Truth is enough unto itself

Question 1:

There are so many questions in your one question. Let me go into it step by step.

First, truth needs no defense; only lies need defense. Truth needs no argument, it is self-evident.

So the problem with truth is always how to convey it to the other person.

Lies can be argued about. The other can be convinced about them; logic can be used to convince the other. Hence, I hate the word "missionary," because the missionary can only spread lies. He convinces, argues, quotes scriptures.

But truth needs nothing. Truth is enough unto itself. So, if you have felt something of truth here, just please don't try to convince anybody. You cannot succeed. Only make your experience available - naked, with no logic, with no argument. Truth has its own way. It will come through the shine of your eyes, through the aura of your being, through your very presence, that you have been in a garden - you are still fragrant.

A man who is standing with closed eyes - you cannot convince him that there is light. But you can describe the beauties of light. As the sun rises, flowers start blossoming, birds start singing, the whole existence comes out of sleep refreshed, alive, younger. You can tell this to the man who is standing with closed eyes. This is not giving an argument for the existence of light; it is simply creating an urge in the man to open his eyes. And that urge exists in everyone.

There is not a single human being in the world who does not want to know beauty, to know love, to know truth. But the problem has been created by the missionaries, theologians, the so-called religious people. They try to convince him of something which needs to be experienced.

Be loving to your friends. If in Germany they can feel that something German has disappeared from you, you have given evidence. Be loving. Be rejoicing. Sing, dance with them. Let them feel your energy; in your singing, dancing, let them feel the difference. You cannot say it, but you can show it in every gesture, in every word, in every silence. Show the difference that has happened to you.

Allow yourself to be available to your friends. Open all the doors and all the windows of your being so they can see that some ray of light has entered in you.

And if they inquire, tell them the only way is to come here, to be here. Man can go to the moon, which is a silly project, because what are you going to do on the moon? - just stand there looking stupid! There is nothing to see, not even a juniper tree. Just create the urge in them sometimes to have a few days in this oasis. This is the first thing to remember.

The second thing: you say you are not a sannyasin. That is wrong - you are. There are sannyasins who are not sannyasins; there are nonsannyasins who are sannyasins. Sannyas is not something outward, it is something inner. If you could enjoy these three weeks, you are already initiated. These three weeks are going to change your whole life.

So drop that idea that you are a nonsannyasin. Anybody who is so open, so available, so unprejudiced that, just being a visitor here, he fell in tune with the commune, its sincerity, its love - the initiation has happened. The outer initiation may follow in its own time, there is no hurry. And even if it doesn't follow, it doesn't matter. What matters has happened!

Third: you say that my words have reached your heart and your brain. Just let them reach your heart.

The brain is dangerous; it is German. The heart is human. And the brain is continuously distorting everything. So don't go via the brain, because the brain is conditioned by millions of years, by many lives, by many different stages, and anything moving through it cannot retain its purity. But it can be bypassed; there is no necessity to go through it.

We are being educated that everything should go through the brain. That is one of the strategies of the vested interests all over the world, because truth, love, beauty - any great value going through the brain will not be the same by the time it reaches to the heart. In fact, it may have turned upside down. The brain distorts everything. It pollutes all that is innocent.

Learn to put the brain aside - that's what I call meditation. Put the brain aside. Let me talk to you heart to heart. It is a totally different experience. Your heart starts beating in the same rhythm, a great synchronicity happens, and with it comes understanding, experience, vision, insight.

The brain cannot give anything to you; the brain is only a mechanism. Don't put things like love, truth, beauty, through any mechanism. They will be distorted, crippled, crushed; and by the time they reach to the heart they will be dead, they will not be breathing.

But this has been taught to us, that everything has to go through reason, through the brain, rationality. These are standing at the door of your heart; they guard your heart. They don't allow anybody in unless they are satisfied. And it is not possible for real values to satisfy them.

Yes, a theology can satisfy them, it can give all the arguments they want. But what argument can beauty give? What argument can you give that the sunset is beautiful? If some idiot starts asking, "Please give me a rational explanation of your statement. Why do you call the sunset beautiful?"

you will be absolutely incapable of doing it.

This is what your brain is continuously doing. It won't allow beauty, truth, love, without their being searched, asked all kinds of questions - inquiries to which they cannot provide answers; it is not in their nature.

So put the brain aside. Let the heart function in its own right, and you will start growing into new dimensions of being which were not available to you before. And then you will know that the brain is good as a servant, but not good as a master. A machine should always remain a servant, it should never become the master. Once a machine becomes a master, it destroys everything that has any intrinsic value. Those values are very delicate, very fragile.

Try to have a direct connection, from heart to heart, and see the tremendous revolution that comes to you. And then you can say the same thing to your friends back home: "What I have brought is something not of the mind, for the mind, from the mind; it is something of the beyond."

So if you can, put your friends' brains aside - and if they are your friends this small thing can be done. If you cannot do it for a friend, then for whom are you going to do it? A friend wants to connect directly with your heart. There is no harm, no loss. So just tell them, "Don't argue about it. Just for a few moments let me hold your hand, let me hug you, and put the mind aside. Feel my warmth, my love, and let our hearts synchronize." You may be able... something may transpire. This is not missionary work. This is the work of pure love.

You say that you are afraid you may not succeed. If you try through the mind, it is certain you will not succeed. On the contrary, those people may succeed in destroying something that was growing in you. They will make you suspicious of your own experience. They may convince you: "Perhaps you were hypnotized. Perhaps seeing five thousand sannyasins, living amongst them, you became too gullible." And you may start thinking: Who knows? Was it true, or just my imagination? Was it true, or just my projection? Was it true, or did I have a dream? You cannot succeed in convincing them, but they can succeed.

Intellectually, destruction is very easy. Intellectually, to lead people to a creative experience is impossible. You are aware that all those people back home are full of negative attitudes, gossips, the sensational news that journalism thrives on. Journalism has not yet been able to become an art; it is still third-rate. It is unfortunate, because journalism has a tremendous power over people's thinking, being. Journalism simply lives on sensationalism. The more sensational news is, the more you can sell it to the masses.

There is an old saying: No news is good news. I feel it is not complete. I want to complete it: Good news is no news, because good news does not create sensationalism. Murder is needed, suicide is needed, rape is needed; all kinds of crimes are needed. But to go on feeding people on all this kind of news - do you think you are serving humanity? Do you know the psychological effect of all this?

A person who reads every morning about murders, suicides, rapes - all kinds of crimes - by and by becomes immune, it does not make him feel bad about it. It is the way life is; it is happening all over the world.

If war is the only reality that covers the front pages of all the newspapers, televisions, radios; if cunning politicians are the only people whose statements are always on the first page.... Have you seen, ever, on the first page, a musician's statement, a sculptor's statement, his photo, a poet's statement, his photo? No, they are not news. They are too good to be news.

Journalism is corrupting humanity. It is making people feel that crime is the way of life. If you are not committing crime, you are just a fool. Everybody is doing it and getting away with it. Criminals become presidents, prime ministers. You have never heard that a great scientific genius has become a president of a country, or a great guitarist has become a prime minister of a country. These people are struggling just to survive somehow. Perhaps they will live anonymously and die anonymously.

Do you know, in the times of Alexander the Great, how many poets there were? how many musicians there were? how many great creative artists there were? Not even in the footnotes of history are their names available. They lived anonymously. They made this life more beautiful, they made human experience more rich. They brought something from the beyond - but they remained unknown and they will remain unknown. And what has Alexander the Great done, other than murdering thousands of people, burning cities, trying to conquer the whole world? This murderer becomes "the Great"

Alexander.

This has to be changed. All politicians' names should disappear from the front pages of the newspapers, from magazines, television shows, radios. What do they have to give to the world?

Why should people go on seeing the face of Ronald Reagan? - just a third-rate cowboy film actor.

What contribution has he made?

Is there no one in America who has contributed to life immensely? There are poets, musicians, there are people who have created great literature. The front pages of all the newspapers and magazines should be concerned with those who beautify life, who give something to existence, who don't destroy. Politicians should be pushed to the last page!

There is no need to continuously insist on murders, suicides. You may not think so, but it is absolutely certain that your insistence on these stories makes people, by and by, murderers, suicidal, criminals.

Who is responsible for that? And now the world is so small that anything happening anywhere, immediately reaches within hours, through modern media, to every nook and corner of the earth.

Journalism should understand its responsibility: it is great. Up to now, it has been irresponsible. Its only interest is how to sell more, how to earn more. Whatever happens to human beings is not its concern. Journalism needs a total change.

A California University has been surveying and studying in California, for one year, what happens when there are boxing matches. By thirteen percent, crime immediately rises, and for one week steadily that thirteen percent increase remains. Then slowly it tapers off. Knowing this, still the government of California has not done anything. Boxing matches should be made a criminal offense!

If they create a thirteen-percent rise in crime.... Those criminals will be punished - and the real crime is coming from the boxing matches! It looks like such an insane world.

Stop such nonsense as boxing matches. But no, Muhammad Ali becomes a great hero - and what has he done? What has he contributed? He may have broken a few people's ribs, a few people's noses, a few people's eyes, and he may have created a wave of crimes - that is his contribution.

And journalism will give great credit to him.

Journalists have to learn that it is time to become more mature, more responsible: they should understand that just selling stories, whether true or untrue, just for the sake of earning money - without any concern what they are going to do to human beings.... It is poison that is being spread!

So I can understand your concern that journalism has been spreading all kinds of lies about me, and people believe them. People have a certain psychology: they believe anything which is printed.

It becomes something very significant that it is printed: it must be true.

Just the other day - I do not understand German, fortunately - Sheela, in one of her interviews given to the German sensationalist magazine STERN, a twenty-five-page interview full of lies, not a single word true in it.... I just looked at the translation quickly, because what is the point of going through all those lies? And you see how journalism works.... After that, the STERN representative was here interviewing me, but he never mentioned Sheela's interview, neither did he bring any question:

"Sheela has brought such-and-such allegations against you and the commune" - not a single point.

Do you see the cunningness? He knew perfectly well that I would contradict it and say the truth; then it would be difficult. And they have been living on lies. He asked many questions, but not a single question related to Sheela's interview.

So certainly, back in Germany, you will be faced, encountered by people who are just full of such nonsense, garbage. Don't argue with them. Just tell them, "The best way to know is to go there. It is an experience. I had also the same ideas you have, because I have also read all these magazines and watched the television shows, and naturally I had believed."

Humanity is raised in such a way as to believe that anything that is brought on the television screen, on the radio, in the newspapers, has a validity. Nobody bothers to inquire about the truth. And anybody can come here and inquire of my people, "What kind of nonsense is this?" This is the only place in the whole world where there is no prostitution, for the simple reason that we don't believe that married partners should monopolize each other.

My basic approach is that the more you love, the more freedom you give to the other. Even the freedom that, if your woman wants to go with a man just for two days on a holiday, you will be immensely happy that she will be happy. You are not her owner, she is not a thing. You love her and you want her to be happy; if this is her happiness, then she can go. There is no need to hide it, there is no need to pretend. Things are frank here in the commune. And for two days she is free, for two days you are also free. You may have been attracted to another woman - because there is no natural law that you can only be attracted to your wife. In fact, it is very difficult to be attracted to your wife. That is the last woman in the world you can be attracted to.

Two days' freedom for you... and after two days, when you meet again, it is as if a fresh relationship begins. Those two days have given a break - a love break, just like a tea break, a coffee break.

I don't know the English language exactly, but I don't care either. If I can manage to make you understand, that's enough: love break! And in two days' time she realizes that all men are alike. In two days' time you realize all women are alike: just put the light off and there is no difference. A great reunion, again a small honeymoon....

There is no need for prostitutes in this commune. Prostitutes exist in the society where marriage is a monopoly, where marriage is ownership; there is no way to have just a little holiday. Female prostitutes have existed always - it is called the oldest profession - but now there are male prostitutes also. That is the latest profession.

But in this commune there is neither a female prostitute nor a male prostitute - and there is no need for a pimp. What will he do? He will simply die, seeing that he is not needed at all. People are making their arrangements themselves. He was needed very much in the outside society, as a mediator. The man cannot directly manage to find a prostitute, he has to save his respectability.

The prostitute cannot manage to find a man, because it is absolutely unfeminine to go to a man and to say, "I want to sell myself to you for one night." The pimp was a necessary link. It helped the prostitute to remain feminine. It helped the man to protect his reputation, his children, his parents, his wife, his family, his society. Everybody believes that he is really a proper husband, this is an ideal couple. The pimp functions, does a very necessary work. But in the commune there is no need for a pimp.

Tell those people that if they have any questions which third-rate journalism has created in them....

And I emphasize it! - all journalism is third rate. There is only yellow journalism, there is nothing else. It has not yet become an art. It has to become an art.

So tell those people, "I had also believed in all these lies. They simply disappeared the way dewdrops disappear in the morning sun. You just go and experience - there is no other way."

Question 2:

There is no fine line. Unless you trust, you don't have a Buddha, you don't have a master.

Buddha has made the statement: "If you meet me on the way, kill me." It is not said to those who don't trust him, who don't love him, who have not merged their identity with his being. Once you are in deep trust with a master, there is a danger that you may become so blissful with the merger of your identity with the master that you may not like to become enlightened on your own; hence, the statement.

The statement is saying that you are feeling so blissful, just being in tune with an awakened being, you don't know how much more bliss is possible if you yourself become awakened. But to become awakened you will have to drop this identity. You will have to forget even the master.

It is something about the inner journey. When a person is moving in meditation on the inner journey, the last thing is the master. It is easy to drop other ideas, other feelings; it is easy to drop greed, anger. But finally you come to a point when you have to drop the master too. That is the last barrier.

It is just in your mind. You have loved the man so much, your love has made it so difficult, that you would prefer to remain unenlightened than to drop the master. And a real master will say, "Drop me, so that you can also become a master in your own right."

It happened in Ramakrishna's life - and Ramakrishna was alive just in the last part of the preceding century, so he is not very far away, he is very close to us. He was a great devotee of the mother goddess, Kali. And it was not a formality, it was not just like going every Sunday to the church. He was the priest of the temple of Kali, but his behavior was strange. Sometimes he would worship, sometimes he would not open the doors of the temple at all. Sometimes he would worship the whole day, from morning to evening, till he fell down unconscious from dancing.

Rani Rasmani had made the temple near the Ganges in Calcutta - a beautiful temple and a very scenic place. But Rani Rasmani, although she was a queen of a small kingdom, belonged to the fourth caste of the Hindus, the untouchables. So no brahmin was ready to become a priest in the temple of an untouchable. For years there was no priest. Rasmani was very much in trouble. She looked all over Bengal; she was ready to give any salary the priest wanted, but no brahmin was ready to worship in a temple of a sudra, an untouchable.

But when Ramakrishna was approached, he said, "I will come." Even Rasmani was a little puzzled:

the man seems to be a little mad, because no brahmin was ready to come. Ramakrishna said, "Whether the temple is made by an untouchable or by a brahmin, the highest caste, the mother Kali is the same; it doesn't matter. I am coming, and whatever salary you feel is right, must be right. I don't know much about money - you are a queen, your decision will be far better."

When she heard that sometimes he dances, sings songs the whole day, and sometimes he does not even open the door, Rani Rasmani called him and said, "This is not right."

He said, "Nobody can say to me what is right and what is wrong: it is a love affair. Only I know and my mother Kali knows. Sometimes I get angry at her when she does not behave. I have been for three days dancing, and she has not even given a little vision to me? Now let her be punished! I am not going to open the doors, and I am not going to offer the food."

Rasmani said, "You are strange! You are supposed to be a priest - you have to do the ritual."

He said, "I am not a priest, and I am not supposed to do any ritual. I love! I love the Kali in my village. I will continue; if you are worried you can stop my salary... because when I prepare food for Kali first I taste it, then I offer it to her. So that's enough, I don't need much - I can just taste a little more!"

This was unimaginable. In India you cannot taste anything and then offer it to God, or to a goddess.

Rasmani said, "This is too much!"

He said, "No. My mother used to do the same. She would taste everything before she gave it to me. Was it worth giving or not? Has the taste come out right or not? I cannot offer anything to my mother without tasting it."

This man, Ramakrishna, was really in love with that statue. Nobody was there, but his love was real.

The goddess was unreal, but his love was not unreal.

One wandering mystic came to the temple and said to Ramakrishna, "You have not yet attained to the ultimate consciousness, and I can see you are capable of it. You are very close to it. Only one thing is blocking the way: this mother goddess, Kali. You love her too much. She does not exist, but your love certainly exists. And you have created a great image of her. You have dropped everything else from your mind, you are ready to reach to ultimate samadhi, ultimate ecstasy, but you will have to cut off the head of Kali."

Ramakrishna said, "That is a little hard. Killing one's own mother? - what are you saying? I would rather remain unenlightened. And anyway, the moment I close my eyes I see her; she is so beautiful and so alive, I cannot do this."

But the mystic insisted. He said, "I have never come across a man who is so close - just one step!"

Ramakrishna was a simple man. He said, "Then you will have to help me, because when I close my eyes I will not remember you. And Kali is standing before me, so gorgeous, so beautiful! And it is such an immense bliss to see her, I completely forget."

Many times he tried. He would close his eyes, and soon he was swaying, as if from an inner dance.

And the mystic would say, "Wake up! Don't forget what I have said."

Ramakrishna would open his eyes and say, "But this seems to be impossible."

Then the mystic found a way. He brought a piece of glass, really sharp, like a knife, and he said, "I will do one thing: I will just cut your forehead with this piece of glass. It will be painful, but it will remind you. The same way, you cut the mother Kali."

Ramakrishna said, "Let us try."

The mystic cut Ramakrishna's forehead and the mark remained all his life. Blood started flowing, the pain was intense, and he remembered: with great courage, he cut the image of Kali in two parts - it was just in his imagination - and Kali fell in two parts. And he went into transcendental ecstasy.

It took six days to wake him up, he was so deep in ecstasy. And the mystic said, "Don't disturb him."

After six days he was awakened, and his first words were, "The last barrier has fallen! I am grateful to you," he said to the mystic. "If you had not insisted, I would have remained happy, but now I know what bliss is. It is a millionfold more."

That is the meaning of Gautam Buddha's saying. It is not for all, because you don't have that love.

When you go inside you will not find Gautam Buddha. You may find all kinds of idiots there: the attorney general of Oregon, Governor Atiyeh, Ronald Reagan - anybody.

The statement is not for you. The statement is for those who had loved Buddha so much that Buddha knew that they could drop everything else, but they could not drop him. So he had to say, "When you meet me on the way" - that way is the inner way - "just chop my head off, so that you can become an enlightened person on your own." And that is the joy of a master, to see his disciple also becoming a master.

This is the meaning when I say that this commune is a mystery school. The effort is to have everyone become a master; just disciplehood won't do. I want you all to be masters. The world needs masters.

Only a great energy of masters around the world can prevent the catastrophe of a third world war, which is looming on the horizon.

So it is not only a question of your enlightenment. It is also a question of the life or death of this whole planet.

Question 3:

The Rajneesh International Meditation University is an educational institution. It teaches you everything about meditation. It makes you knowledgeable about the art of meditation, but it is not existential or experiential. It is educational - just the way all other universities are.

There are universities of different kinds in the world. They give you knowledge about the subject.

And the meditation university gives you degrees according to your knowledge, your acquaintance with all the literature about meditation.

Let me emphasize: it is about meditation, but it is not meditation. Rajneesh Academy is an existential, experiential institute. It does not give you knowledge about meditation; it gives you the experience of meditation. From the university we can create teachers of meditation, writers, Ph.Ds, scholars, D.Litts. But as far as they themselves are concerned, they have not tasted anything of meditation.

There are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation; they were discovered ten thousand years ago. I have made a few new methods for the modern man, because those methods were created for a totally different kind of humanity, for very simple people. The contemporary man is not simple, he is very complex. Those methods were for people who were not repressed, who were natural. In these ten thousand years religions have made everybody repressed; sexually, and in other ways, they have driven humanity against its own nature.

So I have created new methods which are cathartic, so that you can throw out all repressions, all garbage out of your being, and can become clean, a tabula rasa. Then those one hundred and twelve methods - any one method that appeals to you will be enough to transform your being.

The Academy also gives titles, because the meditators - although they experience the same space of blissfulness, of eternal life, they come from different paths, and after their experience their expressions are different. For example, siddha is one of the titles that the Academy gives. He knows the meditation, he knows the ultimate experience, he knows the deathlessness - but he cannot express it, he cannot say anything about it. In fact, the experience is inexpressible, and the siddha remains silent.

In India, we know only of eighty-four siddhas in the whole of history. There may have been thousands, but even to know a siddha is difficult. He keeps it to himself, he is not articulate.

The second category is the arihanta. He is very articulate, but the way he expresses himself is rarely understood because he tries to remain close to his experience, rather than thinking of the audience.

He does not come down into the valley; he remains on top of the hill, and from there he speaks. So you can hear a few sounds, but you cannot make any sense of it.

The arihanta is more articulate than the siddha. The siddha is absolutely silent. He will be helpful only to those few people who can understand silence, who can communicate through silence. The arihanta helps more people, but not many. His statements are maxims: you will have to figure out what he means, and most probably you will figure out something which is not the right thing. Your mind cannot understand that experience; but he is closer to his own experience and is not much concerned whether you understand him or not.

The third category is the acharya. He is the most articulate of all the three categories. His effort is to come closer to you, to bring the truth in such a way that it can become of some use to you. He does not speak in mysterious language, he speaks in ordinary language. He creates devices so that he can lead you towards the way. He helps the biggest number of people.

These three categories are of equal value. It is not that some category is higher than the other, because their experience is the same. But their expression is different.

The siddha simply denies expression. The arihanta tries, but tries in such a way that in no way is the truth polluted by language and words. His expression goes above your heads. The acharya is more humane; he tries to reach you in your language, in your ways. He comes down from the hill into the valley to pick you up and lead you up towards the peak. Their experiences are exactly the same; hence, nobody is lower or higher.

Rajneesh Academy is an experiential university; the Meditation University is informative. It creates teachers, the Academy creates masters - and there is a great difference. The teacher is only saying what he has learned from his teachers, from the books, but he cannot support it by his own experience. The master does not care about the books, about the teachers. He is his own authority, he is his own scripture.

Hence, I have made two different institutions. The University will prepare you to be acquainted with meditation, so that you become interested in having the real taste of it. It will lead you towards the Academy. The Academy has a far higher status than the University.

Question 4:

You are right. Once you are a sannyasin, you are a sannyasin forever. You can drop the clothes, you can drop the mala, but sannyas is something that has entered into your being.

You cannot drop it, unless you drop your heart. And I don't think anybody is going to drop his heart.

Sannyas is initiation of the heart: the individual heart moving towards the universal heart. There is no way to drop it.

So before you enter, think twice!

Okay?