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The first question

Question 1:

IN THE GUTTER OF THE MARKETPLACE lay a dead dog, to the disgust of the passer-by. "How loathsome!" said one, and turned his head. "Pah, how he stinks!" said another and held his nose as he passed. "Look at his protruding ribs - how ugly! nauseating!" said a third. "He has not enough skin on his carcass to make even a shoestring," said a fourth. "No wonder he came to a bad end,"

said a fifth.

Then a gentle, rebuking voice broke in on the chorus of calumny, saying, "Pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth!" And the people drew away whispering, "Surely that must be Jesus, for who else would say a good word for a dead dog?"

That's the very spirit of Jesus. He loved the world so totally that he could not find any sin anywhere.

He loved the world so totally that nothing was ugly to him - all was transformed into a luminous beauty.

Existence is what you project on it. Existence reflects you. If you have ugliness in your heart, you will see it everywhere. If your heart is innocent you will see existence as virgin. You go on listening to your own echoes.

The real saint is one who cannot find the sinner in the world. But your so-called saints are just so-called. The whole world becomes full of sinners for them; they exist on condemnation. The more they condemn people, the higher they feel they are; the more they put you down, in a better way their egos are gratified.

Remember it: a real saint never meets a sinner. Even if he searches he is not going to find one.

That is the definition of a real saint: one who cannot find anything ugly in existence, for whom the whole existence is transformed, transported. It is incredibly beautiful, it is utterly beautiful, it is wholly beautiful.

The moment existence becomes so totally beautiful for you, you have ,known God. God is not a person; you will never encounter him anywhere. He has no form, no name. God is a presence, but the presence can be felt only by those who have this aesthetic sensitivity, this aesthetic awareness....

Jesus could see in the dead dog something immensely beautiful. He said, "Pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth." In that whiteness, God appeared. In that whiteness the presence was felt. And you cannot even see it in a beautiful sunrise? And you cannot see it in a roseflower? You cannot see it in the face of a beautiful woman or man? You cannot see it in the innocent eyes of children? And you go on searching in the churches and the temples and the mosques - all your search is in vain.

Religion is nothing but attaining to such sensitive awareness that all is transformed into incredible beauty. Beauty is God.

The second question

Question 2:

Prem Harish,

THIS HAS BEEN ONE OF THE GREATEST PROBLEMS down the ages: meditation and love, aloneness and relationship, sex and silence. Only the names are different: the problem is one. And down the ages man has suffered much because the problem has not been understood rightly - people have chosen.

Those who have chosen relationship are called the worldly, and those who have chosen aloneness are called the monks, the other-worldly. But both suffer, because they remain half and to be half is to be miserable. To be whole is to be healthy, happy; to be whole is to be perfect. To remain half is miserable because the other half goes on sabotaging, the other half goes on preparing to take revenge. The other half can never be destroyed because it is YOUR other half. It is an essential part of you; it is not something accidental that you can discard. It is like a mountain deciding that "I will

not have any valleys around me." Now, without the valleys, the mountain cannot be. The valleys are part of the mountain's being; the mountain cannot exist without the valleys. They are complementary to each other. If the mountain chooses to be without valleys, there will be no mountain any more. If the valley chooses to be without the mountain, there will be no valley either - or, you will become a pretender. The mountain will pretend that there is no valley, but the valley IS there - you can hide the valley, you can drown it deep into your unconscious, but it remains, it persists, it is existential, there is no way to destroy it. In fact, mountain/valley are one thing, so are love and meditation, so are relationship and aloneness. The mountain of aloneness rises only in the valleys of relationship.

In fact, you can enjoy aloneness only if you can enjoy relationship. It is relationship that creates the need for aloneness, it is a rhythm.

When you have moved in deep relationship with somebody, a great need arises to be alone. You start feeling spent, exhausted, tired - joyously tired, happily tired, but each excitement is exhausting.

It was tremendously beautiful to relate, but now you would like to move into aloneness, so that you can again gather yourself together, so that again you can become overflowing, so that again you become rooted in your own being.

In love you moved into the other's being, you lost contact with yourself. You became drowned, drunk.

Now you will need to find yourself again. But when you are alone, you are again creating a need for love. Soon you will be so full that you would like to share, you will be so overflowing that you would like somebody to pour yourself into, to whom to give of yourself. Love arises out of aloneness.

Aloneness makes you overfull. Love receives your gifts. Love empties you so that you can become full again. Whenever you are emptied by love, aloneness is there to nourish you, to integrate you.

And this is a rhythm.

To think of these two things as separate has been the stupidity, the most dangerous stupidity, that man has suffered from. A few people become worldly - they are spent, they are just exhausted, empty. They don't have any space of their own. They don't know who they are; they never come across themselves. They live with others, they live for others. They are part of a crowd; they are not individuals. And remember: their life of love will not be of fulfilment - it will be half. And no half can ever be a fulfillment. Only the whole is fulfilled.

And then there are the monks who have chosen the other half. They live in the monasteries. The word 'monk' means one who lives alone; the word 'monk' comes from the same root as 'monogamy', 'monotony', 'monastery', 'monopoly'. It means one, alone.

The monk is one who has chosen to be alone, but soon he is overfull, ripe, and knows nowhere to pour himself. WHERE to pour himself? He cannot allow love, he cannot allow relationship; he cannot go and meet and mix with people. Now his energies start getting sour. Any energy that stops flowing becomes bitter. Even nectar, stagnant, becomes poison, and vice versa - even poison, flowing, becomes nectar. To flow is to know what nectar is. And to become stagnant is to know what poison is.

Poison and nectar are not two things but two states of the same energy. Flowing it is nectar: frozen it is poison. Whenever some energy is there and there is no outlet for it, it goes sour, it becomes bitter, it becomes sad, it becomes ugly. Rather than giving you a wholeness and health it makes you ill.

ALL monks are ill. All monks are BOUND to be pathological.

The worldly people are empty, bored, exhausted, dragging themselves somehow, in the name of duty, in the name of the family, in the name of the nation - all sacred cows - somehow dragging to death, just waiting for death to come and deliver them. They will know their rest only in their graves.

They will not know any rest in life. And a life that knows no rest is not a life really.

It is like music which has no silence in it - then it is just noise, nauseating; it will make you sick.

Great music is a synthesis between sound and silence. And the greater the synthesis, the deeper the music goes. The sound creates silence, and the silence creates receptivity to receive sound.

And so on and so forth: sound creates more love for music, more capacity to become silent.

Listening to great music you will always feel prayerful, something whole - something integrates in you. You become centered, rooted. The earth and the sky meet, they are no more separate. The body and the soul meet and merge, they lose their definitions.

And that is the great moment: the moment of the mystic union.

Harish, you say: THE OTHER DAY, SOON AFTER I ARRIVED, THE BATTLE BEGAN BETWEEN SEX AND SILENCE.

This is an ancient battle, and foolish, utterly foolish. Please beware: don't create any battle between sex and silence. If you create a battle, your sex will be ugly, sick, your silence will be dull and dead.

Let sex and silence meet and merge.

In fact the greatest moments of silence are those which are followed by love, great love, peaks of love. And the peaks of love are always followed by great moments of silence and aloneness.

Meditation leads into love: love leads into meditation. They are partners. It is impossible to divide them.

So it is not a question of creating a synthesis - it is impossible to divide them - it is a question of understanding, seeing that they are indivisible.

You say:... THE BATTLE IMMEDIATELY BEGAN BETWEEN SEX AND SILENCE, RELATIONSHIP AND ALONENESS. I FELT AT THE TIME THAT A SYNTHESIS WAS IMPOSSIBLE.

Synthesis is impossible, because they are one. You need not synthesize them. Your synthesis will be just hocus-pocus; your synthesis will be basically wrong, because where no synthesis is needed you will be imposing a false synthesis.

The synthesis is ALREADY there, it is already the case. They are one! two aspects of the same coin. You need not synthesize them - they never have existed separately. And man has tried, and tried hard, but has always failed.

Religion has not yet become the noe-sphere of the earth; religion has not yet become a very vital, tidal force in the world. And what is the reason? This division. Either you have to be worldly or you have to be other-worldly - choose! And the moment you choose, you miss something. Whichever you choose, you are going to be a loser.

I say: Don't choose. I say: Live both in their togetherness. Of course, it needs art to live both. It is simple to choose and be attached to one. Any idiot can do it - in fact, only idiots do it. A few idiots have chosen to be worldly and a few other idiots have chosen to be other-worldly. The man of intelligence would like both.

And that's what my sannyas is all about. You can have the cake and eat it too - that is intelligence.

Be alert, aware, intelligent. See the rhythm, and move with the rhythm without any choice. Remain choicelessly aware. See both the extremes. On the surface they look opposite, contradictory, but they are not. Deep down there is a complementariness. It is the same pendulum that goes to the left and to the right. Don't try to fix it at the left or at the right; if you fix it you have destroyed the whole clock. And that's what has been done up to now.

Accept life in ALL its dimensions.

I UNDERSTAND YOUR PROBLEM; the problem is simple, well-known. The problem is: when you start relating, you don't know how to be alone. That simply shows unintelligence. It is not that relationship is wrong - it simply shows that you are still not intelligent enough. So-relationship becomes too much and you don't find any space to be alone, and you feel exhausted and tired.

Then one day you decide relationship is bad, it is meaningless: "I want to become a monk. I will go to a Himalayan cave and live there alone." And you will see great dreams of being alone. How beautiful it will be - nobody encroaching on your freedom, nobody trying to manipulate you; you don't have to think of the other at all.

Jean-Paul Sartre says: "The other is hell." That simply shows that he has not been able to understand the complementariness of love and meditation - the other is hell. Yes, the other becomes hell if you don't know how to be alone sometimes, amidst all kinds of relationships. The other becomes hell. It is tedious, tiring, exhausting, boring. The other loses all beauty, because the other has become known. You are well-acquainted; now there is no surprise any more. You have known the territory perfectly well; you have travelled in the territory so long that there is no surprise any more. You are simply fed up with the whole thing.

But you have become attached, and the other has become attached to you. The other is also in misery, because you are her or his hell, just as he or she is your hell. Both are creating hell for each other, and both are clinging to each other, afraid to lose because... anything is better than nothing.

At least something is there to hold onto, and one can still hope that tomorrow things will be better.

Today they are not better, but tomorrow things are going to be better. One can still hope and one goes on hoping. One lives in despair and goes on hoping.

Then sooner or later one starts feeling it would be better to be alone. But if you go into aloneness, for a few days it will be tremendously beautiful, as it is beautiful with the other - for a few days. Just as there is a honeymoon in relationship, there is a honeymoon in meditation too. For a few days you will feel so free, just to be yourself, nobody there to demand, nobody there to expect anything from you. If you want to get up early in the morning, you can get up; if you don't want to get up early in the morning, you can go on sleeping. If you want to do something, okay; if you don't want to do anything, there is nobody....

For a few days you will feel so tremendously happy - but only for a few days. Soon you will become tired of it. You will be overflowing, and nobody to receive your love. You will be ripe, and the energy

needs to be shared. You will become heavy, you will become burdened with your own energy.

You would like somebody to welcome your energy, to receive your energy. You would like to be unburdened.

Now, aloneness will look not like aloneness but loneliness. Now there will be a change - the honeymoon is finished. Aloneness will start turning into loneliness. You will have a great desire to find the other. In your dreams the other will start appearing.

Go and ask the monks what they dream: they dream only about women; they cannot dream about anything else. They dream of somebody who can unburden them. Ask the nuns: they dream only about men. And the thing can become pathological. You must be aware of the Christian history.

Nuns and monks start dreaming even with open eyes. The dream becomes such a substantial reality that you need not wait for the night. Even in the day, the nun is sitting there and she sees the Devil coming, and the Devil is trying to make love to her.

You will be surprised: many times it happened in the Middle Ages that many nuns were burnt because they confessed that they had made love to the Devil. They themselves confessed, and it was not only that they had made love to the Devil: they even became pregnant by the Devil - a false pregnancy, just hot air in the belly, but their bellies started becoming bigger and bigger. A psychological pregnancy. And they described the Devil in such detail - that Devil was their own creation. And the Devil followed them day and night....

And so was the case with the monks.

This is a pathology. Man has suffered long because of it. And other pathologies that your so- called religious people go on condemning were created by the monasteries. Those same saints are responsible for them! The first cases of homosexuality happened in the monasteries; they could not have happened anywhere else - because men were living in one monastery, women were living in another monastery, and there was no way to meet, and the energy was boiling.

Whenever there are too many men living together, and no women, it is natural that heterosexuality will take a turn, will become homosexuality, that nuns will become lesbians.

This choice of being alone has created a very sick humanity. And the people who live in the world, they are not happy, and the monks are not happy - nobody seems to be happy. The whole world is a CONSTANT misery. And you can choose from one misery to another: you can choose this-worldly misery or that-worldly misery - but it is misery all the same. For a few days you will feel good.

I am bringing you a new message. The message is no more to choose - remain choicelessly alert in your life, and become intelligent rather than changing circumstances. Change your psychology, become more intelligent. More intelligence is needed to be blissful! And then you can have aloneness together with relationship.

Make your woman or your man also alert to the rhythm. People should be taught that nobody can love twenty-four hours a day; rest periods are needed. And nobody can love on order. Love is a spontaneous phenomenon: whenever it happens, it happens, and whenever it doesn't happen

it doesn't happen . Nothing can be done about it. If you DO anything, you will create a pseudo phenomenon, an acting.

Real lovers, intelligent lovers, will make each other alert to the phenomenon: "When I want to be alone that does not mean that I am rejecting you. In fact, it is because of your love that you have made it possible for me to be alone." And if your woman wants to be left alone for one night, for a few days, you will not feel hurt. You will not say that you have been rejected, that your love has not been received and welcomed. You will respect her decision to be alone for a few days. In fact, you will be happy! Your love was so much that she is feeling empty; now she needs rest to become full again.

This is intelligence.

Ordinarily, you think you are rejected. You go to your woman, and if she is not willing to be with you, or not very loving to you, you feel great rejection. Your ego is hurt. This ego is not a very intelligent thing. All egos are idiotic. Intelligence knows no ego; intelligence simply sees the phenomenon, tries to understand why the woman does not want to be with you. Not that she is rejecting you - you know she has loved you so much, she loves you so much - but this is a moment she wants to be alone. And if you love her, you will leave her alone; you will not torture her, you will not force her to make love to you.

And if the man wants to be alone, the woman will not think, "He is no more interested in me - maybe he has become interested in some other woman." An intelligent woman will leave the man alone, so he can again gather together his being, so that again he has energy to share. And this rhythm is like day and night, summer and winter; it goes on changing.

And if two persons are really respectful - and love is always respectful, it reveres the other; it is a very worshipful, prayerful state - then slowly slowly you will understand each other more and more.

And you will become aware of the other's rhythm and your rhythm. And soon you will find that out of love, out of respect, your rhythm is coming closer and closer: when you feel loving, she feels loving.

This settles. This settles on its own. k is a synchronicity.

Have you watched ever? If you come across two real lovers, you will see many things similar in them. Real lovers become as if they are brothers and sisters. You will be surprised - even brothers and sisters are not so alike. Their expression, their way of walking, their way of talking, their gestures - two lovers become alike, and yet so different. This naturally starts happening. Just being together, slowly slowly, they become attuned to each other. Real lovers need not say anything to the other - the other immediately understands, intuitively understands.

If the woman is sad, she may not say it is so, but the man understands and leaves her alone. If the man is sad, the woman understands and leaves him alone - finds some excuse to leave him alone.

Stupid people do just the opposite: they never leave each other alone - they are constantly with each other, tiring and boring each other; never leaving any space for the other to be.

Love gives freedom and love helps the other to be himself or herself. Love is a very paradoxical phenomenon. In one way it makes you one soul in two bodies; in another way it gives you individuality, uniqueness. It helps you to drop your small selves, but it also helps you to attain to

the supreme self. Then there is no problem: love and meditation are two wings, and they balance each other. And between the two you grow, between the two you reach to God.

The third question

Question 3:

THAT IS NATURAL That is obvious - love tires you unless you know how to meditate. And the bisexual will be more tired, because he is completely finished, he has known both men and women.

The man who is heterosexual may have some lurking desire to know what homosexuality is: "Who knows? - these gay people may be really gay! They may be really enjoying. At least on the surface it appears so."

The homosexual goes on thinking deep down maybe he is missing something that the heterosexual is getting. And it looks natural - maybe he is missing some natural joy. And it looks natural - maybe he is missing some natural joy. And the heterosexuals MUST be getting something otherwise why do they get into so much trouble? - the children and the family and this and that. So much trouble if you get in it - that means you must be getting something out of it. How can so many people be so stupid?

The homosexual goes on thinking, "I am not risking much - no problem of children, family, bringing up the children and sending them to school and to college and to university... the whole life's work."

The suspicion is bound to be there that the heterosexual is gaining something. He may not be showing it; maybe it is so precious that he keeps it hidden, that he never shows it to anybody....

This is bound to be so: the grass is always greener in the neighbour's garden, on the other side of the fence. It may not be, but it looks greener. But one who is a bisexual is bound to be really tired, because there is no hope now. There is no possibility of hope - you have known both.

I have heard about one sailor who was shipwrecked: he was cast upon an island with a nymphomaniac. finally, after a long period of time, he reached an understanding with her that he was to have one day off a week in order to recuperate.

Suddenly one day he looked out to sea and there was a man on a raft who had obviously also been shipwrecked. Thinking at last there would be relief from his labours with the nymphomaniac, he swam out to hail the new arrival. The new man appeared to be quite effeminate looking and confirmed this by yelling out, "Hello there, sweetheart, am I glad to see you! "

Whereupon the sailor cried out, "Oh, my God, there go my Sundays!"

I can understand how tired you must be, bored, with no hope, but this state can be transformed into a benediction. Because when man is really finished with sex, he can go very deep into meditation.

The deeper your frustration with sex, the deeper is the possibility to go into meditation. Now only meditation can help you.

You have been too much together. You have lived relationship intensely, now you need a deep relaxation so that you can forget all about others. And your going into your own being is certainly going to be deeper than any heterosexual or homosexual can go, because your helplessness and your hopelessness is double.

Rather than going on trying the same old game, move into aloneness. For a few days, forget all about relationship. For the first time, relate with yourself - that's what meditation is all about. Just be yourself. Relax. Enjoy yourself. You have tried to enjoy others, now try to enjoy yourself.

Meditation is enjoying oneself. Just sitting silently doing nothing. Happy, joyous - without any reason! because all reasons come from outside. You meet a beautiful woman and you are happy, or you meet a beautiful man and you are happy. But the meditator is simply happy! His happiness has no reason from the outside world; his happiness wells up within himself.

Relationship is happiness coming from the other. But have you watched? - when happiness is coming from the other, it must be welling up in the other, otherwise how will it reach you? And your happiness is reaching the other... you are both enjoying each other's happiness; you are drinking out of each other's well. But the well is there! otherwise how can you drink? But the woman that you love thinks she is enjoying your happiness - you are making her happy, you are the cause of her happiness. And you are thinking she is the cause of your happiness. But if you both can be causes to each other's happiness, can't you be a cause to your own happiness?

That's what meditation is all about. Sitting silently, enjoying yourself, swaying with joy, gliding into the inner world....

And if you are really tired, it will be easier to go in. And I am not saying that that has to become your lifestyle. No. Never make a fixed lifestyle, otherwise you will be bored again. When you are full of joy again, when you are full of energies, flowing, rejuvenated, when you have drunk your own wine and you are ready to share, you have to share, then relate again. Then go into relationship.

Relationship and meditation: meditation and relationship. Let it be the music, the harmony between these two. This is what will make you a sage, a real sannyasin. The old sannyas was of renunciation; the new sannyas I teach you is of rejoicing Rejoice in love, rejoice in meditation! Rejoice in all kinds of things in life! God has given you a great opportunity - don't miss it. Missing it will be the only sin.

Do you know the original meaning of the word 'sin' is 'missing'? It comes from a root which means to miss. Sin has nothing to do with what you do; sin has something to do with what you miss.

The worldly people are sinners because they are missing meditation; and the monks are sinners because they are missing love. And both will be culprits, both are.

Don't miss anything. It is all yours - claim it! It is your birthright to have both the wings. And how can you fly with one wing?

There is a Sufi parable:

A Master took his disciple to the river. The disciple must have asked something like your question, something about love and meditation, something about being together or alone. The Master took

him to the river. That is the Sufi way - to create a situation. Not to say verbally; not to say but to show.

He took the disciple into a boat; he took the two oars into his hands, started rowing. When they were in the middle, he started rowing the boat with one oar. And the boat started going round and round - with one oar, the boat will go round and round.

The disciple laughed, he said, "What are you doing? What do you want to show to me? We will never reach the other shore! "

And the Master said, "Why?"

And the disciple said, "It is so simple! Two oars are needed to take the boat to the other shore. If you use only one oar it will go round and round for ever and ever."

The Master said, "So you have understood - now I can use both. We will go back to the old shore; I am not interested in going to the other shore. But I have answered your question: love and meditation are two oars. The man who only loves goes round and round; the man who only meditates goes round and round. Nobody, in this way, can reach the other shore - nobody can reach the beyond. Use both the oars! God has given you both qualities of being meditative and of being loving. Why have you been given two possibilities of love and meditation? Do you think God has committed some error? This is time now - you have been using only one oar and your boat has been going in circles. It is time to understand and bring the other oar in."

And once you have learnt to use both the oars together, in deep harmony, your life, for the first time, will have the quality of benediction in it. Then it will be a blessing to you and it will be a blessing to others too.

The fourth question

Question 4:

Julian Holdsworth,

I AM NOT HERE - HENCE THE MAGNETISM. It is not the magnet of my presence; I am absent.

And whenever a person disappears and becomes absent, God becomes present. God can be present only when you are absent; you can't both exist together. The moment you come in, he goes out; the moment you go out, he comes in. They never meet. They are like darkness and light.

There is an ancient parable:

One day, darkness approached God and said, "I have not committed anything wrong against the sun, but the sun goes on and on torturing me - for NO reason at all! Why is your sun so much against me? He follows me and wherever he comes, I have to escape - I am so afraid. He is bent upon killing me. And I have suffered for millions of years. It is enough! I cannot contain it any more; I have come to make a complaint."

God said, "That is true! Why should he torture you?"

And the sun was called, and he was asked why he was against darkness, and he said, "What do you mean by 'darkness'? I have never met her. Where is darkness? first please let me be introduced - how can I torture somebody I have not even seen? You bring her here so I can see and then there will be no complaint."

Now millions of years have passed; God has been trying to bring them together but has failed. They say God is omnipotent - but not in this matter. How can you bring light and darkness together? And unless both are present in the court, judgement can be given.

So, the judgement is pending. The case is in the court still, but God has not been able to produce both together. Summonses have been received by darkness, but it is impossible...

So is the case with the ego and God: ego is nothing but a darkness - YOUR presence is a darkness, God's presence is light. Whenever a person disappears, God appears. Whenever there is nothingness inside, allness starts expressing through you. Whenever you become a hollow bamboo, you become a flute on his lips - a great song starts flowing through you.

I am not... that is the magnet. It is not my magnet. Jesus was not... that was his magnet, but not his really - it only appears as his. When Jesus says, "I am the door, I am the way, I am the truth,"

he does not mean Jesus the son of Joseph and Mary. When he is saying, "I am the way," it is God declaring through the absence of Jesus. When he says, "Nobody comes to God except through me,"

he is not declaring that everybody has to come through Jesus.

That's what Christians have been trying to prove to the world: "Jesus says, 'Anybody who ever comes, comes only through me' - so you cannot come through Buddha and you cannot come through Lao Tzu. You have to come only through Jesus!" That is utter nonsense. When Jesus says, "You come only through me," his 'me' is not his. He has been used only as an empty vehicle.

It is the same 'me' that Krishna used. Krishna says to Arjuna "Unless you come to my feet, you will not attain." The same 'I', the same 'me'....

Buddha says, "Come to me and I will show you the path." The same 'me' - it is GOD'S 'me'. It has nothing to do with Christianity or Buddhism.

When I say, "Come, follow me," it is the same me. It is the 'me' of the universe.

Whenever a man disappears, God's magnetism starts radiating.

Holdsworth, you ask me: WHY ARE PEOPLE DRAWN HERE AS IF BY A MAGNET?

There is a magnet - but I am not that magnet. I am not the one that appears to you: something more is happening, something beyond visibility, something that cannot be seen by the eyes, something that cannot be heard by the ears, something intangible... that is the magnet.

Millions and millions of people are going to come.

You ask: WHY ARE PEOPLE HELD HERE?

Nobody is held here, nobody is holding them here. It is out of their own choice. It is out of their own love. India has nothing to offer - except this art of being a non-being. Those who are here have left beautiful homes, well-paid jobs, all the modern facilities, luxuries, comforts, conveniences to live here in all kinds of difficulties. India is not a place to live! Nobody is holding them, but they can't go.

The whole world has lost meaning for them. They have tasted something - something for which they are ready to suffer, something for which they are ready to go through all kinds of troubles - legal, governmental, social, medical. Nobody can guarantee you when your enlightenment will happen.

Only one thing can be guaranteed: that hepatitis is certain!

You ask me: IS IT OUR NEED? OR IS IT YOUR MAGNETISM?

It is your need, and it is God's magnetism. And there is no question of either/or. It is your thirst and it is the river of God that is flowing here, that has appeared here. You would not be here without thirst, and you would not be here if the river were not here even if you had thirst. It is not a question of either/or: the river is here, you are thirsty.

SOMETIMES I THINK YOU ARE A GOD WHO IS PLAYING FOR US AND I AM JOYFUL.

THEN I THINK YOU ARE A SINISTER MAGICIAN MANIPULATING US AND I AM AFRAID AND RESENTFUL.

That simply shows your love/hate relationship. It has nothing to do with me it is your projection. I am just an emptiness, a blank canvas: you can paint anything that you like on it. This is YOUR duality:

YOU are divided. You have this division between God and Devil within you, between good and bad, between the should and the should-not. It is your division; it has nothing to do with me.

So when you look from one side of your being, you will see a God and you will be very joyous. When you look through the other side of your being, you will see a Devil and you will be resentful. And remember: it is all your creation - the God and the Devil, both are your creation.

But you have been taught and conditioned in this dual way. You are not total - that's why it is happening this way. One day you will be in love with me, and another day you will be in tremendous hate with me. And I am not responsible either for love or for hate. If you become total, then the idea of good and bad will both disappear - and that will be when for the first time you will be able to see who I am. In fact, that is the experience of God. But it is NOT your God who is against evil: it is God who is a transcendence - transcendence of all good and bad.

So remember: when I use the word 'God' and you use the word 'God' our meanings are different.

When I use the word 'God', I mean beyond your God and Devil, where all dualities have disappeared and only oneness prevails. When I use the word 'love' it is not your word, because your word always

carries the colour of hate in it. When I use the word 'love' I mean when love/hate relationship has disappeared... then arises a totally different kind of love: absolute love, total love, pure love, innocent love, transcendental love.

So it will happen again and again. I use the word in one meaning, and you understand in a totally different way - and it is natural. In the beginning it is bound to be so. Holdsworth, you are new here - this has happened to my people, to almost everybody. Don't be worried about it; enjoy both. When you are in love with me, be joyous and enjoy it. And when you hate me, enjoy your hate too, enjoy your resentfulness. Then be in real hate.

If you can be in real love and real hate, soon you will be able to see that hate and love are both disappearing - REALITY is bridging them both, authenticity is a bridge. If you can love me really and hate me really, then one thing is similar in both - the real, the authenticity. That will bridge them.

And beyond that bridge, one day, the sunrise. And you see me as just pure emptiness. And through that emptiness, God's flowing - God who is beyond God and evil, beyond good and bad, beyond sin and virtue.

I WISH, you say, I COULD BELIEVE TOTALLY IN YOUR DISINTERESTEDNESS.

Do you think God is disinterested in the world? Then why did he create it? The gospels say God created the world in six days, then he looked at the world and said, "It is good. It is beautiful." He created it and loved it.

From where have you got this idea of disinterestedness? God is utter interest. We cannot say he is interested in the world because you will misunderstand it. It is better to say he is absolute interest, not that there is somebody who is interested: his whole being is interest. He is in tremendous love - he is love.

Jesus says: "God is love." If God is love how can he be uninterested, disinterested?

I am not disinterested in anything. I AM NOT! And there is only a tremendous love, a tremendous interest, in everything - in the trees, in the people, in the birds, in the sun, in the moon, in the stars.

But I can understand.

Your saints have been teaching you that unless you are disinterested, you will not be religious - become disinterested in everything and you will be religious. That is a kind of shrinking. The more disinterested you become, the more dull and dead you become.

I don't teach disinterestedness: I teach immense interestedness. Expand, love more and more...

Let your ripples of love reach to the very boundaries of existence, if there are any boundaries. Let this whole existence be full of your love and interest. Get involved! Participate in these mysteries!

But it is natural: when you come to me, you come with all your expectations. Now you say:

I WISH I COULD BELIEVE TOTALLY IN YOUR DISINTERESTEDNESS.

Why? Why should you make such a demand on me and such a demand on yourself? You are making an impossible demand. I cannot fulfill it, because God cannot fulfill it. If God was disinterested in the world, the world would have disappeared long before.

In one of his beautiful poems, Rabindranath says: "Whenever I see a new-born child, I thank God and I say to him, 'So you are still hopeful? So you are not tired of man yet?""

When Rabindranath was dying, the last prayer that he made was: "God, if you feel about me that I was of any use to you, send me back to the earth. I don't ask to get rid of world - I want to be thrown back into the world. Your world been so beautiful. If you feel me worthy, send me back."

This is very strange, because in India the saints have been praying down the ages: "We don't want to come back. Please, don't send us back into the world. It is a punishment to be back in the world."

And Rabindranath is singing a song, a prayer: "If you feel me of ANY worth, send me back."

I agree with Rabindranath. Rabindranath to me is far better a seer and far greater a sage than your so-called saints. They are all anti-life. I am not anti-life because GOD IS not anti-life! God is life!

How can I be anti-life?

I love this world, I love this world absolutely. I am not disinterested at all - I am UTTERLY interested.

I am ALL INTEREST. So please, Holdsworth, forget about it. You will not be able to manage it.

And why should you make such a demand on yourself? And how can you be totally in trust? How can your trust be total, your belief be total? Unless you become total, you are divided. And these are the ways of division - interested, disinterested. To be interested is a sin, to be disinterested is a virtue - and these are the things that are dividing you. Drop all these divisions. Be innocent. Don't be calculative.

In that innocence you will be able to see that there is an interest which is also disinterest. Right now it will be very difficult to understand because it will be a great paradox. There is a love which is not attachment. There is an involvement which is not a commitment. One can live like a lotus flower in the pond - in the water and yet untouched by the water. But that is not YOUR idea of disinterestedness.

My message to my sannyasins is: Be in the world and yet be beyond it. Be in the world, totally be in it, and yet not in it at all. When this paradox is fulfilled, one has arrived.

The fifth question

Question 5:

IN THE fiRST PLACE why do you want to change yourself?

You are beautiful as you are - why can't you accept yourself? And the miracle is: when you accept yourself, the change happens. It can't happen by your effort, because WHO will change you? The

same mind trying to change itself? The violent mind trying to be non violent? How is it going to happen? Even in being non-violent there will remain violence.

The angry mind trying not to be in anger? You can manage, you can cultivate a hardness around you. You can repress the anger, but it is the same mind - anger is there. You are sitting on top of it; you are sitting on a volcano.

The stupid mind trying to be intelligent? In the very effort, stupidity will become more and more ingrained....

Then what is the way out? The way out is acceptance - acceptance is a magic key. Accept yourself as you are! And in that acceptance, intelligence arises. In that acceptance, why does intelligence arise? Because whenever you accept, you are no more divided; the split disappears. The split is between you and the should, between you and the ought. That is where the whole secret of schizophrenia is rooted: "I am this and I have to be that."

So now there are only two things: either drive yourself crazy in becoming that... and it will be just like a dog trying to catch its own tail, or like pulling yourself up by your own shoestrings. You can hop a little, jump a little, but that will not do much. That's what your so-called religious people go on doing: hopping, pulling themselves up by their own shoe-strings. For a moment they are a little higher than the earth, but back they come - and with a bang.

This is not the way. The split will become even deeper. The more you try, the more you will fail. And the more you fail, the more you will lose your self-confidence, your respect for yourself - in drugs, in alcohol, in this and that, in power politics, in money, in the marketplace... and people have invented a thousand and one ways to escape from themselves. And they have to invent them because they have created an ugly idea of themselves. To tell them "Know thyself!" is to shock them. They don't want to know themselves.

So people like Socrates go on saying "Know thyself" - nobody hears, nobody listens. Nobody wants to know himself - because you have already decided that you are a nauseous being, that you are sick, that you are ugly, abnormal, that all kinds of pus and wounds are there inside you. Who wants to go there? It is better not to look at those wounds; forget all about them.

And if you try to change, what will you do? You will prune this branch, that branch. And the problem is in the roots, not in the branches. If you prune a tree, the tree will become thicker . It will have better foliage; more leaves will grow, because the tree will take the challenge. You want to destroy the tree? You cut one leaf: three leaves will come - that is the answer of the tree. Cut one branch:

three branches replace it. The tree cannot so easily be defeated. It has to survive. And you can go on cutting the leaves and branches - nothing will happen. Deep down you will remain the same, because the ROOTS are intact.

The Japanese was a long-time customer at this Greek restaurant because he had discovered that they made especially tasty fried rice. Each evening he would come in he would order flied lice.

This always caused the Greek restaurant owner to nearly roll on the floor with laughter. Sometimes he would have two or three friends stand nearby just to hear the Japanese customer order his 'flied lice'.

Eventually, the customer's pride was so hurt that he took a special diction lesson just to be able to say 'fried rice' correctly.

The next time he went to the restaurant he said very plainly, "Fried rice, please."

Unable to believe his ears, the Greek restaurant owner said, Sir, would you repeat that?"

The Japanese replied, "You heard what I said, you flucking Gleek!"

This is not the way to change. You can change one word, but deep down you are still Japanese. It will assert itself from somewhere else. Either you will go crazy or you will become a hypocrite. Your society, you insane society, only leaves two alternatives for you: either go crazy trying to improve upon yourself, pulling yourself up by your shoestrings; or if you are a little more intelligent, be a hypocrite, pretend say one thing, do just the opposite - keep a back door to your life. On the front door have a beautiful facade - paint the should, the ideal, the ought - and live from the back door, live really naturally from the back door.

But that too creates a split: you can never be at ease, you are constantly Lying, and you will be caught again and again. How long can you pretend? And you cannot succeed in pretensions because your neighbours are also pretending. So everybody knows everybody else. They know they have back doors so they know that you must be having them.

That's why whenever you hear something wrong about somebody else, you IMMEDIATELY believe it: you don't ask for proof. Whenever you hear something good about somebody else, you ask for proof. If somebody says, "That saint is bogus; he is not really a saint. In fact, he is a murderer, a debauchee, greedy, violent," you immediately believe it! And if somebody says, "That man is really a saint," you have a suspicion. You say, "I will see. We will have to look into it; I will have to inquire."

You know men and how people are - how can you believe so easily that people can be good? You know your goodness is false - that gives you the idea that everybody else's goodness is bound to be false. This whole society consists of hypocrites.

Please stop improving upon yourself, stop changing yourself. And how are you going to change and for what? And who is going to decide what you should be? If you allow somebody else to decide who you should be, it will be an imposition from outside. The priest, the politician, they are trying to impose some ideals on you. And because of those ideals, you cannot be natural, you cannot be simple; you have to carry heavy weights on you. And you are always unnatural, arbitrary, artificial.

You cannot imitate anybody else!

Thomas a Kempis' famous book is IMITATION OF CHRIST - but I have never come across more false a title and more ugly a title. IMITATION OF CHRIST? And the book is respected very much; it is one of the most respected Christian treatises. But the who!e idea is wrong. If you imitate Christ, you will be an imitator only - you will never be a Christ. And to be an imitator is to be a hypocrite.

How can you imitate Christ? He was a totally different man. He never imitated anybody. If he had imitated he would have been loved and respected by the Jews; if he had imitated Moses or Abraham, he would not have been crucified. He NEVER imitated anybody! He simply asserted himself as he was; he respected himself as God had made him - without any imitation. He was an original man, not a carbon copy.

Now, Thomas a Kempis will be a carbon copy; if he succeeds at all, then too he will be a carbon copy - and a carbon copy is ugly. Be the original. When you can be the original, why should you be the carbon copy? Don't imitate Buddha, don't imitate Jesus, don't imitate me - never imitate anybody!

Learn from everywhere, but never imitate. Just be yourself. You have to be only yourself. And there is no way to know who you are beforehand. How will you decide who you are? Unless you go in and see who you are.

So the first thing is not the effort to change - the first thing is the effort to acquaint yourself with your own being: who is residing in you? Look at this guest who has come to you. Your body is a host...

some stranger is residing in the body, some stranger from the beyond has descended in the body.

That is you! Just look, watch, meditate, be aware of it. Drop ALL efforts to change yourself! Put your whole energy into knowing yourself, and out of that knowing comes growth. And that growth will bring your original face. You have to be only yourself. You have to be only that which you already are.

The last question

Question 6:

PYTHAGORAS TALKS ABOUT TWO LAWS: the law of necessity and the law of power. The law of necessity means living an accidental life, like a robot, like a machine. The law of necessity means things happen to you; you are not the master, you are not conscious enough to be the master.

The law of power means things don't happen to you: you happen to things. You are not just an accident - you are a power. Consciousness brings power; then life is not just like a driftwood, then life has a direction. Then life has some integrity; then life has a continuum. You have something solid in you, and so powerful it is that you start happening to people. You have a presence. And whatsoever you do, you do it; it is not an unconscious reaction: it is a conscious response. You are not just at the mercy of things, events. A mastery arises in you.

That's why in the East the sannyasin is called the swami. 'swami' means one who has become a master of himself, one who has passed from the law of necessity to the law of power. The law of necessity means you are walking like a man who is asleep, stumbling here and there, falling on this thing, on that, trying to grope in darkness. Your life will remain meaningless:... A TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT, FULL OF SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING. Your life will be like the gibberish of a madman. You will not have any poetry, you will not have a song, you will not have any music arising out of you. All that happens only when your unconsciousness disappears and you become conscious. Meditation is the key to becoming conscious; meditation is the door to the law of power.

You ask: WHAT IS THE LAW OF NECESSITY?

You are living under it....

I was reading one man's autobiography. He says that his father was travelling and the train was late.

When he reached his destination he got out of the train but the train was so late that all the taxis had

already left. k was the middle of the night and very cold. Because he could not find a taxi, he went into the restaurant; they were just closing, and the woman at the counter was just ready to leave.

Seeing this man, she prepared coffee for him. He drank the coffee; there was nobody else, so they started talking. And the woman said, "It will be difficult for you to get a taxi - why don't you come in my car? I will drop you on the way."

So he went with the woman, and that's how they fell in love with each other. And the woman became the mother of this man who is writing the autobiography.

Now he says: "If the train had not been late, I would not have been in the world. If a taxi had been available, I would not have been in the world. If the woman had not invited him to go in her car, I would not have been in the world."

All accidental.... People are living in this unconsciousness. Your love is accidental, your hate is accidental, your friendship, your enmity - ALL is accidental.

Stop being accidental! Gather yourself together, become a little more conscious. See what is happening. And, slowly slowly, when you start acting out of your consciousness, you will see tremendous power arising in you. And then your whole life will have a totally different flavour to it.

A story:

The eighty-year-old millionaire married a fourteen-year-old country girl. He was quite content, but after a few weeks she told him that she was going to leave him if she did not get some love-making real soon.

He had his chauffeured limousine take him to a high-priced specialist who studied him and then gave him a shot of spermatozoa. "Now look," the doctor said. "The only way you are going to get it hard is to say 'beep',and then to get it soft again you say 'beep beep'."

"How marvellous!" the old man said.

"Yes, but I must warn you," the doctor said, "it is only going to work three times before you die."

On his way home, the old man decided he was not going to live through three of them anyway, so he decided to waste one trying it out: "Let's see whether it really works or not? Who knows, maybe the doctor has just been cheating - the thing seems to be almost unbelievable." So he said, "Beep!"

and it did work. He had a great erection. He could not believe it - it was so fantastic. He had never had anything like that before, even while he was young.

Satisfied, he said, "Beep, beep," and it was gone just the way it had come. He chuckled with delight and anticipation.

At that moment, a little yellow Volkswagen pulled past his limousine and went 'beep', and the car in the opposite lane responded with 'beep, beep'.

Alert to his jeopardy, the old man instructed his chauffeur to 'speed it up'. He raced into the house as fast as he could for his last great chance. "Honey," he shouted at her, "don't ask any questions.

Just drop your clothes and hop into the bed."

Caught up in his excitement, she did. He undressed nervously and hurried in after her. Just as he was climbing into the bed, he said, "Beep," and his tender young wife said, "What is all this 'beep, beep' shit?"