Beware! I am here to destroy your dreams

Question 1:

DREAMING is a substitute for the real.

It is a mind device to console you.

If you have been fasting, you will dream in the night of a feast because the hunger needs food, and without food sleep will be difficult. The mind has to provide you some substitute, that's what dreaming is. It gives you the feeling that you are no longer hungry; you are eating and you are eating good food, delicious food, food that you like. Now you can sleep without any trouble. The mind has drugged the body through the dream.

But a dream is not reality. You can dream of eating but that is not going to nourish you. The mind can befool the body for the time being but the body is going to suffer. Reality is reality, and you need real food.

A Christian dreaming of Christ, a Hindu dreaming of Krishna, or a sannyasin dreaming of me - all are doing the same thing. It makes no difference of whom you are dreaming; that is irrelevant.

Krishna, Christ, Mahavira or Buddha, Zarathustra... you can dream of anybody. The object of the dream is irrelevant, what is significant is that you are dreaming.

So the first thing to be remembered is that there must be a certain hunger behind it, which the mind is trying to fulfill. Read the message clearly: you are not what nature intends you to be; you are missing something immensely important in you; you are not yet your authentic self The dream of Christ, Krishna or me is symbolic. It shows that you are groping in the dark: Who are you? Krishna?

Christ? Me? You are none of these people.

So remember that the dream indicates a certain hunger in you. That is the first thing to remember. It is very significant, because all people are not dreaming of Krishna, Christ and me. Millions of people are dreaming of money, millions of people are dreaming of power, prestige. Men are dreaming of women, women are dreaming of men. And the market is vast, you can choose any commodity to dream about. Somebody is dreaming of becoming the president of a country; somebody is dreaming that he has become the president of the country.

Chuang Tzu has a beautiful story about this. And he was a man not to tell a story but to act it.

Chuang Tzu is one of the rare beings who have happened on this earth - unique in every way. One morning he awoke and sat up in his bed, very sad. Nobody had ever seen him sad. He was a man of laughter, a very non-serious man. Not only non-serious, he was known as the most absurd man - playing jokes upon himself, upon his people, upon his Master, upon his disciples. This too was a joke, but everybody was puzzled because he had never been sad; and they asked, "Why are you sad?"

He said, "I am in such trouble but I don't think any one of you can help me, so what is the point of telling you?"

They became even more curious. They said, "Please tell us! Who knows; we may be able to do something. All together we may be able to find some way. If there is a problem, there must be some solution. If there is a question, somewhere there must be an answer to it."

Chuang Tzu said, "If you insist I will tell you what the problem is. The problem is not a question that you can find an answer for. It is a riddle which has no answer, and I am caught in the riddle; that's why I am sad. Last night I dreamed that I had become a butterfly, flying from this plant to that, from this flower to that flower. And I completely forgot that I was Chuang Tzu, the famous, great Master:

I was really the butterfly, Chuang Tzu was nowhere at all."

The disciples said, "This is not a problem - everybody dreams. We don't see the riddle."

Chuang Tzu said, "Wait a little, I have not told you the whole thing. Now waking up, the problem has arisen: perhaps now the butterfly has gone to sleep and is dreaming that she is Chuang Tzu. And I am caught in it: what's what? Has Chuang Tzu dreamed of a butterfly or is a butterfly dreaming of Chuang Tzu?"

They were all silent, then they said, "Perhaps you are right that we cannot help you. Nobody can help you."

But he had raised a tremendously important question. His question remained unanswered because I was not there! Naturally, for twenty-five centuries the question has waited for me. It is so simple. If I had been there I would have hit him really hard and awakened him.

The butterfly had no problem; it was not worried about what happened to Chuang Tzu. It was not concerned at all with Chuang Tzu - Chuang Tzu is concerned. The butterfly was alone, but you are not alone. Now you are sitting up in your bed concerned about what is right, what is real; whether you are Chuang Tzu or the butterfly.... all these things prove that you are not a dream, you are a reality.

The butterfly was just a dream. In a dream you are asleep. There are no questions, no problems.

You don't even think that it is a dream: you are it, you are totally identified with it. Now you are not identified with it. You cannot be a butterfly, that much is certain, because butterflies are not concerned about such great philosophical problems. It is only the prerogative of man to be puzzled, to be worried, to be riddled.

You dream of Jesus, Krishna, Zarathustra, Mohammed - why? There must be some hunger in you which you feel is fulfilled by Jesus. That's what the Christian has been told: that Christ has arrived, and you have not yet arrived. Somehow you have to arrive. But you can never be another Christ; existence never repeats itself. History repeats itself because history belongs to idiotic humanity, hence it goes on moving in a circle, doing the same stupidities again and again and again. It never learns.

But existence never repeats itself It always produces only unique pieces, one of a kind, and that is enough. What is the point of repeating it? It is not an assembly line in a car factory where every minute a car comes out similar to another car and they go on coming off the assembly line, exactly the same.

Nature does not manufacture people, things, birds, flowers.... There is no assembly line, there is no model; it goes on exploring new dimensions. So it is certain that you are feeling starved: Christ is your food, somebody else's food is Krishna. These are simply different kinds of disease.

A Hindu has become accustomed to a certain dish. Of course, when he is hungry he cannot dream of a dish which he knows nothing about. You can dream only about something you know. Can you dream of something that you don't know? It is impossible, because a dream is only a repetition.

A dream is not creative; yes a dream can be compositive but never creative. See the difference between these two words: compositive and creative. It can compose something. For example it can take the head of Jesus and the body of Krishna and compose something which is both Krishna and Christ....

That's what people like Mahatma Gandhi have been doing their whole life: composing - taking something from the KORAN, something from the BIBLE, something from the GITA, something from Mahavira, something from Buddha and trying to make something that in India is called khicharee.

In English, the closest term is "hodge-podge," but it is nothing to be compared with "khicharee."

With the legs of one man, the hands of another man, the hairs of somebody else, the eyes from somewhere else, you can make khicharee. You can make a composite man having everything - eyes, nose, ears, head, legs, everything - but it will still be dead. By composing, you cannot create life, you cannot create consciousness. A dream can be a composite. You can see a horse flying - no horse flies, but there are things that fly: flying saucers, flying planes and flying birds, and it is not very difficult to compose a horse which flies.

What dream is to man, mythology is to society.

The Mohammedans say that Mohammed never died; but then the problem arises, where has he gone? It is time, now that he has millions of followers - six hundred million followers - it is time he came out. Where is he hiding and what is he doing? No, Mohammedans have a myth. A myth is a dream dreamed by the whole race, a collective dream - but it is composite.

Mohammed used to move from one place to another on a beautiful horse; and Arabian horses are the most famous horses in the world. Jesus would have looked very poor because he was just using a donkey. And it is good that Christians have not created the myth that Mohammedans have created: Mohammed never died, one day he simply flew up with his horse towards God. The horse has also gone with him into heaven! It is more fortunate to be a horse with Mohammed than to be a Mohammedan and a man.

And I say it is good that Christians have not dreamed of the same dream, otherwise Jesus would have gone with his donkey. And in heaven what will these horses and donkeys be doing? - because there are many donkeys from ancient times already there. All your saints and all your sages... what are they? Now, this is mythology.

Prophets die, but Mohammedans have to make something special for Mohammed - that he never dies, he's alive! Every other prophet has entered heaven after death, Mohammed is the only one who goes there alive. He not only goes alive, his horse also goes with him. Naturally, the horse had to fly.

So you will see in the Mohammedan sacred days of Muharram, horses made with wings. Horses don't grow wings but one horse has done it. They cannot make the image of Mohammed because Mohammed is against images; so they simply make the horse with wings, and you have to imagine Mohammed on it. You will only see a horse made of paper; you have to imagine Mohammed on it - and there are Mohammedans who do see him.

My village had a big population of Mohammedans, and in my childhood it was still not the way it turned out later on, that Hindus and Mohammedans started killing each other. It was because of the same man I told you about - Mirza Allama Iqbal. He is a great poet, there is no doubt about it. I mentioned his name to you because he had written that poem, "My country is the best in the whole world." Hindostan hamara sare jehan se achchha.

He uses the word Hindostan for India, but later on the same man created the idea of Pakistan.

He was the originator of the idea that Hindus and Mohammedans should separate, that they could not live together because their religions were different, their cultures were different, their languages were different, and that there was no need for them to live together, they should separate. Everybody laughed: the whole idea was Don Quixotic, absolutely absurd, because Hindus and Mohammedans had lived together for centuries, and there was no problem.

But soon, a great politician, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, got hold of the idea of Allama Iqbal. For thirty years he went on emphasizing, "We need Pakistan, we cannot live with Hindus" - and he created Pakistan. India was divided into two - the same India, Hindostan, which was "the best in the whole world." And the same man created the idea and the philosophy of Pakistan. The word Pakistan means "holy land."

Naturally he had to create something better than Hindostan. Hindostan was after all just a country, but Pakistan was a holy land. And millions of Hindus and Mohammedans were cut to pieces, killed and butchered. But in my childhood it was not so. Hindus used to go to Mohammedan saints without any difficulty; Mohammedans used to take advice from Hindu saints with no difficulty.

In Muharram, which is a yearly Mohammedan sacred festival, they make these mementoes...

from past memories, fourteen hundred years old. They cannot make Mohammed's image, that is prohibited. We don't know how he looked. We have some idea of Jesus; perhaps it is not very true because photography was not available then. Perhaps it is more imaginative than real, because the people who made the pictures must have tried to do their best, and they must have created the picture to look like a prophet. Whether the man looked like a prophet or not is questionable.

I know of Jewish sources which say that Jesus was only four foot five inches high. Not only that, he was very ugly; not only that, he was a hunchback. Perhaps this is just enmity, perhaps there is some truth in it. Perhaps both are imagination - one of the enemies and one of the friends - and between the two the real is completely lost.

I am absolutely certain that Buddha never looked like his statues because those statues were made five hundred years after him - after Buddha had already been dead for five hundred years. After those five hundred years, Alexander the Great visited India. The image of Buddha is closer to the face of Alexander the Great than Buddha himself, because the face is Greek, the nose is Greek, the eyes are Greek. Buddha's statue does not look like a Hindu statue.

When Hindu sculptors saw Alexander they got the idea, a good model. Alexander was really a beautiful man. To make Buddha in Alexander's image was very easy; and there was no proof that he looked otherwise.

If you see the Buddhist monasteries and temples in China, you will see a different Buddha, because the Chinese have their own idea of beauty. It may not appeal to you, but that is your problem; it appeals to them. For example, the nose should not be so pointed and so long, it should be flat.

Nobody in the whole world likes a flat nose, but what to do? Chinese have flat noses, and they are one fourth of the whole world: out of every four people one is a Chinese.

I have heard of a man who had three sons, and he said, "Now we have to stop."

His wife said, "Why?"

He said, "The fourth is going to be Chinese. I have read it: out of every four men, the fourth is a Chinese. From a very reliable source I have read it. I am not going to have any more children. Three and we stop - we don't want any Chinese in the house."

If you go to Japan you see a totally different Buddha. If you put a Japanese Buddha and an Indian Buddha together, you cannot believe these two statues are of the same man. You can stretch your imagination as far as possible but there seems to be no possibility that these two statues can be of the same man. The Indian Buddha's belly is in, his chest is out. The Japanese Buddha is just the opposite: his chest is in, his belly is really sticking out.

Now, no Indian can accept that this is beauty. Alexander was an athletic personality, well-trained, well-polished - and athletes have always liked the belly down and the chest forward, just like a lion.

And this Japanese Buddha looks like a strange fellow with such a belly: a laughingstock. And his head is also Japanese, his face is also Japanese.

Just a few days ago Sheela brought a picture to me. That picture was sent from a sannyasin from California. California is just next to Oregon in that way.... The sannyasin has been growing a bump on his forehead. It must be a growth of some kind, perhaps some cancer or something.

But people love.... Even if you have cancer, somebody can say, "This is not cancer, this is a sign of enlightenment" - you will be overjoyed. Ramdas has the same kind of growth. So Ramdas has spread the story in America that when a man becomes a Buddha, awakened, this bump on the forehead grows. And he has produced a picture from somewhere of a statue of Buddha with a bump on the head.

I have never seen any statue of Buddha with a bump on his forehead. That picture was my first experience. And nobody knows whose statue that is. It is only on Ramdas' authority that it is Buddha's statue. It has no similarity to Buddha - Indian, Japanese, Chinese, or Tibetan, all the countries which have been Buddhist. None of them has any statue which has a bump on the forehead.

Now either it is a photographic trick or somebody may have made a plaster of Paris statue of Gautam Buddha with a bump. Then the photograph has been taken, and Ramdas is going around with that photograph, telling people, "Look, it also happened to Buddha." And in California you can believe anything. This is the most religious land in the whole world: all the saints are born in California.

Now, this sannyasin sends me the picture because the same bump has grown on his forehead, and he says, "Osho, does it mean that I have become enlightened? - Ramdas says so." The picture is supplied by Ramdas. The sannyasin has the same bump. He sends the pictures of himself from all sides to show his bump clearly: from above, from this side, from that side, so that there is no suspicion about his bump. And he is really exhilarated.

And I told Sheela to tell the poor guy to go to a doctor and let it be examined. God forbid that it may have something to do with cancer. Be quick, and don't be befooled by people like Ramdas. And if you can take Ramdas also to the doctor.... As far as I am concerned, if I meet Buddha I will put him into our medical center. His bump has to be removed even at the cost of his enlightenment. If it disappears, let it disappear, but this cancer has to be taken care of first. Enlightenment can happen again. But fools are fools. The sannyasin will be hurt by my answer. He would have loved it if I had said, "Yes, you have become enlightened."

It is a strange world!

Here people want consoling lies.

Nobody is ready for the truth.

But we do have some idea of Jesus' face, something close... of Buddha's maybe something close.

But about Mohammed we have no idea at all because for fifteen centuries Mohammedans have persistently destroyed every possible trace of Mohammeds personality.

One of my friends, a Hindu saint, created a temple, a temple of all religions. That was his lifelong work. A beautiful temple he created, and it was very difficult for him to collect that much money.

It was all made in pure marble, and he made the statues of all the religious people, forgetting completely that you cannot make the statue of Mohammed. He thought he was doing a great work.

He made Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Moses, Zarathustra. About them there was no problem. Even if no actual photograph exists, some kind of description is available. It just needed a creative artist, imaginative enough to figure it out. And if an artist is really imaginative and creative he can come close to a photograph.

There exist in all great police departments, artists.... You have to describe the face of the thief that you saw in the night, disappearing in the darkness. You can't be certain what kind of man he was, but you just describe him, and the artist is capable of figuring out, from your description, the picture of the thief; and he draws the picture. I have seen these pictures, and when these thieves are caught, they are so similar to their picture that the artist seems to be simply intuitive: he got the idea from a very meager description.

Even the witness was not certain whether the man had a mustache or not, because in the night when you are in danger - the man is carrying a gun, and your safe is broken - who bothers whether the man has a mustache or not? How long? How small? - whether it is an Adolf Hitler cut.... You are not in a state to think about all these things like what color his eyes are, and in the night.... But you give any description, whatsoever comes to your mind and the artist figures it out. And I have seen really impossible things. The artist manages somehow, and through his picture being published in the newspaper the thief is caught.

So there is a possibility... and this man had great influence on many people. He managed to get some body to make Mohammed's statue, but he was not aware that he was going to be in great trouble. His temple was completely burned, broken, every statue broken, because he had done the most profane act possible according to the Mohammedans. His whole life's work was demolished within hours. There was no temple left at all.

I had seen the temple, and I have also gone to the place after the temple was completely demolished.

There were just ruins: statues broken, pillars half standing, the roof burned. Somehow the man who made this temple escaped, otherwise they would have killed him also, because this is one of the greatest crimes against Mohammedanism - to create the image of Mohammed.

But man after all is man, he needs some substitute. So when Mohammedans dream a dream of the horse with the flying wings, of course they must be seeing somebody sitting on it but they must not tell it to anybody. That is dangerous. Mohammedans know only one punishment: to just cut off your head. Beheading is the simplest thing for them to do.

You have a hunger. The dream indicates the hunger, but the dream is not going to fulfill it. It is only indicative. Take the indication, then start getting rid of the dream; its work is fulfilled. Don't follow the dream, don't try to become Christ, Buddha or Zarathustra, no. That was not the meaning of the dream.

If you start trying to become a Jesus or a Buddha, the most unfortunate thing is that you may succeed. If you fail there is no harm - most probably you will fail. Two thousand years have passed and nobody has been able to become a Christ again; that's enough proof. But that does not mean that people have not tried.

Millions of people have tried to become a replica, but fortunately they failed. But there is a possibility, unfortunately, that you may succeed. That means you have gone insane. It means nothing else; it simply means you have gone insane, you have started believing that you are Christ. Your dream has taken possession of you so much so that now it is no longer a dream, it has become a reality to you.

To go insane is to go farthest from yourself.

That's the meaning of insanity to me.

Sanity means to be closer to yourself, closer and closer. A day comes when you are just at the very center of your being; then you are the sanest person in the world... when you are just yourself and nobody else, just pure, authentic, with no shadow of anybody else falling on you.

To be at the center of your being is to be sane.

And to go far away from yourself is to be insane.

Now, if you become Christ, you have reached the farthest point from yourself; or if you become a Buddha or you become me, you have reached the farthest point from yourself It may be very satisfying: you will never see mad people frustrated, you will never see mad people committing suicide. Have you ever heard of it? You will never see a mad person miserable. No, because now his dream has become his reality. He is as happy as you can think a person can be.

One of my sannyasins, you know him, Narendra - his father had phases: for six months he was sane and for six months he was insane. It was a fixed period. The strangest thing to his family, to the doctors, to the whole city, was that when he was insane he was the happiest person in the world, and the healthiest. And when he was sane, he became miserable, unhealthy, with all kinds of sicknesses; everything was wrong, he was complaining and grumpy. His family continually prayed, "If he remains mad the whole year, it will be the greatest blessing" - to him and to the family.

But he had his own routine: six months. When he was insane, his whole family regained balance because he was not disturbing anybody, and he was enjoying himself in every possible way. I have seen him doing things - Narendra was very small, but when his father was insane even the smallest child in the house used to watch the shop.

They had a jeweler's shop, so there were costly things - gold, silver, diamonds. And when he was mad he would steal them. It was his own shop! Narendra was so small but he would watch there and he would shout to his mother, "Come... come quick Ka-Ka has opened the safe!" His mother would come rushing, and all the children too. He had many children, I think a dozen, and they all would come running; even the smallest child used to spy on him.

He would be going to the market, and the smallest child, a five-year-old, would be following him. If I came across them I would say to the child, "Where are you going?" He would say, "After Ka-Ka...

because he goes on borrowing things from everywhere and we have to pay." He would go to the sweet shop and eat as much as he wanted, and he would invite anybody walking past, strangers, to join him: "Come on!" And the child would be forcing him, "Ka-Ka, you have to come back home, otherwise I will bring mother right now."

The only person that he was afraid of even in insanity was his wife. That proved to me another maxim, that even insanity cannot change the relationship of husband and wife. And he would go on giving things to anybody. Somebody had to follow him, so all these children did; there was nobody else, just these twelve children and the wife. He was happy in those six months, and everybody in the town was happy because he was just a joy to be with, always laughing. He immediately started becoming fatter, healthier, stronger. And the moment those six months were finished he would become weak, sick. He would be sitting in the shop - there was no need to spy on him - but he was miserable.

Insane people are not miserable. So if you are miserable, be happy! - at least you are not insane.

At least you still have some sanity left, hence the misery.

What is misery?

Misery is the feeling that you are not yourself.

It is the gap between you as you are, and you as you feel you should be.

The gap is the misery. The bigger the gap, the more miserable you are. Idiots are not miserable, for the simple reason that they do not have the intelligence to see the gap.

The most intelligent people in the world are the most miserable, because they can see the gap so clearly that it is impossible to forget it, to just put it aside. It is always there, whatever they are doing, the gap is in front of them. And that gap hurts: "Why can't I be just myself?"

That's why I say if unfortunately you succeed in being a Christ or a Krishna or me, it means that you are no longer part of the sane world, you have become completely mad. Now you cannot distinguish between the dream and the real - and to forget the distinction between the dream and the real is a great loss: it is spiritual suicide.

I would have said to Chuang Tzu, "There is no problem in it, just get up from your bed." I would have gathered his disciples and told them to bring icecold water and pour it over the man so he comes to know that he is not a butterfly. And I know perfectly well that before they started pouring he would have jumped out of bed, and he would have said, "Wait! I am Chuang Tzu. I was just playing a joke."

Only Chuang Tzu can see the distance between the real and the unreal. The butterfly cannot see it - the butterfly is only a dream.

A dream has no intelligence of its own. A dream is just a cloud around you; because of your sleep you become identified with it. In your waking also, you are not really awake. That's why you get identified with so many things.

You become a Hindu; that is an identification. You become a Christian, a Jew; that is an identification - and that shows that your wakefulness is not there. You are just awake in name only. It is such a thin layer of wakefulness that it is disturbed by anything, and you fall asleep immediately. A beautiful woman passes by, and you are asleep. You have gone into a dream of how to get her, of how to possess her. You have completely forgotten that this is not sleep.

One of Dostoevsky's novels, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, has an incident in it. Raskolnikov is the main character in the novel; he is a student in the university. He lives in a small room in front of a very palatial building in which an old woman lives - perhaps eighty, or eighty-five or even ninety years old. In Russia that is not difficult. In Russia you can find people one hundred and fifty years old at least, even more, sometimes one hundred and eighty, and still working. And not just one or two, but in thousands, particularly in the Caucasus area, from where Gurdjieff came. A man of one hundred and fifty, sixty, seventy, is still working in the fields, just like any young man.

Raskolnikov is of a very philosophic type of mind, and he goes on seeing this old woman from his window. She has so much money, she owns almost half of the buildings of the city. And she has nobody else, she is alone, and she lives in that big palace. She is so miserly that she has not even a servant. Her whole business is lending people money at a high rate of interest.

Raskolnikov, just sitting there, sees poor people bringing things, because she will not give money unless you leave something in her custody. He sees these poor people bringing their things and getting some money on interest. They know perfectly well, and Raskolnikov knows, that they will never be able to pay back even the interest, what to say about the original money! And what are they leaving? - for example they may leave a watch, a clock, some jewelry, something that they had that is then gone. And the woman used to give only half the value of the item that was left in her custody.

Raskolnikov becomes angrier and angrier and angrier, looking at this cheat the whole day. And he starts thinking, what is the purpose of this woman? She has nothing to live for. She has lived enough and she is still exploiting thousands of people. Why has somebody not killed her? He starts thinking that there is no crime in killing her; hence the title of Dostoevsky's book, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. He philosophizes about it so much, month by month, year by year, because he is there watching her, that by and by he starts thinking: Nobody is going to kill her, I have to do it.

And finally, one day he decides: Now, it is enough, I cannot tolerate it. And a necessity has also arisen so he can go to her, because he has to fill in the examination forms and deposit the fee for his final postgraduate class - and he has no money. So he goes in the evening. He takes his wristwatch and waits till everybody has left, and it is getting dark.

The lady is so miserly she will not even use candles. When it gets dark, she closes the door, locks the door from inside and disappears for the whole night. So before she does that, he enters. She is just coming down the stairs to lock the door as he comes in and says, "I am in great difficulty. You know me, I live in a house just in front of yours. You can keep my wristwatch but you have to give me money right now. Tomorrow morning I have to fill in my examination forms. If I miss tomorrow my two years are wasted."

So she says, "Okay, you come along with me."

He goes behind her, ready to kill her. He has imagined so many times how to kill her, because it is not going to take much, she is so old: you just have to press her throat and that will do. He has imagined it, dreamed it, philosophized about it: that it is not a crime, it is not a sin. In fact you are preventing a great criminal from doing so many crimes every day against the whole city. You are a savior! God cannot be so misunderstanding, and when he knows the whole story He will reward you. Raskolnikov has convinced himself that murdering this woman is not a crime. And anyway she is going to die any day. Why let her continue to exploit people any more?

He gives her his wristwatch. It is getting darker so she goes close to the window to look at the watch to see how much it is worth - because she won't burn a candle. And just by coincidence she has a heart attack, falls there and dies. And Raskolnikov thinks - because he has lived out this whole idea of killing her so many times, dreamed it so many times - he believes that he has done it.

He escapes, goes to his room but he knows the police will be coming soon; it is not right to stay here.

He goes to the furthest corner of the city to stay with a friend. But the friend cannot understand, "Why are you so nervous? What has happened?"

And he says, "Nothing has happened, I have not done anything. Don't be suspicious."

And naturally, the friend says, "I am not being suspicious, and I am not saying that you have done anything."

But Raskolnikov says, "Yes, you are not saying anything but your eyes show it. Do you think I am such a stupid guy that I cannot understand what is going on in your mind? Do you think I am a murderer?"

The man says, "You are just crazy! Why should you be a murderer?"

Raskolnikov cannot sleep. He wakes up again and again and says to the friend, "Did you hear something? I just heard a police whistle."

The friend says, "Nobody is here, no police. What would they come here and whistle for?"

Raskolnikov says, "No, perhaps I dreamed it." And again: "Did you hear the knock? I heard boots, police boots coming towards the house."

The man says, "Are you obsessed by the police?"

Raskolnikov says, "Who is obsessed? You must be obsessed. It is your house, not my house. I have not done anything in the first place... and people die on their own. It does not necessarily mean that somebody has killed them."

By the morning he has driven the friend crazy, and finally he himself begs the friend, "Take me to the police station because they are all around, they are going to catch me. They must have found out by now that that old woman has been murdered by being strangled. And they must have found my wristwatch in her hand, which is a proof enough, because how come that wristwatch was there?

And somebody must have seen me going into her house or coming out of her house. There is no point.... It is better to surrender."

He goes to the police station. He tries to convince the police. The police say, "You are just mad. The woman has died of a heart attack - the doctor's report has come."

Raskolnikov says, "I... you are trying to convince me? I am the man who has killed her - I confess to you."

This is the meaning of crime and punishment: a guilt arises; he starts punishing himself. And the dream that he had dreamed so many times - now he cannot figure out whether it is a dream or whether he has really done it. He has not done it but he tortures the police. He goes to the doctor and says, "Your report is wrong. I know perfectly well I have killed her, the wristwatch is proof."

The doctor says, "The wristwatch is not proof We have examined everything and she died of a heart attack." But this man needs punishment. Finally the police decide to put him in the lockup for his satisfaction. What else to do? As he is locked up, he is at ease.

This is insanity: when a dream becomes a reality, when you cannot make the distinction between the dream and reality.

And there are millions of people walking, talking, working, and they are not able to make the distinction between the real and the unreal.

How many superstitions do you go on carrying? What is God other than a superstition? You have not even dreamed Him; it is not even your dream that you are identified with. Perhaps Jesus dreamed Him, but he suffered enough for his dream. Now why are you torturing yourself?

But there are people.... I have heard of a man who believed that he was the resurrected Jesus Christ. His family tried to persuade him, "Don't say such a thing to anybody - they will think that you are mad."

He said, "Let them think so, but what I am, I am; and whether I say it or not they are going to find out, so it is better to declare it. And it is not a shame, it is a glory - and you should all be happy that I am Jesus Christ."

They took him to a psychiatrist, saying, "This poor guy has got the idea that he is Jesus Christ.

Something has to be done."

The psychiatrist tried many ways, all the tricks that he knew. Nothing worked. How could they work on a man who is God's messiah? The psychiatrist, just a poor psychiatrist, what can he do? Can he deprogram "Jesus Christ? Impossible! Otherwise there would have been no need to crucify him - just deprogram him. Just take him to a deprogrammer for the weekend and Jesus Christ is finished - there is no messiah, no son of God. He comes back to the earth: he knows that he is Joseph's son, not the son of the Holy Ghost, that he is a carpenter, he should go back to his work - what is he doing here?

He is not supposed to give sermons on the mountain. He should go to his father's workshop where the poor fellow is still making furniture: "Just cut logs and do things that are needed. Help the old man. What are you doing here?" Only a deprogramming was needed, but it is difficult to deprogram people like Jesus Christ. This man, although he was not Jesus Christ, believed it. Finally the psychiatrist took him before the mirror. He said, "Just look at yourself in the mirror. Do you look like Jesus Christ?"

He looked in the mirror. He said, "Of course. Do you think you look like Jesus Christ? You idiot Anybody can see it. The mirror cannot lie."

Then the psychiatrist tries his final way. He takes his paperknife, cuts Jesus Christ's finger, blood comes out. He says to him, "Two thousand years have passed since the crucifixion and nothing has been heard of Jesus Christ. He must be dead; this is simple arithmetic. He cannot live two thousand years, nobody has lived that long. The only way is that you may be the dead body of Jesus Christ.

But dead bodies don't bleed, and blood is coming out of your body. That proves you are alive."

And Jesus Christ, this so-called Jesus Christ, laughed and said, "This only proves that dead bodies do bleed and you did not hear me right in the first place: I am the resurrected Jesus Christ. I have left death far behind, two thousand years ago." You cannot convince a madman by cutting his hand and showing him proof that dead men don't bleed. The insane man has his own logic. He says, "That simply proves that dead men do bleed."

You cannot argue with a madman. Can you argue with a Christian? - a reborn Christian? Can you argue with Witnesses of Jehovah? - impossible. Can you argue with Hare Krishna people? I have argued with all these kinds of people. It is impossible.

In the first place they don't listen to what you are saying. They go on saying what they want to say; they don't listen at all to what you are saying - they start reading from the Bible. You can see a film covering their eyes. You can see their ears are closed. You can feel that the man is asleep, he is not awake.

But all these religious people are asleep and dreaming a thousand and one things. Those dreams their scriptures have given them.

I am not here to give you a dream, just the contrary.

I am here to destroy all your dreams.

Even if you meet me in your dream, just cut my head off immediately, then and there. And don't ask where to get the sword from. If you can get me in your dream, get a sword from the same place. If you can dream of me, you can also dream of a sword.

This is what happened. A man was looking for a job. He heard that there was a place available on the ship that was just going to leave port. He rushed. The captain asked him, "If the winds are very strong, and the currents are very strong, and you feel that the ship is sinking, what will you do?"

He said, "I will throw the anchor into the water."

The captain said, "That's right." Again he said, "The waves become even stronger and the wind starts becoming even faster. What will you do then?"

He said, "I will put down another anchor."

And the captain said finally, "Now it is almost impossible to save the boat. The waves are going higher than the boat and the wind has taken the highest speed. Now what will you do?"

He said, "I will put down a bigger anchor."

The captain said, "But from where are you getting these anchors?"

He said, "From the same place from where you are getting these waves, and the wind - from the same place."

So just remember: never ask me from where to get the sword - from the same place. You know perfectly well that if you can create me in your dream it won't be very difficult to find a sword and just cut off my head. And don't be bothered if dead men bleed, because I am going to bleed! But it is only a dream. The sword, me, the blood, all is dream. In the morning you will not find that your bedsheet is full of blood, and a body is lying down in your room. Don't freak out! Just throw cold water on your eyes and everything will be okay.

Dreams are indicative. Your innermost self is telling you that you are not yet what you are meant to be, that your destiny is still unfulfilled, that your being is still starved. But that's all that the dream signifies. The dream is not saying, "Come follow me. Become a Christ, become a Buddha, become a Krishna." No, that will be going against yourself.

Just be yourself, utterly yourself. And don't be bothered what kind of flower you turn out to be.

It does not matter whether you are a rose or a lotus or a marigold. It does not matter.

What matters is flowering.

Let me repeat: the flower does not matter, what matters is flowering, and the flowering is the same whether it is a marigold.... The marigold is a poor flower. I don't know about here, but in India the marigold is the poorest flower. Just to give him consolation perhaps, we call him mari-gold, otherwise it is a poor flower. Roses are rich people, lotuses are just super-rich! But it does not matter.

When the marigold opens up there is the same ecstasy surrounding it as when a rose opens up.

There is no difference in the ecstasy, because the ecstasy comes neither from the color nor from the fragrance, nor from the size.

No, the ecstasy comes from the phenomenon, the miracle of flowering, opening.

The marigold has become a marigold, it was its destiny. The rose has become a rose, it was its destiny. Both are fulfilled. That fulfillment is exactly equal.

The moment you become yourself you will not be me, you will not be Christ, you will not be Krishna; you will be yourself. But the ecstasy that surrounds me will surround you. I cannot say for certain about Jesus, I can only be absolutely certain about myself. I don't know whether he was really fulfilled or just a madman. There is no way for me to decide. I cannot say that about Buddha - he may be awakened, or he may be just a great philosopher philosophizing about awakening, a great dreamer dreaming about awakening.

Have you not dreamed sometimes that you are awake? I think everyone has sometimes dreamed that he is awake, and only when he wakes up does he find, "My God, that was a dream! I thought I was awake." You can dream within a dream, within a dream....

For example, you can dream that you are going to your bedroom fully awake. You are going to your bedroom - in a dream - lying down on the bed, pulling your blanket up, falling asleep and dreaming that you have gone to see a movie. And you see the movie. In the movie you can see a man who is asleep and is dreaming - it can go on ad infinitum. You can go on stretching the idea: a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream - there is no problem in it.

You can dream that you are awake - and there are many people who think they are enlightened...

they think! I have come across such people. One man came to see me when I was in Raipur.

This man was a very famous Hindu sage, Jagatguru Kripaludasji Maharaj. Jagatguru means a world teacher; Kripaludas, servant of compassion; and Maharaj, the king! He had many, many followers. Particularly in Raipur, he was the most famous teacher, and people believed that he was enlightened.

Somebody told me, "Kripaludas is visiting the town. Wouldn't you like to come?"

I said, "Certainly, because I never miss any opportunity."

I went up to the stage, went close to Kripaludas and gave him the indication that I wanted to say something in his ear. So he gave his ear to me, and I said, "I think you are enlightened."

He said, "Really?"

I said, "Really."

That was all. He enquired about me and the next day he came to visit me, and he said, "How did you find out? - because I also think the same, that I am enlightened."

I said, "There is no problem in it - you look enlightened."

He said, "Absolutely right. Many people have said to me, 'You look enlightened.'"

Then I said to him, "Please, enlightenment has no certain way of looking. And you are not enlightened, otherwise you would not have come to me. For what? Just because I said to you,'I think you are enlightened,' I gave support to your dream. You are dreaming, because you yourself say that you also think you are enlightened. Nobody who is enlightened thinks that he is enlightened:

he simply is enlightened. What business has thinking to do with enlightenment? Thinking can only create imagination. Thinking is part of the imaginative process.

"Thinking is dreaming in words, and dreaming is thinking in pictures. That's the only difference between the two."

Dreaming is a primitive kind of thinking. Because the primitive man has no words, he thinks in pictures.

The same is the case with the child, because the child is a primitive man. Look at any children's book:

big pictures, strong attractive colors, and few words. "A big mango" - that the child understands immediately. And through that mango - because he knows the mango, he knows the taste of the mango, he knows the smell of the mango - seeing a mango in the picture he is reminded of the taste, the smell; and through that association, the word underneath, mango, slowly gets into his mind.

Then as books become of higher grades, the mango goes on becoming smaller and the words become more, with more descriptions of the mango: what kind of fruit the mango is, what kind of taste, where it is found. And the mango goes on disappearing, becoming smaller and smaller. And one day there are no pictures in the book.

Now, you have learned a new way of dreaming: that is through words. But the shift from the mango to the word mango is a great jump.

But when you are unconscious, fast asleep, again you fall back to your primitive language. Then you forget about the language that you have learned.

One of my friends was in Germany. He went to Germany when he was only seven or eight years old. His father was there so he went there, and he lived in Germany for thirty years. He was educated in the German language, but he was born in Maharashtra; he knew Marathi, that was his mother tongue, but he had completely forgotten about it. A seven-year-old child - he was not able to understand Marathi at all, he had never learned to read Marathi. But he had an accident, a car accident, and became unconscious, and in his unconsciousness he would speak only Marathi.

His brother was called from India because the father had died. They said, "We cannot understand what he says, and this man has never used any other language than German." But the language that he had learned from his very birth was only in the unconscious mind. That layer of seven years was there, and it was deeper; German was on top of it. But the top layer was now unconscious. So the deeper layer started speaking.

Whenever he would become conscious he would forget that had been speaking in Marathi, he would speak in German; he then couldn't understand Marathi. His brother would speak in Marathi and he could not understand. And he was continually going in and out of unconsciousness. He would fall back again into unconsciousness, and again he would speak in Marathi; back to consciousness, he would speak German.

In your unconscious you are still primitive, and that's why Sigmund Freud paid more attention to your unconscious - because your unconscious is more innocent, childlike, primitive. It cannot lie, it cannot be deceptive; it will simply say whatever is the truth. But the conscious mind is cunning. It has been made cunning through education, culture, and everything.

One day I was just playing; I must have been four or five years old, not more than that. My father was shaving his beard when somebody knocked on the door; my father said to me, "Just go and tell him, 'My father is not at home.'"

I went out and I said, "My father is shaving and he says to tell you, 'My father is not at home.'"

The man said, "What? He is inside?"

I said, "Yes, but this is what he has told me. I have told you the whole truth."

The man came in and my father looked at me: What had happened? And the man was very angry, he said, "This is something! You had called me to come at this time, and you send a message with the boy that you have gone out."

My father asked him, "But how did you find out that I was in?"

He said, "This boy has said the whole thing, that 'My father is in. He is shaving his beard, and he has told me to tell you that he is out.'"

My father looked at me. I could understand; he was saying, "Just wait! Let this man go, and I will show you."

And I told him, "I am going before this man leaves."

He said, "But I have not said anything to you."

I said, "I have understood everything!"

I told the man, "Just stay here. First let me get out, because there is going to be trouble for me." But on departing I said to my father, "You insist with me,'Be truthful....' So," I said, "this is a chance to be truthful, and to check whether you really mean me to be truthful, or is it just that you're trying to teach me cunningness?"

Of course he understood that it was better to keep quiet, not to quarrel with me then, because when the man was gone, I would have to come home. I came after two or three hours so that he would cool down or other people would be there and no problem would arise. He was alone. I went in, he said, "Don't be worried - I will never tell you anything like that again. You have to forgive me." He was in this way a fair man, otherwise who bothers about a four, five-year old child, and asks - being a father - "Forgive me"? And he never said anything like it again his whole life. He knew that with me he had to be different than with other children.

As you grow up, as the society goes on teaching you to be this way, to behave this way, you start be coming a hypocrite, and you become identified with your hypocrisy.

My function here is to destroy all hypocrisy in you.

To me honesty is not a policy.

Just at supper I was telling Vivek that the man who first made up this maxim, "Honesty is the best policy," must have been a very cunning man. Honesty is not policy; and if it is policy, then it is not honesty: you are honest because it pays, you will be dishonest if that pays. Honesty is the best policy if it is paying, but if sometimes it is not paying, then dishonesty of course is the best policy.

The question is, what is going to pay?

And Vivek reminded me that just today she has seen in a book, in one sentence, two words that were very revealing. She had never joined those words together: policy and politics, politeness and politics. What is politeness? It is a kind of politics. Both words are derived from the same root. All three words - policy, politeness, politics - have the same root, they all mean the same thing. But politeness you think is a nice quality. You would never think of it in terms of politics, but it is politics.

To be polite is a defense measure.

In Europe you shake hands. Why do you shake the right hand? - why not the left? It is really part of politics. To shake hands is nothing friendly. It is just a gesture that "My right hand is empty so don't be worried. And let me see that your right hand also is empty, that there is not a knife or something in it." And when you are shaking right hands you cannot pull your sword out because with the left hand... unless you happen to be a leftist. It is just a way of giving certainty to the other person, that you are not going to harm him, and he is giving certainty to you that he is not going to harm you.

Slowly slowly, it became a symbol of greeting each other.

In India, you greet with both hands, but that too is simply showing that both your hands are empty. It is far better than shaking hands, because who knows about the left hand? Sometimes even the right hand does not know about the left hand, so it is better to show that both hands are empty; that is far better, and far more polite also. But you are saying, "I am completely defenseless. You need not be wary about me or worried about me. You can relax." These are symbols that people have learned.

In India if you go to a so-called guru, you have to give him a salute which is uniquely Indian. It is called satsang dandawat. You have to lie down on the floor with all your limbs touching the floor, because that is the most defenseless position. Even if the other man wants to kill you, he can kill you immediately. That's why it has become the symbol of surrender.

In wartime when prisoners are caught, they are ordered to lie down flat on the ground with their arms stretched out. Why? They cannot do anything in that position and then you can search them, and take anything they have. Or else you tell them to stand up with outstretched arms, with their hands up against the wall, which is the same - vertical or horizontal, it is the same.

In war it seems to be perfectly right, but somehow the same war is going on continuously between every individual in the society. So a certain culture develops it as a gesture of tremendous respect.

It is not a gesture of respect, it is a gesture of humiliation, that "I humiliate myself completely. I am at your disposal. If you want to cut off my head you can. I cannot do anything in such a position."

And of course the other person feels great, his ego is satisfied.

Our culture, our education, our religion - they all teach us to be hypocrites in such subtle ways that unless you go deep in search, you will never find out what you have been doing.

Why do you smile when you meet a friend? What is the need? If you are not feeling like smiling, why do you smile? You have to do it. This is a policy that is paying, because some day you may need this man's help, and if you have always been smiling at him, he cannot refuse. If you have never smiled at him and never even said "Hi," then you need not bother even to approach him; he will throw you out of his house with a "Go to hell!"

One has to understand all these layers and detach oneself from all of them.

Become a watcher so that you cannot become identified with any dream.

That's my work; and if you start dreaming about me, you are destroying my whole work. Take the indication, then drop the dream and then find real food. Just dreaming of a feast is no good. When a real feast is possible then why be satisfied with a dream feast? When real joy is available, then why a phony smile? When authentic ecstasy is just close by your hand, perhaps not even that far, then why be satisfied with being miserable, crying and weeping, feeling empty, feeling worthless? Your treasure is within you, and you are becoming a beggar.

My effort is to wake you up. Perhaps it will be hard on you in the beginning because you have been a beggar for so long that you will think I am taking your kingdom. Hence sannyas is difficult.

On the surface I have made it so simple because I know, inside it is so difficult; to make it difficult on the outside also would be inhuman.

So on the surface I have made it absolutely simple - it cannot be simplified more - because inside the real work is hard.

But it has to be done. Without doing it you lived without knowing what life is. You existed in a way which cannot be called living, it can only be called vegetating.

Don't be vegetables, cabbages, cauliflowers. Yes, these are the two classes of people: cabbages are uneducated people, cauliflowers are college - educated cabbages; but there is not much difference.

The only thing that makes a difference is: Wake up!