What's in a name?

Maneesha, name and form are the two most important things to be understood, because we live in the world of name and form. Both are illusory, both are invented. Both are mind-made, man- manufactured. Reality has no name and no form. If this is understood, then this small Zen dialogue will not be difficult to understand.

It is very extraordinary of Kyozan to ask Sansho's name. Both are enlightened, awakened people. It is extraordinary, because to ask the name is to ask about the illusory and the non-essential.

To ask about the name is to ask about the invented, not the existent.

You were born without a name.

Do you have a name?

The name is just given to you - you never had any name. It is just a label, you can change it any moment you want. It has no substantiality in it; hence a great master like Kyozan, asking another master of the same category, Sansho, his name, is a very extraordinary dialogue.

KYOZAN ASKS SANSHO, "WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

Apparently in this dialogue you will not be able to find any great philosophy. Because our whole education is intellectual, is based on name and form, we take it for granted that everybody has a name.

Kyozan's asking the name signifies in the first place, "Are you awakened yet or still asleep in the world of name and form? Have you realized yet that you are nameless, anonymous? Have you found it, that you are no one in particular?" A very simple question, yet it contains immense significance - but only for those who can understand the language of Zen. For others it is very ordinary. Every day you ask people, "What is your name?"

Sansho could have said, "My name is Sansho"; then it would not have been a great dialogue. But Sansho said, "My name? - my name is Ejaku!"

Rather than denying, saying that "I have no name"... because even to say that "I have no name" is to accept the reality of I, the namelessness of I. But he could not be caught in the net Kyozan has thrown.

This is Zen play. When two masters meet, they ask questions, they answer questions, they provoke each other's lion's roar.

Sansho said, "My name is Ejaku."

Ejaku is not his name; Ejaku is Kyozan's name. Before he became enlightened, before he was initiated, his name used to be Ejaku. His master after initiation gave him the name Kyozan.

Sansho did a good play; he said, "My name is Ejaku."

A Zen dialogue has to be spontaneous, outrageous, sudden, unexpected. Sansho was saying something which Kyozan would not have expected at all. He must have forgotten his own name long ago. Many years before when he was initiated, that was his name given by his parents. Hearing Sansho say, "My name is Ejaku," Kyozan said, "Ejaku? Ejaku is my name!"

SANSHO SAID, "MY NAME IS ENEN!"

KYOZAN LAUGHED HEARTILY, because Enen was also Kyozan's name. That was his name in his childhood, a nickname. Ejaku was his official name, Enen was the nickname everybody used in the family, with the friends.

Kyozan laughed heartily because he could see the great perception and insight of Sansho. Sansho has not answered the question about himself at all. Rather than being straight and saying, "My name is Sansho"... It would have been wrong.

No name is true. All names are fictitious.

It happened that during a certain year a few years ago, America celebrated Lincoln's birthday on a vast scale. Perhaps a certain time had passed, a hundred years or two hundred years. In this celebration one man was chosen to play the part of Abraham Lincoln. From all over America many people applied who looked a little bit like Lincoln, but one man was simply amazing. Even Lincoln would have been in a difficulty if he had met this fellow. He was more Lincoln than Lincoln himself.

He was chosen.

It was a one-year-long celebration and the man had to go with this drama party around the country, in all the great cities, to play the part of Abraham Lincoln. He learned the part so well... he looked absolutely like Lincoln, but that was not enough. Lincoln had a little stutter, once in a while he stuttered. The man learned how to stutter. It is very difficult to learn. It is difficult if you stutter to learn not to stutter, but to learn to stutter when you don't stutter is even more difficult! But he did well.

One of Lincoln's legs was a little longer than the other, so he limped. And this fellow managed through massage and bodywork and traction to lengthen one leg. He finally managed, and he started limping like Lenin...

(LAUGHTER AT THE SUDDEN CHANGE OF NAME PROVOKES A TWINKLE OF AN EXPLANATION.)

I forgot, because Lenin also had one leg long and one leg short. That was the only similarity between these two great...

For one year the man played the part every day and when the year ended, the celebration came to a finish, he went home limping, stuttering - everybody thought that he was joking - in the dress which Abraham Lincoln used to wear a hundred years before. One hour passed, two hours passed; then the family said, "Now it is enough, get out of this dress and be yourself!"

He said, "I am myself, I am Abraham Lincoln."

They said, "Don't carry the joke too far."

He said, "I am not joking. Who told you I am joking?"

The family was at a loss. They tried to convince him.

He said, "You can see my leg, you can see my language, you can see my dress; it is self-evident that I am Abraham Lincoln. Why are you bothering me? You are not losing anything!"

They said, "We are not losing anything, but it looks crazy - you were just an actor, have you forgotten?"

He said, "What? Who told you I was an actor? I have been president of America!"

Then they thought that he had gone cuckoo. They took him to the psychoanalyst. When the psychoanalyst saw Abraham Lincoln entering into his office, he stood up. He was so much Abraham Lincoln that even the psychoanalyst forgot that Lincoln has been shot dead a hundred years before!

Then he realized...

The man's family came and said, "He has been acting; now it has got into his mind that he IS Abraham Lincoln, and we have been trying in every possible way but he budges not a single inch.

So we have brought him to you."

The psychoanalyst tried, but it was very difficult. What can you do? The man says, "This is strange.

I am Abraham Lincoln; why are you all after me? Everybody has a name, I have a name, my name is Abraham Lincoln. What is wrong in it? I limp, I stutter, I use the language that was used a hundred years ago... you can measure my height. For one year continuously I have been moving around the country. Nobody has objected."

Just a few years before, scientists had come up with a lie-detector mechanism, to be used in the courts. It is a small mechanism; it is hidden under the chair. The criminal sits on the chair, the magistrate asks him questions and the lie detector which is hidden in the chair goes on making a graph, just like a cardiogram. As long as the person is speaking truthfully, the cardiogram makes a very simple, even and harmonious graph. The moment he lies, the graph goes off the track.

The psychoanalyst thought that it would be good to try that graph on this fellow; he had the machine in his office. First, things are asked about which you cannot lie, so that the graph can become adjusted. For example, "What time is it on the clock on the wall?" Naturally, how can you lie? - everybody can see what time it is.

The psychoanalyst asked, "How many fingers do you see on my hand?" Naturally you cannot lie.

Simple questions in which it is impossible to lie, so the graph can become harmonious, and then suddenly he asked, "What do you think, is it true that you are Abraham Lincoln?"

And he said, "Of course." And the graph went on without any change. Even the psychoanalyst could not believe his eyes that this man has not only become mentally identified with Abraham Lincoln, it has even reached to his heartbeats. He was dragged from this analyst to that analyst. Finally he became tired. He said, "This is stupid, why should I be unnecessarily harassed?"

But the whole village became interested. Everybody was saying to him, "You are not Abraham Lincoln. Forget all about it. That was just acting."

Somebody reported to the court that this man was deceiving. He was brought into the court. Seeing the situation... he was getting tired. He was put on that lie-detector mechanism again, and when it was asked, "Who are you?" he said, "I am not Abraham Lincoln, I am tired of it." But the graph said, "No, he IS." The graph did not accept his denial of being Abraham Lincoln because he was only denying intellectually. Deep down he knew who he was. The graph picks up the very heartbeat, your innermost feeling, not what you say but what you feel.

We have all become names, but we were born nameless and we will die nameless. But such is the deceptive way of the world that you will live with a name and even when you die, people will put the name on your grave. There was no such name ever as a reality; it was a fiction. A nameless reality existed, a nameless reality changed its form, but the grave will carry for years, as long as it remains, a name which represents nobody.

Kyozan asking Sansho, "WHAT IS YOUR NAME?" is provoking him. If he says, "Sansho," then he has not realized the nameless reality. If he says, "I am not Sansho," then the question arises, "Who are you? - You must be somebody."

Even in denying he is accepting somebodiness; there must be some other name: "Just tell it exactly - what is your name?"

But Sansho was not to be caught by Kyozan's game. He was of the same perceptivity and clarity; he reversed the whole process. He said, "My name? My name is Ejaku."

He diverted the whole thing, he got out of the net completely. Kyozan said, "Ejaku? Ejaku is my name!"

Sansho said, "Perhaps, then my name is Enen!"

Seeing the situation, that it is difficult to get hold of this man in a wrong statement...

Both the statements were wrong; according to anybody both the statements are wrong. If he had said "Sansho," in your eyes that statement would have been right. But in Zen things are different; it is a totally different atmosphere of seeing things.

Kyozan, feeling that he cannot be caught - he is throwing the net back on him - laughed heartily.

This laughter accepted that Sansho is as enlightened as Kyozan. Nothing was said, but that laughter is the seal of recognition.

Setcho remarks:

Setcho is making a beautiful statement about the dialogue: What great fellows, provoking each other to fall into a state of ignorance or to make a statement that is not right. And when it could not happen, then there was just laughter. And laughter leaves no trace behind.

THE LAUGHTER ENDS, TRACELESS THEY GO.

Just like laughter we come and just like laughter we go.

Question 1:

Maneesha is asking,

The whole world, the whole world that you know. But it is all dream stuff. If you remain confined to names, you will never know the reality. Existence is nameless. All names are given by us.

There was one man in India...

There were only two persons who were called Mahatma: one was Mahatma Gandhi, another was Mahatma Bhagwandin. I never agreed with Mahatma Gandhi, but with Mahatma Bhagwandin I had a great friendship. He was very old and I was so young, but we both felt some synchronicity. So whenever Mahatma Bhagwandin used to come to my city, he used to stay in our house. He was a great scholar and immensely informed. I have never come across anybody who is so informed about so much rubbish. You ask him anything and he will function almost like the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA.

I used to go for a morning walk with him, and he would tell me about every tree: its name, its Greek name, its Latin name, its ayurvedic qualities, its medicinal purposes, its age... The first time

I tolerated it; the next day when he started again I said, "Please! Because of your knowledge you cannot enjoy the walk. These beautiful trees become covered with Latin words, Greek words, Sanskrit roots, and I am not interested to know. It is enough for me that the tree is dancing in the wind, and I can hear the song and the joy. And I certainly can say that you cannot hear, you are deaf. You are a great encyclopedia, but you are not a conscious human being."

He was surprised, shocked. For half an hour he remained silent; and then he started again. As he came across a tree he said, "Look, this is the only tree that exhales oxygen in the night and inhales oxygen in the day."

I said, "My God, I have told you that I am not interested. It is enough for me that the tree is green, full of flowers and looking so beautiful in the morning sun... the dewdrops are still on the leaves.

You destroy the whole beauty, you don't have any aesthetic sense! And you are an old man - you are my grandfather's friend, you are not my friend; the distance of age between me and you is half a century as far as years are concerned. But if you think of consciousness, the difference between me and you is many, many centuries!"

He said, "You are strange; I wanted to make you more informed. In life one needs knowledge, information about everything."

I said, "Who is going into that life where knowledge is a commodity, where knowledge is sold, purchased? Who is going? My interest is not in the world of names. My interest is in the hidden splendor which you are completely forgetting because of your knowledge. You are covered with your knowledge - so thick that you cannot see the light, the joy of anything. Your knowledge becomes a China Wall."

I thought he must be angry, but on the contrary - he was a very sincere man - he reported to my grandfather, "Although he has insulted me again and again on my morning walk I am not angry. I am simply happy that his interest is not in the names but in the nameless. In seventy years nobody has told me" - and he was respected all over India as a great saint - "nobody has told me, 'You are wasting your life in accumulating knowledge.' This child has made me aware that I have wasted seventy years. If I live a little longer I will start learning again so that I can have some acquaintance with the nameless, with the formless, with that which is."

It happened by chance, that the day he died I was present. He died in Nagpur; I was passing from Chanda to Jabalpur. Nagpur was just in the middle, so I asked the driver to take me to Mahatma Bhagwandin, "just for half an hour and you can take a rest."

I could not believe it when I saw him. He had become an absolute skeleton. I had not seen him for almost five years.

He was dying but his eyes were showing a tremendous light. He had become only eyes; everything else had become dead, just a skeleton.

Looking at me he said, "It cannot be coincidence that you have come at the right time. I was waiting, because I wanted to thank you before I leave the body. These years have been difficult in dropping knowledge, information, and finding that which is hidden behind names. But you have put me on

the right track, and now I can say all names are false, and all knowledge may be useful but is not existential, is not true. I am dying with absolute peace, the silence which you have been talking about again and again."

I had to delay because it seemed that he was going to die within a few minutes, or maybe a few hours at the most. Within five or six hours he died, but he died with such peace, with such joy. His face was so blissful, although his whole body was suffering from many diseases. But he had already got disentangled from the body; he had found himself.

You are asking me, Maneesha, "What is in a name?"

Nothing, it is just a utilitarian labeling; otherwise, it would be difficult to find where Maneesha is. If I ask somebody, "Where is..., that isness, that reality?" It will be difficult. It is absolutely useful to have a name. The problem arises when you become the name and forget yourself. If you remember that you are not the name, if you remember that you are not the form, the body, if you remember only that you are a pure consciousness, then there is no harm. Use the body, it is a beautiful mechanism; use the name, it has its own purpose; otherwise the post offices will be in difficulty, all the letters are coming to nameless persons. You will be in difficulty finding your own home, finding your own wife in a crowd, where everybody is, but nobody has any name. You may shout, "Hey!" but that is applicable to everybody.

Remember: what is utilitarian is not necessarily existential and what is existential is not necessarily utilitarian.

One of my professors used to tell me again and again, "What will you do by finding the truth? Find something else - money, power, prestige, respectability. Find something else. What will you do with truth?"

I said, "You are right; truth has no utility. It will not make you more respectable; on the contrary, your truth may take you to the cross. It may make you more condemned. Wherever you are, people will avoid you: 'This man has truth, avoid!'"

Truth is a very contagious disease. People have their lies, comfortable lies, and when they come to encounter a man of truth all their lies start falling down. And those lies are their whole life, their earning, their success, their money, their power.

The man of truth is avoided, and if he is stubborn then he has to suffer the fate of Socrates: the society poisoned him - or he has to suffer the fate of Jesus: the society crucified him. In India we have not crucified Gautam Buddha because we know better. It is an ancient land, the most ancient land in the world. It has learned that crucifying does not help; on the contrary, it is creating a trouble.

By crucifying Jesus, Christianity was created. If they had contained themselves and tolerated - he was not doing anything - if they had allowed him to talk, there would have been no Christianity. But the crucifixion created Christianity; the crucifixion became the sanctification of the truth of Jesus.

India knows better. It crucifies in a very sophisticated way: it starts worshipping. It says to Gautam Buddha, "You are God, we will worship you. We will not follow you because we are ordinary human beings. You come as an incarnation of God. We are not of the same category so it is good for you

to say great things. We will hear and we will bring coconuts to offer you. We will make your statue, we will raise temples for you."

Nobody thinks that this is another kind of crucifixion. A very sophisticated crucifixion, far more successful... because Hindus accepted Gautam Buddha as a reincarnation of God, but Buddhism disappeared from India. The same brahmins, the same Hindus against whom Gautam Buddha was fighting ... fighting against their VEDAS, their UPANISHADS, fighting against their whole ritual... rather than becoming enemies of Buddha, the same brahmins - their sophistication is worth understanding - declared: "He is an incarnation of God. What he is saying, don't contradict. Worship him, but don't follow him because whoever is going to follow him will fall into hell."

Hindu scriptures say that Gautam Buddha is an incarnation of God. He is here just to test your trust in Hinduism. Such cunningness, such sophisticated...

In SHIVPURAN, one of the Hindu scriptures, the story is that God created the world, created heaven, created hell, made the Devil to take care of hell. But millions of years passed and nobody came to hell. Because people were virtuous, they were all going to heaven. The trains going towards hell were all going empty. Finally, the Devil became very irritated and he went to God and said, "You can appoint anybody else as governor-general, I am perfectly disappointed in you. For what have you made me take care of hell? Nobody comes there. I am sitting alone, not even a single soul to chitchat with!"

God said, "Don't be worried. You go back and I am coming into the world as Gautam Buddha to corrupt people's minds, so that they can start falling into hell."

As Buddha died Buddhism disappeared, because who is going to fall into hell? They will worship Gautam Buddha but they will not follow him. They will make his temples and his statues - and there are more statues of him than of any other man in the whole world.

In Arabic even the name of Buddha has become synonymous with statue, buth. 'Buth' is a deformation of 'Buddha'; 'buth' means statue. There are so many statues of Gautam Buddha all over the world... In China there are temples with thousands of statues of Buddha. One temple has ten thousand statues - the whole mountain has been cut into statues.

Hindus proved really cunning. The Jews were simple in the sense that they crucified Jesus and unnecessarily created a calamity for the whole of humanity. Now half of the world is Christian and the Jews are responsible for it because they crucified an innocent young man, just out of his mind, talking great things, knowing nothing. Nobody in the world has said... in all these four million years humanity has been in existence, nobody has dared to declare, "I am a son of God," or even a faraway cousin. Nobody has even seen God himself. People are searching for God, and Jesus is declaring, "I am the only begotten son. Forget about God, I will take you into the kingdom of God, my father's kingdom."

Even though these were stupid and nonsense statements, they don't deserve crucifixion. You could have laughed, you could have enjoyed, you could have entertained yourself: "Look at this fellow, he is the only begotten son of God. Sitting on his donkey, followed by a few fools..." But there was no need to crucify. I cannot conceive that to crucify this fellow can be justified in any way. He may be

wrong, but that does not mean that if somebody is wrong it makes two plus two equal to five. It does not mean that you have to crucify him.

You have to correct him. If somebody says, "I am the only begotten son of God," you have to take care of him, take him to a psychiatrist, to a hospital, bring him to his senses. Crucifixion is not the right thing to do with such a fellow, because that crucifixion will create ripples which you will not be able to control.

India has seen many, many people of far greater and stranger philosophies, declaring themselves as incarnations of God. But India has said, "Perhaps - no harm, enjoy the idea!" But nobody has been crucified.

Just those who believe only in language and don't see the reality behind it, they make the name too important; otherwise a name has no importance.

Second question:

Question 2:

Maneesha says,

First I have to correct you. I had told you - but I am a man who forgets things, my memory is not good - so I had told you that Niskriya will hit you. Whether you are right or wrong does not matter because in the world of pure existence nothing is right and nothing is wrong, everything simply is.

So I had said it, but I forgot actually to order Master Niskriya to hit you. So what has not happened yesterday, will happen today. What does it matter?

Master Niskriya!

(NISKRIYA WANTS TO TAKE HIS FEATHER, BUT...)

No! Not your peacock feather, Maneesha needs a real hit. Stand up! And where is your staff?

(NISKRIYA, EMBARRASSED, SHOWS HIS EMPTY HANDS.)

Now find out some way to hit her.

(HE TAKES MANEESHA'S MICROPHONE AND TAPS HER HEAD WITH IT.)

Right.

It is true, Maneesha, right and wrong are our ways of religion, morality, they are our own inventions; otherwise, existence knows no distinction between right and wrong. Right and wrong are our mind distinctions. And because of these distinctions humanity cannot become one and has to suffer wars, has to suffer unnecessary misery.

For example, someone who has been born into the religion of Jainas cannot accept Ramakrishna as a right man, because he goes on eating fish. In Bengal, the only food people use is rice and fish.

But to the morality of Jainism to eat fish, a living being, is immoral and wrong. Jainism cannot accept Mohammed or Jesus or Moses or Krishna for the simple reason that they are all non-vegetarians.

The whole world is non-vegetarian and in fact, even Jainas thinking that they are vegetarians is wrong. They are also non-vegetarians, because trees have life. When you cut a tree you kill a living being. Whatever you eat has come from something living, growing. It may be wheat... There is no distinction in existence between wheat and fish; both are living beings of different forms. In the whole world there is nobody who is really vegetarian. You cannot be, because the vegetable itself has life of its own.

Either you have to be hungry... but then too you are not vegetarian. Jainas are very angry with me, because I said in their conferences, "Even you are not vegetarian because everything is living. It may be cauliflower or cabbage, it may be fish... everything has life."

And they said, "If we don't eat and go on a fast...?"

When I said, "On a fast you are eating your own flesh. Where does your weight disappear to every day? On a fast you lose at least two pounds per day in the first seven days, then one pound per day.

Where is this flesh disappearing? You are eating it. Your body needs it, otherwise you cannot live.

It is your energy. The body needs a certain energy to move, to breathe, to walk, to talk. From where is that energy going to come?"

If you are a car then you can go to a gas station, but you are a man. We have not yet been able to find some petrol-type thing which is lifeless, so that you have a gas station and you just order how much gas, and a hole in your head... Even if I move my hand, I am using energy. That energy is coming from where? - from your food, from air, your breathing.

If a man goes on fasting, the healthiest man will die in ninety days - that is the healthiest man, which is very rare to find. You won't last that long. The healthiest man simply means one who has so much flesh accumulated that in an emergency he can go on using it without eating. That's why women become more fat than men. But not before marriage, after marriage. They have to become a little fatter - they don't have muscles, just pure flesh, very edible - because they are going to be mothers.

To be a mother means to feed a child. For nine months in your womb the child is supplied by the mother's flesh. So the mother is supporting herself and the child, and she needs some emergency reservoir. And even when a woman is not becoming a mother, the tendency of her body is to collect more flesh.

Man is more of a skeleton. The woman has less bones and more flesh; the man has more bones, less flesh. That's why women can fast very easily. For man it is more difficult. The woman has enough of a reservoir. She can feed a child for nine months, she can fast without difficulty, but she is also eating her own flesh. There is no way of being non-vegetarian.

But these concepts create difficulty. Jainas think they are the purest people in the world, because they are vegetarians. Brahmins think that the purest food is cow's milk. And milk is a formation of blood... That's why when you drink milk you immediately start gaining weight. It is really blood, but

according to Hindus it is the purest food, and those who kill cows to eat are wrong. But what are you doing? You are keeping the cows alive to eat. The difference is not much. Somebody is killing the cow to eat; somebody is keeping the cow alive to eat.

And in fact, except man no animal in the world drinks milk after a certain age. Milk is for very small children of any species, because the small child cannot chew anything hard. You will not find a bull drinking milk from his mother, but you will find a great saint, seventy years or eighty years old, drinking milk. This is violence, because that milk was for the cow's own calves, not for Hindu saints.

And more difficulty arises if you understand the chemistry. That cow's milk has a different chemistry from the woman's milk. Cow's milk has a different chemistry. Because it is going to be in the body of a bull it is more sexual. And to drink cow's milk and then try to be celibate...

You can see Hindu mahatmas, they look like bulls and pretend to be celibate. None of them is celibate, because celibacy by itself is impossible. It is as impossible as somebody saying, "I never urinate." He may not be urinating in public urinals, in public places; he may have his private ways, but in some way... if he is drinking water, then it has to come out of the body - unless he is Morarji Desai, who recycles it. Morarji Desai has the oldest urine in the world! And just as old wine is precious, he goes on drinking his own urine, the same urine again and again. It becomes more and more intoxicating. It would be better to drink somebody else's urine; at least it will be fresh!

Drinking one's own, continuously... it is so dirty. But you cannot do anything. In this country such people are thought to be great moralists. They need brain operations; something has gone cuckoo.

And Morarjibhai is angry with me, because I told him face-to-face, "You are the dirtiest person in the world. Everybody has fresh urine and you have eighty-year-old urine. Recycling... What kind of nonsense is this?"

But Hindus drink cow urine and it is thought to be very religious. Strange! They will not drink the bull's urine. And I have asked them, "When you call the cow your mother, then why don't you call the bull your father?" They were angry with me, and I was simply saying a simple thing, that if you make such a relationship that the cow is your mother, then the bull is certainly your father whether you accept it or not. It is true that the bull is not a very moral father, a very immoral fellow, but whatever is the case, once you accept the cow as your mother, you have accepted the bull as your father. And do you think this makes you religious, spiritual, or animal? All these distinctions in every country, in every religion, in every race are just man's projections, his own mind.

Just as your mind becomes silent, there is nothing right, nothing wrong. Everything simply is. Those distinctions of morality simply disappear.

Maneesha, as you say, "The relief at finding that right and wrong have no place here lasted until last night when I managed to label my being intellectual 'wrong', and the whole silly game started up again. How exquisite it must be to live in a world where there is no right and no wrong."

Don't think that there is some other world.

You can live in this world.

I have lived in this world and I don't have any idea of right and wrong. Yes, I have my likings and my dislikings, but that does not have any moral connotations to it. If I don't eat meat that is my question

of liking. If I don't drink wine that is a question of my liking. Those who drink, that is their liking. My liking does not make me superior to them. I am following my liking; they are following their liking.

We are both on the same ground.

There is no world somewhere else, where right and wrong does not exist.

It is your mind, here!

If you can drop your mind right and wrong disappear.

Then you simply live according to your natural likings, and you don't impose your likings on other people. That is a crime against humanity.

Just as you are free to enjoy your liking, everybody else is free to enjoy his liking, and to live his life in his own style.

Maneesha, there is no other world, but there is a possibility of having a different mind, the mind of a meditator. Then this very world is the lotus paradise.

Now a few very serious things...

Randy Musthaver picks up Polly, the prostitute, on the street and asks her, "How much?"

"Ten dollars," she replies, "unless you want it Spanish style, but then it is ten dollars extra."

Randy goes for the Spanish style, so they go up to Polly's room and have a great time.

When they are finished, Randy gets dressed and is heading for the door, when he stops and says, "Well, I really enjoyed that, but tell me, what was Spanish about it?"

"My God," says Polly, "I nearly forgot!"

She then stands up on the bed, raises one arm, snaps her fingers and shouts, "Ole!"

On a fullmoon evening, Count Dracula walks into a men's store and asks to see some ties.

When the salesgirl looks into his eyes, she becomes hypnotized. Dracula sinks his sharp teeth into her throat and takes a deep drink.

As she wakes up, the girl remembers nothing, and Count Dracula buys a silk tie and leaves the store.

The next night he is back.

"Would you like to try something different tonight?" asks the girl, innocently.

"No," chuckles the vampire, "I want something in exactly the same vein!"

Hymie Goldberg is on a business trip and finds himself having to use a paytoilet in a public building.

He is making himself comfortable, when he notices that the toilet paper has run out.

Seeing a pair of shoes in the next booth, he calls out, "Excuse me, friend, but do you have any toilet paper in there?"

"No," comes the reply, "I am afraid there is not any here either."

Hymie pauses for a moment. "Listen," he says, "do you happen to have a newspaper or a magazine with you?"

"Sorry," comes the reply, "I don't."

Hymie pauses again.

"Well," he says, "how about Ronald Reagan's postal stamp?"

Becky Goldberg comes home from shopping and is horrified to find Hymie in bed with a beautiful young girl. She is about to storm out of the house, when Hymie stops her.

"Before you leave," he says, "I want you to hear how all this came about. I saw this young girl, looking tired and worn out, so I brought her home and made her a sandwich.

"She was wearing worn-out sandals, so I gave her a pair of your shoes that you never wear, because they went out of fashion.

"She was cold, so I gave her the sweater I gave you for your birthday, that you never wear because the color does not suit you.

"Her jeans were also worn out, so I gave her a pair of yours, that were perfectly good until you gained a few pounds.

"Then as she was about to leave, she stopped and asked, 'Is there anything else your wife does not use any more?'"

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Now two minutes of silence.

Close your eyes.

Be absolutely still, frozen....

Now, relax.

Now, come back.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.