Bliss Beyond All Duality

The first question

Question 1:

Vasumati,

THE TOTALITY OF YOURSELF has nothing to do with you. It is not your totality or my totality; totality is one - in which we all disappear. That is the fear. You can remain only if you are partial, if you are only a part. The moment you want to be the total, you will have to commit a kind of suicide, a spiritual suicide. You will have to disappear.

If the dewdrop wants to be the ocean, the only possible way is to disappear into the ocean, to die as a dewdrop. The moment a dewdrop dies as a dewdrop, it becomes the ocean. That creates fear.

People talk about God, but nobody wants to lose himself. Hence the talk of God remains impotent, meaningless. People worship God but they keep a distance. They go the temples, but really they never go - because they go on clinging to their idea of themselves.

There are two ways to be. One is as an ego, separate from the total - which is illusory because there is no way to be really separate. You can only believe that you are separate; deep down you remain one with the whole. Hence all that you create around the idea of the ego remains illusory. In the East we call it MAYA: MAYA means a world of futile dreams.

The other way to be is: not to be separate - losing one's definition, losing all demarcations, distinctions. Then you enter into the world of the real, the world of BRAHMA. Then you transcend dreams. And the basic, fundamental dream is the dream of the ego, the dream that "I am." You are not, I am not, only God is.

But that is a great risk. Disappearing into the vastness of existence frightens, scares. You feel so cozy in your small world of dreams; surrounded by your own dreams it is so warm, you are so sheltered, secure.

That's why people even go on clinging to miseries - because those miseries are part, an essential part of the dreamworld you live in. Your happiness, your unhappiness, are two aspects of your dreams. The real knows no happiness, no unhappiness: the real is beyond all duality. There is utter bliss. But remember, bliss is not happiness; you will not find any happiness in bliss, you will not find any unhappiness either.

It is a totally different world of which you cannot have any notion unless you have tasted of it. Bliss can have no meaning for you. Bliss is meaningful only to Buddhas, to those who have known. But to know, you have to fulfill a basic requirement: you have to disappear. It is a very paradoxical requirement: to be, you have not to be.

Vasumati, you ask: WHAT IS THE TOTALITY OF MYSELF?

When the totality is, there is no self left - mine or thine. And when the self is there, there is no totality.

The self can only be a fragment, the self can only exist as a fragment. And the smaller the fragment, the better the self can exist. That's why egoistic people go on becoming pettier and pettier, smaller and smaller.

The more egoistic a person is, the more mean, mediocre and small he is. He has no space within himself. He cannot contain anything except his own ego. He is so small that only this small word 'I' is enough to fill his whole space.

The more you lose the ego, the more it becomes melting, merging, the bigger space you have. Of course, the ego is very definite - you can define it, you can pinpoint it, you can say, "This is me." It has a certain clarity. The total is a very mysterious cloud. You cannot pinpoint it, you cannot indicate it: "This is it." It is so big and it is spread all over. It is beginningless, endless, it is infinite.

Unless one is ready to go into this mysterious chaos of the whole, one will not be able to take even a single step into it. It is dangerous for the ego, it is dangerous for your so-called intelligence. It is a mad love affair.

Unless you are in such a mad love affair with existence that you are ready to die for it, you will go on clinging to your small ego.

I have heard:

Two inmates of a mental asylum were trying to escape. They reached the outermost wall but were unable to climb over it. "What do we do now?" the first inmate asked.

"I know," replied the second. "I will shine my torch up to the top of the wall. You climb up the beam of the torch to the top and then help me up."

"Nothing doing," replied the first. "I am not THAT crazy. I would only get half way up and you would turn off the light!"

To go into the whole, you will have to be THAT crazy. It is a death, it is a disappearance, it is risky, it is a gamble. You cannot know what is going to happen. You can only know what you are going to lose; you cannot know beforehand what you are going to gain. Unless you are tremendously courageous you will not take that step - it is jumping into an abyss and the abyss is bottomless.

But those who have jumped have arrived. The moment they died as separate egos they were resurrected as divine. To die as a drop is the only way to become the ocean.

That's what sannyas is all about - driving you crazy, helping to drop your so-called cleverness, intellectuality, your knowledge. Sannyas is creating such an intense longing in you to die into God - and that is possible only if you are not too much concerned about what is going to happen then. If you are not too much concerned about the result, only then can you take the jump.

Slowly slowly, being with somebody who has taken the jump, you become infected. Religion is infection: there is no other way to learn religion. It cannot be taught, it can only be caught.

The second question

Question 2:

EVERYBODY CAN SUFFER WHO HAS A NAVEL. And if you don't have a navel, still you will suffer - you will find some other excuse. You may become afraid to touch your own ears.

Remember, the excuse is not the real problem; the problem is somewhere deep down. Why is the person afraid of touching his own navel? To touch the navel seems so innocent an activity, just as touching any part of the body is. The problem is somewhere else; this is only a symptom.

The navel is connected with the two vital centers of your life - the most vital. One is sex, the other is death. And these two are the only fears in the world. The navel is not the question, but the navel is very close to the sex center. If you have repressed your sexuality then your navel becomes very sensitive - because sexuality repressed starts gathering behind the navel. Hence the fear. The fear is basically that of sex, not of the navel.

When you repress your sex energy, where is it going to go? It will start accumulating, it will start overspreading the sex center. And the closest center to the sex is the navel. It will start touching the boundaries of the navel.

And because the navel has been your life-connection with your mother... your mother's life used to flow into you through the navel, so the navel is a hollow bamboo, a very very efficient vehicle of energy. It used to take your mother's energy into your life; for nine months in the mother's womb you lived through the navel. It was the navel that was the passage; energy HAS flowed through it, it is like a tunnel.

The tunnel is not empty. If your repress your sex, the sex energy will fill the tunnel - and that is the fear. Somebody touching your navel will make you afraid, because he can immediately make you aware of your sexuality.

A repressed person's navel becomes one of the most erogenous zones. It is not naturally an erogenous zone, but it happens only if natural sex has been repressed too much. Then the empty tunnel, which has always been capable of carrying much energy, starts carrying sexuality. Hence the fear.

And the second possibility is: just behind the navel is the death center. That's why in Japanese, suicide is called HARA KIRI - HARA means navel. The Japanese have known it down the ages, that there is a subtle point behind the navel - if the arrow or the dagger reaches to that point, one dies immediately, and with no pain, almost no pain, with no torture. To die from anywhere else is more torturous because death is closest to the navel, it is just behind the navel. And it has to be so because sex is life: life and death are two aspects of the same coin.

The navel contains two possibilities: life and death. If you repress life, your navel becomes a very very erogenous zone - and that will create fear in a repressive person, in a repressive psychology.

Or, behind the navel is your death. If you have become too much obsessed with death, if you are too much afraid of death... and that too happens to people who are repressed. The person who is living his life naturally is not afraid of death, not at all - in fact death will come to him, not as an end of life but as the climax of life. Death will come, not as the enemy of life but as the crescendo of the music of life.

The man who has lived his life totally, intensely, passionately, without any fear - without any fear that has been created in you by the priests for centuries and centuries - if a person lives his life without any fear, authentically, spontaneously, death will not create any fear in him, not at all. In fact, death will come as a great rest. Death will come as the ultimate flowering of life. He will be able to enjoy death too, he will be able to celebrate death too.

And remember, that is the criterion. If a person can enjoy and celebrate his death, that shows he has lived rightly; there is no other criterion. Your death will prove how you have lived. The fruit proves the tree - and death is the ultimate fruit of the tree that you are. How have you lived? Joyously?

Has your life been a song and a dance? Has your life been a benediction, a blessing? Have you been grateful to God for giving you life? Then death will come as the ultimate gift - from the same hands, from the same totality. And you will feel tremendously ecstatic. You will receive death, you will welcome death, you will embrace death. Death will be your ultimate love.

But the person who has been repressing life, who has been repressing his sexuality, who has been repressing everything, who has never lived in any true way, will not be able to accept death either.

How can he? He has not even lived yet. The tree has not even sprouted - how can it bear fruit? He is not ripe for death, hence the fear. The fear is that I have not lived yet and death is coming closer every day, every moment."

The repressive person is afraid of sex, and the repressive person is afraid of death. And both are deeply related with the navel. But even if your navel is removed - mm? - it can be done by plastic surgery - that will not change the problem at all. It may shift somewhere else; it will find some other outlet.

So remember, the problem has to be looked into deeply. Never be deceived by the symptom.

For years a guy goes to the pub each day, orders a beer and two pickled onions which he sticks in his ears. The bartender finally decides to get to the core of the matter, and upon the usual request says, "There are no onions but carrots are available."

The customer says, "Okay, let's have the carrots then," and shoves them in his ears. The bartender, not able to withhold any more, asks, "Why do you put the carrots in your ears?"

Whereupon the customer answers, "Because you don't have pickled onions."

Look deep into the problem; never be deceived by appearances. Otherwise you will go on asking questions, and there are foolish people in abundance in the world who will go on answering your question. And those answers will not help you - they may even create more problems. The problem has to be looked into in its nudity, utter nudity.

So let me repeat: everybody has a navel, and everybody has fears, because everybody has been taught - Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist... all over the world, the whole past of humanity has been a repressive past, it has been an ugly phenomenon.

And it is good that the past is on its deathbed. I don't mourn, I rejoice that the past is dying - because with the death of the past, a new man can arrive on the earth. A new man who will be able to rejoice, who will not be afraid to live. A new man who will not think of the other world and who will not create paradises in his imagination. All paradises are pornographic.

A person becomes interested in pornography only if he cannot find real people to love. If you cannot find the woman, if you cannot find the man, you become pornographic. Your imagination starts substituting for reality. So I tell you: all heavens and all paradises are pornographic. They have come out of a mind which has not lived, which has not known the beauties of this earth. Now there is only one hope: that after death you will be rewarded.

The fear is there. The first fear is of sex, because sex means birth, sex means life. And the second fear is of death, because death means the end. And the story is short between the beginning and the end - so short really. One third of your life will be wasted in sleep; the second third will be wasted in your offices, shops, factories, and the remaining third in quarrelling, fighting, courts, nagging each other, torturing each other, and doing utterly stupid things.

How many days have you there really to live? Just watch your twenty-four hours: how many minutes, or how many seconds really do you have there to live, to celebrate? Where is the time? So you go on postponing: "Tomorrow I will live." And tomorrow comes only death! And you have not lived yet, and the opportunity is slipping out of your hands. Great fear arises.

This fear can express itself in a thousand and one ways. Somebody is afraid of touching his own navel, somebody is afraid of looking at his own body. Somebody is afraid of falling in love, somebody is afraid of not eating enough and goes on stuffing himself. Somebody else is afraid that if he has no power in the world, how is he going to protect himself? Somebody is afraid that if he does not have enough money in the world, how is he going to survive? And so on and so forth - just watch people and you will find ALL kinds of fears dominating their lives.

Sherlock Holmes arrived in heaven. The angels turned out en masse to meet him; the Lord himself descended from his throne to bid him welcome. "Holmes," he said, "we have a little mystery up here that you may be able to help us solve. Adam and Eve seem to have disappeared; nobody has been able to locate them for aeons. If you could possibly uncover them for us..."

Holmes darted to the fringe of the assemblage and hauled two frightened and surprised angels before the Lord. "Here they are," he said.

Adam and Eve admitted their identities. "We got tired of being stared at and asked for autographs by every darned new angel who came up here," they explained. "We assumed aliases and these simple disguises and got away with them for centuries until this smarty-pants ferreted us out."

"How did you do it?" marvelled the Lord.

"Elementary, my dear God," said Holmes. "They were the only two who had no navels."

But still they were afraid, they were hiding. They had no navels - how could they have? God created them out of mud and then breathed life into them. They were not born, they had not lived in the mother's womb for nine months - how could they have navels? But still they were afraid, hiding out of fear.

Navels or no navels, you have to look into your frightened heart. Why are you so much afraid? Who has done this poisoning to you? The priests and the politicians have frightened you. They live out of your fear. They have exploited you because they were able to frighten you.

THE fiRST BASIC THING to make a man afraid is to tell him what is wrong and to never do the wrong; and make the wrong something which is so natural that he will be tempted to do it. Now he is caught. Tell him that some natural thing is so absolutely a sin that if he commits it he will be thrown in hell. Out of the fear of hell, he will start denying something natural to himself. And in that very denial, hell is created: he becomes frightened. He is afraid of himself, he cannot trust himself. He knows that if he simply relaxes for a day, he is going to commit the same thing that he has been told NOT to do.

If he does it he feels guilty: again he is in the trap. If he is not doing it he feels miserable, because he is denying something natural which was a need in his being, for his well-being.

The priests and the politicians who have been dominating humanity have been in a deep conspiracy:

make man afraid. Tell him that something in his nature is wrong, evil. Divide him into two - good and bad, saint and sinner. And once you divide a person you can rule him. Divide and rule: that has been the secret up to now. And man is divided, man is split.

You have been told so many things are wrong in you that you feel condemned. And still those things cannot be dropped just by thinking that they are wrong. At the most you can repress them - but repressing them you become more and more ugly; repressing them you become more and more unworthy. You come to a self-condemnation, you start thinking that you are the worst sinner in the world. And it has been told so many times that you will suffer in hell that consciously you may not think of hell, but it is there in your very roots. And you have been told that you will be rewarded in heaven if you follow the priests and the politicians.

These are the basic tricks for training animals. This is the whole of Skinnerian psychology. If you want somebody's behaviour to be modified and changed, these are the two tricks: whatsoever you want him to do, whenever he does it reward him; and whenever he does not do it, punish him. That's how rats are being trained, and that's how elephants are being trained in the circus - and that's what they have been doing with men.

The priests and the politicians have insulted humanity so greatly that it is simply a wonder how we go on tolerating these people still. Their greatest insult has been this, that they have treated men as rats.

Don't be angry at the psychologists who experiment with rats, and through those experiments derive conclusions about human beings. Don't be angry at them - this has been the practice for thousands of years before the psychologist ever appeared on the scene; he is a very new arrival. But man's psychology has always been dominated by a kind of materialistic strategy, a behaviouristic strategy:

make man afraid of hell. "Eat this - if you don't eat this you will never go to heaven. Don't eat this - if you eat it you will go to hell." And about small things...

Do you know? In the Buddhist scriptures there are thirty-three thousand rules for a monk. Thirty- three thousand rules! - even to remember them is impossible. Thirty-three thousand rules have to be followed to live. Just a small life and thirty-three thousand rules. You are bound to feel guilty. You will be found lacking in many rules; you will not be able to follow all of them - and then hell is certain.

And just think of hell. Your so-called saints have been very very imaginative about hell and heaven.

They have created all kinds of tortures in hell. In fact, Adolf Hitler must have learnt from religious scriptures how to torture people. Adolf Hitler did not do anything new. He simply implemented what your saints have been saying about hell - he created actual hell on the earth.

And think of your paradise: all kinds of pleasures. The same pleasures that your priests condemn you for enjoying here on the earth are available there. Here alcohol is sin, and in paradise, in fiRDAUS, it is the reward for the saints. And you need not go to a pub - rivers of alcohol flow in heaven. Rivers! You need not drink, you can just swim. You can be drowned.

Here, to look at a beautiful woman is a sin, to be attracted to a beautiful woman is sin. And what are your saints doing in heaven? Enjoying beautiful women. Of course, in heaven those beautiful women have far more beauty than any woman can have on the earth. They are eternally young; they are stuck at the age of eighteen. You will not find any old woman in heaven - I have not found.

I have looked in all the scriptures: I have not yet found a single reference to an old woman. All are eighteen years, and centuries and centuries have passed but they remain stuck at eighteen years.

And they have golden bodies, they don't perspire. They don't need deodorants in heaven or perfume or cosmetics; there is no need. They have bodies of gold, their eyes are diamonds, they are eternally beautiful - and they are available. But they are available only to the saints, mind you. If you are a sinner.... And who is a sinner? One who loved a woman on the earth is a sinner. And one who renounced all love, tortured himself in every way - went to the Himalayas, slept on a bed of nails - that is a saint.

I have heard about a great saint who died. And after one day his chief disciple also died - the chief disciple could not live without the master. The disciple was very much exhilarated because he was being taken to heaven and he was thinking, "My master must be swimming in the rivers of alcohol, wine, and the most beautiful woman must have been given to him - because he was such a great ascetic."

And it was really so! When he reached, under a golden tree, leaves of gold and flowers of diamonds and emeralds, the master was sitting there naked, as he used to live on the earth, and a very beautiful woman, a very improved edition of Marilyn Monroe, was hugging him.

The disciple simply fell at the feet of the master and he said, "My Lord, I knew it! that you would be rewarded. And why not? You have suffered so much in the world: you never touched a woman, you never looked at a woman, you never loved a woman. You escaped to the caves. But all that austerity is paid well - now, for eternity, on and on...."

The master looked at the disciple and said. "You stupid. stop! You don't understand what is happening. This woman is not a reward for me: I am a punishment for her."

Your heavens and your hells are just imaginations of repressed people. But you have been taught in such a way, you have been brought up with such a stupid education, called 'religious education', that you live always in an inner conflict.

This inner conflict creates fear and greed in you, and then your fear and greed has to find some outlet. From where it finds it is irrelevant; if you stop one outlet it will come from another outlet. So rather than stopping outlets, please understand the root cause of it.

If you remain divided in yourself, if you remain split, if you can't accept yourself as you are, if you remain dominated by the priests and the politicians, you will remain afraid, trembling. They want you to remain in trembling, because only a person who is in deep trembling can be dominated, can be possessed, can be reduced to a thing, to a commodity.

The person who is in fear is ready to become a slave to anybody. The moment you drop all your fears... and they can be dropped because they have been artificially created. They have been imposed upon you, they are not part of your nature, so they can easily be shaken off. The moment you shake off all your fears, for the first time you will start existing as a single unit. You will be unitary, you will become an individual.

Remember the meaning of the word 'individual': one who is indivisible. That is the root meaning of the word 'individual'. You are not yet individuals. You will have to go into a kind of individuation. And the way to it means dropping all the false divisions that have been imposed upon you. Once you are an individual, all fears disappear.

AND I AM NOT SAYING that the disappearance of fear means that the bus driver will go on honking the horn and you will go on walking in the middle of the road. That is stupidity, not fearlessness. I don't mean by the disappearance of fear that a snake will pass just in front of you and you will not care - that is stupidity again. There are fears which are intelligent. You have to jump out of the way of the snake - that is intelligent; that fear is not a problem. That fear is helpful; it protects you, it is your friend.

But fears like the fear of touching your own navel, the fear of being in love, the fear of being alone, the fear of sitting silently unoccupied, or the fear of the crowd, or the fear of sitting in a small cell, or the fear of travelling in an aeroplane, or the fear of remaining in a constant paranoia that you are being persecuted, that the whole world is against you - all these fears will disappear. Abnormal fears will disappear; normal fears are perfectly okay.

I have heard:

Mr O'Hara indulged in a few drinks at the neighbourhood bar. "I'm not afraid of anything," he boasted.

"Oh, yeah," sang one of the inebriated customers.

"Oh, yeah! I have been through the hurricanes of Florida, the tornadoes of the Midwest the floods of the Mississipi, and the earthquakes of Los Angeles, and none of them scared me. Furthermore," he continued, after another sip from his drink, "I fought in World War II, the Korean war, and Vietnam, and nothing frightens me."

"O'Hara," wailed another drinking pal. "I just saw your wife coming down the street."

"Oh, no!" moaned O'Hara as he dropped to his knees and began to pray.

You may not be afraid of going into war, you may not be afraid of fighting with a tiger, but you are afraid of your own wife, you are afraid of your own husband, you are afraid of your own children, you are afraid of your own parents. This is pathological. But this is how we are living. All our relationships are based in fear. The husband thinks unless he makes the wife afraid he is not a real man. And the wife also thinks that unless she makes the husband afraid of her she is no more in power. It is all power politics!

And naturally the man is a loser, because the man has to fight in the marketplace - so many competitors, so much competition, each is at the other's throat - and by the time he comes home he is tired from the whole day's battle. And the wife is fresh. The whole day she has really been waiting for the husband to come home. Now the husband is not in a position to fight. He is already tired, exhausted. He wants to rest and relax because tomorrow again the same fight has to begin in the marketplace. And the wife has been waiting the whole day - her anger accumulating, her frustration accumulating, no outlet. She jumps upon the husband. Any slight excuse and the fight breaks out.

The husband HAS to compromise.

And then the ways of the woman are very subtle. She will cry, she will weep, she may not cook the food, or she may put too much salt in it - her ways are very very subtle. Now, after the whole day's conflict the husband does not want any more conflict; he is ready to say yes to anything. That's why almost every husband becomes a hen-pecked husband. It is very rare to find a husband who is not hen-pecked. That is the normal situation.

The police car turned the corner to discover a dishevelled little man crawling on the sidewalk. He was bleeding and his clothes were torn and he was almost in shock.

"Help me, officer," he pleaded.

The officer jumped out of the patrol car. "What happened?"

"I was beaten. She took all my money, my car too."

"Who?"

"That Amazon."

"You mean a woman did this to you?"

"Yes! "

"Can you give a description of this woman?"

The little man's dazed eyes looked up at the officer. "She is five feet ten and a half inches tall, weighs two hundred pounds, has blonde hair with a grey streak down the back, wears size ten shoes, and has a mole on her right shoulder."

"That's remarkable that you can give such an accurate description, down to her shoe size! How were you able to do it?"

The little man bowed his head. "She is my wife."

In the past, children used to be afraid of the parents. Now the wheel has turned full circle - now parents are afraid of the children. In the past, the students used to be afraid of the teachers and the professors; now the thing has changed - now the teachers and the professors are afraid of the students. But fear continues this way or that.

A man who understands himself, integrates himself, becomes an individual, w ill he free of fear. And not only will he be free of fear, he will not make anybody else afraid either.

That's why I say your saints are only so-called saints. They are not yet free of fear - because they still go on making you afraid. The real man who is beyond fear is also beyond making other people afraid - because to make anybody afraid is to poison his system. It is very inhuman.

I cannot make you afraid of anything. I cannot tell you that if you do a small thing you are going to hell. And I cannot make you greedy either - because greed and fear are together. I cannot say to you that if you become sannyasins you wi!! go to heaven. All that I can say is: if you are an integrated individual you ARE in heaven. It is not a question of the future.

THIS VERY BODY THE BUDDHA, THIS VERY EARTH THE PARADISE.

There are no heavens and no hells, only two kinds of psychology. One psychology: that of the individual, integrated person. The other psychology: that of the split, schizophrenic person.

The third question

Question 3:

Werner Scholz,

THE REAL SCIENCE HAS ALWAYS BEEN DONE without mind. All that is great in science has come not through intellect but through intuition. All the great discoveries, all the great breakthroughs, have come from the beyond - from Archimedes to Albert Einstein.

You know the story of Archimedes? The discovery happened when he was lying in his tub enjoying a hot bath, and suddenly in that relaxed state.... He was very much worried for days - the king of the country had asked him a certain question. The king had a beautiful golden crown: he wanted to know whether it was made absolutely of gold o r if there was some mixture? And he wanted to know without the crown being destroyed.

Now this was a puzzle "How to know it? - how much is gold and how much is some other metal?"

And he tried hard; he could not sleep for nights. And there was no hope of finding the solution. But it happened.

The tub was full . When he went into the tub, some water went out of the tub. And like a flash, a lightning flash, the idea came to him that "The water going out of the tub must have something to do with my weight." And the thing clicked. "Now if we put gold into a full tub of water, some water will come out. That water will have something to do with the quantity of the gold."

And he was so thrilled. He was naked - he forgot all about nakedness, ecstasy was so much. He rushed into the streets shouting, "Eureka! Eureka! I have found it! I have found it!"

It was an insight, not an intellectual conclusion.

Do you know Albert Einstein used to sit in the tub for hours? - maybe just because of Archimedes.

One of the great Indian intellectuals, Doctor Ram Manohar Lohia, went to see him. He related the whole story to me. He was one of the most honest politicians this country has known, and a keen observer of things, a great visionary, a genius. He was also educated in Germany so he had many friends who knew Albert Einstein. Through some common friend, the meeting was arranged.

Doctor Lohia reached exactly on time, but Albert Einstein's wife said, "You will have to wait, because he is in his bathtub and nobody knows when he will come out."

Half an hour passed, one hour passed, and Doctor Lohia asked the wife, "How long does it take?"

She said, "It is unpredictable."

Doctor Lohia asked, "What does he go on doing, sitting in the bathtub?"

The woman started laughing. She said, "He plays with soap bubbles."

"For what?" Doctor Lohia asked.

And she said, "It is when playing with soap bubbles that he has always arrived at certain insights for which he has been thinking and thinking but was failing and failing. It is always in his bathtub that insights flash into his mind."

Why in the bathtub? You are relaxed, and relaxation is the basis of meditation. You relax - when you relax, all tensions are dropped. Hot water, and the silence of the bathroom, and your aloneness....

And now in the West, bathrooms are being made so beautiful they are almost like temples. A few people have even started making their sitting-room in the bathroom. It is so beautiful - one can relax, one can meditate. In that meditative mood, things happen.

Now Divya is taking a few interviews here of older sannyasins who have lived with me for years. She also wanted to take an interview of Vivek, and Vivek was worried how to give it - because she only gets ideas when she is in the bathtub. Then there is flow.

So I said, "Don't be worried - you call Divya and tell her to sit in the bathroom. Be in the bathtub and then you start talking."

But she could not gather courage.

The bathtub has always been a great provocator. All the great scientists of the world are agreed upon it. Sometimes working for years for a certain conclusion and not arriving at it, and then one day suddenly it is there... out of nowhere, from the beyond. You cannot say it is a conclusion; it is not a conclusion at all.

Werner Scholz, you ask: YOU SAY THAT MIND IS A WRONG SPACE, AND ALSO YOU SAY THAT SCIENCE IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF A NEW WORLD.

Yes. Science is always out of meditation, not out of mind. And whenever something is out of mind, it is not science but only technology. Technology is a poor thing; it is not the insight, but the implementation of the insight. Technology is out of the mind, because mind ITSELF is a technological device, a biological technology.

All machines are out of mind, because mind itself is a machine. But no insight ever comes out of the mind, because no computer can ever give an insight. Insights come from the beyond. Mind is just the surface of your being; insights come from the center of your being. Meditation takes you to the center.

So there is no contradiction in my statements. When I say mind is a wrong space, I mean don't get identified with the mind. Don't just become your mind - you are more, far more than the mind. Mind is only a small mechanism in you: use it, but don't get identified with it. Just as you drive your car - it is a mechanism, you use it - you don't become your car. The mind is a machine inside you, but don't become identified with it, there is no need. That identification creates a wrong space.

When you start thinking, "I am the mind," then you are in a wrong space. If you know, "I am not the mind, but the master of the mind, I can use the mind," then mind is a good machine, of tremendous value. It can create great technology.

Science comes out of no-mind just as religion comes out of no-mind. The source of religion and science is not separate, it is the same source - because both depend on breakthroughs, insights, intuitive flashes.

Technology comes out of mind, and religious technology also comes out of mind - Yoga, mantra, yantra. Yoga means body postures which can help you to go deep inside yourself - they are created by the mind. That is religious technology. That's why Yoga is not part of any particular religion.

There can be Christian Yoga, there can be Hindu Yoga, there is certainly Buddhist Yoga, Jaina Yoga - there can be as many Yogas as there are religions.

Yoga is just a technology. No machine is Hindu, no machine is Mohammedan. You don't go into the marketplace to purchase a Mohammedan car or a Hindu car. Machines are simply machines.

Yoga is technology. Mantra is technology, it is created by the mind. In fact mantra comes from the same root as 'mind' - both come from the Sanskrit word MAN. One branch becomes 'mind', another branch becomes 'mantra' - both are part of the mind.

scientific technology is created by the mind, religious technology is created by mind. All the rituals of religions - temples, mosques, churches, prayers, scriptures - these are all created by the mind.

But the flash, the insight, Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree.... When for the first time he became aware, totally aware, that was not anything out of mind. It was not part of mind, it was something beyond. It was something that has nothing to do with you, with your ego, with your mind, with your body. It is something pure, virgin, it is part of the eternity. In that moment when Buddha's mind was completely at rest, the beyond penetrated him. He became a god.

Of course, for seven days he remained silent. The impact was such that he could not utter a single word. And the storY says gods in heaven became very much disturbed, because it is very rare that a man becomes a Buddha, and if he remains silent then who will teach the millions of people who are blind and groping in darkness?

It is just a mythology, a beautiful story, but of significance and meaning. Those gods came, bowed down to Buddha and prayed to him, "Speak! Tell people what you have attained."

And when Buddha started speaking, then it was out of mind, then it was part of mind. The phenomenon itself had happened in silence, but then he had to use words. Those words belong to the mind.

What I know is beyond mind, what I say to you is through mind. My words are part of the mind, but my knowing is not part of the mind.

The fourth question

Question 4:

HAPPINESS IS THE OTHER SIDE OF UNHAPPINESS. If you want to be happy, you will have to remain unhappy. The statement will look very paradoxical, but it is not. That's how life is. Only an unhappy person can be happy. Unhappiness creates the situation in which happiness can be felt.

If you have been ill for many months, then suddenly when you become healthy again you feel tremendously happy. And you have been healthy before illness for years and years, and you were never so happy, not at all; you had not even taken any note of it. Now you are happy that you are healthy.

Why? From where does this happiness come? It comes from your illness. Your illness created unhappiness, the background. Now you are healthy again and you can feel - and you can feel only when something happens in contrast.

When a poor man becomes rich he is happy, tremendously happy. But you don't see rich people happy. They ARE rich, so there is no point in being happy; they don't feel it at all. The richer you become, the less happy you are. If you become the richest man in the world you will forget all about happiness.

That's what is happening every day. Happiness is only part, like an island in the ocean of unhappiness.

I have heard:

Mr Jones cringed with pain as he listened to his son Junior practising the violin upstairs. "I can't stand it any more!" he cried to Mrs Jones. "One year of lessons, the best violin money can buy, and our son makes sounds like a cat being tortured."

"I know you are disappointed," said Mrs Jones trying to console her husband. "He will never be a virtuoso."

"He will never be a street player! They would throw garbage at him."

The following day, at the same time, a strange silence ensued. "That's funny," noticed Mrs Jones.

"Junior always practises at this time."

A smile crept over Mr Jones' face. "Peace - it's wonderful."

"What did you do?" asked his wife suspiciously.

"Very simple," answered Mr Jones. "If the U.S. government can pay farmers not to grow crops. I can pay my son not to play the violin."

Nobody is playing a violin in your house, nobody is making sounds like a cat being tortured, but you don't feel the peace. You don't say, "Peace - it is wonderful."

Only the prisoner knows what freedom means. When he comes out of the prison and looks at the trees and the sun and the sky and looks at people and knows that there are no more chains on his feet, on his hands, he knows what freedom is. Soon he will forget.

You are not aware of your freedom - or are you? Have you ever enjoyed your freedom? Have you ever danced because there are no chains on your hands? Have you ever danced because you are not in a prison? Have you ever danced because you can see the whole sky, you need not look through the keyhole? No, you have never felt any happiness.

A very rich man once wanted to become happy. He had tried all kinds of ways but everything had failed. He went to many saints; nobody could help him. Then somebody suggested, "You go to Mulla Nasruddin. He lives in a certain town - he is the only man who can be of some help to you."

The man went with a bag full of diamonds, and he showed the bag to Mulla Nasruddin who was sitting underneath a tree outside the town, resting under the sun. And he said, "I am a very miserable man - I want happiness. I am ready to give anything for it, but I have not tasted even once what happiness is - and death is coming closer. Can you help me? How can I be happy? I have all kinds of things that the world can give to me, yet I am unhappy. Why?"

Mulla looked at the man, and it happened so fast that the rich man could not understand what was happening. He just jumped on the man, took away the bag, and ran.

Of course the man followed, crying, shouting, "I have been cheated, robbed!"

Mulla knew all the streets of the town, so he was going zigzag, this way and that. And the rich man had never run in his life, and he was crying and tears were flowing down, and he said, "I have been robbed absolutely - that was my whole life's earnings. Save me, people! Help me!"

And a crowd followed. And by the time they reached Mulla, the Mulla had come back to the place where the rich man had found him. The rich man's horse was still standing there, Mulla was sitting under the tree. The rich man was crying, breathing hard. And Mulla gave the bag back to him.

The rich man said, "Thank God!" And such tears of joy, and such peace.

Mulla said, "Look, I have made you happy. Now you know what happiness is? This bag has been with you for years and you were unhappy. It had to be taken away from you."

Happiness is part of unhappiness. That's why happiness should not be the goal of your life, because if you want happiness you will have to remain unhappy. The unhappier you are, then only a few moments, few and far between, will be those of happiness.

The goal is not happiness, the goal is bliss. Don't ask me, "What is happiness?" because that shows you are searching for happiness. If you have come here in search of happiness, you have come to the wrong place. Go to Mulla Nasruddin.

My effort here is to create bliss, not happiness. Happiness is worthless: it depends on unhappiness.

Bliss is transcendence: one moves beyond the duality of being happy and unhappy. One watches both - happiness comes, one watches and does not become identified with it. One does not say, "I am happy. Peace - it is wonderful." One simply watches, one says, "Yes, a white cloud passing."

And then comes unhappiness, and one does not become unhappy either. One says, "A black cloud passing - I am the witness, the watcher."

This is what meditation is all about - just becoming a watcher. Failure comes, success comes, you are praised, you are condemned, you are respected, you are insulted - all kinds of things come, they are all dualities. And you go on watching. Watching the duality, a third force arises in you, a third dimension arises in you. The duality means two dimensions - one dimension is happiness, another is unhappiness. Watching both, a depth arises in you - the third dimension, witnessing, SAKSHI.

And that third dimension brings bliss. Bliss is without any opposite to it. It is serene, tranquil, cool. It is ecstasy without any excitement.

And I cannot define what happiness is, because it depends on what kind of person you are. What is happiness to you may be unhappiness to your brother. What is unhappiness to you may be happiness to your neighbour.

Four women sat for hours under the hairdryers at the beauty parlour. After exhausting their gossip, they turned to philosophy. The first lady said, "Happiness is when my husband brings home his paycheck."

The second lady stated, "Happiness is gambling in Las Vegas and winning."

The third lady commented, "Happiness is vacationing without my husband or my children."

The fourth lady concluded, "Happiness is eating without worrying about calories."

Upon eavesdropping, one hairdresser whispered to the other, "Happiness is not having to listen to these cackling hens."

It depends. Your happiness is your idiosyncrasy; it may be unhappiness to somebody else. It has no truth about it; it is only your dream. And you can have any dream you like. To somebody power is happiness; to somebody money is happiness; to somebody else money is misery - he escapes, renounces the money; he escapes from all power, goes to the jungle. To somebody, people are happiness; to somebody, aloneness. It depends on you.

But I am not interested in happiness at all. Because basically it has to depend on its opposite - and anything that depends on its opposite keeps you divided. And to live divided is to live in hell.

I would like you to attain something which is not dependent on its opposite - in fact, which has no opposites to it. Bliss has no opposite to it. And to be blissful is to have arrived home: one becomes a Buddha - serene, calm, cool, quiet, and yet utterly blissful.

The last question

Question 5:

Anutosha,

SERIOUSNESS IS PART OF THE EGOISTIC MIND. The ego has to remain very serious; it has to pretend that "I am not ordinary, I am special. These ordinary people are laughing and joking; these ordinary people live an ordinary life, mundane. I am a holy person. I am not interested in mundane things - my interest is in truth, in God, in enlightenment."

These are ALL ego trips. Ego is serious, and ego always accumulates much knowledge to pretend solidity. Ego is always accumulating more and more knowledge. The ego is incapable of enjoying life - because whenever you enjoy, ego disappears. Joy and ego cannot exist together. The ego can exist only when you are keeping a very long face, not enjoying, and saying, "It is not worth it. It is below me."

That's what is happening to you, Anutosha. You ARE seriously ill. Drop this knowledgeability and drop this holier-than-thou look. Meet and mix with people, enjoy small things. Laugh, joke, love - small things! And if you are without any egoistic structure around you, those small things start becoming great splendours.

If you are too full of knowledge, too much piety, too much holiness, too much religiousness, you will remain closed. Then nothing will ever surprise you, because you cannot allow anything to surprise you. How can you allow anything to surprise you? That will show your ignorance.

See small children: they are surprised by everything, they are wondering at everything. The butterfly, the flower, the leaf falling from the tree - and look at children, how full of wonder, full of awe their eyes are. And how innocent and how transparent and how open they are. That's why they go on asking questions about this and that - about everything they are questioning. Their questions are tremendously beautiful. They are simply saying, "I don't know, and I want to know." Their life is that of inquiry.

The egoistic person cannot accept that he does not know.

When I was a student in the university I had a professor. You mentioned any book and he would say, "Yes, I have read it." So one day I mentioned three books which don't exist; the authors have never existed. And he said, "Yes, I have read them, they are beautiful books."

I asked then, "From where did you get them?"

He said, "From the library."

I said, "You come with me."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "I would like to see these three books"

Now he became a little hesitant. On the way to the library, he said, "It is many years since I read them."

I said, "Are you certain you have read them?"

He said, "Yes." But now the yes was not very certain. By the time we reached the library, he said, "Listen, in fact I have not read them - I have just heard about them."

I said, "That will do. You come in the library - we have to find those three books." And we searched, and of course we could not find them. And the librarian said, "But these books have never been here, and I have never heard about these authors either."

And I told the professor, "Please remember: never again say yes, that you have read this book, if you have not read it - because all these three books are invented. they don't exist. You have been caught. But for two years I have been listening to your..." Whatsoever you mentioned, he had read it. He was incapable of saying "I don't know."

This is a kind of serious illness.

Anutosha, laugh with people - life is full of surprises. There is so much to know. And there will always remain so much to know - no one has ever known everything. Drop this attitude of knowledge.

And don't think yourself special. Nobody is special, because everybody is special. Nobody is extraordinary, because everybody is extraordinary. And each moment of life is so full of the unknown that if you are alert and open, you will be surprised at each step. And when you are surprised at each step of life, and each moment brings new surprises, your life becomes a dance, a song, a celebration.

A man was asked by his wife to buy a live chicken for a special dinner. He bought the chicken and was on his way home when he remembered that he did not have his house-key and his wife would not be there for a few hours.

He decided to pass the time by going to a movie. In order to get into the cinema, he stuffed the chicken into his trousers.

He sat down and began watching the movie. It fascinated him so, that he did not notice the chicken sticking its head through his fly.

Two women were sitting next to him and one of them nudged the other. "Look," she said. "Look at that thing there sticking out of the man's pants."

The other replied, "If you've seen one, you've seen them all."

The first one said, "Yes, but this one is eating my popcorn!"