The world needs to be one

From:
Osho
Date:
Fri, 27 September 1985 00:00:00 GMT
Book Title:
The Wild Geese and the Water
Chapter #:
13
Location:
am in Rajneeshmandir
Archive Code:
N.A.
Short Title:
N.A.
Audio Available:
N.A.
Video Available:
N.A.
Length:
N.A.

Question 1:

BELOVED MASTER,

YOU HAVE BROUGHT ZORBA THE BUDDHA TO LIFE, LOVE AND LAUGHTER, WITH LUMINOUS SILENCE. YOU HAVE ALSO SPOKEN ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN REBELLION AND REVOLUTION. IF ZORBA THE BUDDHA WERE IN THIS COMMUNE, HOW COULD HE HAVE RESPONDED TO THE GROWING MENACE OF SHEELA AND HER GANG?

WOULD HE, AS ONE REBEL AMONG THE COMMUNITY OF REBELS, HAVE ACTED NOT ONLY INDIVIDUALLY, BUT TOGETHER WITH OTHERS? COULD THERE BE SOME SHARED AWARENESS OR ACTION WHICH MIGHT HAVE FREED US FROM THE ENEMIES WITHIN?

PLEASE COMMENT ON ZORBA THE BUDDHA'S RESPONSIBILITY AS A SOCIAL OR COMMUNAL BEING.

Zorba the Buddha is certainly amongst you. And he has acted the way he is supposed to act - individually, rebelliously. Revolution is for crowds, mobs; hence, revolution changes things but never betters them.

Rebellion is individual.

It has a superiority, a consciousness which only an individual can have.

The moment Zorba the Buddha saw what was happening, not a single moment was lost; action was immediate. And Zorba the Buddha acts in such a way - so silently, without any destructiveness - that you become aware only when the act is almost complete.

How do you think, how do you explain that Sheela and her fascist gang simply fled away? I had not even uttered a single word, I had not told them to leave, but they could see, feel that I had become aware of their misdeeds.

They were not even courageous enough to come and say goodbye to me. I have never seen such a cowardly group - a group who have been here, who have been working in the commune in my name, representing me, and yet who could not gather courage to come and say, "Goodbye, we are leaving."

The functioning of Zorba the Buddha is so silent and so serene, so nonviolent, and so loving....

Sheela has given an interview to STERN. I have just heard that my picture is on the cover of STERN, and just in the corner is a small picture of Sheela. It is her interview, twenty-five pages long, with a beautiful heading: "To Hell With Bhagwan."

That's really the place I would like to go! What am I going to do in heaven with all kinds of dodos, saints? - who are all torturers of themselves - masochistic. Heaven must be the most psychologically sick place, because all psychologically sick people are there. Sheela at least understands my taste. I loved the title.

Hell is full of colorful people. All the scientists will be in hell, all the artists, painters, sculptors, poets - people who have contributed to the happiness of man - will be in hell, because they never bothered about the priests and their stupid theologies.

You cannot conceive of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Wagner, in heaven. Impossible!

Picasso, Van Gogh, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Epicurus, Socrates, Gautam Buddha - such a great company! The best, the cream of the whole history is in hell. And wherever people like Socrates, Buddha, Epicurus, Diogenes, Dionysius are, do you think the place will remain the same?

Hell will be contemporary, perhaps ahead of us. So many geniuses! Heaven must be absolutely outdated, with a God who is perhaps dead - because since he created this mess called the universe nothing has been heard about him. Perhaps he committed suicide, seeing what he has done.

And I know the saints: ugly, in every way. They have not contributed anything to beautify existence, to make man's life more pleasurable. On the contrary, they have destroyed man's joy in life, they have destroyed naturalness in man, they have made man a perverted being.

I don't think that laughter is heard in heaven. But in hell it must be a great party, a real Italian party, ongoing - spaghetti and all. Hell is the place to go right now.

I feel sorry for Sheela and her fascist gang; they will miss this great opportunity. I am certainly going to hell, and my people are going to be with me. Now, let Sheela be in heaven with all those people who have created homosexuality. In a way, she likes homosexuals - she was always surrounded by homosexuals. Strangely enough, amongst all the sannyasins, she had only homosexuals around her. She will rejoice greatly in heaven, because everybody there is a homosexual.

Just one thing I am worried about. She was raped when she was sixteen, became pregnant, had to go through an illegal abortion. In heaven there is every possibility of the gang being raped, because rarely have women entered there. In fact, they are not allowed - just to save the saints.

But she has closed the doors for hell, because I am going to be there with one million sannyasins.

She cannot go to hell, she has to go to heaven. And she is going to be raped by so-called saints.

The Holy Ghost is not going to leave her alone. Virgin or no virgin, for the Holy Ghost it matters not.

Just think, for two thousand years the poor fellow has been celibate; it is time for breakfast!

I do not know German - fortunately, because it is such a language... if you want to fight, it sounds perfect. But if you are a loving, gentle person, German is absolutely useless. I have always wondered how German lovers talk, because the language is such - as if you are throwing stones at each other. So, I can talk only about the heading on the cover. Soon they will be translating it, then point by point I will discuss it.

Zorba the Buddha is something totally new in the world. There have been Zorbas, there have been Buddhas, but they have remained always opposed to each other.

Zorba represents materialism, Zorba represents the West. Buddha represents spirituality, Buddha represents the East.

The English poet, Rudyard Kipling, says that West is West and East is East, and the twain shall never meet. I don't write poetry, I don't believe in words and playing with words. I trust existence. If Rudyard Kipling has any guts - come out of your grave and see, the East and West have met! Here!

Zorba is not separate from Buddha. The West is not separate from the East. In fact, any materialism that has no values of spirituality is going to be very mundane, profane, ugly. It will not have any flights into the open sky towards the stars. It will not flower and release its fragrance; it will be just a rock.

Spiritualism without materialism may have beautiful values but it is without foundations. It may create great palaces reaching to the stars, but without foundations these palaces can only be hallucinations, they cannot be real.

This reminds me....

One journalist was asking, "If Sheela was so crude, so violent, so hostile to people, so full of hatred, why did you choose her as the president of the foundation?"

When you make a beautiful building, for the foundation you choose all kinds of ugly stones. When the foundation is finished, then you start working with marble, not before that.

With human beings this is a difficulty: they don't know when their time is over, they cling. They think they have been chosen forever. I have told Sheela many times, "Nobody is chosen forever. You fulfill a need. You do your best, then vacate the place for those whose work is now to make something better, higher."

Zorba can only be the foundation; Buddha is the temple. Neither can exist without the other. It has been tried for thousands of years that they should exist separately - and the ultimate result is this insane humanity you see.

Either somebody is just a gambler, a drunkard, visiting prostitutes, and knows nothing of anything better... higher values remain absolutely unknown to him. Sheela is that type - a prostitute. She deserted her first husband when he was dying; even prostitutes won't do that.

Now the second husband is still living, and she has married a third husband. The second husband knows nothing about it, that he is divorced. Before she went to Nepal, she sent the second husband to Australia to function in the commune there. Now the third husband should be alert. And these are husbands - I am not counting boyfriends.

Sheela has something exactly primitive, like an uncut stone, which can be used only in the foundation, because once the building is over nobody is going to see the foundation. I have accepted her because better people are not for foundations. Hasya will not do for a foundation. Kaveesha will not do for a foundation.

Zorba has to be only the foundation, to support the Buddha - which is the goal of existence.

My whole effort is to bring East and West to a deep merger. The West has science, technology - they are all for the foundations. They can create better machines, but they cannot create better men.

The East is poor, has no idea of how to create better machines, better houses, better roads, but it can create better men.

Even the poor people in the East have some quality which is missing in the West. The poorest will still be immensely patient - not tense, not worried; trusting in existence that something good will come out of it, hoping. Even in the darkest cloud he will be able to see the silver lining.

The Western mind, even in the brightest silver lining, will see the dark cloud surrounding it. They both are there; it is a question of your choice.

And I would like you to see the whole - not to choose, because the darkest cloud is absolutely necessary for the brightest lining. The bright cannot exist without the dark cloud. Neither has the dark cloud any meaning unless it flowers into bright linings. There is no contradiction.

Roots are bound to be ugly. Their function is such, they have to be ugly. They have to go deep into the earth in search of water. They remain hidden - but without them the roses will not flower. All the juice that roses have comes from those ugly roots.

And it is not a one-way traffic either, because in response flowers are sending to the roots sunrays, air. They are connected. In fact, there are no divisions anywhere; it is one phenomenon. From the root to the flower, from the West to the East, from Zorba to Buddha, it is one phenomenon. All the religions have denied it. That's why all the religions have been against humanity.

Communism is the by-product of all these religions. Now more than half of humanity is communist, atheist, irreligious, does not have any inquiry into its own interiority. A very strange thing has happened; it has never been such a big movement. There have been atheists, but there have not been so many atheists - more than half.

Who has created them? It is the failure of the religions. They talked about flowers, but they could not produce. They failed utterly in their promises; they could not deliver what they were talking about.

And the reason was, they were denying the roots. Naturally, a revolution was going to happen, and it has happened.

Russia was one of the most religious countries. You will be surprised to know, Karl Marx had never thought that communism would happen first in Russia, then in China. It would have been inconceivable to him; he was thinking communism would happen first in America. But he was not a philosopher, he was not a psychologist; he had no knowledge about man's growth. He was only an economist.

And when people are very linear, moving in one line, forgetting all other dimensions of life, such problems are bound to arise. His only idea was that communism would happen in a country where rich and poor were divided; where the poor would go on becoming poorer, and the rich would go on becoming richer. Naturally, the division would create revolution, the class struggle. But he failed completely in his analysis. It is difficult to find a greater failure than Karl Marx.

Communism happened in Russia, which was the most religious country, not rich. There was no class struggle in fact. Why did it happen in Russia?

My analysis is: any religious country denying the roots of human growth is sooner or later bound to move to the other extreme. Flowers are not coming. Theism failing, religion failing, priests proving nothing but phony: perhaps atheism is right. They have tried theism for thousands of years; "Now let us try atheism." In Russia, communism came as atheism, not as an economic theory. That was just part of it, but the basic thing was religion.

The same happened in China, one of the most ancient lands. It has always been religious. Most of China was Buddhist. Zorba was missing, and Buddha alone cannot be a fulfillment. The temple was never made. Finally, they had to move, and the movement was going to be psychologically to the other extreme: become atheist, become communist, destroy religion completely.

If we want a whole man - and to me a whole man is the only holy man - then Zorba has to be absorbed into Buddha. They have to be accepted totally as one. And I don't see where the trouble is. In fact, Zorba plus Buddha will be a tremendous enrichment.

Buddha cannot laugh, cannot dance, cannot sing, cannot love. Now what kind of life will it be?

Hollow!

Zorba can sing, dance, enjoy food, drink, love. He will have a life, but he will not know who he is. He will not know the meaning of existence. He will never come to experience the deathlessness of life, the eternity of his existence - that he has been here always, and will be always; only forms change.

He will never enter into his own center. He will always remain in the cyclone, very busy, concerned with everything except himself.

And the center of the cyclone is the most ecstatic experience, the ultimate experience of human consciousness. Beyond that there is nothing; you have arrived home. But I don't see that there is any problem, there is no contradiction. You can arrive home, you can be at your center - what prevents you from laughing? In fact, you should be the only one who can really laugh, can become laughter; who can really love, can become love itself - where the lover disappears and only love remains; one who can dance and dance to such abandon that the dancer is completely gone, there is only dance.

This is my effort:

To bring Zorba the Buddha into the world.

That will create a unity in you; your body and soul will have a unity. You will not have to fight against your nature, you can use it as a stepping stone. There is no need to fight, there is no need to repress.

All psychological diseases are out of repression. All psychopathological people are just incurable unless they accept their nature totally, without any grudge. You have to use your natural energies to grow. It will bring man into a totality.

All religions have made you schizophrenic, split. They have created guilt in you by creating a split; it is their whole business. Only a guilty man will go to church, will go to the synagogue, will go to the temple; otherwise there is no need.

If you are one, you would like to dance in the open air under the sun. That will be your real prayer.

Nothing is said, nothing is asked, but you are showing your gratitude to existence.

Zorba the Buddha will not only destroy the split in man, it will destroy the split in society.

The poor and the rich depend on each other; the rich cannot exist without the poor. It is a simple humanitarian gesture... we have enough technology now to produce so much wealth that there is no need for anybody to be poor and starving. But what we go on doing is just the opposite.

Thirty million people in the richest country of the world, in America, are undernourished. And you will be surprised: thirty million people in America are overnourished. They are dieting, and they are trying hard somehow to lose weight. America has the most ugly, fattest men in the whole world.

It is a simple arithmetic: these thirty million fat people are eating the food of thirty million who are undernourished.

We can produce enough, more than needed, so the necessity to hoard disappears. You don't hoard air. Of course, on the moon you will. You will have a container hanging on your shoulder with oxygen, because there is no oxygen on the moon.

In a desert you will hoard water. People fight in the desert for a small oasis, kill each other. The fight is for water. Here you don't fight for water; there is more than enough available.

I have a different view of society than communism and capitalism. Society needs a super-capitalistic system, and it will become communistic automatically. There will be no need for any revolution.

What is needed is evolution, not revolution. Revolution never betters things. It is evolution - growth - which betters things.

If many people are poor and a few people are rich, that simply means there is not enough wealth.

All effort should be made to create enough wealth, and it can be created; there is no reason why not. And when wealth is there - more than needed - then who bothers to hoard it?

A few things will disappear of their own accord which you have not been able to dispel from the society. The poor will disappear, the thief will disappear. The policeman perhaps may not be needed, the magistrate can be put to better use. Thousands of legal advocates are just wasting their time and people's money; they are not needed.

We don't see things; we simply remove the symptoms, and they come back again.

Look at the very causes.

In America there is so much crime. Why? There must be temptations for crime. Those temptations can be dropped very easily.

Just look at my watch. Are you tempted or not? You will be tempted because you don't know that it is just of stones, not diamonds. It has no value. When stones can do the work of diamonds, then only fools will be after diamonds. Can you see any difference?

In diamonds, the watch is a quarter-million dollars - the same watch exactly. My sannyasins have made it just with stones. It is functioning as accurately as any watch - just one second's difference in one year - because now it is a very simple phenomenon: whether you purchase a one-million-dollar watch or just a ten-dollar watch, they both use the same kind of electronic battery. The electronic battery has changed the whole idea of watches.

But if stones - real, authentic stones - can do the work of diamonds, then why unnecessarily create temptations? Create more watches with beautiful stones, and the temptation for diamonds will disappear. And the prices of the diamonds will come down. In fact, diamonds are stones. We create temptations for crime, and then the criminal is punished, not the person who has created the temptation. Both should be punished!

But only symptoms are being removed. The cause will create other symptoms. This is so unscientific. Instead of creating more wealth, every nation is creating more weapons - atomic, hydrogen bombs, nuclear bombs - and piling them up. For what? Do you want to commit a global suicide? Then why so much wastage? If humanity has decided to commit suicide, simple methods are available.

Seventy-five percent of man's energy around the earth is being poured into war efforts. Are we servants of death, destruction? And this seventy-five percent of man's energy can be poured into life, into the service of life; and there will be laughter, and there will be more health, and there will be more wealth, more food, and there will be no poverty. There is no need for poverty to exist at all.

Zorba the Buddha has to first bridge the gap within himself - that will be the basic thing - then start bridging gaps in society.

What is the difference between a Christian and a Jew? If there is any difference, then Jesus was not a Christian. He was born a Jew, he lived as a Jew, he died as a Jew. He never heard the word "Christian." If there is a difference between the Jew and the Christian, Christians should deny Jesus completely. He was a Jew, and all the apostles were Jews. What is the difference between a Jew and a Christian?

In my commune there are people from all religions. I cannot see any difference. I have been trying hard - I look in their faces, I look in their eyes, but I cannot figure out whether the man is a Christian, or a Jew, or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan.

What are the differences? Maybe there is a little bit. For example, somebody is white, somebody is black - not a big difference, not more than a half-dollar's difference. The black man has more than the white man, he is richer by a half-dollar's worth of pigment, which makes him black. And he needs to be black because he comes from Africa. That pigment prevents him from being burned by the sun. It is a geographical thing.

If people are white, it is not something to brag about. You are white because you live in a cold climate. And hankering to get a tan, making so much effort.... Whole beaches are full of people lying down under the sun. Why don't you go to Africa and have a real tan?

The best way will be through crossbreeding: Africans making marriages to white people, making marriages to yellow people, making marriages to brown people. Then your children will have a real variety, something new. They will not be white, they will not be black, they will not be brown, they will not be yellow. Mix all four colors!

It is a well-established fact that crossbreeding in trees, in animals, in men, always brings better generations. It is simply stupid that Christians should only marry Christians, Jews should only marry Jews, Hindus should only marry Hindus. This is simply unscientific, absurd.

Why doesn't any culture of the world allow brothers and sisters to marry? That will be the best thing, because they have grown up together, they know each other; there will be less nagging, less fighting. But why has every culture decided not to do that? - because the children born out of a marriage between a brother and sister will be weak, retarded, crippled, will not be so intelligent, because there is no tension.

Remember, life is a tension. Death is relaxation. Do you think people in graves are tense? They are completely relaxed. A brother and a sister are so close that the tension is almost nil; hence the child will be without any tension, he will be dull.

If this is the case, then let marriages happen between people who are as far apart as possible: the greater the distance, the better the generation. The tension is big; it brings the best out of both persons. And within three or four generations you will find a totally robust, intelligent, long-living humanity.

The East should get married to the West. The South should get married to the North. It will help immensely in many ways. I would like to see the whole world as one. And if people are marrying so far away, slowly slowly differences in languages will disappear; there will be only one language.

Right now there are thousands - that keeps people apart.

The world needs to be one.

The world needs one language.

The world needs only one kind of man: Zorba the Buddha.

The world is fed up with all your religions and all your nations. It is fed up with your priests and your politicians.

And Zorba the Buddha can do it very silently - just by his presence, just by his loving, compassionate approach to everything.

Now, would it not be good if Americans and Russians start getting married? Let the idiot politicians pile up nuclear weapons, but young people from both the countries should start getting married.

Soon the unnecessary hostility will disappear; it will become difficult for an American to be against the Russians - his wife is a Russian. It will be difficult for the Russians to be against the Americans - somebody's wife is American, somebody's husband is American.

We have to destroy all the boundaries which have been placed between people. There is no need at all for any boundaries; all boundaries are criminal. The earth is one, and whosoever tries to divide it is committing a great and serious crime.

You are asking me what Zorba the Buddha would have done when Sheela and her fascist group created an ugly situation. Zorba the Buddha did it, at the right point. Unfortunately, right now there is only one Zorba the Buddha. But one Zorba the Buddha is more than thousands of split people.

His unsplit energy was enough: those twenty criminals simply escaped.

I would like them to come back and face me on each point. But I don't think they have the courage.

And they are still wanting to commit crime.... Sheela had informed me that she would return my authorizations for her to be my attorney, my secretary, her appointment by me as the president. But she never returned them to me.

And then taking papers from every corporation, that means they have still in mind to do something criminal; otherwise, what was the need to take the stationery of different corporations? Perhaps they have bank accounts in the name of different corporations, and they would like to draw the money from them. Or they will exploit sannyasins, still pretending that Sheela is my secretary.

And it is strange that people can lie so easily. In one of her interviews she says she was my lover.

I don't love prostitutes. I had made her the secretary, not because she was my lover, but because I saw that she can be a foundation stone; and she was.

But stones are stones. When you put them in the foundation, they start telling you that they would like to remain and become the whole temple. When I refused, that was the point at which they escaped.

Saying to the press that she has been my lover.... I have no aversion to love, I have loved many people - perhaps more than any man on the earth living today - but Sheela being my lover...?

However I stretch my memory, however compassionate I try to be, it does not work.

She is looking, in her interviews, pathetic. And she will suffer her whole life. She has betrayed the whole commune, all the sannyasins around the world. She has betrayed a great trust, a great love that the sannyasins had shown to her.

But Zorba the Buddha has done his work. You need not be worried: nothing like this is going to happen again. It was a good experience, and it was good to have the experience in the beginning.

So now you will be more alert, more aware, and you won't allow anything like that to happen again.

She has done much harm, and I am trying in every way to heal the wounds that she has created.

For example, Antelope. They are worried about our police being there. This is strange! In all these years our police have not done any harm to anybody. The people of Antelope want the police to be removed. I will remove the police if the state of Oregon takes the responsibility to see that no sannyasin will be harmed, that no property will be harmed, burned, damaged - because all the sannyasins are here the whole day working, and in the night they go to Antelope.

The police are there simply to look after the property; we have two-thirds of the properties of Antelope. I am willing to remove the police force immediately; just purchase all the lands and all the properties and then it is up to you to do whatever you want.

They say that we have increased the taxes.... It is very strange: only a dozen old Antelope people are there, and one hundred sannyasins are there - so who is paying the taxes? And those taxes are going into improving the city, its streets and everything that is needed.

Just purchase all the properties, and we will declare Antelope tax free. Then do whatsoever you want. It is your city - we have no concern with your city. We will declare it tax free. Let your roads be rotten, your water system finished, your fire brigade dismantled. Do whatsoever you want! We will leave the city tax free. And right now we are paying the taxes, not anybody else.

But one condition they have to remember: they have to purchase their properties back at a reasonable price, at the market price right now. I had offered that we would sell them at the same price as we purchased them, but the ex-mayor of Antelope gave an interview to the press and said, "I don't trust."

That is enough for me. Now the properties will be sold only at the market price, not at the price for which we had purchased them. And we have improved on the properties, renovated the properties, so their prices will be almost twice or thrice more.

And it can happen in one day. They can just ask their friends - who were ready to die for Antelope.

Now they can help, this is the point of action. Ask the governor, ask the state - take all the properties back and we will vacate. And before vacating we will make it tax free.

As far as the name is concerned, we are going to change it immediately. There is no need to wait for it; it costs nothing. But we don't want any kind of hostility. From our side the people who had created hostility have fled. So now these innocent sannyasins have nothing to do with it.

And I have told my sannyasins that you can use any color clothes you want so that you can mix with people more easily, so you cannot be discriminated against. You need not use your mala. You can return it or you can keep it as a memory.

But if you want to remain in orange, red, you can. But, particularly when you go out, certainly don't use red, because it seems Oregonians in the past have been bulls. Why unnecessarily disturb the bulls? Let them rest. Red creates something in their psychology, and we don't want to disturb anybody in any way.

Sheela has created a book, RAJNEESHISM. That is not my book; I have not read it, I don't know what is written in it. She has collected material from my other books. Whatever she has added to it, I don't know; what she has deleted from it, I don't know.

On Monday we are going to have a big world press conference, and we are going to have a bonfire - with dancing and rejoicing - to burn that book... because I am always against the word "ism."

Humanity has suffered enough.

Sheela has created the word "Rajneeshee." That is an ugly word. Then what is the difference between a Rajneeshee and a Christian and a Hindu and a Mohammedan?

I have withdrawn it. Now nobody is a Rajneeshee. I give you back your individuality, your integrity.

To me, you are all individuals, living together because your search is one - not that your dogma is one, not that your system of belief is one. You are rebellious people, and I would like you to remain rebellious. That is the only point that joins you all.

You are not to surrender to anybody. You are not to worship anybody. We don't have a God. God is the projection of the retarded mind. We don't have a religion in the same way as Christianity, Judaism. We don't have a holy book. We have only human beings, and we have only books.

I have called a big press conference. So get ready with all the rainbow colors. The press should see that something tremendously new has happened to you as individuals.

You love me, that's enough. There is no need for adoration.

Just last night, a press reporter was asking, "Then it is going to be very difficult. What are we going to call your people?"

I said, "Just call them my people, they are my people. They are not Rajneeshees. So call them friends of Rajneesh - but more than that is not needed."

And then, outside the temple, we will be having a bonfire to burn all the books on Rajneeshism, all the stationery that belongs to the Academy of Rajneeshism.

That "ism" is an ugly and dirty word, and I don't want it to be associated with me. Now it will be called Rajneesh Academy; in short, RA. RA is an ancient Egyptian word which means "the highest experience of consciousness."

We are going to change the plaque before the Mandir, because here also they have put "Academy of Rajneeshism." That will be changed before Monday. We have to clean up all the rubbish that they have done here.

The air is already fresh, people are already breathing happily.

I can feel your joy, your freedom.

You have again come back to life!

Question 2:

BELOVED MASTER,

YOU HAVE SAID THAT ANY RELIGION OR WAY IS CLOSED. IS YOUR RELIGIOUSNESS THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN GIVE BIRTH TO NEW HUMAN BEINGS ALL OVER THE WORLD?

It is not a religion; hence naturally it is open. It is a kind of religiousness; an experience, not a theology; a meditation, not a catechism. Yes, it is the only possibility for humanity which is absolutely open.

Now there are no problems for anybody who wants to become a sannyasin. He does not have to change his clothes, he does not have to wear the mala. Those were problems for people. They have jobs, they have families... thousands of people wanted to be sannyasins but could not. They had their problems. I have solved all their problems!

Question 3:

BELOVED MASTER,

ISN'T IT STRANGE THAT THE NEGATIVE IN US IS SO VOCAL, AND ITS OPPOSITE - LIKE LOVE AND GRATITUDE TO YOU - HESITATES TO SPEAK BUT SIMPLY IS, OVERFLOWING BUT HELPLESS IN ITS OWN WORDLESSNESS?

It is not strange. It is how it has to be. The negative is very vocal. It has to be vocal because the negative cannot speak through silence. The negative has to shout. The positive need not say anything. Just your experiencing it... and the fragrance reaches to me.

Yes, it is a kind of silent is-ness.

That's why many times the people who are functioning in the offices become confused, because two or three people out of five thousand people will come and make much fuss, say negative things, behave in an ugly, inhuman way. And, naturally, the people in the office think that this must be widespread, these people are representative of others too.

That is wrong. The negative person is nobody's representative. And never bother about the negative people. Just send them to some therapy, they need a good therapeutic bath. And there is no problem - their no can be changed into yes. But they don't represent the commune. The commune is full of love and silence and joy.

And there is no need... for example, when you really love someone, it is very difficult to say, "I love you." The words fall short of what you feel. What you feel is so big, and the words "I love you" are so small, they cannot contain it.

Real lovers may sit silently holding each other's hand, not saying a word. But when love dies, as it happens in almost all marriages.... Marriage is the death of love. Then people start saying to each other three, four times a day at least, "I love you, darling." They have to say it, because now love is not there. The silence will not speak it; they have to be vocal about it. They have to be American about it.

One of the all-time bestsellers, second only to the BIBLE, is Dale Carnegie's book HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE. It suggests that every couple, at least three, four times in a day, should find some way to say, "I love you." Always bring a roseflower or ice cream or something for the wife, to show your love.

That's why I said, "the American way." Dale Carnegie is just a phony man; he knows nothing about love. Perhaps that's what he must have been practicing himself.

Love needs no words: eyes say it, gestures say it, actions say it.

Just sitting silently, and it is overflowing and reaches.

So don't be worried about it: I know it.

Question 4:

BELOVED MASTER,

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VISION AND ILLUSION? CAN ONLY AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON HAVE A VISION?

Yes.

Question 5:

BELOVED MASTER,

JOKES ASIDE, PLEASE TELL ME, WHO AM I?

Swami Satyananda!

Okay?

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