You Are Without Stain

The first question

Question 1:

Kamal Bharti,

INDIRA GANDHI IS NOT PUNISHED BUT REWARDED. This is the fate of every revolutionary.

Anybody who wants to do something in this world, which is not according to the status quo, is going to be rewarded in the same way again and again.

The herd, the crowd, never forgives a person who tries to bring something new into existence. The crowd is always past-oriented. It lives in that which is already dead. It has no vision of the future.

And the visionaries and the utopians and the dreamers are bound to be punished or rewarded in this way.

I call it a reward. It has enhanced the prestige of Indira Gandhi, and it has exposed Morarji Desai. It has exposed his hypocrisy, it has exposed his so-called non-violence, it has exposed his so-called mahatmahood. It has simply proved one thing: his fear, his paranoia.

The small mind is always afraid of the great mind. The pigmies are always afraid of the giants, the unintelligent always afraid of the intelligent. But the unintelligent are always in a majority. They have a power which the intelligent cannot claim: they can always have the support of the herd. That's what has happened.

Morarji Desai has the majority in the parliament. And his whole gang is so much afraid of Indira, that if she remains in the parliament then their days of power are very limited, they can be counted on fingers. Any excuse will do to throw her out. And whatsoever they have found is nothing but an excuse.

It shows the jealousy of the mediocre - the mediocres are always jealous. They are jealous of whatsoever they cannot attain. Morarji Desai has no grace of personality, no elegance. He is jealous of Indira Gandhi. He would like to destroy her. That's what he has been trying to do.

The masses also never like somebody who is really graceful. The masses also like somebody who looks like them. Anybody who has some aristocratic grace is not liked by the masses very much.

Deep down, the gracious person does not belong to them.

And it is also an ugly act of political vendetta. It is simply an effort to punish - to punish her for something of tremendous importance that she was trying to do. She was try;ng to bring this country to a certain order - that was her fault. She was trying to bring this country to a certain discipline, was trying to destroy the smugglers, the hooligans, the dacoits, the exploiters, and all those have joined together behind Morarji Desai. They are all afraid. If she comes back into power, again there will be trouble. Morarji is a protection.

The real power is not that of Morarji Desai: the real power is in the hands of the Hindu fascists of this country. Morarji Desai said when he punished Indira Gandhi, expelled her from the parliament and imprisoned her, he said, "Now people can know it, now it is proved, that I am not an impotent person. I can do things."

But in fact it proves just the contrary: it simply proves he is impotent. He is impotent against the fascist forces that are working behind him. He is just a facade; the real forces are in the hands of Hindu fascists. This act has simply proved that he is utterly impotent, that it is not HE who is in power, but a few other people who are standing behind him, they are in real power. They want to crush Indira Gandhi, to destroy her. They want to destroy all the forces that are revolutionary and progressive in this country.

This act is also anti-democratic. It is an insult to the people who had elected Indira Gandhi to the parliament. It is utterly anti-democratic. But whenever people are in power, they tend to become undemocratic. People use democracy only as a ladder to reach to power; once they are in power, who cares for democracy?

But I am happy that Morarji Desai did it. I am happy because this is the beginning of the end of his power. I am happy because this has enhanced Indira Gandhi's prestige.

There is a subtle logic of history, and that logic is that whenever somebody is punished in such a way - ugly, undemocratic - the masses start feeling a certain sympathy for the person. And that's what has happened: people are feeling more sympathy for Indira Gandhi than they had felt before the punishment. That's why I say I am happy.

This is simply the beginning of the end of Morarji Desai and his gang.

Remember, this country is living in chaos. There is no order, there is no law. This country is living almost without a government. And, naturally, anybody who is in a minority is suffering. And what Morarji Desai has given in twenty months is a very bogus government. Certainly impotent! - it has not done a thing. It is absolutely dependent on a rotten bureaucracy, and it has been hindering ALL that is progressive and all that can herald a new beginning, a new future.

Just the other day I read in the newspapers: he has said about me that I am trying to destroy religion and he is trying to protect it. What kind of religion is he trying to protect? He has no understanding of religion at all. But I can understand what he means. He means all that is rotten, dead, of the past.

He wants to protect the tradition - he calls it religion.

Religion is not a tradition: religion is always a revolution.

And he said he is against me because I am destroying religion. I am giving birth to a new religion.

And religion always needs to be renewed. Religion always needs new energies to be poured into it to keep it alive and flowing. Religion always needs to be born again and again according to the time and the circumstances.

What was right five thousand years ago is no longer right at all today. And what was moral in the past has become immoral today. For example, in Krishna's time, war was a moral phenomenon:

now war is immoral. Because in Krishna's time there were no atom bombs and hydrogen bombs.

Now war means total war; now war means universal suicide.

The new religion cannot teach war: it can only teach love.

All the old religions were fundamentally based on the split person. The new religion has to create a new man - HOMO NOVUS. I declare a new man! I teach a new man! And the new man will be one, whole. The new man will not be divided into body and soul, into lower and higher. The new man will not know any divisions of any sort: the new man will live an integrated life.

The old religions, all the old religions, created an anti-life atmosphere on the earth. That's why life has become so ugly, miserable, full of suffering. The new religion will not be anti-life: it will be all for life. It will have tremendous reverence for life. For the new religion, life will be synonymous with God.

In the old religions God was against life; you had to renounce life to attain to God. I teach rejoicing, not renunciation.

So I can understand what he means by saying that I am trying to destroy religion. Certainly, I am trying to destroy the old concept of religion - it HAS to be destroyed. If man wants to live at all, if man wants to be blissful at all, the old structure has to be destroyed. Only with the death of the old can the new be born.

But he is a traditionalist, orthodox. He can only think in terms of the past. He has no idea that we are living in the twentieth century. He is not a contemporary man at all; he belongs to some past century which no more exists. But in India such people can become powerful, because the greater masses also live in the past, they are not contemporary either.

This is a very ironical situation - because the masses can be helped only by a new vision; only a new vision can inspire them to new heights. But they are all against the new vision. They are all for the old vision, and the old vision has no relevance at all. He is against all that is revolutionary and rebellious. He represents the rotten, stupid mind of this country. He is very representative. But he has to go if this country is to live.

And all people of his type have to go if this country is to attain to some new heights of joy, blissfulness.

This country has lived under the shadow of anti-life attitudes so long that it has forgotten how to dance, how to sing, how to love, how to live. This country is simply vegetating!

In a way he is right that he is protecting the religion and I am destroying the religion. I am certainly destroying that which is no more relevant - but that which is no more relevant cannot be called religion at all. Religion means something that is relevant to the people who are alive THIS moment, something that can be a blessing right now.

A new man has to be heralded. And the new man is coming! The new man is coming every moment.

You may not be aware of the new man, but the new man is coming. And the new man will bring a totally new way of life. His life will be earthy, rooted in the earth, and yet available to the sky. The new man will bring a new world with him. He will make a paradise of this earth; he will not look for any paradise after death. He will transform life itself into a paradise. The new man will not only survive: he will live and he will live in great rejoicing because God is.

Rejoice! I say to you again and again, Rejoice! because God is. And the only way to relate with God is to be in a tremendous rejoicing. Only those who are ecstatic, they can enter into God.

Morarji Desai is too serious and dead a person. He cannot rejoice. He cannot understand, experience, the meaning of joy. Politically he is against political revolutionaries. Religiously he is against religious revolutionaries. Artistically he is against artistic revolutionaries. He is basically against revolution. He wants to cling to something that is no more there.

My effort here is to help you to uncling, to unclutch your hold, so that your hands can be free to receive the new gift - the gift of the new man that is being born, to receive HOMO NOVUS.

The second question

Question 2:

Prem Aniruddha,

IT IS CERTAINLY ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to find the soulmate - even if ALL facilities are available.

The earth is big, millions and millions of people; and life is very short - how are you going to find your soulmate? And remember, even if all the facilities are available... right now, no facilities are available.

It becomes even more impossible when facilities are not available, when you are prevented in every way from finding the soulmate. But even if you are helped, educated in how to find the soulmate, then too it will be difficult to find them in a small seventy years' life. It rarely happens; it is a rare phenomenon.

Man has seven centers. The lowest is the sex center and the highest is the samadhi center, and between these two there are five more centers. It is a ladder. When all the seven centers of a man are in tune and harmony with all the seven centers of a woman, then you have found the soulmate.

It has happened only once in a while - with Krishna and Radha, with Shiva and Shakti. It could have also happened to Majnu and Laila if they had been allowed to meet, to Shiri and Farihad if they had been allowed to meet - but the society hindered them.

And remember: Krishna and Radha were not allowed by the society either; it was not a legal marriage, it was illegal. Radha was not Krishna's wife but just a girlfriend. And with Shiva and Shakti, the parents were very much against Shakti getting married to Shiva. He looked a very strange man - he was. It was against the parental advice that Shakti jumped into a love affair with Shiva.

But only once in a while has this happened, and this seems to be natural. Whenever it happens, absolute oneness is felt - unity, not union. Two persons utterly disappear into each other; there is not even a small, thin screen dividing them; there is no division at all. It is UNIO MYSTICA. Two persons function as if they are one person; two bodies, but one soul. It is absolute harmony. It is love at its peak. No meditation is needed - this love is enoughs.

You must have seen Shiva temples in India; you must have seen the SHIVALINGA. SHIVALINGA simply represents the orgasmic state of these two lovers. SHIVALINGA simply represents Shiva as masculine energy; and just below SHIVALINGA - the phallic symbol - is the symbol of Shakti:

YONI. SHIVALINGA and Shakti's YONI are meeting; they have become one, they have disappeared into each other. They have lost ALL personality. That's why it is the only image in the world which has no face.

Just pure energy is symbolized by LINGA and YONI, by the male sexual organ and the female sexual organ. Simply energy is represented - creative energy, vital energy; energy out of which the whole of life flows. Neither does Shakti have any face nor does Shiva have any face; those faces are no more meaningful, the personalities have disappeared. It is a meeting of pure energy, and only pure energies can dissolve into each other - because if you have a solid personality it will obstruct dissolution. Only pure energies, liquid, can enter into each other and become one. If you put two rocks together, they may be together but they cannot become one. But if you pour water into water, it becomes one.

At this highest peak where all the seven centers meet, persons disappear, only energies remain, a play of energy, a play of consciousness. And the joy is constant, it is orgasmic. It is a spiritual communion. No meditation is needed for such a couple - because for such a couple love is meditation enough. It is a mystic phenomenon, it is transcendental. But it is very rare. Amongst millions and millions of people, once it will happen. It will be almost a chance meeting.

Below it, there is another meeting: six centers meeting. That too is rare. If the first is one percent, the second is only two percent. It is union, not unity. It is not a cosmic, mystical union, but still something very close to it - an aesthetic union, an artistic phenomenon, a poetic experience.

The first can be understood only by those who have known samadhi, satori. The second can be understood by poets, painters, dancers, musicians.

The third, lower than that, is the meeting of five centers. It is three percent possible. It is not even a union; it is duality. Two persons remain two, but still there is great harmony. The two function in harmony - as if two musical instruments are playing in harmony. The two remain two. There is no union, there is no unity. They are separate.

This is what Kahlil Gibran has described: "Lovers should be like two pillars of a temple supporting the same roof, yet apart and separate." This is a little lower than the aesthetic, artistic, musical experience. It is a moral experience - chaste, still beautiful.

The fourth is four centers meeting. It has a four percent possibility. Duality. Harmony has disappeared but there is great understanding still - great understanding about each other, great caring about each other. There is no spontaneous harmony, but out of understanding a certain rhythm is maintained. It is an experience of great intelligence; it is not even moral. One has to be aware - if one is not aware, one will fall from this fourth state.

Then there is the fifth: three centers meeting. five percent possibility. Duality becomes more and more emphasized. Understanding is still there but not constant - flickering, shaky. Once in a while conflict arises, but it is not disruptive of love. On the contrary, it adds to it, makes it a little more spicy. It is a psychological experience.

Below it is two centers meeting - Six percent possibility. Great duality, clearcut duality. Moments, only moments, of understanding. And conflict comes too much. It is almost fifty-fifty: fifty percent understanding, fifty percent conflict. It is a physiological experience. Still a great balance is there because of this fifty percent understanding, fifty percent conflict.

And below it is one center meeting - seven percent possibility. Too much conflict. Rare moments of joy, very rare. Once in a while, few and far between. But still worth it! It is a sexual experience.

And below it, the lowest, is no centers meeting - the common, garden variety. These are the couples you meet. It is not even a sexual experience; it is even below sexual experience. It is more or less masturbatory. It is only a certain kind of social, economic, political arrangement. It is exploitation. It is businesslike. It is more or less part of the marketplace, the arranged marriage.

No love. No respect. Not even hate! Because hate can exist only if some love is there. It is neither friendship nor enmity. It is a very formal relationship - a relationship which is not a relationship at all. It is a mutual masturbatory arrangement. You exploit the other, the other exploits you. It is a kind of prostitution. The ugliest possibility... but this is what is happening on the earth.

One Friday afternoon, Harold's boss told him that he would have to work overtime that day. That was okay with Harold except that he had no way of letting his wife know he would be late coming home, since they had just moved into a new little house in the suburbs and did not have a phone yet.

"Since I am passing that way, I will tell her," the boss volunteered.

A few hours later, the boss arrived at the cottage and rang the doorbell. Harold's wife came to the door wearing a see-through wraparound. The boss could not take his eyes off her body.

"Yes?" she said.

"I am Harold's boss," Harold's boss said. "He is working overtime and asked me to tell you he will be home late."

"Thank you," she said.

"How about going upstairs for some love-making?"

Harold's wife felt her cheeks flush to an angry red. "How dare you!"

The boss shrugged. "Supposing I give you fifty dollars?"

"Absolutely not! Why, I never heard such nerve..."

"One hundred dollars?"

"Uh... no."

"One hundred and fifty?"

"I don't think that would be right, do you?"

At this point the boss purred, "Listen, honey, Harold isn't gonna know. It is an easy way to make a hundred and fifty bucks, and we will just spend a little time together."

She nodded, took him by the hand, and led him upstairs to the bed where they had fun and games for an hour.

That night, when Harold came home, he asked, "Did the boss come by to tell you I would be late?"

"Yes, Harold," the sweet thing said. "He did stop by for a few seconds."

"Good," said Harold. "Then he gave you my salary?"

This is a very businesslike world, very cunning. And all your arrangements that you call relationships, that you call love affairs, have nothing to do with relationship or with love affair. They are basically economic arrangements.

There once was a Scotsman called Dave Who kept a dead whore in a cave.

He said, "I admit I'm a bit of a shit But think of the money I save."

And you will find these Scotsmen everywhere! The whole world is really a Scotland.

Aniruddha, you ask: TO fiND A SOULMATE SOUNDS NICE, BUT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE.

YES IT IS ALMOST *lMPOSSIBLE - if left to nature itself, it is almost impossible. But in the East we have developed a science: if you cannot find a soulmate, you can create one. And that science is Tantra. To find a soulmate means to find the person with whom all your seven centers meet naturally.

That is impossible. Once in a while, a Krishna and a Radha, a Shiva and a Shakti. And when it happens, it is tremendously beautiful. But it is like lightning - you cannot depend on it. If you want to read your Bible, you can't depend on it that when the lightning is there you will read. The lightning is a natural phenomenon, but undependable.

If you wait for your natural soulmate to meet with you, it will be just like waiting for lightning to read your Bible. And you will not be able to read much either. For a moment it is there, and by the time you have opened the Bible it is gone.

Hence Tantra was created. Tantra is a scientific approach. Tantra is alchemy: it can transform your centers, it can transform the other's centers; it can create a rhythm and harmony between you and your beloved. That is the beauty of Tantra. It is like bringing electricity into your house. Then you can turn it on and off whenever you want. And you can have a thousand and one uses of it: it can cool your room, it can heat your room.... Then it is a miracle. These seven centers in you are nothing but centers of body electricity. So when I am talking about lightning, don't think of it only as a symbol - I mean it literally.

In your body there exists a subtle current of electricity, very subtle. But the more subtle it is, the deeper it goes. It is not very visible. Scientists say that all the electricity that is in your body, if put together, can be used to light a five-candle bulb. It is not much. Quantitatively it is not much; quantitatively the atom is not much, but qualitatively... if it explodes, it has tremendous energy in it.

These seven centers, these seven chakras, Yoga and Tantra have talked about down the ages, are nothing but five knots in your body electric current. They can be changed, they can be rearranged.

They can be given a new shape, form. Two lovers can be transformed so deeply that all their seven centers can start meeting.

Tantra is the science of transforming ordinary lovers into soulmates. And that is the grandeur of Tantra. It can transform the whole earth; it can transform each couple into soul-mates. It has not yet been used; it is one of the greatest treasures that is Lying there, unused. The day humanity uses it, a new love will surround the earth; the earth will become aglow with a new love. Only the new man can use it - Homo NOVUS CAN use it.

That's why I herald the new man. Only the new man can use it because only the new man will accept his body in its totality. The old man NEVER accepted his body. He was always fighting with his body, quarrelling with his body, trying to destroy his body. The old man was suicidal; the old man was schizophrenic.

The new man will have a wholeness to him. He will not be suicidal. He will be so tremendously in love with life that he will want to come back again and again and again. Only the new man can transform these life energy centers.

That's what I am trying to do here. It is offending the whole country - not only the whole country but the whole world, because they have never heard of anything like this. This is a great experiment.

On the success of this experiment much will depend.

If we can help people to grow into such depths of love that EACH couple becomes a Krishna-Radha, that each couple becomes a Shiva and Shakti, just think of the world, how beautiful it can become.

The paradise will become pale before it. This very earth can be the paradise.

But the science is subtle, and only those who are really ready to understand without prejudices can understand it. And the work is very delicate, mysterious. Outsiders will never be able to understand what is going on; they are bound to misunderstand it.

It is just the same: if you take outsiders to some scientific lab where they are researching atomic energy, do you think the outsiders will be able to understand anything at all? This is afar deeper experiment! because to work on atomic energy is to work on matter, and to work on human energy, love energy, is to work on consciousness. It needs very perceptive people to see it.

But this is what my intention is in creating a commune, a Buddhafield - where I can transform each couple into Krishna-Radha, where each couple can have that joy, that cosmic joy, that cosmic orgasm, that total ecstasy, when all the seven centers of man and woman meet and mingle and disappear into each other.

Right now you are at the lowest where not even a single center is meeting.

Aniruddha, it is impossible if you depend on nature. It is very very possible if you depend on Tantra.

The third question

Question 3:

Dharma Bhikshu,

WHAT AM I DOING AFTER ENLIGHTENMENT? I eat when I am hungry, and I sleep when I feel sleepy. I am doing exactly the same thing that you are doing, but the quality has changed, the significance has changed, my approach has changed. You also drink tea, I also drink tea; but your drinking of tea is just drinking of tea. When I am drinking tea I am drinking God - God in the form of tea. I am sipping God.

From the outside it is the same; from the inside it is totally different.

A Zen Master is reported to have said... somebody had asked the same question: "What did you use to do when you were not enlightened?"

He said, "I used to chop wood and carry water from the well."

And the man asked, "Now what do you do since you have become enlightened?"

He said, "I chop wood! and I carry water from the well."

Naturally, the questioner was puzzled. He said, "What is the difference? I don't see any difference.

Chopping wood, carrying water from the well, you were doing before, you are doing now.

And the Master laughed. He said, "Yes, before I was doing it - now it is simply happening. Now there is no doer. I am no more. Wood is chopped, water is carried - I am no more."

Zen people don't use the word 'God'. If it was asked of a Sufi he would say, "Now God chops the wood, God carries the water." Zen people say, "It chops the wood, it carries the water." That is their name for God; they don't personify God.

Everything remains the SAME! and yet nothing is the same.

You ask: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF EXISTENCE?

The idea of purpose arises only in an unenlightened mind, because the unenlightened mind cannot live without purpose. He does not know how to live playfully, without purpose. He needs a purpose to pull him onwards, he needs a purpose to push him onwards. He needs a purpose to manipulate himself. Without purpose he is lost; he needs the purpose to goad him on and on. And that's why he remains in agony.

The word 'agony' comes from a root AG; from the root AG come two words: one is action, and the other is agony. It is beautiful. The basic meaning of AG is to push - action is pushing things, pushing the river, pushing yourself against the river, trying to swim upstream. And that brings agony, that makes you miserable - because you can see you are doomed to fail. You may win a battle here and there, but the war is lost from the very beginning. How long can you go on pushing the river?

Sooner or later you will be tired, exhausted, and then the river will take you downwards.

And because you have to fight, fight creates agony, anxiety - whether you are going to make it or not, whether you .will be able to succeed or not.

Purpose is the idea of unenlightened man. The enlightened man simply lives with no purpose - he needs no purpose, that's why he has no agony. He lives moment-to-moment! His life has no purpose and no meaning. He is like a rose-flower, or the cuckoo calling from the woodland, or the sun rising in the morning, or the dewdrop slipping into the ocean.... He has no purpose! He simply is! He has no purpose because he has no future. He is in the moment, he is present to the present.

Purpose means desire, and purpose means creating something special about yourself. You cannot believe that you are purposeless - then suddenly you start falling flat on the ground. Purposeless?

Your ego cannot stand without the props of purpose, so you go on creating purpose for yourself.

Even where nothing exists, you go on pretending, projecting.

It is your ego that has written in your Bibles that God created man in his own image, and God has given you some great destiny to be fulfilled - you are special! Ask a donkey: he will also say God created donkey in his own image.

Just the other day I was reading a poem by Don Marquis: WARTY BLIGGENS.

I MET A TOAD THE OTHER DAY BY THE NAME OF WARTY BLIGGENS HE WAS SITTING UNDER A TOADSTOOL FEELING CONTENTED HE EXPLAINED THAT WHEN THE COSMOS WAS CREATED THAT TOADSTOOL WAS ESPECIALLY PLANNED FOR HIS PERSONAL SHELTER FROM SUN AND RAIN THOUGHT OUT AND PREPARED FOR HIM DO NOT TELL ME SAID WARTY BLIGGENS THAT THERE IS NOT A PURPOSE IN THE UNIVERSE THE THOUGHT IS BLASPHEMY A LITTLE MORE CONVERSATION REVEALED THAT WARTY BLIGGENS CONSIDERS HIMSELF TO BE THE CENTER OF THE SAID UNIVERSE THE EARTH EXISTS TO GROW TOADSTOOLS FOR HIM TO SIT UNDER THE SUN TO GIVE HIM LIGHT BY DAY AND THE MOON AND WHEELING CONSTELLATIONS TO MAKE BEAUTIFUL THE NIGHT FOR THE SAKE OF WARTY BLIGGENS You ask anybody... and everybody thinks that he is the center of existence, and that God has created him for a certain special purpose. In fact, there is not special purpose in existence. Purpose is a creation of the unenlightened mind, because the unenlightened mind cannot exist without a future.

It lives in the future, it needs goals.

The unenlightened mind is goal-oriented, the enlightened mind simply lives herenow. And what purpose can you have herenow? Sometimes you are chopping wood, and sometimes you are carrying water from the well. What purpose can you have? It is the prop for the ego - there is no purpose. Existence simply is. And because there is NO purpose, existence is utterly beautiful.

If you think there is a certain purpose, then you will be falling into a regress. Then the question can be asked: What is the purpose of the purpose? And so on and so forth.... Then there will be no end. Only foolish people will answer that there is a purpose - foolish because they are not aware they are falling into a regress.

Somebody will say, "God created man so that man can attain to salvation" - but could he not give man salvation from the very beginning? "God has created man so that he can attain to moksha" - but he was in moksha from the very beginning! Why this world? "God created man so that he can find the truth" - why this unnecessary trouble? He could have simply told him what the truth is.

The whole thing seems to be unnecessary - if there is a purpose. But there is no purpose. It is simply the overflowing energy of God. God is delighting in his energy, overflowing in all directions.

He becomes the tree and he becomes the rock and the stars and the man and the animals and the birds - there is no hierarchy. Purpose brings the idea of hierarchy: then somebody is lower and somebody is higher, because you have a higher purpose.

There is NO hierarchy. Existence is one! flowing in all kinds of expressions. Somewhere God has become a green tree, and somewhere he has become a red flower, and somewhere he has become a butterfly and somewhere he is a rainbow, and somewhere he is a man and somewhere he is a woman... and he is the only reality. What purpose can there be? But that is only when your mind disappears, your thinking disappears, your ego disappears, and when you are utterly herenow... that suddenly you see the beauty of purposelessness.

Life is not a business: it is a rejoicing. Business has purpose, rejoicing has no purpose. Logic has purpose, love has no purpose.

The fourth question

Question 4:

JUST BE KIND TO HIM. He may be simply coming because you have been forcing him to come; he may simply be coming just as a bribe to you. Or maybe you don't allow him to sleep in the night at all and he has nowhere else to sleep. And here he is at ease - you cannot throw pillows at him. You know? - that's why pillows are not allowed here. Seeing that nobody can disturb him, he must be enjoying - let him enjoy.

Sleep is a perfectly spiritual activity - I am not against it. Just tell him not to snore, because that disturbs other sleepers' sleep.

Sue always insisted that her husband Jack take her to the theater once a month, but Jack hated the theater.

"Sue," he complained, "I would rather stay home and watch the ball game.

"Is that all you can think about - ball games?" countered Sue. "Think about me once in a while - cooped up in the house alone all day."

So they went to the theater that night with friends.

At the end of Act II a loud snoring sound startled them. Everyone looked and there was Jack sound asleep. Sue turned crimson red with shame.

"How dare he make a spectacle like this! I'll never live it down."

"Don't bother him," laughed one of the nearby spectators. "He's the only one enjoying himself."

So, please, be kind to your husband. Let him enjoy a few moments; let him relax - let him fall asleep. Nothing is wrong in it. In fact, medical science has not yet been able to improve upon religious discourses as far as insomnia is concerned: religious discourses are the best medicine When a doctor fails with a person, and sleeping pills don't help, he suggests, "Go to a religious discourse." That is the ancientmost medicine for insomnia.

Let him enjoy. And he is not missing anything, because even while you are listening to me, what are you gaining, what are you getting? If you are getting something, you will become enlightened - you will really come out of your metaphysical sleep. You are asleep metaphysically: he is also asleep physically. You are asleep with open eyes, you only appear to listen, appear to see, but you have not heard me, you have not seen me - because the moment you hear me and the moment you see me, you will never be the same again. Your life will have taken an absolute turn - you will have become full of light.

So don't be worried: you are asleep with open eyes, he is asleep with closed eyes. His way is far more natural. Just be kind to him; now don't start torturing him. If it is too difficult for you to sit by his side, you can sit somewhere else.

And sometimes it happens that you CAN fall asleep and it may not be sleep at all. In the East we have a word TANDRA - there is no English equivalent for it. It is not ordinary sleep; it is a kind of sleep in between sleep and wakefulness. And that is the RIGHT moment when something can enter you. You can call it a hypnotic sleep - I am not using the word 'hypnotic' because that has very bad associations in your mind. In fact, the word 'hypnosis' simply means sleep, but a sleep of a different kind: not the ordinary sleep but a sleep in which you can hear - although you are asleep, but you can still hear.

There are a few people - Sheela is one... she is fast asleep. But this is not sleep: this is HYPNOS - this IS TANDRA. She is listening to me; she will not listen to anybody else. You must have seen some hypnotist: if the hypnotist hypnotizes somebody, the hypnotized person will not hear anything else but he will go on listening to the hypnotist. His door remains open to the hypnotist; there remains a thread between them.

Those who are in deep love with me can fall asleep, and still they are connected with me. And what I am saying they may not be able to reproduce by memory, but it has been heard, absorbed.

So don't be worried. If your husband is simply having a physiological sleep, that too is good. If he is having something like HYPNOS, that he is asleep to you, but asleep to me, that is even far better.

And there is a third thing also in the East - for that too there is no word in English - it is called YOGA NIDRA. One becomes sc silent and so relaxed, that everybody from the outside will think that one is asleep. If you had come across Buddha sitting underneath his Bodhi Tree, you would have thought he was asleep - he was not. Apparently perfectly asleep, inside full of light and aware.

Ramakrishna used to fall into a coma. Doctors had declared many times that this was nothing but a fit, an epileptic fit - because he was so unconscious, and his mouth would start foaming, just like any epileptic fit. And for hours he would remain unconscious; his body would become very very stiff.

Once he remained for six days in that state. It was very difficult to take care of him: he had to be spoon-fed... he was almost dead. And after six days when he came back, he brought such light and such joy with him. And The first thing that he said was; "So I have fallen asleep again."

Those six days he was awake! Opening his eyes, he said, "So now I am going to fall asleep again."

What you call your waking is sleep for those who really are awakened. That is the third state... I don't hope that your husband is in that third state, otherwise he would not be your husband either.

But don't be worried about him; leave him alone.

Wives should learn to leave the husbands alone; husbands should learn to leave the wives alone.

Don't go on interfering in each and everything. Don't go on nagging about each and everything.

The fifth question

Question 5:

Christopher,

I AM WITHOUT STAIN, YOU ARE WITHOUT STAIN - we are all without stain from the very beginning. There is nothing really to be cleansed. There is nothing really to be purified. Our virginity is absolute.

Once a Zen Master wanted to find a successor to him. He declared in his monastery - there were five hundred great monks - he said to the assembly of monks, "Now I am getting old and I want to appoint my successor. And this is going to be the test: one who thinks himself to be my successor, one who thinks that he has become awakened and known the truth, should come to my hut and write on my door four lines of his understanding. Express your total experience of truth in four lines."

In the daytime nobody turned up, because they knew that old man: you could not deceive him. And if you were caught writing something wrong, he would beat you then and there. And the old man sat there with his big staff and nobody turned up.

In the night when he fell asleep, one man sneaked in. He was the greatest scholar in the community.

He wrote four lines, beautiful lines: "The mind is a mirror, and on the mirror of the mind the dust of desires and thoughts and memories gathers. Clean the dust and this is truth." But he was so afraid that the old man may not be taken in by the words that he didn't sign it. He thought, "If he says it is right, I will declare I have written it. If he says it is not right, then I will keep quiet."

Early the next morning, the old man was very angry - because "Who has written all this bullshit?

Where is that man? Bring him to me! I will thrash him! " The scholar escaped from the commune because somebody might tell - a few people knew that he had gone there. He simply escaped into the forest for a few days.

The whole community was agog; there was only one thing talked about from morning to evening - because everybody liked the lines. They were so beautiful and so crystal clear; and they represented the truth - how can you improve upon them? "The mind is a mirror. Dust gathers of desire and thoughts. Clean the dust... and this is truth." This is what meditation is all about. This is purity' This is reflection; you will reflect that which is when you have become a mirror.

Yes, the words are good, but not of the ultimate understanding.

There was one monk; for twelve years he had simply been cleaning rice. Twelve years before he had come to the Master, and he had said, "I have come here to know truth." The Master had asked him, "Do you want to know ABOUT truth? or do you want to know the truth itself?"

And the monk looked at the Master's eyes and he said, "What are you talking about? Why should I be interested ABOUT truth? How is that going to help me? I want truth and truth and nothing else. I am not interested in knowing about the truth: I want to know the truth itself."

Then the Master said, "Then do one thing: go to the kitchen and start cleaning rice, and never come again to me. Whenever the time arises, I will come to you. And you do only one thing, from the morning to the night, go on cleaning rice."

five hundred people needed rice... and that man had never turned again to the Master. Twelve years had passed, and he did only one thing: early, four o'clock in the morning, he would get up, because the monks would need the breakfast soon. And late in the night he would work.

Slowly slowly all thoughts disappeared. Slowly slowly thinking stopped. This became his meditation.

Two monks were passing by discussing this great thing: "The Master has called those beautiful lines bullshit! The Master is too hard, and if this is the way then he will not find a successor." This rice-cleaning monk started laughing - a belly laughter - and those two monks stopped and asked, "What is the matter with you? Why are you laughing?"

He said, "The Master is right: who is this stupid guy who has written these words? - utterly wrong, has no understanding . He should be given a good beating."

Those two monks were shocked listening to this. They said, "Then do you think you can improve upon those words?"

He said, "I have forgotten how to write - twelve years.... But I can say, you can go and write, and you can tell the Master who has said these words."

Those monks said, "Won't you come with us?"

He said, "I am not interested in becoming anybody's successor. You simply go and write."

They went and they wrote. He had suggested, "Go and write: The mind is not a mirror - where CAN the dust of desires and thoughts gather? One who knows this, knows truth."

The Master read those lines, remained silent, didn't say a single word of disapproval or approval.

But in the middle of the night he came to the monk, and he said, "I knew who could have THIS insight. Now, you take my robe and disappear from this commune - you are my successor. But disappear from here before the morning, before people come to know, because this will create great jealousy. The scholars and the pundits and the professors are very jealous people - they will kill you. Simply escape from here! Go to some other mountains, but go on carrying my flame - you have understood me. You have succeeded."

You ask me: LAO TZU SAID 'WASHING AND CLEANSING THE PRIMAL VISION, CAN YOU BE WITHOUT STAIN?"

If you believe that something has to be cleansed and washed, you cannot be without stain. But there is nothing to be cleansed and nothing to be washed - you are without stain. You are from the very beginning Buddhas! You need not improve upon yourself: all that you need is to become aware of who you are.

And the last question

Question 6:

Anuradha,

THAT'S TRUE - nobody has ever been loved as much as I am loved by you. But remember, nobody has ever been hated as much as I am hated by the others. This is natural: love and hate balance....