Love Comes Faceless

The first question, Dharma Chetana,

Question 1:

Dharma Chetana, LOVE IS A MYSTERY - the greatest mystery there is. It can be lived, but it cannot be known; it can be tasted, experienced, but cannot be understood. It is something beyond understanding, something that surpasses all understanding.

Hence mind cannot take any note of it. It never becomes a memory - memory is nothing but notes taken by the mind; memory is traces, footprints left in the mind. Love has no body, it is bodiless. It leaves no footprints.

In Indian mythology, the god of love is known as Anang - ANANG means without body. All other gods have bodies except the love god - he has no body. He comes... he goes... you cannot see him, you cannot hear the sound of his approach. There is nothing visible about it, but still it is felt, still it is lived.

Love has no face. It is utter formlessness. You will never be able to see love; it is not tangible. And the higher it is, the more invisible it becomes; at the highest peak it is a pure nothingness. And remember that love is a ladder from the lowest to the highest, from the earth to the sky.

The earthly love has a certain face; it is not the face of love, but the earthly form gives it a face - you can recognize it. The lowest form has a certain tangibility about it imparted by the earthly. But as you rise higher and higher in love - and the ultimate is prayer - then all tangibility disappears. And when you for the first time feel love AS prayer, love as pure sky, uncontaminated by any form, then certainly the other experience will arise: that it is felt by something in you which is not known to you.

It is felt by your superconscious.

Sex is unconscious, earthly, the lowest form of love. Love is conscious, higher than sex, just midway, a stopping station between the earth and the sky. It is more poetic, but still the poetry is definable, it is contained in the words. The highest form of love is prayer; it is no more expressible, it is not contained any more in any definition. No words are adequate enough to express it - it is inexpressible. And when the highest is felt, you can express it only through tears - or laughter, or dance - very indirectly. And when the highest is felt, it provokes the highest in you: it is felt by the superconscious.

These are the three stages of the mind: unconscious, conscious, superconscious. Unconscious is material, super-conscious is immaterial, and conscious is just midway. If you fall backwards, it is sex that goes on in the name of love; it is ninety-nine percent not love - only one percent love. What we call love is fifty percent love and fifty percent something else. And what we call prayer is ninety-nine percent love, only one percent something else.

And in the ultimate stage, love even transcends prayer - then it is pure silence. Then there are no more tears, no more dance, no more singing... all has disappeared. One simply is.

As your love grows you will come to understand many things in your being which have remained unknown to you. Love will provoke higher realms in you, and you will feel yourself very strange.

So, Chetana, you are right. You say:

MEMORY CAN 'T RECALL YOUR FACE, SO LOVE COMES, FACELESS.

UNFAMILIAR IS THE PART OF ME THAT LOVES YOU.

SHE HAS NO NAME, AND SHE COMES AND GOES AND WHEN GONE, I WIPE MY TEAR-STAINED FACE SO THAT IT REMAINS A SECRET.

Your love is entering into the world of prayer. It is tremendously significant, because beyond prayer there is only God. Prayer is the last rung of the ladder of love. Once you have stepped beyond that, it is nirvana, it is liberation.

The second question

Question 2:

Bhagavato,

YOU ARE UNNECESSARILY SCARED - because dying has already happened. It is no more a question of future - it is already past.

The day you became a sannyasin, you died - you died to your old identity. The day you became a sannyasin, you were reborn. Something new has come into being. It is just an old idea that you are carrying; now there is no question of fear: you cannot die because you have died - it has already happened.

Sannyas is a death and a resurrection. Death of all that you have been, and resurrection of all that you ARE but you have never been. Death to the past, and an opening for the present. Death to all that you have called your identity - name, form... and entering into a world, nameless, formless.

It has already happened!

Sannyas MEANS death, but resurrection is possible only when death has happened. If you cling to yourself, resurrection is impossible. Sannyas is a cross. And to those who are outsiders it will look only like a cross, only like a death. They cannot see the resurrection, because the resurrection will happen in the innermost recesses of your being. It will not be visible to outside spectators. to onlookers. It will be visible only to those who are participants in it.

There are things which can be seen by observers; all those things are superficial, peripheral. And there are things which can be seen only by participants - they are real things, because they pertain to the very core of your being.

It is just an old idea that is hovering around you - forget all about it! You cannot die any more, because it has ALREADY happened. And if you forget that old idea, it will disappear. If you don't cling to that idea, don't go on giving energy to it, it will disappear.

Sometimes it takes a long time to understand what has happened to you. When you take sannyas, or when you go deep into meditation, when you enter into any mystery school, death happens.

Death is the first rite, the first process: the preparation. But it is possible your conscious mind has not heard about it yet.

first it happens at the deep core of your being. And you have gone so far away from your core, so so far away, that you can't even remember that there is a core. You have become so much part of the circumference that the center is completely forgotten, has become unknown to you. If you suddenly come across the center, you will not be able to recognize it as your own center.

That's what Chetana was saying in the first question; she does not know: WHAT IS THIS PART THAT LOVES YOU...? It IS SO new to her. It is her OWN core - but you have become unacquainted with yourself.

There is a parable of Friedrich Nietzsche:

A madman came into the marketplace. It was full daylight, shops were opening, people were coming and going, the market was becoming more and more alive, throbbing with many people - shopkeepers, and purchasers and all kinds of people. And this madman came from the mountains - with a lamp! lit in the full daylight. And he started looking here and there, and people started laughing and they said, "What are you looking for? And in full daylight, what is the point of carrying a lit lamp?"

The man said, "I am looking for God - where is God?"

They started laughing, they started joking, and they said, "Is God a child who has been lost? Is God somebody who is hiding?" And so many questions... just jokingly. A great crowd gathered.

And then suddenly the man said, "Do you know that WE have killed God? - you and I. But it seems the news has not yet reached you. It takes time. You and I - we have killed God. But we have killed him in such an unconscious way that the news will take time to reach you. I can understand why you are laughing - because you are not aware of what you have done."

From the unconscious to the conscious it is a long distance. When you become a sannyasin, if it is coming from your deep unconscious, only then does your sannyas have some authenticity - but then you will not be aware of what is happening. I will see something happening, I will see a great change of gestalt in your being. I will see the old disappearing and the new appearing... but you will not be aware of it.

You are fortunate if you can even hear a few whisperings from the unconscious. It will take time, years. But it has already happened, Bhagavato.

A criminal was sentenced to death by chopping off his head. They got the best executioner for him. On the appointed day, when everything was ready and the poor delinquent stood there before a crowd of people, the executioner came and started praising himself: how many heads he had already cut, all the famous people he had killed, and his tremendous skill in doing the job really quickly. As a kind of demonstration, he swung his sword above his head at such speed that one could not even see the sword.

This was too much for the delinquent, and he cried out, "This is too much! I can't stand this tension any longer. Why don't you do your job right away?" whereupon the executioner leaned on his sword and said, "Just nod...."

And that's what I say to you, Bhagavato: Just nod... and the head will fall off. You have already been killed. But it is a very fast sword: you cannot see the sword, you cannot see that your head is cut.

So now there is no need to worry - just, if you are very much afraid, don't nod.

The third question

Question 3:

Anand Bashir,

THERE IS A GREAT DIFFERENCE. Obeying, you remain separate; in surrender, you are no more separate. In obeying, you are saying yes - and there is every possibility that there is a no inside still. You are going against the inside no: you are saying yes. In obeying there is every possibility of a split.

In fact, yes cannot exist without a no existing somewhere behind it - yes and no are aspects of one and the same coin, two sides. When you say yes, somewhere you have already said no. When you say no, somewhere you have already said yes - they go in a pair.

You can watch it in your own life: whenever you say yes, there is lurking somewhere in your unconscious a no. In fact, the louder you say the yes, the stronger is the no; that's why a louder yes is needed - to repress the no. And this kind of obedience, in the first place makes you double, destroys your unity; you become divided in yes and no. Secondly, the no that has been repressed through the yes will take its revenge sooner or later. Whenever the right time arrives, the no will assert itself, and will assert itself with a vengeance; it will carry the wound, the humiliation, the insult. It will become your dark part.

Psychologists say that only one part of the mind is conscious, nine parts are unconscious. How are these nine parts created? And what is contained by these nine parts of the unconscious? These are the noes that you have been saying. Yes has become your conscious, but it is only one tenth.

And noes are being accumulated in the basement of your being, and they are gathering momentum every day and they are becoming bigger and bigger. Every day you go on repressing something - one day they will take revenge. Either you will become mad... if you are a sincere man then you will become mad. Remember, madness happens only to sincere people; hypocrites never go mad.

Either, if you are a sincere person, honest, you will go mad; or, if you are insincere, dishonest, you will become a hypocrite - you will say yes and you will follow no.

There is a Jesus parable:

A father says to two of his sons to go to the field, some work has to be done. The elder says, "Yes, father. I will go," but never goes. The younger says, "No. I am not going," but then starts feeling guilty and goes.

Now, Jesus asks, "Who is really obedient?" The one who said yes and never went, or the one who said no and still went - who is obedient?"

If you only judge the words, then the first is obedient - but what kind of obedience is this? If you judge facts, then the second is obedient - although he had said no. But whether you say yes or you say no, you create a split. If you say no, you start feeling guilty, and the yes is there repressed and it wants to assert itself. That's what guilt is all about. It you say yes, the no is there, and the no asserts... and you start saying one thing and doing another. This is how hypocrisy is born. And both are pathological.

Surrender means neither yes nor no. You are NOT there to say yes or no. Surrender is a total act:

yes and no are partial acts. Surrender means you dissolve, you say, "I am no more." And not only do you say it - in deep love that's how you feel: you are no more.

Two lovers become one - two bodies and one soul. The disciple and the Master become one - two bodies and one soul. This is surrender. It is not that the disciple says yes to the Master; the disciple is NOT there to say yes or no. The disciple simply exists not; he has dropped the very idea of the ego, separation, so there is no question of obedience or disobedience.

A disciple is not obedient, remember, because he cannot be disobedient - the disciple simply is not.

You can call it real obedience; if you love the word 'obedience', you can call it REAL obedience. But, remember, it is neither obedience nor disobedience. There is nobody to say yes or no! The disciple is just an emptiness.

I am all for surrender, because surrender is true obedience, non-dual obedience. You remain unsplit, you remain whole. And anything that divides you is not good, and anything that divides you is dangerous in the long run.

Man has suffered very much because of this cultivated obedience, the idea of obedience. Down the ages you have been taught to obey. Obedience has been praised as one of the greatest values. In fact, Christianity thinks this is the ultimate value.

That's why Adam and Eve eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge commit the original sin. Why is it the original sin? They have not done anything bad; only one thing have they done: they have disobeyed. God has said not to eat and they have eaten - a simple disobedience. But it becomes the original sin and they are expelled from paradise.

This kind of philosophy is very dangerous. It has created ALL kinds of ugly situations down the ages. Wars wi!l disappear from the world if people are taught more awareness and less obedience.

But in the army you are not taught awareness; on the contrary, all your awareness is methodically destroyed - so you become a robot, so you can simply obey. So whatsoever the order, right or wrong, you follow it like a machine.

It became very clear after the Second World War. Thomas Merton writes:

"One of the most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane. I do not doubt it at all, and that is precisely why I find it so disturbing.... If all the Nazis had been psychotics, as some of their leaders probably were, their appalling cruelty would have been in some sense easier to understand. It is much worse to consider this calm, 'well-balanced', unperturbed official conscientiously going about his desk-work, his administrative job, which happened to be the supervision of mass-murder. He was thoughtful, orderly, obedient, unimaginative. He had a profound respect for system, law and order. He was obedient, loyal, a faithful officer of a great state. He served his government very well.... He was not bothered by guilt. I have not heard that he developed any psychosomatic illnesses. Apparently, he slept well. He had a good appetite, or so it seems....

"I am beginning to realize that 'sanity' is no longer a value or an end in itself. the 'sanity' of modern man is about as useful to him as the huge bulk and muscles of the dinosaur. If he were a little less sane, a little more doubtful, a little more aware of his absurdities and contradictions, perhaps there might be a possibility of his survival. But he is sane, too sane... perhaps we must say that in a society like ours the worst insanity is totally without anxiety, totally 'sane'...."

Merton is right. Down the ages we have been taught the virtue of being obedient. That means: lose all consciousness; simply follow whatsoever is told, whatsoever is commanded - don't doubt, don't think, don't contemplate. This has transformed the whole of humanity into machines. Men have disappeared; there are only efficient machines. And this has created a very stupid humanity.

I am not for obedience as such - it is a military value - but I am certainly for surrender. Surrender is a love affair. Obedience is a social phenomenon: love is individual. You love a Woman, you love a man... surrender. And when you are surrendering, remember, the surrender is never towards the Woman the surrender is never towards the man: the surrender is towards the bodiless God of love - you are both surrender ing to love. So it is not a question of domination; in real love there is no domination at all.

The man has surrendered to the love, the woman has surrendered to the love - now love permeates their being.

The Master is already surrendered to God, the disciple has also surrendered to God - not love, or God, permeates their being.

This is not ordinary obedience; it has nothing to do with the obedience of which we have been told, taught, conditioned. It is a totally different phenomenon, very mysterious. When two persons surrender to love, and love takes possession of them, nobody is dominant and nobody is dominated, nobody is higher than the other. In fact, both are not. And then something tremendously important starts happening: God starts happening. Then they both speak the same language, because they are both tuned to the same wavelength.

It may look from the outside like obedience, but it is not. Remember when you are contemplating on Pythagoras, that's what he means: Be a good son. He does not mean be an obedient son; he simply means be a surrendered son. Be a good spouse: he does not mean be a good wife or a good husband; he simply means be surrendered to love. Be a good father, a good brother: he does not mean by that to allow yourself to be dominated; he simply means be surrendered to love.

Let love become your whole life. When you are a son, let the love be towards the father; let the father be the vehicle of love. When you are a father in your own turn, let the son become the vehicle of love.

These are just excuses to surrender: son, father, husband, wife, friend, Master - these are just excuses. We cannot surrender to the faceless God - we are not yet capable of that - so we have to find some excuse, some door. The Master is visible - the disciple can surrender to the Master. But the surrender is really towards God. When the disciple sees God in his Master, only then does the surrender happen. The man can surrender to his beloved. but the surrender is possible only when he has seen in the beloved something of the unknown, the mysterious - God has come in the form of the beloved or the lover.

Surrender is a spiritual value: obedience a political value. And beware of all kinds of politics.

The fourth question

Question 4:

Sudhir,

THAT ETERNAL SEEKER exists in everyone - Pythagoras exists in everyone. We may not have taken note of him, but there is an in-built search for truth: man is a seeker. And unless you recognize it consciously you will not be a man in the true sense of the word.

That is the only difference between man and other animals: it is only man who seeks truth, it is only man who wants to penetrate the mysteries of life and existence. It is only man who wonders what it is all about. It is only man who meditates, contemplates.

You may not be aware that the English word 'man' comes from a Sanskrit root which means contemplation - MANAN. Man is capable of contemplation, of meditation. So, Sudhir, when you heard me talking about Pythagoras, something in your heart stirred - Pythagoras who is asleep in you moved a little bit, became a little alert, awake. Your sleep became a little less dense; your dreams for a moment stopped. Something was triggered in you.

Pythagoras is almost an archetype: the seeker for truth par excellence, a person who devoted his whole life to finding PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS - the perennial philosophy of life. The possibility exists in everybody; it has to be actualized. But we are so much lost in playing useless, unnecessary games, we are so much lost in accumulating toys which are utterly childish - wasting life, wasting energy, wasting time. And life is short! and life is very fleeting. And time is continuously slipping out of your hands.

Make it a point, a burning desire in you, that before death comes you will have arrived home - before death takes possession of you, truth HAS to happen! Make it such an intense longing that every fiber of your being starts pulsating with it, that even while you are asleep, the longing goes on moving as an undercurrent. Whatsoever you are doing, all doing has to become peripheral, and a constant search for truth and a constant thirst for truth has to become your very center. Let that be your passionate love affair.

You say: WHAT IS THIS FEELING OF INTEGRATION AND POWER THAT STARTED TO ARISE INSIDE ME WHEN I HEARD YOU SPEAKING ABOUT THE ETERNAL PILGRIMAGE OF PYTHAGORAS...?

Yes, if the desire to know truth arises in you, integration comes of its own accord - because the desire to know truth is so tremendously powerful. It is not an ordinary desire: it is not a desire for a better house or a better car or more money; it is not a desire for fame, success, power, prestige....

These are very ordinary desires; they cannot integrate you. In fact they disintegrate you, because they are many. One desire pulls you towards the north, another desire pulls you towards the south.

And they are many, it is a crowd, and every desire wants to attract you, wants your attention. They are clamouring around you.

The desire for money says, "Drop everything else. Have as much money as you can." And the desire for success says, "Even if money has to be lost, don't be worried - you have to become a successful man, you have to be famous, you have to leave a mark in history! Risk everything - money and all."

And the desire for sex says, "Money and power and prestige, what are they going to give you? Enjoy life while it is there - squeeze every moment of it into sensuous pleasure."

These so many desires go on pulling you in so many directions; that's why you feel always that you are falling apart. The desire for truth is a singular desire. And it is so big and so huge that all other desires simply disappear into it. These are small streams. When the desire for truth comes, the big river, it absorbs all small streams into it. They all disappear into one desire. It becomes such a passion, such a burning passion, that you are aflame with it. That very oneness of the desire integrates.

It was a beautiful experience, Sudhir. Don't forget it - remember it. It has to be strengthened, intensified. It has to be made total, because to be in a total longing for God is all that is needed to achieve God! When the desire is one hundred percent, when you are not holding anything back, when you have opened all your cards, IMMEDIATELY, in that totality... God happens. You need not go anywhere; you have simply to become afire and God starts showering with all his grace.

Integration brings you to truth, and the desire for truth brings integration.

The fifth question

Question 5:

I AM REALLY SURPRISED that in a single sentence almost all the words are wrong. How did you manage?! It starts with 'I' - 'I' never becomes enlightened; 'I' is the barrier. It is 'I' that is preventing.

When you become enlightened you are not; there is nobody to claim. The Upanishads say - and Zarathustra and Lao Tzu and Jesus all say the same thing again and again in different ways.... The Upanishads are very clear; they say: If somebody says, "I am enlightened," then know well he is not.

Enlightenment is something that cannot be claimed, because the claimer has to disappear before enlightenment happens. One is enlightened only when one is not.

And you start the sentence: I... I THINK.... And the second word is 'think'. What does thinking have to do with enlightenment? Thinking is always far far away from enlightenment. It is the constant process of thought in you that keeps you drowned in your own mud; it is the constant process of thought in you that keeps you blindfolded, that keeps you blind, that does not allow your eyes to reflect that which is, because those thoughts go on distorting everything. Thought is a mechanism of distortion. But we have become accustomed....

People come to me and they say, "I think, Osho, I have fallen in love" - as if love is part of thinking.

They cannot even say, "I feel I am in love." They say, "I think I am in love." Even love has to be a thought in them. And how can love be a thought? Love can only be a feeling.

These are three layers: first is thought, second is feeling, and third is being - thinking, feeling, being.

You can think about the world, you can think about objects of the world; you cannot think of love - love is higher than thinking, beyond the grasp of thought. You can feel love: you cannot think it.

And you cannot even feel enlightenment - it is beyond feeling. Just as love is beyond thinking, enlightenment is beyond feeling. You can only BE enlightened - you cannot think, you cannot feel.

It is there! And when it is there, it is there.

And you say: I THINK THAT I AM ALMOST ENLIGHTENED.

What do you mean by 'almost'? It has never been heard before. Either one is enlightened or not!

Almost? It is like saying that this is almost a circle - almost a circle? A circle has to be a perfect circle, otherwise it is not a circle. It may be some other shape - you cannot say 'almost a circle'.

You cannot say, "I am almost in love." That very word 'almost' says you are not.

There was a young man from the coast, Who began making love with a ghost.

At the height of orgasm The she-ectoplasm Said, "I think I can feel it - almost."

You must be dreaming - making love to a ghost. Hence the word 'almost'. Drop all such nonsense.

And if you can drop it, you need not become enlightened - you are. Nobody needs to become enlightened. Enlightenment is not something that is going to happen to you - it is already the case!

It has happened. It is your very nature.

Just drop all kinds of rubbish that you have gathered around it.

The sixth question

Question 6:

LUNACEK,

THE QUESTION IS SIGNIfiCANT But it can be answered only if you are ready to rise a little higher than the ordinary logic of life, if you are ready to raise your eyes towards some higher mathematics.

The lower mathematics has one kind of rules; the higher mathematics is just the opposite of it.

Pythagoras says there are two laws: that of necessity and that of power. Lower mathematics consists of necessity; higher mathematics consists of power. And their workings are different, utterly different - although they are part of a bigger whole, the primordial law, LOGOS, TAO, DHAMMA.

first thing: in lower mathematics the part is never equal to the whole, obviously - how can the part be equal to the whole? But in the higher mathematics the part is equal to the whole. For example:

in the lower mathematics, a dewdrop cannot be the ocean; it is so small and the ocean is so vast.

But the difference is only of quantity! Lower mathematics takes account only of quantity; higher mathematics thinks of quality not of quantity. And then the dewdrop is exactly the ocean. It contains all the oceans! If you can understand a single dewdrop, you have understood all the oceans of all the planets and all the stars and all the earths. A single dewdrop can reveal to you the formula H2O - and that is the formula of all the oceans. The secret is contained by a small dewdrop as much as by the big ocean. The quantity is different, but the quality is not different. Qualitatively the small dewdrop is as big as the ocean - because it contains AS much truth as the ocean.

Tennyson has said that if we can understand a small flower, root and all, we will have understood the whole universe. And he is right - he is talking about higher mathematics.

Just the other day I mentioned three great books: first iS Aristotles ORGANUM, second Bacon's NOVUM ORGANUM, and third P. D. Ouspensky's TERTIUM ORGANUM. Ouspensky's TERTIUM ORGANUM IS A book of higher mathematics; he was a mathematician, one of the greatest mathematicians that has ever been. And in the very beginning of the book, Ouspensky says, "My book, TERTIUM ORGANUM, IS the third, but the third existed before the first." Now there is a difference of two thousand years between Ouspensky and Aristotle - but Ouspensky says the third existed before the first. This is the beginning of higher mathematics; from the first statement the higher mathematics starts.

Somebody asked Jesus: "What do you say about Abraham?" And he said, "Before Abraham ever was, I am."

Now this is something strange, on the surface absurd. I how can Jesus be before Abraham? But the essential quality of Christ-consciousness is eternal. Jesus as a body cannot be before Abraham, but Jesus as essential consciousness is CERTAINLY before Abraham. The higher mathematics turns things upside down, because things are already topsy-turvy.

You ask me: I KNOW THAT EXISTENCE IS PERFECT IN ITS TOTALITY...

You don't know what you are saying. If existence is perfect in its totality then each part has to be perfect; otherwise, how can the total be perfect? If all the parts that constitute the total are imperfect, how can the sum of all those parts be perfect? - that is impossible. If each drop that makes the ocean is imperfect, how can the whole ocean be perfect? It's simple: if the ocean is perfect then the logical corollary will be that each drop is perfect.

The Upanishads say - again they talk of higher mathematics - they say: God is perfect. Even if you take the whole of God out of him, still the perfection will remain behind. Take everything out of the whole, but the whole will still remain behind. You cannot make perfection less or more. If you take something out of it, it will be the same; you add something to it, it will be the same.

You say: I KNOW THAT EXISTENCE IS PERFECT IN ITS TOTALITY, BUT WE ARE SINGLE INCARNATIONS AND IF TOTALITY IS INTELLIGENT, ITS PARTS ARE NOT.

If the parts are not intelligent, how can the totality be intelligent? So there are only two possibilities for you. One is: if you are stupid then God is stupid - because all stupid parts, in fact, will make God more stupid rather than less. So many stupid parts will not only add stupidity but will multiply it... God will go mad.

If you say God is intelligent, then each part has to be intelligent - only then can God be intelligent.

If God is perfect then each part has to be perfect - only then can God be perfect.

If you try to understand. this will be obvious.

And, the part is never less than the whole; it contains all the qualities of the whole - quantitatively maybe less, but quantity does not matter. Quality matters. Qualitatively you are perfect as you are.

This is the declaration of all the mystics of all the ages - I declare it again: You are perfect as you are. You are Gods.

The second thing you say:

YOU SAID THAT GOD NEEDS YOU AS YOU ARE, OTHERWISE HE WOULD NOT HAVE CREATED YOU.

Yes, if he is intelligent, as you yourself say, why should he Create you if you are not needed?

Intelligence always creates that which is needed. That is the meaning of being intelligent! If you are created for no reason, for no purpose, for no necessity that you are going to fulfill, then God cannot be intelligent.

He is utterly intelligent "God is intelligent" is not right to say: it will be better to say "God is intelligence." This whole existence is full of intelligence.

But I can understand your problem.

You ask: But IF I HAVE BAD A HARD HORRIBLE ILLNESS FROM MY EARLY AGE AND THIS MISTAKE OF NATURE MAKES ME SUFFER CONSTANTLY, THEN WHOSE SUFFERING IS IT?

The suffering is your interpretation. You have become too much identified with it - that is your decision. You can disidentify and the suffering disappears. Your suffering is like a nightmare: in the dream you think a great rock has fallen on your chest, it is crushing you to death. Out of fear you awake... and all that you find is nothing - your own hands resting on your chest. But the weight of your hands triggered imagination in you: it became a rock, and you started feeling very very frightened. And because of the fear, you are awakened... and now you laugh.

Ask the Buddhas, ask the awakened ones, and they say there is no suffering in the world - people are fast asleep and dreaming all kinds of sufferings.

And I know your difficulty: if you have a physical problem, if you are blind, how can you believe that this is only a dream? If you are crippled, how can you believe that this is only a dream? But have you not watched? - every night you dream, and every morning you know that it was a dream and all nonsense - and again you will dream, and in dream again you will believe that this is truth. How many dreams have you dreamt in your life? Millions of dreams! Each night you are dreaming almost without break; just for a few minutes the dreaming stops, and then again another cycle of dreaming starts.

Millions of dreams you have dreamt. And every morning you have laughed and you have said it was unreal, but you have not learnt much. Tonight again when you dream, the same fallacy will persist:

you will know that this is truth - in dream you will know this is true. The day you can remember in your dream that this is a dream, immediately the dream disappears... because you have brought awareness into your life.

It looks very difficult to trust that all that you are suffering is just a dream created by yourself - but it is so. Because all those who have become awakened say so! Not a single awakened person has said otherwise. And in lucid moments of awareness you will also feel the same.

Lunacek, this is my suggestion for you: your problem cannot be solved only by an intellectual discussion - your problem can be only dissolved, not solved. Your problem can only be dissolved by becoming more aware.

One of my friends, an old friend, fell from a staircase, broke both his legs. I went to see him; he was in tremendous pain. And he was a very active person although he was very old, seventy-five - but very active, almost young, and run-ning so much after this and that, and doing this and that, that it was impossible for him to rest on the bed. And the doctors had said that for three months at least he had to be only in bed. This was more of a calamity than the two broken legs.

When I saw him, he started crying. I had never seen that man cry - he is a strong man, a very strong man, almost a man of steel, and has seen all kinds of things in his life, is a very seasoned man. I asked him, "You, and crying - what is the matter with you?"

He said, "Just bless me so that I can die. I don't want to live any more - three months just in bed!

Can you imagine? This is torture. Just three days have passed and it feels almost as if for three years I have been in bed. You know me," he said, "I cannot rest. Just bless me so that I can die soon!

I don't want to live any more. These three months and then the doctors say I will remain crippled my whole life - so what is the point?"

I said to him, "You please do a meditation. I will sit by your side, you just do a simple meditation:

that you are not the body."

He was dubious. He said, "What is that going to do to me? I have heard all that you say about meditation, but I cannot meditate because I cannot sit silently."

I said, "Now there is no question of sitting silently - you are already in the bed. This is a blessing!

Just close your eyes and I will teach you a meditation. And I bless you to die, because if you want to die then perfectly good. But my blessing may work, may not work, so meanwhile you meditate."

He understood the point: "There is nothing to do... so why not meditate?" A simple meditation I told him: "You simply go in, look at the body from the inside, say 'It is not me - the body is far away, far away, going distant and more distant and more distant. I am a watcher on the hills, and the body is down there in the dark valley, and the distance is immense.' "

Half an hour passed. I had to leave, and he was in such a meditation that I didn't want to disturb him, but I didn't want to leave him either because I wanted to know what was happen-ing, what he would say. So I had to shake him. He said, "Don't disturb me!"

I said, "But I have to leave."

He said, "You can leave, but don't disturb me - it is so beautiful. The body is really lying so far away, miles and miles away; in the valley I have left it and I am sitting on the top of the hill, a sunlit hill. It is so beautiful, and I don't feel any pain either."

And those three months proved the most valuable time of his life. Those three months made him a totally different man. He is still crippled, cannot walk, has to remain mostly in the bed - but you cannot find a more blissful person. He radiates bliss.

Now he says it was not a curse - it was a blessing.

Suffering can be transformed into a blessing. Who knows? - you are transforming your blessings into sufferings.

You say: BUT IF I HAVE HAD A HARD HORRIBLE ILLNESS FROM MY EARLY AGE AND THIS MISTAKE OF NATURE MAKES ME SUFFER CONSTANTLY, THEN WHOSE SUFFERING IS IT?

DON 'T SAY GOD'S.

I WILL NEVER SAY THAT. You don't need to remind me. How can God Suffer? God is nothing but blessings, blissfulness, ecstasy, benediction. God cannot suffer: God is SATCHITANANDA - truth, consciousness, bliss.

And I am not going to say that you are suffering either, because you are part of God, and the part is equal to the whole. And if the part suffers, then the whole suffers. Then who is suffering? Nobody is suffering: you are only dreaming. You are interpreting it in a wrong way. It is not a mistake of nature!

It is a mistake of your understanding.

And I know it is very hard for a person who is in suffering, but what can I do? This is the truth and I have to say the truth - even if it hurts, I have to say it the way it is.

You say: MY PROFESSOR OF PATHOPHYSIOLOGY SAID...

He seems to be pathological himself, your professor.

... THAT NATURE IS STUPID...

If nature is stupid, how can you be intelligent? You are part of nature! Nature is not stupid: nature is utter intelligence. But this is how the ego of man goes on and on bragging about itself.

It is because of these people that the whole of nature has been destroyed, the ecology has been destroyed, the atmosphere is polluted - it is because of such professors. Avoid these people! Avoid these people as you avoid lepers - don't avoid lepers but avoid professors.

Now, what a nonsense statement: Nature is stupid. Then who are you? and from where? "The ocean is stupid" is said by a wave! You see the stupidity.

MY PROFESSOR SAYS, 'NATURE IS STUPID, OTHERWISE IT WOULD NOT OPPOSE ITSELF BY PUTTING ONE PART AGAINST THE OTHER..."

That's how intelligence functions, by putting one part against the other. Intelligence is a dialectical process, otherwise nothing will exist. If there is no death, there will be no birth either - death has to oppose birth. But this opposition is only on the surface. Deep down, they represent the single law, the primordial law, LOGOS.

Light has to be opposed by darkness, otherwise there will be no light. And love has to be opposed by hate, otherwise there will be no love either. And man has to be opposed by woman... and so on and so forth.

Just ask your professor how electricity can exist if there are not the polarities of negative and positive in it. Can he make electricity exist without this opposition of the negative and the positive? And he thinks nature is stupid? That is the only way! Can a river exist without two banks? It is impossible for the river to exist without two banks - those two banks oppose each other and create the space for the river to flow between.

Life needs polar opposites: summer/winter, birth/death, yin/yang, Shiva/Shakti, positive/negative.

Your professor must be a little crazy, nuts. Professors are. You ask him: can he make anything happen without dialectics? Nature is dialectical - nature knows how things have to be done. Nature has never been any other way, and will not be any other way.

Try to understand... then the dialectics will be seen everywhere. Illness and health, they can only be both together. Beauty and ugliness, success and failure, pain and pleasure, suffering and blissfulness - they are all part of nature. Once you have understood it, a transcendence happens.

This is what Pythagoras says: The law of necessity and the law of power. The law of necessity pulls you downwards into mechanicalness; the law of power pulls you upwards into the world of freedom.

I call these two laws: the law of gravitation and the law of grace. One pulls you downward, one pulls you up.

The logical mind says: Why opposites? But the logical mind is not really an understanding mind.

Logic is not the true process of life: dialectics is. Logic is linear: dialectics is not linear - dialectics moves by thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and then the synthesis becomes a thesis again, antithesis, synthesis, and so on and so forth... higher and higher dialectics goes. Logic is monotonous. If God was logical, as your professor of pathophysiology is, he would have created only man, not woman.

What is the point? Or, only woman - what is the point of creating man and creating trouble in the world? There would have been only homosexuality according to your professor - no heterosexuality.

But just think of a world utterly homosexual. It will be really ugly. It is good once in a while to meet a gay person - it is gay! - but the whole world homosexual, men hugging each other and saying 'darling'? That would have been far more pathological.

This is a beautiful world - it exists in polar opposites. But those opposites are complementary, and it makes life rich because it gives a tension to life, otherwise life will be flat, monotonous, boring; there will be no joy. Joy arises only out of this tension.

Wherever there is tension, there is the possibility of joy. Whenever the tension relaxes, joy arises.

You love a woman - there is great joy - but if you love her twenty-four hours a day, and you go on calling her sugar, sugar, sugar, you will have diabetes! A little fight, a little pillow-throwing, is very much needed - that gives you space again.

When you fight with your woman, it is a mini divorce: you go apart. For a moment you think, "finished! I am not going to do anything with this woman ever - enough is enough." And she is also saying the same. You go far away, as far away as you have been before you fell in love. And when you are that far away, again love arises, because you start missing the woman, the woman starts missing you. You start coming closer. And when you come closer again, a mini honeymoon again.

And this is how it goes on: in the morning you fight, by the evening you are together; in the night you fight, by the morning you are again together. This is a rhythm! this is dialectics.

Just think of two lovers holding hands for ever and ever... never a fight. It will be really tiring. They will never go far away, then there will be no joy of coming together. The joy of coming together depends on going far away from each other. Once in a while everybody wants to be alone; and then you start missing, then the search starts. When you are together, sooner or later you become tired of each other, and you start searching for that space called aloneness again. This is how it moves, the pendulum of life: right and left, left and right. This is how life progresses.

It is perfectly as it should be.

The seventh question

Question 7:

Christine,

THERE ARE THINGS which you can know as spectators, and there are things which you can only know if you become a participant. There are things which will be misunderstood from the outside, and there are things which can ONLY be understood when you are an insider. Those rules and regulations have their own meaning. They are devices. If you really want to know why, what the purpose of them is, then take a jump - become part of this commune.

And in the right moment only will you come to know what the purpose is. It cannot be told beforehand; only existential experiences will make you aware. This is a mystery school, a Pythagorean school. What is being done here is done deliberately. Nothing is done accidentally. I am at the center of everything here. Even if something looks very absurd, wait, be patient, and one day you will see the point of it. And you will see only when it becomes part of your own experience.

I will tell you one story:

Garfield Goldwater made a great deal of money in the men's clothing business in New York. He gave to all the charities, attended all the fancy balls, had his name in Earl Wilson's column twice a week - and still was not happy. In fact, he was becoming so depressed that a friend suggested he see a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist listened and then said, "Look here, Mr. Goldwater. You have made all this money, but your success is meaningless because you don't do anything for pleasure. Is not there anything at all you have always wanted to do? A childhood fantasy? A juvenile ambition?"

"Well," said Garfield Goldwater a little reluctantly, "when I was a boy I wanted to go into the jungle on a safari. You know, kind of like Tarzan did."

The psychiatrist advised, "If that is what you wanted to do, then do it. Life is short and the grave is deep. Do it, man, and do it now!"

Garfield decided to take the advice. Two days later, he flew to Africa, where he confronted the worlds most famous gorilla safari hunter.

Patiently, the safari hunter explained that he had retired. However, Garfield Goldwater was not easily put off. "Please, Mr. Safari Hunter," he said, "make one more safari. I will pay anything you ask. I am a rich man - money is no object."

The safari hunter was moved. "I've heard of you," he said. "I have even worn your suits." He thought a while, then he asked, "Do you mean what you said about money being no object?"

"Absolutely," vowed Garfield Goldwater.

"All right, here is the deal. In addition to me, you will need a Zulu, a dog, and a pigmy with a gun. It will cost you ten thousand dollars."

Garfield Goldwater whistled. "Ten thousand dollars!" he exclaimed. "That's a lot of cabbage."

"Only if you don't have it," the safari hunter reminded him. So Garfield agreed.

The troupe was rounded up, and on the very next afternoon the safari went out on its first mission.

Within an hour, the hunter spotted a gorilla in a tree. Everyone stood by while the Zulu climbed the tree. He shook the branches until the gorilla lost his grip and fell to the ground. The dog immediately jumped on the gorilla and bit his balls, at which point the gorilla fainted. A net was slung over him and Garfield had his first gorilla.

He was very pleased. But that night in his tent, Garfield Goldwater thought again about the fee.

He went to the safari hunter's tent and awakened him. "I hate to bother you at this hour," he said, "because first, you have done a great job, and second, I am happy about the gorilla but third, I think you are taking advantage of me. Ten thousand..."

The safari hunter shrugged. "Mr. Goldwater, a deal is a deal."

"I can understand," said Garfield, "the need for the Zulu and the dog, but why do we need the pigmy with the gun? You are padding the bill a little, old man."

There was no response the safari hunter had fallen asleep.

The next afternoon, they went out and spotted a larger gorilla in a tree. The Zulu climbed the tree and shook the branches until the gorilla lost his grip and fell to the ground. The dog jumped on the gorilla and bit him on the balls; the gorilla fainted and the safari hunter threw a net over him.

Again Garfield was impressed. But again he began to stew about the high fee. He went to the safari hunter's tent and said, "I want a showdown. I want you to get rid of the pigmy with the gun and reduce my bill."

"Mr. Goldwater," said the safari hunter, "you made a deal.

Distraught, Garfield Goldwater returned to his tent. He tried to dream of suits made by Angelo in Rome and ice cream sundaes at Bishoff's in Teaneck, New Jersey, but always his thoughts returned to the ten-thousand-dollar fee and the pigmy with the gun.

The next day, the safari went out, and now it was Garfield Goldwater himself who spotted the gorilla.

This time it was a very large one. The Zulu climbed the tree and shook the branches. The Zulu and the gorilla confronted each other and the two began to wrestle. Suddenly, the gorilla threw the man.

As the Zulu came tumbling down to the ground, he screamed to the pigmy, "Shoot the dog! Shoot the dog!"