Taking the risk

Question 1:

THESE are the only two possibilities: either you surrender - and in that surrender you stop thinking about decisions, consequences; in your surrender you have surrendered the responsibility itself, and you are totally free... free to move without any worry, without any burden on your mind.... But that is difficult because of the ego. You cannot surrender totally. You would like to control your life on your own. It becomes hard for the ego.

The second possibility is that you take things in your own hands - do whatsoever you like to do.

Again the problem arises, because you don't have any awareness. You don't know what to do and what not to do. Then you are afraid of making a wrong decision. Then you are afraid of moving in a wrong direction. The ego is there, and with the ego, the shadow of the ego - the ignorance - is there. they both go together, or, they remain together. If you drop the ego, ignorance disappears. If you drop ignorance, ego disappears - they cannot exist separately.

So these are the two paths. Either you surrender - the ego has to be dropped; then by and by you will feel the shadow has disappeared on its own accord. Or, you have to become more aware, more alert, so that more light is within your being and ignorance disappears.

When the ignorance disappears, ego disappears automatically. Ego and ignorance are two aspects of the same coin. You can throw the coin in both the ways.

But one decision you have to take - either to drop the ego or to drop the ignorance. And if it is difficult to drop the ego, then it is going to be very difficult to drop the ignorance.

These are the two eternal paths - the path of will and the path of surrender. In surrender, the I is completely dropped. On the path of will, the I is purified, cleaned of all impurities, is made transparent. It becomes a light unto itself.

But one decision you have to make - either to follow the path of will or to follow the path of surrender.

The path of surrender is easier, because it can become a total jump in a single step. The journey of a thousand and one miles is complete in a single step. The path of will is gradual - you move inch by inch. But if you choose that, if you like that, there is nothing wrong in it. It is up to you to decide.

Of course, both are hard. And whatsoever you choose will appear more hard than the one that you have not chosen. But nothing can be done; one has to choose sooner or later. You have to commit your being to a certain path.

The only wrong that you can do is to remain indecisive. The only sin that you can commit with yourself is to remain indecisive and postpone.

Don't be indecisive. Decide. Even if sometimes you commit mistakes, nothing is wrong in them. By committing mistakes you will learn much. Nobody learns without committing mistakes. Even if you go astray, don't be afraid. Go with courage. Go alert. Sooner or later you will realize that you have gone astray. You can come back.

And whenever you come back after wandering, committing many mistakes, you will see that your consciousness has been enriched. If you simply sit in your home and never move because of the fear that something may go wrong, you may do something wrong; if you remain tethered to the place where you are, of course you will not commit any mistakes, but your life will be a life of unfulfillment.

You can avoid mistakes, but in avoiding mistakes you will be avoiding all those beautiful experiences that life can give to you. miS is an escape.

Be courageous. Have the courage to be.

There are many people, millions of people, who simply miss their life because of the fear that something may go wrong. And this is the only wrong, the only mistake. They go on hiding, they go on escaping from situations. Wherever they find a possibility of a wrong movement, they stop all movement. They never grow. They remain immature.

There is nothing wrong in committing mistakes. Just remember one thing: don't commit the same mistake again and again; that's enough. Each mistake brings a lesson. Each going astray is coming to the right path in a deep way.

I have heard one anecdote:

"Two jews were up against the wall, hands tied behind their backs, waiting to be shot. The officer in charge of the firing-squad came to them and asked curtly, 'Do you want a final cigarette?"

The first jew replied, 'Keep your cigarette, you murdering bum!"

Whereupon the second jew whispered anxiously, 'Quiet, Jack, quiet. Don't make trouble.""

When you are going to be shot, what difference does it make to create trouble or not to create trouble?

Death is approaching. Everybody is tied against the wall to be shot. Don't be afraid. Whether you are afraid or not makes no difference - death is approaching. Even if you don't do anything, death will come - it is already coming. The days are shortening every day. Your life is being cut every day.

You are being uprooted from life every day.

For what are you waiting? Do something. Be decisive.

I know it is human to tremble when a decision is to be taken. I can understand the helplessness, but nothing can be done about it. It is so. Whenever you take a decision, a trembling comes - one may be wrong. But still the decision has to be taken. One may be wrong - still the decision has to be taken, because how is one going to know whether the decision was going to be wrong or not? You have to take it to know it.

People come to me and they say they are wavering whether to take sannyas or not. I can understand wavering, I can understand an inner turmoil. I can understand that it is difficult to take a step in the dark, into the unknown.

But I tell them only one thing: you have lived up to now as a non-sannyasin... uncommitted you have moved, lived your life, and have never taken a decision which can become a radical transformation.

Try it this time. If nothing happens, you can always go back. Who can hinder you from going back?

But if something happens... just the possibility of something happening is worth the risk. Who knows?

And there is no other way to know beforehand. That is the cowardly mind - who wants everything guaranteed. They ask me, 'Will something happen certainly if I become a sannyasin?"

Who can say? How can it be made certain? It is not a thing that I can give to you. It is something which is always in the unknown. It can happen, it may not happen. It depends on a thousand and one things. But the possibility is there. It is not impossible - this much can be said. It has happened to me. This much can be said - it is not impossible. But nobody can make it a certainty, nobody can give you a guarantee.

The western mind particularly has become too afraid of committing. You love a woman, but you are afraid to commit. You love a man, but you are afraid to commit. You remain in indecisiveness.

You go on playing, but you never move in the deep waters of life, because then you are afraid you may be caught: it may become a bondage, it may become a chain around your being. You may be imprisoned.

That risk has to be taken. Whenever you move in anything deep, the possibility is there: you may become more free or you may become more imprisoned. But one who takes the risk always learns something out of it, always is enriched.

So decide. Either you take everything in your hands, or you leave everything to me. It cannot be fifty-fifty. You would like to leave a part to me and to keep part in your own hands - that is not going to work. That is not going to work at all.

I have a friend. He is very satisfied with his marriage, with his wife. I asked, 'How do you manage?"

He said, 'The day we got married we made a contract, we made an agreement: fifty-fifty - half the decisions I have to take, and half the wife has to take."

So I asked him, 'How did you divide?"

He said, 'All the great decisions I take, and all the small decisions she takes."

I was still not clear, so I asked again, 'Just enlighten me a little more."

He said, 'Decisions like what should happen in Vietnam, or who should now become the prime minister of China - such great things I decide. And to what school the child is to go, and what type of car we have to purchase, and in what type of house we have to live, and what food we have to eat - things, small things like this - my wife decides. Fifty-fifty it goes - and everything is perfectly good."

So if you make this type of agreement with me then it is okay. If great things you decide and small things you leave to me, then it is perfectly okay. Then you can decide whether the god exists as three or as one - I leave it to you. But how to meditate, I will decide... small things.

Question 2:

If I am myself, then I will jump off the plank and help the other person to survive. If I am you, then too I will jump off the plank and help the other person to survive. In both the cases I will do the same, but for different reasons.

If I am myself, then I know life is immortal, life is deathless. There is no problem for me. If I am you, then first let me tell an anecdote:

"A british diplomat was visiting the mountain hideout where Adolf Hitler, in those terrifying days of the late nineteen-thirties, was deliberately attempting to break western will by displaying how hopeless resistance was.

'What can the british do,' he demanded, 'against an army so devoted to me that they will go to their death at my nod? Do you see that soldier there? Soldier, jump out of the window!"

Without a moment's hesitation the soldier leaped out of the window to his death, leaving the british diplomat frozen in horror. Hitler smiled grimly. 'I will show you once more. Soldier, jump out of that window!' A second soldier jumped.

A third time Hitler ordered suicide, but this time the british diplomat could not sit there idly. He seized the third german soldier by the arm, even as he headed for the window, and cried, 'How can you abandon life so lightly!"

The soldier replied, 'You call this a life?' Then he broke away and jumped."

Whatsoever you call life is not a life at all. If I am you, I will jump. What I call life is eternal. If I am myself, then too I will jump - because there is going to be no death.

But the reasons will be absolutely different. Sometimes actions can be similar and reasons can be absolutely different. So never pay too much attention to the action. Always pay much more attention to the reason behind it.

Because a buddha may behave just like you, the action may be exactly the same, but it cannot be similar, because a buddha-consciousness is so different from you. The action will be only similar in appearance; deep down there must be a great difference - it has to be so.

Buddha also lives an ordinary life - eats, sleeps, feels thirsty. But the reasons are totally different.

When Buddha drinks the water, he is just quenching the thirst of the body. When you drink water, you are quenching your thirst.

When Buddha eats food, he is just helping the body to be alive so that it can be used. It is a means, a vehicle - all care has to be taken of it. When you eat food, it is a question of life and death. Food is life.

When Buddha sleeps and you sleep, both are in the same way sleeping. The posture may be the same, the eyes will be closed, but deep down there is a great difference. Even in deep sleep, Buddha is aware. He never sleeps; only the body sleeps. The inner light goes on burning. Never for a second is there any discontinuity in inner awareness. When you sleep, you are completely asleep.

You become unconscious. You completely lose your being into unconsciousness, into darkness.

So never judge anything by the action. Always judge the thing by the innermost core of it.

Question 3:

All the religions of the world were founded by men; not a single religion has been founded by any woman. And of course the male ego, the male chauvinism, has been the root cause of all the doctrines that have been created to explain existence.

It is very difficult for the male ego to think of woman as the creator. Even to give a small portion in the trinity to woman seems to be difficult. Everything has been managed by man. Man has been the manager in this world and, of course, he has created the concept of the other world. There also he goes on managing.

God is man, the holy ghost is man, the son is man.... Not that it is so. If there is any god, he is bound to be both man and woman. He cannot be just male - that is impossible, that will be incomplete. He must be a complete circle - male-female, yin-yang.

In the East we have been more aware. In sanskrit, the brahma, the ultimate god, is neither male nor female. That's truer - because he is both. He does not belong to any gender. He is beyond gender.

That seems to be truer, a better concept. Because life exists in polarities. Life cannot exist with one pole. Electricity cannot exist only as positive or only as negative. The negative and the positive - both poles are needed. Between these poles exists the phenomenon of electricity.

Humanity cannot exist just as man or as woman. Both are needed to make it a complete whole... a graceful, elegant whole. Man alone is incomplete. Woman alone is also incomplete.

Look at life. All polarities are joined together there - life and death, love and hate, day and night, summer and winter. All polarities are joined together... the earth and the sky. The god is the total, the whole.

The whole cannot be just male. This is a male attitude - if people say that the whole is just male. It is a male chauvinist attitude.

Now women are reacting to it. Women who are in the lib. movement have started calling god 'she'.

They don't call god 'he' any more. That is a reaction. One can understand the reaction. But the reaction is again the same - the same mistake is again committed. God is both he and she.

In sanskrit we don't use he or she for god. We use tat - tat means that. An indication, a simple indication without saying who god is - he or she. Tat - that. A simple indication without saying anything about god's gender.

Sooner or later humanity will come to understand this - that man and woman are complementaries.

Opposites, yet complementaries, creating one whole.

Because of this idea that god is man, man has created such absurd theories that you cannot imagine. In India also, jains say that a woman cannot be liberated, cannot become liberated from the female body. First she will have to be born as a man; only man can become liberated. Stupid! - because the soul is neither man nor woman. Even Buddha, for many years would not allow women to be initiated as sannyasins. Only very late in his life he relaxed.

People come to me and they say, 'What is happening in this ashram? So many women, so many men!"

Because in the past, ashrams have existed always for men. If ashrams existed for women then they were purely for women.

Religions have been separating man and woman. There are christian monasteries in the West where no woman has ever entered, where no woman is allowed to enter. There are trappist monasteries where, once a man enters, he never comes out because of the fear of meeting some woman in the town, in the city somewhere.

Sex has been the forbidden thing. Love has been the condemned thing. And man has tried to become completely independent - as if that is possible. That is not possible. The energy needs the opposite.

Hindus are more scientific in that way. If you go to a hindu temple, there you will find Krishna with Radha, Shiva with Parvati, Ram with Sita. The feminine energy is there. It has to be there to make the god complete.

In a jain temple, Mahavir stands alone. It looks a little awkward, a little incomplete. In a buddhist temple, Buddha sits alone. In a christian church, Jesus is crucified, is on the cross, but alone. Of course, if a church looks very sad, it is natural. The other energy, which can make it a celebration, is missing. When man and woman are together, life celebrates; there is rejoicing.

Have you watched twenty men sitting in a room? You will feel a certain sadness settling. Then a woman comes in - suddenly a flare-up of energy... kundalini arises. Everybody becomes alert; something is happening. It is not a question of bodies; it is a question of energy. The opposite polarity has come in - sparks start happening. The opposite energy is there - the magnetism starts functioning.

A world only of men will be a very drab and dull world. The trinity must be bored by now. The father, the holy ghost and the son - what are they doing now? It must be very boring company. Just think of it - one should get scared!

No, it cannot make life complete. A mixing of energy is needed; only then life goes on reaching to higher levels. It is a dialectics - the thesis, the antithesis, and between the two arises the peak of synthesis. Then the synthesis again functions as a thesis, again antithesis... a higher synthesis arises. It is a continuous creation of a symphony of energies.

So my ashram is very strange. That's why you don't see many indians here. They cannot believe that this is an ashram. They have known only sad people sitting in ashrams, almost dead. They cannot believe so much rejoicing, so much delight.

Just the other day one indian wrote a letter and he said, 'Everything is okay, but after the meditations, or even after your lecture, there are a few couples who start hugging each other, kissing each other.

This looks irreligious."

What can be more religious?

Love is religion, but for centuries love has been condemned. For centuries love has been a sin.

For centuries man and woman have existed separately, meeting only in the dark of the night when nobody knows that they are meeting, and then separating again. And feeling guilty for the meeting, and feeling deeply troubled that the desire arises for the woman or the desire arises for the man.

It is simply natural. It is not a question of you; it is a question of energies - positive and negative energies meeting. When they meet, new life arises.

The christian doctrine is certainly wrong. God should be given more freedom so that he can move between the polarities. In India we have a concept of Shiva as Ardhanarishwar - that seems to be one of the highest peaks of understanding.

Ardhanarishwar means god is half-man, half-woman. You may have seen the statue or a photograph of the statue of Ardhanarishwar in which Shiva is half-man, half-woman. It is greatly symbolic; deeply indicative of understanding. This is how it should be.

It happened once:

"A vicar was awarding prizes at the local dog-show. He was very much scandalized at the costumes worn by members of the younger fair sex.

'Look at that youngster,' he said, 'the one with cropped hair, the cigarette and the breeches, and holding two pups. Is it a boy or a girl?"

'A girl,' said his companion. 'She is my daughter."

'My dear sir,' the vicar was flustered, 'do forgive me. I would never have been so outspoken had I known you were her father."

'I'm not,' said the other. 'I am her mother.""

Someday this is going to be the case with god. And it will be a beautiful day when god comes in unisex costumes, and no one will be able to say who is coming - she or he. That will be a great day of liberation from male concepts. That will be a great day of human understanding about god - not man's understanding or woman's understanding.

Question 4:

There is a great difference - as great as possible. When one is patient, one has nothing repressed in him. Otherwise patience is not possible. Because patience is not disturbed by somebody else insulting you; patience is disturbed by your own anger, hatred, jealousies, which are repressed within you. The other's insult functions only as an excuse; the real thing happens because of your repressions.

You go on repressing anger. It goes on piling up within you. Then just a spark of insult and there is going to be a great fire within you. It is absolutely out of proportion to the insult. And you also realize many times that it was not such a great thing - but why did I become so mad?

Sometimes the other has not even provoked it. The other was not even aware that he was insulting you and you became insulted, you became mad. You must have been carrying anger for a long time; it was overflowing. It was just waiting to find some situation where you could rationalize and throw the responsibility on somebody else's shoulders.

Patience is possible only if you are not repressive. Otherwise you will be impatient.

Look. Ordinarily, anger is not bad. Ordinarily, anger is part of natural life; it comes and goes. But if you repress it, then it becomes a problem. Then you go on accumulating it. Then it is not a question of coming and going; it becomes your very being. Then it is not that you are sometimes angry; you remain angry, you remain in rage, and you just wait for somebody to provoke it. Or even a hint of provocation, and you catch fire and you do things for which, later on, you will say, 'I did it in spite of me."

Analyse this expression - 'in spite of me'. How can you do anything in spite of you? But the expression is exactly right.

Repressed anger becomes a temporary madness. Something happens which is beyond your control. If you could have controlled, you would have controlled it still - but suddenly it was overflowing. Suddenly it was beyond you. You couldn't do anything, you felt helpless - and it came out. Such a person may not be angry, but he moves and lives in anger.

If you look at people... stand by the road and just watch... you will find two types of people. Just go on watching their faces. The whole humanity is divided into two types of people. One is the sad type, who will look very sad, dragging somehow. Another is the angry type - just bubbling with madness, ready to explode at any excuse.

Anger is active sadness; sadness is inactive anger. They are not two things.

Watch your own behaviour. When do you find yourself sad? You find yourself sad only in situations where you cannot be angry. The boss in the office says something and you cannot be angry; it is uneconomical. You cannot be angry and you have to go on smiling - then you become sad. The energy has become inactive. You come home, and with your wife you find a small thing, anything irrelevant, and you become angry.

People enjoy anger, they relish it, because at least they feel they are doing something. In sadness, you feel that something has been done to you. You have been at the passive end, at the receiving end. Something has been done to you and you were helpless and you could not retort, you could not retaliate, you could not react.

In anger, you feel a little good. After a big bout of anger, one feels a little relaxed... feels good. You are alive. You also can do things. Of course you cannot do to the boss, but you can do to the wife.

Then the wife waits for the children to come home - because it is uneconomical to be angry with the husband. The whole life seems to be economics. He is the boss, and the wife depends on him, and it is risky to be angry at him. She will wait for the children. They will come home from school, and then she can jump and she can beat them - for their own sake.

And what will the children do? They will go in their rooms, they will throw their books, tear them, or beat their dolls, or beat their dogs, or torture their cats. They will have to do something. Everybody has to do something, otherwise one becomes sad.

The people you see on the streets who have become sad, so permanently that the face has taken a certain mould, are the people who are so helpless, so down the rung of the ladder, that they can't find anybody to be angry with. These are the sad people. Up higher on the rung you will find angry people. The higher you go, the angrier are the people you will find. The lower you come, the sadder are the people.

In India, go and see the untouchables, the lowest class. They are sad. Then go to the brahmins - they are angry. A brahmin is always angry; for any small thing he will go mad. He is a brahmin.

An untouchable is simply sad because there is nobody else below him on whom he can throw his anger.

Anger and sadness are both faces of the same energy... repressed.

Patience comes when you are neither angry nor sad. Patience is a great phenomenon. When you are neither angry against anybody nor sad against anybody - sadness and anger both have gone; your energies have settled, centered; you are at home.... Patience means you have come back home. Now nothing distracts, nothing disturbs. You are so happy, so blissful inside, that everything else is irrelevant.

Somebody insults you: you need not get insulted. You are so happy. Have you watched? When you are happy and somebody insults, you don't get so angry. When you are unhappy, you get too angry.

That simply shows the mathematics of it. When you are unhappy, you are ready to be angry, waiting to be angry. When you are happy, the same thing doesn't matter.

When one is deeply blissful, simply enjoying each moment of life as god's gift, who bothers? Nothing is worth it then. You have such a precious thing with you that everything else is simply irrelevant.

A religious person is not a repressed person, although the religious persons you have come across are all repressed persons. But a religious mind is not repressed. A religious mind is a happy mind, a blissful mind, a celebrating being.

I will tell you one anecdote:

"Armstrong played a twosome on the golf course with the minister of his church one or two times a month. Reverend Brown was a good golfer and the competition between them was keen, but Armstrong had to admit that the matches offered a special strain on his internal workings.

Armstrong had, as so many of us do, a gift for rich invective, and on foozling a shot he had a habit of voicing his feelings by addressing the ball, the green, and the general surroundings with a wealth of purple passion. Yet in the presence of Reverend Brown, he found himself restrained from indulging himself, and by the end of the round he would be pale with repressed verbiage.

The minister, on the other hand, though he also foozled shots now and then, would on such occasion - observe a patient silence that irritated Armstrong even more.

Finally Armstrong said, 'Reverend Brown, I must ask. Tell me, how is it that you manage to keep your temper when you slice the ball into the rough, or when you miss your putt because there's a twig on the green you didn't see?"

Reverend Brown replied, 'My good friend, it is a matter of sublimation. I need not shout or use vile language. Surely that will not alter the situation and will, on the other hand, imperil my soul. Yet, since I must do something, I sublimate. I spit."

'You spit?"

'That's right.' Here Reverend Brown's eyes darkened. 'But let me tell you this! Where I spit, the grass never grows again!""

The people you have known as religious have been sublimating things. But sublimation is just a trick of the mind. There is nothing sublime in it. The word is a misnomer.

And because of these sublimations, many things have happened to humanity which could have been avoided. After each ten years a great war is needed because of sublimation - because people go on repressing. Then the whole thing becomes too heavy; it has to be thrown.

Have you seen? Whenever there is a war, people look so happy, so vibrant with life; their dullness disappears. Something is happening. And now they can call the other country names that they have been avoiding up to now. The other country becomes the devil; the other country becomes the enemy of god; the other country becomes the very personification of evil. And the other country has to be destroyed, uprooted completely.

Now destruction is allowed - not only allowed, but praised. Violence is allowed - not only allowed, but praised. People are allowed whatsoever was not allowed before - anger, hatred, jealousy, violence, the murderous instincts... everything is allowed. People feel very good.

After each ten years a great world war is needed; less than that won't do. Because man has been taught to sublimate - repress sex, repress anger, repress cruelty, repress everything, and try to smile, try to wear a mask, have a false personality.

Deep down you go on sitting on a volcano and on the face you go on smiling. The smile is false, painted. Nobody is deceived by it, but you go on thinking that you are sublimating. Nothing is sublimated.

Understanding transforms, it does not sublimate. If you understand, anger disappears and the same energy becomes compassion. Not that you sublimate: anger simply disappears, and the energy that was involved, invested in anger, is released and becomes compassion. When you understand hate, hate disappears and the same energy becomes love.

Love is not against hate - it is absence of hate.

Religious people go on conditioning you: Love your enemy. They go on saying to you: Wherever you feel hatred, repress it and show love.

I cannot say that to you. I will say: Wherever you feel hatred, become aware.

No need to love your enemies. You have not even loved yourself; how can you love your enemies?

You have not even loved your friends; how can you love your enemies? That is impossible. First love yourself, love the friends, then you can love the strangers and then you can love the enemies.

It is as if you throw a small pebble in the silent lake - small ripples arise and then they go on spreading to the farthest shore. First you have to love yourself, then your small circle of friends, then the great circle of strangers, and then the enemies. Not that you have to force love for your enemies.

Otherwise you will take revenge in some other way. You will sublimate.

You may not swear, you will spit - and the grass will never grow wherever you spit. Then you will sublimate and you will create the idea of hell for your enemies. Here you cannot create a hell for them; then you will create a hell for them somewhere underground, where they will be put into fire, into burning oil, tortured in every way.

Just look. The christians, the hindus, the mohammedans - what type of a hell they have created! If you read their stories about hell, you cannot improve upon them. They have done the last thing; the sadist imagination has reached its peak.

If you repress, you will take your revenge somewhere or other. All your so-called saints go on hoping that somewhere in hell their enemies will be put into fire and tortured. That is their hope. And here they go on showing love. That love is bogus. That love is impotent.

I don't teach you to sublimate. I simply teach you one thing - understanding. Let understanding be the only law.

Understand anger, watch anger, become aware of anger. Don't do anything; just let it be there in front of you. Look deep into it, and suddenly you will see that just by looking into it, a transformation starts happening. Just by observation, anger starts changing into compassion.

There is the key. Nothing has to be done - just awareness does everything for you.

And of course, then you are patient. Not that you have controlled your anger. You are patient because you are so happy. You are patient because your anger is transformed into compassion.

You are patient because your hatred has become love. You are patient because your greed has become a sharing. You are patient because now you are enjoying life at its peak. Who bothers what others say? One is not concerned at all.

A zen master was going to his temple after his morning walk with his disciple. A man came, hit him hard on the back with a staff, and ran away. The master did not even look back; he continued his walk. The disciple could not believe it. He said, 'What is the matter with you? Are you mad? The man has hit so hard and he has escaped and you have not even looked back."

The zen master said, 'That is his problem. How am I concerned with it? He must be mad, poor fellow. I feel much compassion for him. And I cannot look back, because he is already mad; my looking back may make him more mad. Already he will feel guilty back home; with my looking back he may feel that I have condemned him. No, that won't be human. He is already in trouble. Now there is no need to create more trouble for him. That is his problem."

When you are happy, then others' problems are no more your problems. Let me say it in this way: when you have no problems, then nobody can throw his problem on you. Because you have problems, others can throw their problems on you and you become hooked.

Patience is a byproduct of inner bliss.

Question 5:

Yes, ego is very subtle - the subtlest thing in the world. In fact it does not exist, hence its subtlety.

In fact it is just a shadow, it has no existence. So wherever you go, the shadow follows you. And if you start running from the shadow, the shadow will run with you. The faster you run, the faster the shadow will follow you. And then you will feel that it is impossible for you to escape from this shadow.

No, it is not impossible. Just go under a tree, sit under the shade, and the shadow disappears. Don't run. That is not the way to go away from it. It is a shadow. You cannot go away from it. It has no existence, hence it is so subtle. Because it has no existence it is so powerful. Because it is not, ergo you cannot escape from it.

Try to understand. Move under the shadow of a big tree and sit there and look around - the shadow is no more there.

That big tree is what I call meditation. Come under the shelter of meditation and ego disappears.

But people do many other things. They try to become humble; that is an escape. They feel the grip of the shadow, the grip of the ego. They try to become humble, they try to become simple, they renounce everything. Because they think ego comes from riches, they renounce the riches - but then the ego comes through renunciation of the riches. They think the ego comes through prestige and power... renounce power, renounce prestige - but then the ego comes through your humbleness.

Let me tell you one anecdote. I love it tremendously:

"The beloved rabbi was on his deathbed, and life was slowly ebbing away. Around the bed was a group of sorrowing disciples who felt the coming loss keenly and who talked in whispers among themselves of the manifold virtues of the old man now leaving them.

One said, 'So pious, so pious! Which of the many commandments of the Law did he fail to keep?

Where at any point did he deviate in the slightest from the commandments of god?"

And another mourned, 'And so learned. The vast commentaries of the rabbis of the past were, so to speak, imprinted on his brain. At any moment he could call to mind some saying which would illuminate any possible theological question."

Still a third said, 'And so charitable, so generous. Where was the poor man whom he did not help?

Who in town is ignorant of his kindness? Why, he kept for himself only enough to hold body and soul together."

But as this litany of praise continued, a faint tremor appeared on the rabbi's face. It became obvious that he was trying to say something. All the disciples leaned forward, with bated breath, to hear those last words.

Faintly from the rabbinical lips, there came the words, 'Piety, learning? charity! And of my great modesty you say nothing?""

'Of my great modesty you say nothing.' Then ego will hide behind the modesty. Then ego will hide behind humbleness. Then ego will hide behind simplicity.

The ways of the ego are subtle because it is your shadow - wherever you go, it follows you. Unless you find a place where you are in shade... then it disappears.

Through meditation, by and by you will come under the shade of a great tree. Sheltered, you will look all around and the ego will not be found.

Except meditation, nothing can help. Your austerities won't help you. Your renunciations won't help you. Except meditation, nothing is of help.

What is meditation then?

Meditation is a state of no-mind. The mind is like hot, burning sun. Under mind you move - shadow falls, shadow is created. When the hot, burning sun is not there, suddenly... silence.

Meditation is a state of no-mind. Meditation is the interval when there are no thoughts floating in you, when the clouds of thoughts have disappeared. You are without thoughts, but not asleep. You are without thoughts, yet alert. An alert thoughtlessness is meditation.

In the beginning only rare moments will be there; only for a split second will you feel the shade of the tree. But in that split second this ego will disappear completely. You will not find YOU ARE. Because the feeling of I AM is nothing but accumulated thoughts. It is the piling up of thoughts that gives you the feeling I AM. If thoughts disappear, the I disappears.

You can take a torch in your hand and you can move your hand fast: a circle of fire will be created.

The circle does not exist, but it appears because the torch is moving fast. A circle of fire is seen. In fact there is no circle, only a torch, but you can see the fire-circle.

Buddha used to take this symbol often - a circle of fire. Stop movement, stop your hand, and there is only a torch and the circle disappears.

Stop your mind and the circle of thought disappears. Suddenly only your being is there and the circle is no more there. That circle is the ego. All thoughts together make it appear as if you are.

When thoughts disperse, you are, but you don't feel that you are. The I disappears, only AMNESS remains.

In the West, one man, Rene Descartes, led the whole western mind on a wrong track. His dictum is very famous; on that dictum the whole western philosophy stands. His dictum is 'cogito ergo sum':

I think, therefore I am.

This is absolute nonsense. I think, therefore I am? That means that when thinking stops, you will disappear, you will not be. In fact, when thinking disappears, for the first time you are. With the disappearance of the thinking, ego disappears, not you, not your being.

His dictum - cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I am - is illogical, because from 'I think', you cannot derive 'I am'. From 'I think', you can derive only 'I think'. The dictum can be: cogito ergo cogito: I think, therefore I think. That's okay. But 'I think therefore I am' has no relation with 'I think'. 'I am, therefore I am. Sum ergo sum: I am therefore I am."

But this AMNESS can be felt only when the mind is completely unclouded, when all thoughts have disappeared.

And these moments come to you also, even without meditation, but they are very very atomic and you miss. Between two thoughts there is always an interval... very small. Between two words there is an interval... very small. In that interval you are and yet you cannot say I AM. Being is, but the ego is not.

Meditation is an experience of pure being, without thoughts. The ego can disappear only that way, otherwise not.

So don't try other ways, otherwise it will go on following you. It can become subtle. It can become very pious. There are very many pious egoists - religious people, monks, popes... very pious people, but very egoistic.

The only way that can lead you beyond the ego is the way of meditation. There is none else.

Question 6:

The greatest thing that can happen, the greatest synthesis that is possible.

The western mind is the male mind. The eastern mind is the female mind. The western mind is the active mind - too restless, too active... almost aggressive, aggressively active. The eastern mind is passive, relaxed - almost lazy.

You can see the difference. The East is lazy and the West is constantly running for nothing. The question is not where you are going; the only question in the West is how fast you are going. Don't ask where; that is not the point. Don't waste time. Go fast.

In the East, nothing seems to move; everything seems as if there is no movement... time has stopped. The western mind lives with time, is very time-conscious. The eastern mind is relaxed in eternity.

There are benefits to both and there are dangers, harmful effects to both. If you are too active you will become tense; you will get ulcers. Life will be just a constant running, reaching nowhere. You will produce many things, your markets will be full of things, your life will have a better standard.

Economically, medically, scientifically, technologically, you will be far more developed. That's good.

But then there are the harmful effects. Inside, you will be very empty. The supermarket will be full, but inside will be totally empty. The outside will become richer and richer and inside will become poorer and poorer. The standard of living will go high, but life will disappear by and by from your hands. You won't be able to say why you are living.

You will live comfortably, conveniently. You will live comfortably, you will die comfortably, but you will not live at all because the interior will be empty. And one has to live from the innermost core of his being. The real-richness comes from the innermost core. Things are good, but not good enough.

They are needed - but man cannot live by bread alone.

In the East, people are relaxed - so much so that they are almost lazy. It is not good to say relaxed.

They are lazy. Of course, in that laziness they can have glimpses of their inner being more clearly.

They have nowhere to go, so they go on diving deep within their own beings. All their movement has become inward. Their inner core is richer, but their outward life is so poor and ugly... horrible, nauseating. They are beggars.

If the eastern mind and the western mind meet, that will be the greatest synthesis of the male and the female mind, of the passive and the active mind, and there will arise a balance and for the first time humanity will be born - a global humanity, neither eastern nor western. It will be simply humanity... whole, total. A western man is half, an eastern man is also half.

"I have heard about one man. He was an indian, but he lived almost his whole life in Germany. He died, and of course, as all indians expect, he expected to go to heaven. But as it almost always happens, he went to hell.

He was very worried. He went to the officer-in-charge. He said, 'There must have been some mistake. I am an indian. I should go to heaven. I am not a german. I was just living in Germany."

The officer-in-charge took pity on him and he said, 'I can understand your difficulty, but now only one thing can be done. That too is not regular, but for you I will make a concession. You can choose either the indian hell or the german hell."

'But what is the difference?' the man asked.

'In the german hell,' explained the officer-in-charge, 'you spend half your time eating all the food you want, listening to music and disporting yourself with girls. in the other half of the time you are pinioned to the wall and beaten mercilessly. Your nails and teeth are pulled out and boiling oil is poured over you."

'And in the indian hell?"

'In the indian hell you spend half your time eating all the food you want, listening to music and disporting yourself with girls. In the other half of the time you are pinioned to the wall and beaten mercilessly. Your nails and teeth are pulled out and boiling oil is poured over you."

'But there is no difference."

'There is, in some of the details. In the german hell you have german food, german music and german girls, whereas in the indian hell you have indian food, indian music and indian girls. But both nationalities are first-class in this respect. Certainly, as for the more painful part,' said the officer-in- charge, 'the tortures in the german hell are conducted in the usual german fashion, whereas..."

The man suddenly jumped and said, 'I will take the indian.""

The indians are so lazy that in their hell there cannot be much discipline. There will be chaos. They cannot do anything in a planned way. But of course, in a german hell things are done in a german way.

The eastern mind, because of the interior journey, has become by and by completely oblivious of the outside world. Much is lost that way. Much is gained, much is lost. One becomes more attuned to his inner being, but then poverty, illness, disease, chaos outside.

You can close your eyes and enjoy yourself, but open your eyes in India and everywhere it is horrible.

It is impossible to tolerate it, to bear it. That's why indians have learned the trick of closing their eyes and meditating. With open eyes you cannot meditate. It is so ugly all around that it will not be possible to meditate.

In the West, everything is beautiful on the outside, the world has attained much through technology, but that tao is onesided. And people have completely forgotten how to go in. They have forgotten how to close their eyes.

Both are incomplete. And to me, the only possibility for the new man is a great synthesis between the East and the West. And that's what I am trying here in Poona.

I am neither an eastern man nor a western man. I don't belong to any country, to any nation, to any religion, because if you belong to any country you cannot belong to all, and if you belong to any religion, all religions cannot be yours. I don't belong to any. I have no roots in any country, in any religion, in any partial humanity.

And the whole effort here is to create a situation in which the division between the East and the West drops. And that is the same division between man and woman. On a different level, but the same division... between yin and yang. The same division between the active and the passive. The same division between the positive and the negative.

If it can be dropped... and it can be dropped: I have dropped it, you can drop it... then suddenly you will see within you a new light arising which is neither of the East nor of the West. You will see within yourself the birth of a new man to whom the whole belongs and who belongs to the whole.