Is That So?

What is pure life? What do you call purity? Because whatsoever you call purity is not the real purity.

Your purity is a calculation, a moral calculation. Your purity is not the purity of a saint - his purity is innocence. Your purity is a sort of cunningness, a shrewdness.

This has to be understood first. If you understand it deeply, only then you can understand what a wise man is, what a saint is, what a man of knowledge is. Because if your measurement is wrong, if your very base of judgment is wrong, everything will go wrong with it.

Real purity is just like a child - innocent; innocent about what is good, what is bad; innocent about any distinction. Real purity does not know what is God and what is the Devil. But your purity is a choice - a choice of God against the Devil, a choice of the good against the bad. You have already made a distinction, you have already divided existence. And a divided existence cannot lead to innocence.

Innocence flowers only when existence is undivided. You accept it as it is. You don't choose, you don't divide, you don't make any distinctions. You don't know, really, what is good and what is bad.

If you know, then you will calculate, then purity will be manufactured. It will not be a flowering.

I will tell you one anecdote: Khalil Gibran has written a beautiful story. A priest was going to the temple. Just by the side of the road he saw a man almost at the verge of death - bleeding, dying, as if he had been attacked very severely - wounds all over, blood flowing, soaked in his own blood.

The priest was in a hurry; he had to reach the temple in time, there must be people waiting. But he was a man of morality - I will not say of purity: he was a man of morality. He pondered what to do.

He calculated and then he thought, "It is better to help this man who is dying. This is what Jesus has said. It is better to forget the temple, the worshippers; they can wait a little. But this man has to be helped immediately, otherwise he will die."

So he went closer to the man, but the moment he saw his face he was scared. This face looked familiar, very evil-looking. Then he suddenly remembered that in his temple there is a picture of the Devil - and this is the man. This is the Devil, nobody else! So he started running towards the temple.

The Devil called out; he said, "Priest, listen! If I die you will repent forever. Because if I die, if evil dies, where will your God be? If the bad dies, how will you know what is good? You exist because of me. Think it over!"

The priest stopped. The Devil was right: if the Devil dies, there will be no hell. And if there is no fear, who is going to worship God? All prayers are based on fear. You are afraid, your love towards God is based on the fear of the Devil. Your goodness is measured through evil. God needs the Devil.

The Devil said, "God needs me! He cannot be without me. All the temples will fall down and nobody will come to worship. And you will not find a single man who is religious if I am not there. I tempt them; through my temptation they become saints. Have you ever heard about any saint who was not tempted by the Devil? Your Jesus, your Zoroaster, your Buddha - all have been tempted by me!

It is I who made them saints. So come back!"

The priest hesitated a little, but the Devil was logical - and the Devil is always logical; he is logic personified. You cannot reason with him, you cannot argue. If you argue you are defeated. You cannot win an argument with the Devil.

The priest had to concede and agree. He said, "You seem to be right. Where will we be without you?" So he carried the Devil on his back to the hospital. He waited there until he was certain that now there is no danger and that the Devil will survive - and with the Devil, all the temples, all the priests and all religions survive.

This priest is a moral man, but not a pure man. His life is a mathematical calculation, and if you calculate then you are already defeated by the Devil. You cannot calculate better than he can. If you argue, if you divide life, if it becomes a logical problem, then there is no possibility of your ever winning it. The game is already lost. You are in a losing battle.

A man of innocence does not know who God is and who the Devil is. A man of innocence lives out of his innocence, not out of his calculations. He is not shrewd, he is simple. He lives moment to moment, neither the past nor the future is meaningful to him. This very moment is enough unto itself.

But your morality... your morality is created by the priest, the priest who helped the Devil; because the Devil argued, and he argued rightly. Your morality is not pure. So whenever there is someone who can behave the way you think a pure man should behave, who can manipulate himself, you honor him, you respect him, you call him a saint. Your saints are as bogus as you are, because you decide and judge who is a saint. Your morality is just a fear, a hidden fear, and the disguise is so clever that you never become aware of it.

How can a calculation become innocent? And without becoming innocent - innocent like the trees, innocent like the animals, innocent like the babies - how can purity happen to you? It is not something you can control. If you control, it is repression, and the contrary is always present there.

If you become a celibate, sex is there hidden in the unconscious waiting for its moment to assert, to rebel. If you become nonviolent, violence is there. The opposite cannot be thrown out. If you choose, the opposite is always repressed - that's all you can do. Only in an innocent mind does the opposite disappear, because nothing has been chosen: the opposite cannot exist without choice.

Hence Krishnamurti consistently emphasizes not to choose, and to be choiceless - that's the base of innocence. But you can deceive yourself by choosing choicelessness: "Because Krishnamurti says, 'Be choiceless' I will be choiceless." If you decide, the will has entered - and the will is cunning. If you decide to be choiceless, your choicelessness will be part of a morality, not part of purity.

Just understand, don't choose - don't choose even choicelessness. Simply understand the whole situation: that whatsoever you choose, whatsoever you do, will come out of the calculating mind. It cannot be the real thing. Your mind can only produce dreams, it cannot produce the truth. Truth cannot be produced, nobody can produce it. It is there; it has to be seen. Nothing has to be done, just a look is needed - a look without any prejudice, a look without any choice, a look without any distinctions.

A man of God, if he has suppressed, if he has denied the Devil, is not a real man of God. The Devil will be there by the corner. Once you divide, you are caught in the battle of the opposites - you will

be crushed. If you don't decide - you don't know what is good, what is bad - whatsoever happens you simply accept. It is happening, what can you do? Nothing can be done. So you float like a white cloud. You don't know where you are going or why you are going. The wind blows to the north, you go to the north; the wind then drifts towards the south, you drift towards the south. You float with the wind. You don't say, "I am going to the south, I cannot go to the north." You don't fight.

A man of purity is not a soldier, he is a saint. And a man of morality is a soldier, he is not a saint. Of course, the fight is within, not without. Of course, the fight is not with someone else but with oneself - but the fight is there.

You need not be a fighter. And if you fight you will lose the battle. How can you fight the whole?

You are just a tiny part, an atomic part. How can you fight the whole? A man of purity neither fights nor surrenders - because surrender also belongs to the soldier. First he fights, then he finds it is impossible to win, then he surrenders. His surrender is also secondhand, it comes through the fight. A man of purity simply exists. He is not a fighter, he need not surrender. There is nothing to surrender, nobody to surrender. Who will surrender and what is to be surrendered? He has never fought.

Understanding leads you to acceptance, and that acceptance gives you purity. But this purity cannot be honored by people, by the neighbors - they cannot understand it. Morality belongs to a country, purity belongs to no country. Morality belongs to an age, purity is nontemporal. Morality belongs to this society or that: there are as many moralities as there are societies. Purity is one - wherever you go it is the same, just like the taste of the sea: wherever you go it is salty.

A Buddha or a Jesus or a Ramakrishna, if you taste them, they are all just like the sea - the same saltiness. But a man of morality is different. A man of morality, if he is a Mohammedan, will be different; if he is a Hindu, he cannot be the same. If he is a Christian, again he will be different.

A man of morality has to follow the code, the law of the society. Societies are many, moralities are millions. Societies change, moralities change. Purity is eternal - it transcends time, space. It transcends climate, countries, it transcends tribes. It transcends all that is manmade. Purity is not manmade; moralities are manmade.

Now we should enter this beautiful story - it happened in reality, it is an historic fact.

THE ZEN MASTER HAKUIN WAS HONORED BY HIS NEIGHBORS AS ONE WHO LED A PURE LIFE.

They didn't know, they were not aware that the purity of their conceptions cannot be applied to this man. They were not aware. They thought, "He is a moral man," and he was not a moral man. He was a pure man, an innocent one - but not a moral one. He was a religious man - and remember the difference - he belonged to the eternal innocence, he was childlike. But the people honored him because they were not aware yet of the distinction between morality and amoral purity.

They thought that he is a saint, but he was not the saint of their conceptions. He was a saint, but he was not a saint who can be measured by you. Your standards won't apply there. You will have to throw out your measurements and look. You will have to throw out your judgments and look; only then the saint, the real saint, is revealed to you.

ONE DAY IT WAS DISCOVERED THAT A BEAUTIFUL GIRL WHO LIVED NEAR HAKUIN WAS PREGNANT. THE PARENTS WERE VERY ANGRY. AT FIRST THE GIRL WOULD NOT SAY WHO THE FATHER WAS, BUT AFTER MUCH HARASSMENT SHE NAMED HAKUIN.

IN GREAT ANGER THE PARENTS WENT TO HAKUIN, BUT ALL HE WOULD SAY WAS, "IS THAT SO?"

He would not deny, he would not accept. He didn't make any commitment. He didn't say, "I am not responsible." He didn't say, "I am responsible." He simply said a very noncommittal thing; he said, "Is that so?" as if he was not related - so detached, so absolutely out of it. He simply asked, "Is that so, that I am the father of the child?"

What does this mean? It means such a total acceptance that even acceptance is not needed.

Because when you say, "I accept," deep down you have denied. When you say yes, then no is implied. He would not even say yes. Who was he to say yes or no? If it had happened, if this was a fact, then he would just be a witness to it. If people had come to think that he was the father, then why unnecessarily disturb them and say something this way or that way? He would not choose. This is what choicelessness is. He would not be this or that, he would not defend himself.

Purity is never on the defense. Morality is always defensive, that's why morality always takes offense very easily. Just look at a moralist, at a puritan, and he feels offended. If you say something, he feels offended; he will immediately deny and defend himself. But this is one of the basic psychological insights of all seekers: that whenever you defend something, it means you are afraid.

If this Hakuin was an ordinary saint he would have defended himself - and he would also have been true in his defense, there was no problem about it: it was proved later on that the child never belonged to him, he was not the father. An ordinary saint, a so-called saint, a man of morality, even if he was the father, would have defended himself. And this Hakuin - he was not the father, but he did not defend himself.

Innocence is insecurity, that's why it is innocence. If you defend it and make it secure, it is not innocence - calculation has entered.

What must have happened inside Hakuin? Nothing! He simply listened to the fact that people had come to believe that he was the father, so he asked, "Is that so?" That was all, that is all! He didn't react in any way - this way or that. He would not say yes, he would not say no. He was not defensive, he was open and vulnerable. Innocence is vulnerable; it is absolute vulnerability, openness.

Whenever you defend, whenever you say that this is not so, you are afraid. Only fear is defensive.

Fearlessness cannot be defensive. Fear always armors itself. If somebody says that you are dishonest, you immediately defend. Why? Why be so worried about it? Why react? - because you know that you are dishonest. That's why it hurts. Truth hurts very much, because the wound is there. You know you are dishonest, and if somebody says you are dishonest, you cannot laugh, you become serious. You have to defend, otherwise the thing will be known. You have to fight, otherwise everybody else will start thinking in those terms.

And if people come to know that you are dishonest, then it will be difficult to be dishonest, because only if people believe that you are honest can you continue to be dishonest. This is the mathematics.

People must believe that you are a true man, only then you can lie. If everybody knows that you are a liar - finished! Then how can you lie? Even lies need a sort of trust about you.

You can be a thief only if people believe that you are a saint - then it is very easy to be a thief, because people will not try to protect themselves against you.

An immoral person will always defend his character. He will try to prove that he is a man of character, but this shows that he is characterless. If you are not dishonest and somebody says you are dishonest, you will say, "Is that so? Maybe, perhaps, who knows!" You will say, "I will look again. I will have a look again within myself. You may be right."

But this is honesty. How can this man be dishonest who says, "I will look, I will try to find out. You may be right"? This is authentic honesty. This man cannot be dishonest. But if you are dishonest and somebody says so, you take offense. All your defenses are because you take offense. You are always prepared and ready to answer. You carry character certificates with you, "I am a man of character."

Fear creates an armor. Now depth psychology has come to realize that all characters are armor.

A child is born, he does not know what is good, what is bad. Then he has to be taught to make distinctions. He is punished if he goes on doing something which is thought bad. What happens to the mind of the child? What happens in his consciousness? As far as his innocence is concerned, he cannot see what is bad in it. Why is it bad? But father and mother - and they are powerful - they say, "This is bad, and if you do it you will be punished. If you don't do it you will be appreciated, rewarded."

He has to listen to them because they are powerful, and he has to suppress himself and his own innocence. He creates an armor around himself. He becomes afraid of certain things he should not do, otherwise he will be punished. Certain things he should do because then he is going to be rewarded.

Greed is created, fear is created. And then the child moves through many experiences in which he is punished, in which he is rewarded. By and by, he creates a character around his consciousness.

Character means creating habits which society thinks are good, and destroying habits which society thinks are bad - this is character. And this character is an armor, because if you don't create it the society will destroy you. The society won't allow you to exist. To exist, to survive, you have to create a character, otherwise you will be in jail, punished.

Why are you so much against criminals? Why do you punish them so much? Not because their crimes are so great, not because it is needed by justice, no. You are taking revenge. They disobeyed society, they disobeyed you, the structure, the establishment. They are rebellious. You were saying, "This is bad," and they still did it - the society will take revenge. And your courts and your judges are not really men of justice, they are the hangmen. They are the murderers appointed by the society, in the name of justice, to take revenge. They murder, they kill, but in the name of justice.

A man steals, he is a thief. He is sent to prison for five years, seven years, ten years. Is it going to help in any way? When he comes out, is it going to prevent him stealing again? No, on the contrary; he will come out a more perfect thief, because there in the prison he will meet the masters. There

he will learn the trade secrets, there he will learn why he has been caught, where he was at fault.

Next time it will not be so easy to catch him. He will become more efficient, he will become more alert.

Your punishment never changes anybody. But you go on punishing and you say, "We are punishing to change him." A man murders, then the society murders him "... because," they say, "why did you murder?" But this seems to be foolish. He murdered, he was wrong, and now the society murders him - and the society is right! And how is your killing him going to change him? He will no longer be there.

No! You are taking revenge. And you know deep down that not only is society doing that, you are also doing that. You are a father or a mother - you punish your child. Have you ever observed your mind, why you punish? Look deep inside and you will find the revenging attitude. You will say, "We are teaching him. How will he learn if he is not punished?" But these are just rationalizations.

Inside, the father feels hurt because the child has disobeyed, he has become rebellious, he has done something which he was told not to do - the father's ego feels hurt.

If you look in the old scriptures, the Old Testament, the Koran and other scriptures, then you will immediately feel that God is very revengeful. He will send you to hell, not that justice needs it, but because you disobeyed. In the Old Testament it is said: Obedience is virtue, disobedience is sin. It is not a question of what is said to you - obedience is virtue and disobedience is sin.

If obedience is forced, then a character arises. Then by and by the child starts learning; he learns, becomes calculating - what to do, what not to do. The innocence is poisoned. The innocence is no longer there, now calculation has come in. And now he knows how to influence you, how to manipulate you, how to be a good child so he is rewarded, and how not to be a bad child.

And this character armor works in a double way. He protects himself from the society; but deep inside, the consciousness does not know what is good, what is bad. So he has to fight with himself continuously. This character becomes a double-edged thing: on the outside it is a protection from society, on the inside it is a constant fight.

You fall in love with a woman and she is not your wife. What to do? The society has taught you that this is immoral. But even your consciousness has fallen in love, because the consciousness does not know what is immoral and what is moral. Something happens, you cannot do anything about it. Your character starts fighting and says, "This is immoral, prevent it, control it. Don't move on this path, this is wrong." Then you start fighting. This fight creates anxiety, your spontaneity is lost. In the eyes of others you are a man of character; you cannot lose your reputation, because then the ego will be lost.

Inside also you think that you are a man of character. You start feeling guilty, you start punishing yourself. So many monks in so many monasteries are fasting, not as a religious prayer but just as a punishment to themselves. They feel guilty, continuously guilty. And it is very difficult to find a monk who is not feeling guilty, very difficult, because everything is wrong: to look at a beautiful woman is wrong, to eat food with taste is wrong, to feel comfortable is wrong - everything is wrong.

Continuous guilt, so what to do now?

Only one thing remains.... And he is not a criminal because he has not done anything, so the society cannot punish him. And you all give your respect to him. So what can he do? He has to punish himself. He will go on a fast. He will go on a continuous vigilance for seven days. He will not allow himself to sleep, he will not allow himself to be comfortable, he will not eat with taste, he will not look at anything beautiful - he will not enjoy anything. That is how he will punish himself, and the more he punishes himself the more honorable he becomes in your eyes. And he is just an ill man, perverted.

He is pathological, he is a case. He has to be studied, not respected. Something has gone wrong within him. His mind is not at ease - divided, fragmented, he is continuously against himself. This is what anxiety means: when you are against yourself, you are in anxiety. Continuously fighting with yourself will create tension.

And you cannot allow anything, because you are always afraid that if you allow then all that you have suppressed will come up. You cannot relax. Your so-called saints cannot relax. Even in sleep they cannot relax, because they are afraid of relaxation. If they relax, then what will happen? Then the body will say, "Be comfortable." Then the mind will say, "Find taste in food, find tasteful food." Then the body will desire: "Find a woman, find a beautiful body to hug. Find someone with whom you can merge and melt." If you relax, then all that you have suppressed will also relax. So your saints cannot relax, they are afraid of relaxation. They are tense, continuously tense, you can feel that tenseness. If you go near a saint, all around him there is a field of tenseness. You will also become tense if you go near a saint.

But with a real saint, a sage, who is a man of purity not a man of morality, he is continuously relaxed...

if you go near him you will feel relaxed. But then you may feel afraid, because if you feel relaxed your own repressions will start coming up.

Many people come to me and they say, "This is dangerous, because when we meditate and relax, many things that have not been bothering us before start bothering us."

A married man with six children came to me just a few days ago, and he said, "Never in my life have I looked at other women, never. But what is happening? I am meditating and for the first time - and I am now forty-eight with six children, a wife, and everything is okay - suddenly women have become very attractive. What to do?" He is afraid now. He must have been repressing this continuously for forty-eight years. Now, suddenly, he has learned how to relax. But when you relax, you relax totally, so all that has been repressed also relaxes.

For the first time he is becoming young again. "Really," I told him, "you have never been young. Now you are becoming young again, so women have become attractive. But don't be afraid, everything is going to become attractive now: the trees will look different, the flowers will look different - and why not a woman? Everything is going to become different. And if you are afraid of this then existence can never become beautiful to you.

"And when the whole of existence has become beautiful, then you have come to the door of the divine, never before. And you are afraid of a woman - what will happen when God comes? He will be so beautiful you will forget your wife completely. What will you do? You are afraid of a tiny woman - what will happen to you when a tremendous beauty explodes all over the world, everywhere? So don't close...."

But he said, "You may be right, but what will happen with my family? I have got children."

These are the fears. With a repressed mind, relaxation is the most dangerous thing. You come to me and you ask, "How to relax?" You don't know what you are asking - because your society has trained you not to relax, your society has taught you how to control, and here I am teaching you how to relax. It is absolutely antisocial. But God is antisocial. The beyond is antisocial. Your society is created by pathological minds just like you. They have made rules and regulations - and pathological people are always very efficient in making rules and regulations. They themselves are repressed and in misery; they want others also to be repressed and in misery. They cannot allow you to be so happy.

Look at a schoolmaster in a primary school, with a staff in his hand, killing small children who are still happy. The society has not destroyed them - they are still spontaneous. Look at this schoolmaster:

sad, angry, always angry, always killing the natural, the Tao, the spontaneous. He will be happy only when all these children become old and dead. Then he will be at ease, he has done his job.

Psychologists say that people who are attracted towards schools, to become teachers, are people who are sadists. And there is nothing like a school if you are a sadist, because children are so weak, so helpless, you can do anything with them. You beat them and they cannot rebel. You do something and they cannot reply, they will have to suffer. And you are doing this for their own good, so you are beyond reproach. You are helping them to grow.

Pascal has said that the whole society is mad and that children fall into the hands of so many madmen. They come innocent, but immediately we take charge and turn them into madmen. Some of them escape from the back door: they are criminals. And some of them escape from the front door: they are sages.

Sages and criminals have one similar quality, and that is rebelliousness. But the criminal has gone wrong in his rebelliousness. His rebelliousness is destructive, not creative. And the saint has taken a route of rebelliousness - but creative.

THE PARENTS WERE VERY ANGRY. AT FIRST THE GIRL WOULD NOT SAY WHO THE FATHER WAS, BUT AFTER MUCH HARASSMENT SHE NAMED HAKUIN.

IN GREAT ANGER THE PARENTS WENT TO HAKUIN, BUT ALL HE WOULD SAY WAS, "IS THAT SO?"

AFTER THE CHILD WAS BORN IT WAS TAKEN TO HAKUIN - WHO HAD LOST HIS REPUTATION BY THIS TIME, ALTHOUGH HE DIDN'T SEEM MUCH DISTURBED BY THE FACT.

Whether you honor or whether you dishonor him cannot make any difference to a sage, to a man of purity. What you think about him is really irrelevant.

Why is it so relevant to you what others think? Why are others' opinions so relevant to you? Why do you care so much? Because you don't know who you are. You depend on their opinions about yourself. That's your only self-knowledge. If they say you are good, you are good. If they say you are bad, you are bad. You have nothing inside which can say, "Their opinions are their opinions. If I am

good, I am good; whatsoever they say makes no difference. If I am bad, I am bad. The whole world may respect me like a saint, but if I am bad, I know I am bad, and this reputation cannot become a substitute - it is useless. And if I am good, the whole world may say that I am not good, bad, evil, the very devil incarnate - how does it make any difference?"

One who knows himself is never disturbed by what you think about him. But one who doesn't know himself - he is always disturbed, because his whole knowledge consists of your opinions. His whole knowledge is just a file he has gathered about what people think about him. This is not knowledge, not self-knowledge. This is self-ignorance, which you hide, disguise, by others' opinions. Your whole identity, your whole image, is made by others. You are bound to remain in constant anxiety because others go on changing their opinions.

Opinions are like the climate: it is never the same. In the morning it was cloudy and now the clouds have gone. Now it is sunny, and the next moment it is raining. Opinions are just like clouds, just like the climate. What can you do about it? Look at Richard Nixon: just a moment before he was everything, and just a moment later, nothing. The opinion has changed, the people who were for him are against him - and the same people!

This is the beauty of it: the same people who will push you towards the throne will pull you down.

There is a dynamic, an inner law, that the people who respect you, deep down also disrespect you.

The people who love you also hate you, because they are divided. They are not one. So after they help you to reach to the throne, one part of them is finished - the love part. Now what will happen to the hate part? Immediately the hate part starts functioning. So once a man becomes respectable the climate is changing already. Once a man has become a president or a prime minister, the voters are already changing. Really, the moment they voted one part is finished - the love part. Now the hate part will come up. So the same people take you to the throne, and the same people bring you down.

Only a sage remains undisturbed. Why? - because he never pays any attention to what you say.

What you say is really rubbish. You don't know anything about yourself, and you say something about Mahavira, Buddha, Christ. You don't know anything about yourself, and you are so confident about Jesus, that he is good or bad. It is rubbish. And a person can pay attention to your rubbish only if he is just like you. A sage is not like you, and this is the difference.

AFTER THE CHILD WAS BORN IT WAS TAKEN TO HAKUIN - WHO HAD LOST HIS REPUTATION BY THIS TIME.

Of course, obviously, the same people who thought that he is a sage started thinking that he is a devil. He has committed the greatest sin - because for people, sex is the greatest sin.

You are so much against life that sex has become the greatest sin - because it is the origin of life.

You are so dead, that's why sex has become the greatest sin. Sex is the most alive phenomenon in the world. Nothing else is so alive as sex. You come through it, the trees come through it, the birds come through it - everything comes through it. Anything that becomes alive comes through it, it is the original source.

If you can give any parallel to God in this world, it is sex. That's why Hindus have made their symbol

shivalinga. Hindus are really rare - no comparison anywhere in the world - very courageous people to make shivalinga, the sex organ of Shiva, the symbol of the divine.

Sex is the most divine thing in the world. But why do you call it a sin? - because from the very beginning you have been taught that it is sin. You have completely forgotten that you have come out of it. And you have completely disguised the fact that when the sex energy is finished in you, you will die. It is sex energy throbbing in you which is life.

That's why a young man is more alive, and an old man is less alive. What is the difference between a young man and an old man? In young men the sex energy is in flood. In the old man the supply has disappeared, now the flood is disappearing. It has become just like a dripping stream. The moment sex energy has disappeared, you are dead.

Sex is life - and we have made it the greatest sin.

Deep down we are against life.

So when you come to know that a saint has been in a sexual relationship, all his reputation immediately disappears. If he was a thief it would not be so bad, you could have forgiven him.

If he was accumulating money - your saints are accumulating - then you would have forgiven him; it was not a big problem, greed is not a big problem. Whatsoever he was doing you could have forgiven him, but sex? - impossible!

We have become so deadly against it that Christians say that Jesus was born without sex. Because how can Jesus be born out of sex, the original sin? How can Jesus be born out of sex? Everyone else is born out of sex - not Jesus. Just because sex is such a dangerous thing, they said that Jesus was born from the Holy Ghost. There is no father to Jesus, there has been no sexual intercourse.

He was born out of the womb without any meeting with the other sex.

Why this nonsense? But leave Jesus aside, and the Christians. You! If you even think that your father, some time or other, must be making love to your mother, you will feel guilty. How were you born? You are not a bastard. But just to think of your father making love to your mother... the whole thing seems ugly. The whole thing seems so ugly that you cannot conceive of your father doing that - others may be doing it, but your father? Impossible! You are born out of a brahmachari father, a celibate; that's what Christians are saying about Jesus.

And when you come to be sure that a saint, a great sage like Hakuin, has made a girl pregnant - obviously not only respect is gone. He must have been insulted as much as possible. It would have become impossible for him to go around the town to beg. People must have been throwing stones at him, the same people who were bringing garlands and flowers and who were bowing down at his feet - the same people. But Hakuin was not disturbed.

HAKUIN TOOK GREAT CARE OF THE CHILD. HE OBTAINED MILK, FOOD, AND EVERYTHING ELSE THE CHILD NEEDED FROM HIS NEIGHBORS.

A YEAR LATER, THE GIRL-MOTHER COULD STAND IT NO LONGER, SO SHE TOLD HER PARENTS THE TRUTH...

It must have been too heavy on her, seeing Hakuin's respect going down and down, seeing the insults being thrown at Hakuin, seeing that the whole town is against him, seeing him begging for the child, for the milk, for the food, and doors being closed in his face. It must have been really heavy.

... SO SHE TOLD HER PARENTS THE TRUTH - THE REAL FATHER WAS A YOUNG MAN WHO WORKED IN THE FISH MARKET.

They always work in the fish market - the real fathers.

THE MOTHER AND FATHER OF THE GIRL WENT AROUND AT ONCE TO HAKUIN TO TELL HIM THE STORY, APOLOGIZE AT GREAT LENGTH, ASK HIS FORGIVENESS, AND GET THE CHILD BACK.

AS THE MASTER WILLINGLY YIELDED THE CHILD HE SAID, "IS THAT SO?"

In misery, in happiness, the sage remains the same. Respected, insulted, the sage remains the same. In life, in death, the sage remains the same. He again simply said the same three words: "Is that so?" Again noncommittal, again not committing himself to anything, not saying anything, simply accepting a fact: "If that is so, okay."

This is the consciousness of purity. Whatsoever life brings, welcome it. If it brings misery and insult - accept it, welcome it. If it brings honor, happiness - welcome it, accept it. And don't make any distinction between the two. If you differentiate, your balance is lost, and the balance is the purity.

When you are balanced, you are a sage. When the balance is lost, you are lost, you have become a sinner. Sin is not something that you do, sin is something that happens within you when the balance is lost. It is not an act, it is an inner balance. It is what Mahavira has called samyaktva - inner balance; neither this nor that, what the Upanishads have called neti, neti - not this, not that. Just in between - neither moving to this, nor moving to that, because if you move, even a slight movement which nobody can detect except you.... Remember this: nobody can detect your inner balance. Only you can detect it, it is so subtle! But even a slight movement and you are no more at peace, you are no more at home, you have lost the divine. Because what does a slight leaning mean? It means you have chosen. It means a distinction is made. It means you have said this is good, that is bad. It means expectation has come in. It means desire has sprouted. It means now you are motivated.

Had Hakuin said, "Right! So you have come to know the truth?" that would mean he was no sage at all, because that would mean for the whole year he was waiting for this moment, he was not in the present, he was thinking for the future, "Some day or other the truth must be known. The people will respect me again. When they come to know that the child doesn't belong to me, they will respect me again: my respect will be back." Then he would have waited, but the balance is lost....

If Hakuin was not a sage he would have thought and prayed to God, that God reveal the truth to people. But why? If it happens that a child has happened to you, and people think that it is your child - if life has brought a child to you, what difference does it make who the real father is? No difference! Hakuin took every care of the child, just like a father. The child needs a father, that is the thing. And Hakuin fathered the child as lovingly as no father could. Even if the child was your own, it would have been difficult to take such care as he took.

It was no sin of the child. He was not against the child. If you had been in Hakuin's place, you would have killed the child because he was the cause of your misery. You would have thrown the child and moved to another village where people can respect you again, because they don't know you. You would have done something to defend your respect - your whole prestige was shattered.

And Hakuin was just caring about the child, not worried about the village. What people say is not the question, it is irrelevant. The child needed a father, so Hakuin became the father. He was not disturbed, he didn't react.

And then, after one year... when you take care of a child so lovingly, attachment arises - bound to be so. Even if the child is not yours, the child becomes yours. To live with a child for one year and to suffer so much for the child, to sacrifice so much for the child - a deep bond, a deep relationship arises. One becomes attached. But when the parents came again and they told the whole story, asked his forgiveness and got the child back, AS THE MASTER WILLINGLY YIELDED THE CHILD there was not a single trembling of attachment. He simply yielded the child - HE SAID, "IS THAT SO?" - as if nothing has happened. This whole year has been a dream. Only the dream is broken, and you are awake.

A sage lives in this world amidst you as if he is living in a dream. You are shadows. He lives amidst you just as if he is enacting a part, he is not involved. He is there, but not in it - he remains an outsider. And if you can remain an outsider, then sooner or later you will come to realize: no water, no moon. Because when you get involved, water is created; then you live with the reflection, then you cannot move to the real, then you live with the unreal.

Your attachment creates the delusion. The delusion is not there outside you, the maya is not there outside you. It is within you, in your attitudes: attached, choosing, for this, against that, making distinctions, like and dislike. It is in you. You create your illusion and then you live in it, then you are clouded by it. In that clouded state you can see only the reflection, you can never see the real moon.

This Hakuin remained balanced. Whatsoever happened outside didn't affect the inside at all. The inside remained balanced - no waves, no vibrations of the outside entered. He remained silent as if it was a dream. And whatsoever came, he accepted it. He didn't become a doer, a karta, he remained a witness.

These three words, "Is that so?" belong to the witnessing soul; not making any judgment, simply saying, "Is that so?" And this is all that was inside him, "Is that so? If it is so, okay."

A sage okays everything that happens, he has no choice. And when there is no choice, there is no water. No water - reflection disappears, maya disappears - no moon.

Enough for today.