemn her as a prostitute, but they cannot accept her as an equal. Either they condemn or they worship but in both ways they make the woman look either inhuman or superhuman. Humanity is denied, and that's what a woman needs. She is neither inhuman nor superhuman; she is as human as any man. So that is just a stupid idea of the so-called swami. That is an old strategy to keep women in bondage.

Liberate yourself from such nonsense and rubbish. And I am not saying don't love the man. I am saying that if you are too obsessed with one man you will never be happy. There is no need to be so obsessed.

And when you want to be here... If you don't want to be here you can simply go, there is no problem, but the major part of your mind wants to be here. That's why I cannot say to you to go, otherwise I would. If the major part of your mind says to go any time, go; let this thing be finished. It will be finished sooner by going back. But if the major part says, only then, otherwise there is no need to go.

But because you are not having any love relationship you will hanker for love, and then you will remember the man. It is as if you only eat a certain kind of food, you don't eat any other kind of food, so you will starve. You will go on remembering the food. That is the old strategy of man; that's how women were made prisoners: think only of one man. The woman feels starved from everywhere, and naturally when you are starved and only one food is allowed, you continuously fantasise about that food; it is natural. If you start eating other things you will not think so much. There is no need to starve. Love is food. Love is as essential to the soul as food is to the body. My suggestion is: move with somebody and don't compare; don't compare, there is no need.

The problem arises because you have been with a man for three years and you compare him with the man with whom you have not been three years. The comparison is unfair, because you have been with a certain flower for three years and you are being introduced to a new flower just this moment. Naturally, the three years experience is bigger, and this is just an acquaintance. Maybe your nose is so full of the rose smell that you cannot smell this flower at all.

Be fair. Give this flower also a little bit of time, energy, and who knows? - you may discover something far more beautiful than the rose. In fact, every person is such a beautiful person if you are ready to explore, if you are ready to go into them, but my idea is that somehow that man has even conditioned your mind about what kind of man is great, what kind of man is good, what kind of man is worth loving and respecting; he has given you that conditioning too! So if you follow that conditioning, naturally it will be difficult and your comparison will always be prejudiced.

For example if you think a man should never be angry - that is the quality of a good lover - then if the man sometimes gets angry you will think, 'This is an ordinary man.' But the truth is just otherwise:

the man who never gets angry is not really in love with you, he is simply exploiting you. He is cold about you, he does not care a bit. The man who gets angry cares about you, that's why he gets angry. That's why he goes so deeply into it that he suffers pain and suffering.

Now, it depends on what perspective you have, on how you judge. And the Hindu swamis and so-called mahatmas are phony people. Their phoniness is such that you may think that this is truth!

For example, a plastic flower can say to you that a real flower is permanent, as it is, and that an alive flower is not real because in the morning it is there and by the evening it is gone; it is momentary.

Look at it: it is permanent; it is the real flower! If you listen to the plastic flower you may get this idea that a real flower always remains. Now you will be in trouble: no real flower will look real to you, only plastic flowers will look real to you. But the case is just the opposite. Real flowers die: unreal flowers never die. They only pretend: they never live, they never die. The plastic flower is never born and will never die.

So it depends on what kind of prejudice you are carrying inside you. Unlearn those prejudices.

Start seeing things as they are;don't look with judgments. You will not find more beautiful people anywhere else than you can find here. But these are real people: they will be angry sometimes, they will beat you sometimes. Your so-called Swamiji will not beat you.... He did? That's good! But you can find better swamis here!

Just drop those ideas and start looking, mm? Good!

[Another tantra group participant said he had a headache since the group, which brought up much pain about his sexuality. He is more attracted to men. At the ashram he has made many loving connections with women, but is frustrated because he cannot connect with them sexually.]

I understand. I wanted you to be in that situation, mm? - it has brought everything to the surface; now things will be easier and they can be worked out. It has created the upheaval in you, otherwise you were complacent, you were moving in peace. On the surface everything was okay, but all the monsters were there in the unconscious. Tantra brought all those monsters to the surface. It is good; now they can be released and they can be said good-bye to. Many things become possible once the unconscious unloads itself into the conscious. That's what a nightmare is: the unconscious unloading itself into the conscious. It has been painful - that I can see from you face, from your being - but that pain was a must. Don't be worried about it.

A few things to be understood... one: there is no need to hectically change your interest from men to women. If it changes on its own, that's good, but there is no need to force that change. A forced change never goes very deep, never works, and there is no need to force it. Accept your homosexuality. Don't condemn it; there is no need. It is a perfectly valid way. And if you accept it, one day you can go beyond it; if you reject it, you can never go beyond it - that's the problem. If you reject it, it will haunt you. If you deny it, it will try to overpower you. The denied parts of your being become revengeful. So there is no need to deny it. It's perfectly valid. Mm? There are so many ways to relate sexually - homosexuality is one of the ways; simply accept it. Joyously accept it, not grudgingly, not reluctantly....

(to the tantra group leader) ... Many many homosexual people will be coming, so once in a while there should be a homosexual group. Mm, just plan it, just think about it. Right? Because if you can give them the feeling that their sexual interest is valid it will be of tremendous importance to them:

they will feel rooted, grounded, and from that rootedness change becomes easy, becomes possible.

(to the participant) And if nothing changes there is no problem in it. Remain homosexual and yet start growing spiritually. It is not that homosexuality is necessarily a barrier for spiritual growth. If you accept it then there is no problem; the problem arises if you reject it. Sometimes I have to

say to a few homosexuals, lesbians, to drop it. I say only to drop it when I see that they reject it deep down and are still in it; then it is a hindrance. But if a person simply feels easily homosexual, naturally homosexual, then there is no problem. And that's my feeling about you. It is a very natural phenomenon to you; but the mind listens to things, and the homosexual minority has been so condemned down the ages. One cannot avoid knowing those things - that everybody condemns it, that everybody is against it, the law is against, the religion.... Naturally, one thinks that when so many people are against it something must be wrong in it! Even if one feels the pull towards it, one goes reluctantly.

Don't go reluctantly. That reluctance is the real problem, not homosexuality. And there is no need to change it drastically; simply allow your natural flow.

Meditate, grow. It is possible one day that it may change. When you change, all the things change.

But remember, you are not to change it; no effort has to be made to change it. So you will be doing other groups - if this problem arises, simply express your feeling and say that you are not interested in women at all; and not with any guilt, there is no need, no need to feel any guilt. You are not doing any sin, you are not harming anybody. You are not destructive to anybody, you are not violent to anybody.

Homosexuality is your enjoyment; it is fun, it is nothing serious. With that acceptance this nightmarish situation will disappear and you will feel very very much at ease. And that at easeness will not be only on the surface, it will become part of your depth.