The third alternative: the whole man

Question 1:

It is one of the most sensitive areas of life because it is concerned with the very life force - sex.

The word has become too condemned. The reason sex became condemned was because all the religions had to be against everything that man can enjoy. It was their vested interest to keep man miserable, to destroy every possibility of his finding some kind of peace, solace, a moment of oasis in the desert. This was absolutely necessary for religions, that man be made completely devoid of any possibility, of any potentiality for rejoicing.

Why was it so important for them? It was important because they wanted to shift you, your mind, somewhere else - towards the other world. If you are really happy here, why should you be bothered about the other world? Your misery is absolutely needed for the other world to exist. It does not exist in itself; it exists in your misery, in your suffering, in your anguish.

All the religions have been doing that harm to you. They are creating more misery, more suffering, more wounds, more hatred, anger - and all in the name of God, all in the name of beautiful words.

They talk about love and they destroy every possibility of your ever being in love.

They talk about peace and create every situation for war.

The strategy is very simple - go on talking about beautiful things, keep people engaged in words, ideologies; and while they are engaged in words and ideologies, philosophies, go on cutting their roots from the soil, from the life energy.

And your life energy is rooted in your sex.

All the societies became aware of the fact that it is only sex that can stand against God. If your sex is fulfilled your don't need God, because your life is fulfilled. Then God is just Godot. But if your sex is destroyed, repressed, condemned, if you are made to feel guilty about it, then God can go on living forever. He derives His energy through your suicide.

Yes, I have said somewhere that sex-repressive societies have become civilized, cultured, richer, philosophical, scientific. They developed in all possible ways. Sex-expressive societies - which are very few now; the aboriginals are poor, they are uncultured, uncivilized. They have not evolved the way sex-repressive societies have evolved.

This gave a great impetus to religious stupidity - because religion could prove on a basis in reality, that the societies that have been sex-expressive have remained poor, starving, hungry. And the sex-repressive societies have evolved in every possible way.

The more sex repression, the higher becomes your cultural development. This became a proof for religions that sex repression is something absolutely needed; otherwise you will be simply barbarians. And in a way it is true, factually true. Hence, naturally, the question arises.

I am not against sex. To me sex is as sacred as everything in life.

There is nothing profane, nothing sacred.

Life is one - all divisions are false.

And sex is the very center of life. So you have to understand what has been happening down the centuries. The moment you repress sex, your energy starts finding new ways to express itself.

Energy cannot remain static. This is something of a fundamental law: energy cannot remain static, it is always dynamic, it is dynamism. If you force it, and close one door upon it, it will open other doors; but you cannot keep it in bondage. If the natural flow of the energy is prevented, then it will flow in some unnatural way. That is why sex-repressive societies became richer.

When you repress sex you have to substitute something for your love, some object. Now the woman is dangerous, she is the way to hell. Because all the scriptures have been written by men, it is only the woman who is the way to hell. What about men?

I have been telling Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, that if woman is the way to hell, then only men can go to hell; women can never go. The way always remains wherever it is, it never goes anywhere. People go on the way. We say that this way goes to that place, but that is a linguistic fallacy: the way never goes anywhere, it simply lies down there. People go. So if women are the way to hell, then hell must be full of only men. It will be just a male-chauvinist club.

Woman is not the way to hell, but once your mind is conditioned in that way, you are going to project the woman into something else; you need an object for your love. Money can become your object of love.

Why is there so much greed? Why are people clinging to money like crazy? It is their love object.

Somehow they have managed to move their whole life energy towards money. Now you want them even to drop money; again they will be in trouble.

Politics becomes their love object. Rising higher and higher in the political bureaucracy becomes their love object. The politician looks towards the presidentship, the prime ministership, with the same lust as a lover looks to his or her beloved. This is perversion. Somebody may become directed into other ways, such as education; then books become his love object.

Somebody may become religious; then God becomes his love object. And if you look into the lives of your so-called saints you will be really puzzled. I am always surprised why a man like Sigmund Freud missed this point. He should have looked into the lives of Saint Teresa, Saint Meera and other women saints first, because women are more straightforward.

Meera's songs are full of lust, because she denied herself the company of men; God became her only companion. Of course it is just a fantasy, but in her fantasy she is absolutely romantic. She talks to Krishna, her God; she sleeps with Krishna - of course she cannot find the real Krishna so she keeps a statue of Krishna close to her heart when she sleeps.

The way she sings about Krishna can, without any interpretation, be easily understood as sexual perversion. She says, "I am married to you, my lord. I can only be yours, I cannot be anyone else's.

You are my heart, and I am waiting for you, waiting for you. And I will wait till eternity."

The word she uses - because in India when a couple gets married, the first night .... In India there is no honeymoon as such. Instead of a honeymoon is the first night. It is called suhagrat 'the night of bliss'. The wife prepares the bed with beautiful flowers, roses, bela - and there are thousands of beautiful flowers in the East. She hangs garlands all around, she almost covers herself with flowers.

That night, gold is worth nothing; the fragrance of the flowers is the most valuable. She prepares the bed and waits for her husband to come in.

Meera goes on singing the same thing: "I have been preparing the bed every day with beautiful flowers, and I go on waiting and you have not come yet." Now, is there any doubt that in her mind Krishna has become just an object of love? She cries, she weeps, she sings, she dances, but it is always in the name of Krishna. Sigmund Freud would have found tremendous support, from Meera and her songs and her life, for his idea that if you repress sex it takes some other path.

But energy has to move. It can take a religious way; then the priests are happy. It can become academic; then the academicians are happy. It can become scientific; then the scientists are happy. It has to become something - that's why sex-repressive societies have developed in so many directions. Yes, they have become very cultured, polished, civilized, educated, scientific, technological. But at what cost?

They have lost all joy. They have lost all peace. They have lost all silence. They have lost all love.

You can project your love towards an imaginary object but it is not going to give you fulfillment.

You can go on writing poetry about Krishna or Christ, but that poetry is not going to give you the experience of love. You will remain starved. So the society has become really rich in every possible way - but the individual has died. And what is the point of the society becoming cultured, civilized, educated, technological? For whom?

The individual is dead.

This society is nothing but corpses walking all around - of course very culturally: corpses, but very polished. They all speak English with an Oxford accent. But corpses, even if they speak with an Oxford accent, are still corpses. They become great politicians, they become great religious leaders, but just look inside those people: they are hollow. There is no substance inside, there is no soul. If they get defeated in one direction, then they start moving in another direction.

Just now I was reading one statement of an ex-president of America, Ford. In a meeting which was called by Governor Atiyeh of Oregon, Ford said that religion and state should not be separate, cannot be separate: this separation is unnatural. Without religion you cannot help man. This is the defeated politician who is now trying to be religious. He never said such a thing when he was president.

He should remember that he was never really a president of America, it was just accidental; he was chosen by Nixon as his vice-president. Now a man chosen by Nixon ... can you think of him becoming holy, religious? But because Nixon had to leave, Ford became the president. And then he got it into his head that he was somebody important.

He was nothing; he was just a puppet in the hands of Nixon. And to be a puppet in the hands of somebody like Nixon is to be nothing but a criminal. But because he became president for two years he started thinking that now he could be elected - and he could not be elected, he had no guts. I have seen a few of his pictures when some attempts on his life were made. You can see by his face ... I have never seen anybody so afraid. He is so much afraid of death, such a coward.

And when he got defeated .... Now he is taking a different direction. Now he knows politics is not for him; that door is closed. He is talking of bringing religion and state together. I am surprised; Governor Atiyeh silently listened to it, the party was given by Governor Atiyeh. And we are being dragged into the court for the simple reason that we believe, and we experience, that in life nothing can be separated.

Life is an organic unity.

If religiousness has any reality you cannot leave it at home when you go to the office. Then it is not a real thing, if you can leave it at home. Then it is something separate, a thing; it has no life. You cannot leave your heart at home. Wherever you go your heart will be with you, beating.

Religion is your heart - how can you leave it?

Love is your very being - how can you leave it? Wherever you are, you will breathe, your heart will beat. Everything is absolutely organic, united, one.

But from Ford these words don't mean anything. The same energy that was moving into politics now wants to become holier, to play another game - the game of religion. And Atiyeh must have listened silently because soon he is going to be retired too. It is better to keep silent because after a few months he will have to be religious too.

Religion is for all kinds of retired people.

We are the only people in the whole world who are young and in religion, who are alive and in religion.

Our religion is not something posthumous.

The society that did not repress sex naturally remained undeveloped for the simple reason that they were contented. There was no energy available to go after money, to go after politics, to go after God. No, they danced, they sang; they had a small but beautiful architecture - huts, but made beautifully. They lived a very clean life; there was no crime because there was no energy for crime.

And now you have to understand how the things are related. When there is no crime what is the need of a judge, what is the need of a court, what is the need of the cops? When everybody is happy and enjoying and is not feeling guilty for being happy, why should he go to a Catholic priest to confess that "I am feeling guilty."

I have heard .... A woman went to confess and she said, "I have been raped."

The priest said, "But if you have been raped, you have not committed any crime. The person who has raped, he should come to confess."

The woman said, "I know. but I did not resist - that's why I am feeling guilty. I did not resist."

The priest asked, "When did it happen?"

She said, "Last night - three times."

The priest said, "What kind of rape is this!"

The woman said, "That's why I have come to confess. The first time I was a little afraid; the next time I really enjoyed it, and the third time it was fantastic."

The next week she came again.

The priest said, "What! Have you been raped again?"

She said, "Not again. I have come to confess about the same old night."

The priest said, "You are strange - you have confessed it already."

She said, "But I even enjoyed confessing it - now that makes me feel guilty. I want to say it again.

Please forgive me but ...."

When people are happy and don't feel guilty because nobody has told them that happiness is sin, naturally there will be no priests, no cathedrals, no temples, no synagogues. That is why there is no culture - in your eyes. What you understand as culture is not there: of course they are uncultured.

They don't have a religion, they don't have holy books, they don't have universities, they don't have libraries - how can they be called cultured, how can they be called civilized?

But they are immensely contented.

I have lived with these people and I have never heard them complain about anything. They have no problems as such. They accept life as it comes, and they enjoy it as much as they can. They live joyously, they die joyously - without any fear in life nor any fear about what will happen after death.

They don't care, there is no energy for all these things. Yes, they don't produce a George Bernard Shaw. Their life itself is such a beautiful drama, there is no need for a George Bernard Shaw.

George Bernard Shaw himself was not a happy man. He may have written great dramas; his life itself was very poor. The woman he wanted to love refused him. She was one of the most beautiful women of the past century - Annie Besant. Not only was she beautiful, she was very intelligent and had a charisma of her own. She became the world president of the Theosophical movement.

She didn't care about George Bernard Shaw, and the wound went deep. Refusal from a woman ...

George Bernard Shaw became a great writer. Why? - because Annie Besant was a great writer, Annie Besant was a great orator. You can see the logic: refused by the woman, George Bernard Shaw tried to prove himself, became a celebrity, a Nobel prize-winner. He wanted Annie Besant to feel that she had missed a beautiful man. But she never bothered about him, and the hurt went very deep.

He went on producing dramas, he wrote more dramas than anybody else in the whole world - one hundred dramas. His life was spent in writing dramas, but his life was not a drama, there was no drama in it.

Now, the question is: who is civilized? - the people who write dramas, paint paintings, compose music, or the people who live a very simple, poor life, but with tremendous joy?

Yes, they also paint, but their painting is not that of a Picasso; they don't have energy for that. They just paint small things on their small houses. They also create music, but their music is simple - simple drums. Once in a while they gather together; they dance, they have flutes, bamboo flutes. Their musical instruments are not sophisticated, they cannot produce Yehudi Menuhin or Ravi Shankar; there is no need. Ravi Shankar can play so beautifully on the sitar, but what about his life? Nobody bothers about his life.

I know his wife. He married a very beautiful woman, the daughter of his own master who taught him music. He fell in love .... Because he used to live with his master, he fell in love with the master's daughter, who is as great a musician as he is. But he could not manage to live together in love.

He had ambitions - and that woman is as great a musician as Ravi Shankar, perhaps better, but she has no ambitions. She is utterly fulfilled in playing on the sitar for herself. Once in a while a friend comes and sits, that is another matter. But she has never given a public performance: to her that is prostitution.

Now their ways have separated. Ravi Shankar wanted to become a world figure, world famous.

The woman was not interested in fame. He had become world famous, but his life is utterly empty.

he still loves that woman but he cannot manage to be with her. He does not know - no ambitious man knows - how to love. Ambition takes all his energy away. Love remains starving; energy is not available for love, it has been all invested in ambition. Ambition has become the parasite.

So one thing to be understood: these sex-repressive societies became very cultured, very civilized, very rich, very scientific, but at what cost? They died, they are no longer alive.

My problem is, I want you to be alive and yet as rich in every dimension as possible.

I am not ready to choose between these two, either/or. I would not like you to be aboriginals. I would not like you to become very civilized, cultured, running after money and power and prestige. I would not like you to become politicians, priests. But I would like you to have a fuller life. And anything that develops out of a fuller life, to me that is true culture.

Aboriginals live a life that is full, but not overflowing. The civilized societies of the world have all kinds of developments - but the man for whom they have been developing these things has disappeared long ago. They go on making skyscrapers; they have completely forgotten for whom they are making these skyscrapers. That man is dead - you should make, rather, small graves, not skyscrapers.

Nobody needs graves that tall; just six feet long and two feet deep will do.

So on one hand are the aboriginals - alive but not overflowingly alive. They don't know that life energy can shrink, can expand. You can use it as it is available from nature - and you can be contented - but you will remain poor in many ways. You will not know flights of music. You will not know flights of painting and sculpture; you will not know flights of meditation. You will live almost like animals - contented.

All animals are contented. Have you seen any animals discontented, bothering you, saying, "My life is just a misery - can you help me? What am I supposed to do with my wife? And the children are growing up ...." No, there are no problems for them. They are living, and living far better than your civilized man, because your civilized man has ceased living. He sacrificed himself for civilization, culture, technology.

I cannot choose between these two.

I would like you to rise higher than the animals; and the only way to rise higher than the animals is to find ways to expand your energy.

And that's what I call religion:

The science of expanding energy, so that you have so much energy that you can be a Zorba and yet so much is left that you can be a Buddha too, together, simultaneously.

Zorba is alive but knows nothing of higher flights. he is happy crawling on the earth, while he is capable of opening his wings - but he is not aware of that.

His boss is a cultured man, very educated, fish - but miserable, continuously in anxiety. Zorba says to his boss, "Boss, only one thing is wrong with you: you think too much. Why not live? I don't see the point - why go on thinking? What are you going to get out of it? Live! Come with me!"

He takes his musical instrument, drags his boss to the bank of the river where they live, and starts playing on his instrument, starts dancing. And the boss is standing there, embarrassed: If somebody sees this crazy man, and I am here standing with him, what will he think? He is not dancing but he is afraid that if somebody sees him there .... Zorba pulls him up and he says, "Start dancing!"

The boss says, "I don't know dancing."

Zorba says, "Nobody needs to know dancing.

Dancing is not something that you have to learn. Just start jumping, it will come. And I will give you the music - you simply start."

Seeing that the man is not going to leave him, he starts moving, and Zorba goes on pushing him.

And finally on that full-moon night he forgets completely about his culture, education, civilization - and for the first time he realizes he can also live, he can also dance; his legs are not meant just to walk. He has wings, Zorba teaches him something of the earth.

I feel sorry for Zorba, sorry because he died before I could meet him; otherwise I would have taught him that there is a higher dance too. And I am certain - I don't know why but I am absolutely certain he would have understood. Because he has known the lower steps, he could have understood the possibility of higher steps.

I would have made him a Buddha. That is what I am doing here for you.

You come here either an aboriginal, or - which is far worse - a civilized man. Once in a while, yes, a Zorba also comes. This Patipada sitting here - she is a Zorba. Once in a while .... There are many Zorbas here who are learning to rise above, who are moving higher, touching the fringes of buddhahood.

My methods of meditation are the ways that will make you expand your energy. Energy is like seeds ....

I am reminded of a story. An old man, very rich, was puzzled because he had three sons; the problem was that all three sons were born simultaneously, their age was the same. Otherwise, in the East, the eldest son, inherits. The problem for the old man was who was going to inherit, because all these three were of the same age.

He asked a wise man, "What should I do? How should I decide who should inherit?" The old wise man gave him a certain method. The old man went home, he gave one thousand silver pieces to each son and told them, "Go to the market, purchase seeds of flowers."

They went, they purchased seeds. Carts and carts came, full of seeds, because one thousand silver pieces in ancient days was big money, and just flower seeds .... When all the flower seeds had come, all that the three had bought, they said, "Now?"

Their father said, "I am going on a pilgrimage. It may take one year, two years, three years. You have to keep these seeds with you, and when I come back I will ask for the seeds to be given to me.

And this is going to be a test also, because whosoever proves wise will inherit my whole property, so be careful." He went on the pilgrimage.

The first son thought, "This is a strange test. If he comes after three years ... these seeds will simply die, and he will ask for the living seeds. So the best way is to sell them in the market, keep the money, and when he comes back purchase new seeds again - fresh, young." Very economical, mathematical - he did that.

The second son thought, "What this brother is doing is not right, does not seem to be right, because our father emphatically said, 'These same seeds I would like to be returned.' So I will keep these seeds." He made arrangements in the basement of the house, put all the seeds there, locked it, and said, "Now whenever he comes I will give him the key and say, 'These are the seeds.'"

But the third one had a different idea. He said, "Seeds kept in a basement will not remain alive; they need soil. By the time our father returns they will not be the same seeds because they will be dead. They cannot sprout - how can you call them the same seeds? The seeds that our father has given us can sprout, can become trees. One seed can produce millions of seeds; that is what he has given. And when he comes after three years those seeds will not be able to produce a single seed, a single sprout. This is not the way."

He went behind their house - they had much land - and he sowed the seeds all over the land.

Each year they became a thousandfold more. After three years when the father came, he could not believe his eyes - as far as he could see his whole land was full of flowers! He asked the other sons .... They had certainly failed the test. He said, "The third son inherits my property because he knows how to expand, how to increase."

One seed can make a whole earth green.

One small sparkle or energy in you can fill the whole earth with dance, song, music.

Just a little sparkle is enough.

If you know how to expand it, it can become a wildfire.

It may be just a little flame within you.

Meditation is nothing but an effort to expand your inner flame so that you can become afire, aflame, aglow, overflowing.

The there will be a science, but totally different than the science that has been produced by repressed sexuality. There will be a qualitative change. This science is destructive because it has come out of perversion; it is perverted sexual energy which has become nuclear energy. When it comes out of meditation, overflowing love, it will be creative science - a totally different science which we are not even aware of.

This whole scientific project has to be dropped because it is bringing you closer and closer to death.

Anything that goes against sex will bring death closer to you, because sex is life.

You see paintings by Picasso. Looking at his paintings you will feel - not peace, silence, joy, no.

Looking at his paintings you will feel anguish, worry, a trembling, a fear, because those paintings are out of repressed sex. Those paintings cannot be life-affirmative. Looking at Picasso's paintings you will see the world of a madman. He is insane. He is a genius - that does not matter. You can be a genius and yet you can be mad.

In fact it is easier to be mad when you are a genius. Mediocre people cannot afford to be mad, they are so mediocre, so middle-class. Insanity happens only when you are at the extreme. Only from the extreme can you see the abyss which drives you insane, which drives Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh and all the other great painters of this century mad. And this is true not only about painting. The same is true about your dancers, jazz music - do you think it is music? Music has some spiritual quality to it; jazz is simply insanity. But repressed sexuality is bound to produce these developments.

Jean-Paul Sartre or Marcel or Jaspers - great writers, but what are they writing? They are writing about the meaninglessness of life; that life is accidental, that it does not matter whether you live or you die, it does not matter whether you commit suicide or murder. It doesn't matter because life is accidental, it has no meaning. Great writers, but what they are writing is just spreading their insanity into other people's minds.

My people have to keep the innocence of the Zorbas, of the children, of the aboriginals. They have to be as innocent as Adam was when he was turned out of the garden of Eden.

And yet they have to learn methods of expanding the seed of consciousness in them to such a luxurious growth, that as far as you can see, you can see only yourself flowering. You can feel your fragrance twenty-four hours a day; and not only can you feel it, you cannot help it: you will have to share it. Whether you want to or not, that does not matter.

When a roseflower opens, the fragrance starts spreading. It does not ask the permission of the roseflower, there is no need. The very opening of the roseflower is the permission for the fragrance to spread to all the directions, to all the winds.

The moment your consciousness flowers in meditation there is a tremendous explosion.

Yes, you will have music, but it will have a spiritual quality to it.

You will have dance, but your dance will not be sexual. The repressed society has many kinds of dances but they are all sexual, perverted sex.

You will have poetry, but your poetry will not be just unsatisfied sexual lust. It will be a fulfilled love. Your poetry will become like the mantras of the UPANISHADS. Each word coming out of your fulfillment will catch something of what I call godliness.

You will have a science which will be creative, helpful to life.

You will have everything - but with a different quality.

Up to now those two societies have existed. We are not going to be either of them.

We are the third alternative - for the first time proposed in the world.

Nobody has ever dared to think of man as Zorba the Buddha. Neither Zorba had any idea of Buddha nor Buddha had any idea of Zorba. Both are half.

I want you to be the whole man.

To me the whole man is the only holy man there is.