Darshan 13 April 1976

[A sannyasin said she was uncertain whether she should be in a relationship or not and whether the man she was with was the right one for her.]

Ordinarily a relationship always disturbs. Unless you are capable of remaining alone, a relationship always disturbs.

It is almost like a banker. If you have money, the banker will give it to you. If you don't have it, they won't give it to you. When you have, everybody is ready to help; when you don't have it, nobody is available! So the bank goes on giving to people who are rich.

It is exactly the same case with relationships. If you are happy, relationships will make you happier.

If you are happy alone - that means, if you are not in need of a relationship - then only a relationship gives you happiness. If you are in need of it, then you will become miserable - because all dependence brings misery.

The moment you feel dependent on someone for your happiness, you start feeling miserable, because slavery is the thing most hated by the being. Ordinarily all relationships turn into slaveries, sort of bondages, imprisonments.

I was worried that sooner or later you will get into trouble (chuckling),because when one is feeling good, one forgets what type of misery a relationship can bring. This is how the mind functions.

When you are alone, you have a fantasy about what happiness will come to you when you are in a relationship. When you are in a relationship, you start thinking that it is better to be alone.

My suggestion is that if you can remain without a relationship, it is going to be very helpful to you.

Basically there is no need, but in the western world a new thing has happened, just the polar opposite of the eastern mind.

The eastern world thinks that if you move in a love relationship, something is wrong. So the eastern mind has always appreciated the celibate. the one who lives alone and is not in any way moving into a relationship. If you move into a relationship, you are almost something special - which is foolishness. In the West just the opposite has arisen.

If you are not in a relationship, something is wrong. If you don't move into a relationship you are committing some sin against nature, or at least against psychology.

So the western mind goes on thinking that whenever one is alone something is wrong, and that one should move into a relationship. In the East people go on thinking about how they can move out of a relationship. They are both wrong. One should live where one is happy. One should be selfish. I teach you absolute selfishness. One should just think, 'In what am I happy?'

What psychologists and theologicians say, and what the East says, is all mumbojumbo. Drop it!

Don't be concerned. Nobody has considered you. They may have considered other people but nobody has considered you. No theory exists for you as yet. And all theories are averages, just analysations of particular phenomena.

You are rare - no theory exists for you. Don't consult any psychologists or any priest. Simply look at yourself. In what you feel happy, blissful, tuneful, harmonious - that is your way. If you were feeling good - and you were, you were flowering.... Now suddenly this relationship and you are disturbed and the energy is flowing no more.

If you drop out of it, it will be good. You can leave it to me, and when I see that now you are so happy alone and there is no need for a relationship, I will tell you to move into a relationship. When you are lonely enough I will get you a man (laughter).

First get established in your being... grounded... so settled that now nobody can disturb you. Open the windows and let the wind blow, and enjoy it. First be grounded so deeply that nobody can pull you down.

[A sannyasin who is involved with a married sannyasin, expressed concern about returning to the West. She said she was usually in a triangle situation.... ]

People learn these roles. Once they learn them they become efficient. Then you cannot change the role because you have not been so efficient in other roles; that's the problem. You must have learned how to become part of a triangle so you become like a buffer between two persons.

And you enjoy it also, because it gives a certain power. When somebody is interested in you and he has a wife, you feel more powerful. There is a competition; a subtle competition between you and the wife. Triangles are always dangerous. It is better not to get into them.

The basic urge to get into a triangle is not love, it is something else. It is power. You feel more powerful because you can pull [your boyfriend] from his wife towards you. And the wife is also feeling powerful - she pulls [her husband], and he is just a football between the two of you. When he is hit by her, he comes to you. When you hit him, he goes there.

It cannot become a very mature love; it is childish. But it is difficult to get out of any triangle. You were happy when he was not here, and you are again happy now he is gone. All those days in between were unhappy. But still you cannot drop out of it because you have learned the role. You know how to play this tape so you play it again and again. You can go on playing it unless you become courageous enough and you stop. Whatsoever brings misery, stop it immediately. Otherwise one becomes accustomed to misery, habituated to misery.

If something is miserable, get out of it - whatsoever the cost. In the end you will find it has not been costly. In the end you will feel thankful to God that you came out of it.

And this is not only with [your boyfriend]. For the whole life remember it... Let it be a deep tacit understanding. Whenever you feel that something is becoming miserable, then have enough courage to get out of it. You only know how to get in and you don't know how to get out - as if your house has only an entrance and no exit.

But I'm not saying get out of it - because if I say that, you will cling more. I'm not saying anything.

I'm simply saying to become understanding and see the whole point. You cannot be happy in it. You cannot become very intimate because the third person will always be there. He is not ready to leave his wife, and he is not ready to leave you. And neither of you are ready to leave him - then what can be done?

Become a little more courageous. Tell him that either he decides or you decide. Tell him that if he loves you, to get out of it - because the wife must be suffering. She must be suffering more than you because she has more vested interest. You must be the enemy and she must be suffering because of that tension. And you are suffering.

I cannot see how a man can be happy between two suffering women. It is difficult enough even with one suffering woman. But by and by we become immune and we accept misery as our fate, as if it is a destiny. But enough! Go back and decide something.

The whole point of being with me is to be courageous enough to take your life in your own hands.

See what you have been doing to it. And don't be destructive in it. Love yourself - and everything else follows.

[Another sannyasin said she was always fighting with her Indian boyfriend, but was afraid that if she topped she would be dead again.]

But why fight? Rather than getting out of the relationship, decide not to fight! What is the point of fighting?..

Don't take a settled, harmonious life as being a dead one. A few people think that fighting and getting excited and shouting and getting angry is life. This is not life. It gives you a false illusion of being alive because you scream and shout and fight and then things settle. Then again you learn and you ask each other's pardon - and the game goes on.

Again you fight. There is divorce - mini-divorce - and then you get married again. This is just sheer excitement, fever. It is not a healthy state; it is unhealthy.

When two persons feel harmonious, loving and caring about each other, helping each other to grow, and are creative, of course everything becomes silent. It is as if there are not two persons but one.

You can interpret it as deadness, but that is your wrong interpretation. It may be just stillness.

So change your interpretation and drop fighting. Sooner or later you will have to find somebody else, because you cannot be alone right now. And there are only two possibilities: casual relationships which never go very deep, and which destroy much. By and by one starts loving the casual thing because there is less responsibility. That is dangerous, because unless love grows very intimate, it will not come to fruition; it will not be fulfilled. You will not come to know what it really is. You touch the periphery... it is a hit-and-run affair.

[She answers: You spoke the other day about the indian mind and I thought I am also false and indirect and that is why I am attracted to Indians.]

That is not the point. Your attraction for an Indian is for a different reason. You would like to have a stable relationship, and that is more possible with an Indian than with a Westerner. You would like to have a more loving and an intimate and caring relationship, and that is more possible with an Indian.

Your attraction towards an Indian is not bad at all.

I understand the problem. You have been brought up in the West and you feel attracted towards Indians, but your own western ways will create trouble. If you find a Westerner, your western ways may not create trouble, but your inner desire which is seeking an Indian will not be fulfilled. So you have to think about it.

With an Indian you can settle and things will grow very deep. Indians have believed for centuries that love is only for once. It is not a casual thing, changing every day. It is not like a fashion - somebody comes along with a better face, a fairer colour, and everyone changes. They believe that love should be a very permanent thing, and it is very meaningful. If it can become permanent it is very beautiful.

Your desire is not wrong; it is absolutely in the right direction, but your western upbringing is a problem. No indian woman will hit her lover; impossible. But you hit! That comes very easy to the Westerner. You have to drop that, otherwise an Indian will simply feel puzzled at what is happening; what type of love this is.

So just try for a few more days, mm? And then I will see. Don't be worried.

[A sannyasin says: I'm finding myself in emptiness a lot. I feel like I just want to die... I've tried to enjoy it... I've tried to just give in to it - and that doesn't work either.]

Don't do anything - there is nothing to do. When one wants to die, one dies! What is the point of doing? If the desire is there, it is there; there is nothing wrong in it. When you start doing something you have already taken the standpoint that something is wrong in it.

It may be simply that you have come to feel the illusoriness of life, and the desire for it has disappeared or is disappearing. You interpret it as a desire to die. It is not a desire to die. This is how the mind goes on giving wrong interpretations. When life seems illusory, when nothing seems worthwhile - and nothing is - then suddenly the mind says, 'What is the point of living? Die!'

- as if death is going to be more meaningful than life! When life is not meaningful how can death be meaningful? When even life is illusory, death is going to be more of an illusion. So what is the point in choosing?

One simply understands that life is illusory. Finished! No enlightened person has ever committed suicide. They should all commit suicide because they say life is meaningless; it is an illusion; there is nothing in it. So why should they go on living?

They go on living because they say in death also there is nothing left to be chosen. The whole of life is meaningless - death included! So there is nothing to do. When death comes they will accept. If it is not coming they will not do anything to bring it about. That would show that they are now clinging to death. First they were clinging to life, now they are clinging to death - but the clinging continues.

So drop that clinging. It is beautiful... just say that life is finished. But when death comes, it will come. Of course you will not try to avoid it. You will say, 'Come in, no need to wall at the door... no need to even knock. No need to even ask permission: "May I come in, madam?" No need. Come in' - that's all.

Then one becomes absolutely serene and tranquil. One lives, but as if in a drama. Nothing to choose, nowhere to go. Whatsoever happens, happens. One simply floats with it. While it is life, one is alive. When it is death, one is dead.

Somebody asked Lin-Chi, 'What did you used to do before you became enlightened?'

He said, 'I used to chop wood and carry water.'

And then the man asked, 'What have you been doing since enlightenment?' Lin-Chi said, 'I am doing the same - chopping wood, carrying water. But before I used to do it with great expectations.

Now I simply do it - there is nothing else to do! I chop wood because I know how to, and I know how to carry water. The activity remains the same - the quality of awareness changes.'