No one is insignificant

Question 1:

Nayana, I can understand your desperation, your helplessness. This is how perhaps every human being who is aware of the crisis feels. But you are not aware of a greater power: destruction is a low category power, creation is a high category power. Destruction is out of hate, creation is out of love.

You have seen where hate can lead humanity, to its ultimate suicide, but you have not seen the possibility that love, growing to its height, may simply prevent this crisis from happening. No one is insignificant, because everyone has a heart and everyone has love and everyone has sensitivity, consciousness and he can reach to the very ultimate peak of existence. A single individual can prevent this great crisis, what to say of millions of people full of love and joy and silence?

I am reminded of an Old Testament story about two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. The people in both cities became absolutely sexually perverted - all kinds of perversions prevailed. The story is very beautiful; it will give you courage, it will take away your desperation. It will make you stand up as an individual, representing life and love which cannot be destroyed by any nuclear weapons, by any politicians. Even God could not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

I have to remind you at this point that in the Old Testament version he destroyed the cities. It was impossible to change those people; they had become so accustomed to perverted ways. You may not know that the word 'sodom' means making love to animals. That's why the whole city was called Sodom. And even today making love to animals is called sodomy. And just the vibration of the word 'gomorrah' is enough to give you the sense of what it means: gonorrhea.

But the story takes a very special turn, and that's my point to emphasize. In the Judaic religion there is a small stream of rebels, revolutionaries - they are called Hassids. They are not accepted by the orthodoxy as authentic, because they go against anything in orthodoxy, in a tradition which does not appeal to the human heart, to reason, to sensitivity, to consciousness. They have written their own story.

Their story is that there lived a man - a Hassid - he used to live six months in Gomorrah and six months in Sodom. He approached God and he said to him, "Have you taken into account the possibility that there may be one hundred absolutely natural, wise people in these two vast cities?

Are you going to destroy them also, because others are perverted? Then it will be great injustice, pure injustice and it will be a condemnation to you. So you reconsider!"

God had not thought of the possibility. Certainly in those two big cities, almost like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there must be one hundred intelligent, natural, alert people. They will also be destroyed, and this will not be in tune with God's divineness, it will be simply ugly.

So God said, "If you can prove that there are a hundred natural people, I will not destroy those two cities."

The Hassid said, "And if there are only fifty, are you going to destroy?"

God was caught by the mystic Hassid. He said, "Even if you can prove fifty..."

And the mystic said, "If there are only twenty-five? What does it matter? Does the number matter to you or the quality? - quantity or quality?"

God said, "Certainly the quality."

And the Hassid said, "If it is the quality then to tell you the truth, I am the only man who is not perverted, who is living a natural, blissful life. But I live six months in Gomorrah and six months in Sodom. Are you going to destroy those cities?"

God had never come across such a clever person. From a hundred he had brought him down to one.

Only a Jew can do that! They know how to bargain - and he bargained. In the Jewish version of the story God destroyed those cities, but not in the Hassidic version. The cities were saved, because God could not destroy even a single person of quality, a single person of wisdom, just because the whole city had become perverted.

I am telling you this, Nayana, so that you need not be terrified. You have to be only alert. I will read your question:

"The other morning discourse left me feeling terrified and desperate." There is no need to feel desperate and there is no need to feel terrified. If one Hassid can persuade existence to protect two cities, we have thousands of Hassids with us. Every sannyasin is a Hassid. Existence cannot allow a few idiots like Ronald Reagan to destroy this world.

But that does not mean that you have to remain just silent. You have to create a great atmosphere of love around yourself which will be a protection; you have to learn to dance and to sing. Let these politicians know that this earth is still full of beautiful people - so many songs and so much music and so much creativity and so many people meditating. They are bound to have a second thought.

On our part, we don't need bigger nuclear weapons to stop the war - that's the problem. We need something totally different. Love will provide the energy, meditation will provide you with tremendous strength. And you will not feel so insignificant, you will feel dignified and significant, because your love, your meditation, your blissfulness is going to save the world.

And don't be worried that you are helpless to do anything. The idea of helplessness has arisen because you have never been told what your resources are. You have never looked into your resources - your love, your silence, your peace, your compassion, your joy. You have never looked into all this inexhaustible potentiality of your being. And if thousands of people blossom in love, music and dance, and the whole earth becomes a celebration, then any Ronald Reagan is not going to destroy this world. He will feel helpless; he will feel guilty to destroy such beautiful people and such a beautiful planet.

You ask me, "The only thing I can see to do is to be here with you as much as possible, nourishing my consciousness and supporting your vision. Is there anything more that can be done?"

It is enough. More is not needed; more will keep you unnecessarily worried. And worry is like a rocking-chair - it keeps you going but gets you nowhere! There is no need to worry and there is no need to feel desperate, helpless. A few idiots have prepared death for the planet; there are millions of intelligent people who can prevent it just by their love, by their joy, by their beauty, by their ecstasy.

These are far more powerful experiences, because atomic energy, or nuclear energy, is part of the material world. It is the explosion of the atom, the lowest, smallest particle of matter.

We have not understood yet that nature has an absolute balance. If a small atom exploding can destroy... Have you ever thought about a living atom of your being and its explosion? In other words, we have been calling it enlightenment. It is nothing but an explosion of your being into light. And then suddenly you have a far higher and superior power. It need not fight with the lower, its very presence will make the lower impotent.

It has not been tried on a vast scale, only once in a while. But those rare instances are certainly a proof that if tried, every human being can become an explosion of consciousness - which is a far superior energy - and make all these nuclear weapons and the people who hold them utterly impotent and guilty.

A few instances will help you. They look non-factual because they are rare, because not many people have tried them.

One follower of Gautam Buddha, Devadatta - his own cousin-brother - was naturally jealous of the immense glory and impressiveness, and the impact of Gautam Buddha on people. Whoever came to him never returned the same. Something changed in his very being. Buddha had sown a seed; the man would return at the right time, when the first clouds started raining.

But this was invisible to the blind Devadatta - not physically blind, but spiritually blind. He could not understand what the matter was. He was as beautiful as Gautam Buddha - his own cousin-brother - as educated, as cultured in the arts of those days. There was no question that Gautam Buddha was superior and he was not, because he could not see the superior aroma that surrounded Gautam Buddha.

Finally he asked him, "I would like to be declared your successor."

Buddha said, "Whoever is capable of succeeding me will succeed me, I am not going to declare him.

And anyway I am still alive, just in the middle of my life. And this is not my way to choose! Who am I to choose a successor? Existence itself will choose."

Devadatta became so hurt that he left the commune and made many attempts on the life of Gautam Buddha. Those attempts look fictional, because we don't know the power of love and we don't know the power of awareness, and we don't know the beauty of ecstasy and its tremendous power of protection.

Buddha used to meditate on a small rock at the bottom of a vast mountain. Devadatta tried to roll a big rock from the mountain in the direction of Gautam Buddha, so that that rock killed him completely and nobody would be blamed, nobody would even think that somebody had killed him.

The rock came rushing down the mountain and everybody who was present was surprised, could not believe that it could happen: just two feet away from Buddha the rock stopped, changed its route, and moved away from him. Then it went on falling. It was very strange behavior of the rock; one would never think that a rock would do that. Even Devadatta was puzzled.

Devadatta himself was a king of a small kingdom, and he had a very mad elephant. The mad elephant was always kept in chains in the prison because he used to kill people. Devadatta saw another possibility. The elephant was brought near Gautam Buddha and released. He rushed towards Gautam Buddha, the way he would have rushed to anybody else. But as he reached near, he suddenly stopped, and with tears in his eyes he bowed down to Gautam Buddha and touched his feet with his head.

Nobody could believe that an insane elephant... how is he making a distinction? But blind people are blind people! Devadatta could not see what the rock could see, what the mad elephant could see - a subtle, invisible aura of love.

When, a few years ago, a man threw a knife at me in the morning meeting... And it seems it was an absolute conspiracy, because just before the meeting, fifteen minutes before, the police informed the office, "Today there is a danger; a man is going to throw a knife at Shree Rajneesh. So twenty police officers should be allowed in."

Now, this is stupid. If they knew that a certain man was going to commit a crime, they should have arrested him. Rather than that, they informed the office. As the story went on it became clear that it was absolutely a conspiracy. Those twenty police officers with loaded guns surrounded that man.

The sannyasins thought that perhaps they were for our protection - that was wrong. They were for the protection of the man who was going to throw the knife. They were afraid that ten thousand sannyasins would kill that man if anything happened.

And that man shouted - which is on record - "Shree Rajneesh, you are against Hinduism and we cannot tolerate your existence anymore." And he threw the knife at me. Because he was shouting I stopped and listened to him, what he was saying. It is on tape. He threw the knife from just fifteen feet away and it was strange, that the knife fell away from me - eight feet away. Not only did it not touch me, it did not even touch anyone in the crowded Buddha Hall; nobody was touched by the knife.

And then the police said, "It is a police case. We will arrest this man and bring him to the court."

This was all strategy. You can see how politicians work - cunningly, inhumanely. They prevented us from putting a case against the man. They said, "There is no need. Ten thousand witnesses, his words are recorded, even the sound of the falling knife is recorded, and twenty police officers of high rank are witnesses - you need not be worried. It is going to be a police case. We will take him and produce him in the court."

They took him away, presented him before the court, and the court released him, saying, "Such a thing has not happened at all." And because we had not put any case against him, then it was too late. The police managed it in such a way that they did not insist that the case happened.

But I have been thinking about it: in such a crowded place even if a blind man throws a knife it is going to hit somebody. The knife behaved exactly like the rock and the elephant. It was a police conspiracy and you can see the justice. When twenty police officers are present, when ten thousand people are ready to be witnesses; the knife is there, his shout is recorded, the sound of the knife falling on the floor is recorded....

And what was the judge's reason to reject the case? The reason was, "If it was an attempt on Shree Rajneesh's life then why have they not brought the case? Why have they not reported the case to the police? And secondly, if a man was trying to murder Shree Rajneesh, those ten thousand sannyasins would not have let him go so easily." And we had not done anything because the police had prevented us, saying, "There is no need."

Still, one of the most important criminal advocates of the supreme court of India, Ram Jethmalani was there - we had asked him to be present. He wanted to say something; the judge said, "You cannot speak, it is not your case." And certainly it was not our case. But I have seen things which make me certain that what appears to be a miracle is not a miracle. I am absolutely certain that I was poisoned in Oklahoma with a certain metallic poison, thallium, but it has not been able to kill me.

They put a bomb under my chair in the jail in Portland while I was at the court; they were expecting me to come any moment. I came, and the man there indicated to me to sit on a particular chair.

That was also strange, because there were many chairs, I could have sat on any chair. And he immediately locked the door from outside and said, "I will be coming within fifteen minutes." I had no idea that I was sitting on a bomb! But something went wrong; the bomb did not explode.

If millions of people are full of love and meditation there is no need to feel desperate or helpless.

You are given by nature tremendous power which can nullify any nuclear weapons.

And that's what I'm trying to do: to prepare you to love, unconditionally; to prepare you for friendliness even with strangers; to prepare you to drop your organized religions, because they create conflict; to drop even belonging to your nations. Formally you will have to carry their passport, but this is just a formality. Deep in your being you should not be a Hindu and you should not be an Indian, you should not be a German and you should not be a Christian.

If this wave spreads - and I have every hope that it is going to spread - then you can forget all about the third world war; the second was the last. The third is possible only if there is not enough love and meditative energy to prevent it.

Question 2:

Dipak, if your mind is silent and if you are feeling in deep synchronicity with existence, and with a great love for the beauty of this planet, then the door you are standing before is neither of death nor of insanity nor of God, because God died long ago. It is the door of your own inner being, of your own inner consciousness.

Don't stand before the door, enter in and you will find yourself. There is no greater joy in the world than to find yourself. It brings such a serenity, such a settlement with everything. It simply puts you in such a harmony with nature, with existence, that life becomes a moment-to-moment ecstasy.

You need not feel alone, insecure, scared. It is natural to feel that way because you are standing before the door and you don't know who is inside - God, death or insanity. I say to you on my authority that there is no God and there is no death and there is no insanity, but an eternal rejoicing of life, love, celebration.

Just enter through the door.

Don't go on standing there, because the fear is that feeling alone, insecure and scared you can escape from the door. And then it may take lives for you to find it again - and with the same problem.

Be courageous and enter through the door, and you have entered the most sacred place, the most sacred that exists.

Question 3:

My God! Prem Sushil, you are asking very difficult things of me. I don't know how to give a wink; I have never given a wink to anybody. And to do it for the first time will be very difficult. I know how to use both eyes together, but a wink means one eye has to remain open.

Once in a while Nirvano puts some drops into my eyes, if I have mistakenly put some shampoo or some soap in it and made the eye red. You can see, this eye today is a little red. She puts in the drops, but her problem is that either I can open both eyes or I can keep both eyes closed. So she keeps one eye closed with one hand, and opens the other eye forcibly - just inexperience.

I cannot hope to succeed to give you a wink, and I never do anything in which there is a little suspicion of failure. I will start trying in my room alone. When I am an expert I will give you a wink.

As far as the toe is concerned, it is so lazy that even if I want to move it, it will not move. But I will make every effort to satisfy you.

But you seem to be a strange person, Sushil, to ask me for such gestures. Do you want me to look funny? But I can do that, because I'm not concerned at all with the world, what they think. You will just have to give me a little time for practicing.

I have never moved my toe. It simply remains always enlightened, unmoving! Now to persuade it to come down from enlightenment is going to be very difficult, but I will make every effort to persuade it: "Just once in a while taking a holiday from enlightenment is not a sin! And you are not committing any sin, just moving..."

Of course the problem with the wink is more difficult: whom to give it to? Because anybody who gets it will become enlightened. And with all you people, I love you so much that I can not choose somebody, to whom to give the wink. So I will have to figure it out. It is a very difficult job.

Everybody knows how to wink, because they have been doing it all the time; it is a language. The toe is more spiritual than the eye, because I don't think anybody takes any offense if you move your toe. But if you wink, particularly at a woman - and here homosexuals are not respected... So I will have to find a woman who does not get disturbed by the wink. It is a very complicated question.

Sign on a bookstore: Going out of business - words failed us!

That is the beauty of the gesture, it never fails. Although nobody teaches it, it simply is understood naturally.

"The world today does not make sense" - it is a statement of Picasso - "so why should I paint pictures that do?"

Now, these are absurd gestures: winking an eye, whistling behind a woman. And the toe, Sushil, is absolutely your own invention. I have never heard that to attract a woman you have to move your toe. Perhaps it is to distract her - seeing that the man is mad... Instead of winking his eye he is moving his toe!

I am very inexperienced in such great affairs. But I promise you, I will try with the trees, I will try with the rocks, because they will not feel offended. And they will not fall in love with me either. Once I am satisfied, then I will give you a wink - not to anybody in particular. That is my way.

Nirvano was asking me, "Do you see people?" Even when I am looking at you I am not seeing you.

It is so tiring a job. You cannot expect of me such a thing! I love you, but I don't know you. I know only very few people who came in the very beginning and stayed with me for all these fifteen years.

But others, who have come afterwards, have the same share of love.

But when I am speaking, I am just speaking to the walls. I love Bodhidharma for that particular gesture. For nine years, he was sitting facing the wall. His audience was sitting behind him and he would speak to the wall. Emperor Wu asked him, "What strange kind of thing is happening here? I have never seen a speaker speaking to the wall, and the audience sitting behind listening to it."

The answer of Bodhidharma was, "It doesn't matter. Even if I face them, I am facing a wall. But that wall is a little disturbing - somebody moves, somebody changes his posture. That distracts me. So I decided on a new method: I speak to the wall. They can go on changing their postures, coming and going, whatever they want to do. Whether they are listening or not, I am not concerned. And it is strange, that since I have started speaking to the wall there is utter silence behind me, because everybody wants to get what I am saying. Nobody is moving."

So I will have to find a way how to wink. Perhaps I can wink at the wall. And the toe is more difficult, because it is absolutely new. In the whole history of man, nobody has moved his toe as a gesture - gesture for what?

There is one incident in Gautam Buddha's life... A great king, Prasenjita, had come to listen to him.

Of course, being a great king, he was sitting in front. Buddha suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence and said to Prasenjita, "Why are you moving your toe?" When he asked this, the movement stopped and Prasenjita said, "I don't know, it just happened."

Buddha said, "Your whole life is just like that. It is just happening - accidentally. You are not conscious."

But except that incident, I have never come across any incident where the toe is even mentioned.

But for your satisfaction I will practice. By the way, Sushil, are you a student of psychology? Because only psychologists ask absurd questions.

In America in the nineteen seventies, twice as many psychiatrists committed suicide as mental hospital patients, each year. The number has grown since the seventies - it is now 1988 - now four times as many psychiatrists are committing suicide as people from any other profession. Naturally, if you are concerned with absurd things... Eyes are not meant to wink, and toes are not meant to be moved. When you do such things you disturb the inner ecology of your body.

But once in a lifetime it won't hurt me. Just how long it will take for me to practice, that I cannot say.

You will have to learn patience. And if in your patience some understanding arises and you withdraw your question I will be immensely happy. That patience, absolute patience, may turn out to be a new birth to you. You may be reborn.

There is only one problem with going through a second childhood: this time you can't blame your parents.

Just two jokes, not related to your question, but certainly related to you....

Paddy lurches out of the pub and bumps straight into Father Murphy, the village priest.

"Patrick," says the priest, "I am so sorry to see you come out of such a place as that!"

"Well, then," says Paddy, turning around, "I will go right back."

Uncle Albert is staying for the weekend, and little Ernie is asking him all sorts of questions.

"Uncle Albert," he asks, "why are some men bald on the front of their head?"

"Well," replies Uncle Albert, "these men are the great thinkers."

"And what about the men that are bald on the back of their head?" asks little Ernie.

"These men," explains Uncle Albert, "are the great fuckers."

"So what does it mean," continues little Ernie, "when they are bald all over?"

"That's obvious," replies Uncle Albert, "these men think they are great fuckers."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.