This great adventure

Question 1:

Devageet, there are a few very fundamental things to be understood.

First, there has never been a rebellion in the past, only revolutions. And the distinction between a revolution and a rebellion is so vast that unless you understand the difference you will not be able to figure the way out of the puzzle of your question. Once you understand the difference...

Revolution is a crowd, a mob phenomenon. Revolution is a struggle for power: one class of people who are in power are thrown out by the other class of people who have been oppressed, exploited to such a point that now even death does not matter. They don't have anything. Revolution is a struggle between the haves and the have-nots.

I am reminded of the last statement in the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO by Karl Marx. It is tremendously beautiful, and with a little change I can use it for my own purposes.

First his exact statement: he says, "Proletariat" - his word for have-nots - "Proletariat of the world unite, and don't be afraid because you have nothing to lose except your chains."

Moments come in history when a small group of people, cunning, clever, start exploiting the whole society. All the money goes on gathering on one side and all the poverty and starvation on the other.

Naturally this state cannot be continued forever. Sooner or later those who have nothing are going to overthrow those who have all.

Revolution is a class action, it is a class struggle. It is basically political; it has nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with spirituality. And it is also violent, because those who have power are not going to lose their vested interest easily; it is going to be a bloody, violent struggle in which thousands, sometimes millions of people will die.

Just in the Russian revolution thirty million people were killed. The czar's whole family - he was the king of Russia before the revolution - was killed by the revolutionaries so brutally that it is inconceivable. Even a six-month-old girl was also killed. Now, she was absolutely innocent, she had done no harm to anybody; but just because she belonged to the royal family... The whole royal family had to be destroyed completely. Seventeen people were killed, and not just killed but cut into pieces.

It is bound to happen in a revolution. Centuries of anger ultimately turns into blind violence.

And the last thing to remember: revolution changes nothing. It is a wheel: one class comes into power, others become powerless. But sooner or later the powerless are going to become the majority, because the powerful don't want to share their power, they want to have it in as few hands as possible.

Now, you cannot conceive in this country... There are nine hundred million people, but half the capital of the country is just in Bombay. Nine hundred million people in the whole country, and half the capital of the whole country is just in a small city. How long can it be tolerated? Naturally, it comes automatically. Revolution is something blind and mechanical, part of evolution. And when the powerful become the smaller group, the majority throws them away and another power group starts doing the same.

That's why I say revolution has never changed anything, or in other words, all the revolutions of history have failed. They promised much, but nothing came out of it. Even after seventy years, in the Soviet Union people are still not getting enough nourishment. Yes, there are no more the old czars and counts and countesses and princesses and princes... But in a vast ocean of poverty, even if you remove those who have power and riches it is not going to make the society rich; it is just trying to make the ocean sweet by dropping teaspoonfuls of sugar in it.

All that has happened is a very strange phenomenon that nobody takes notice of. Only poverty has been distributed equally: now in the Soviet Union everybody is equally poor. But what kind of revolution is this? The hope was that everybody would be equally rich.

But just by hoping you cannot become rich. Richness needs a totally different ideology of which mankind is absolutely unaware. For centuries it has praised poverty and condemned richness, comfort, luxury. Even if the poor revolt and come into power, they don't have any idea what to do with this power, how to generate energy to create more richness, comfort and luxury for people, because deep down in their minds there is a guilty feeling about richness, about luxury, about comfort.

So they are in a tremendous anguish, although they have come to power. This is the moment they could change the whole structure of the society, its whole productive idea. They could bring more technology; they could drop stupid kinds of wastage.

Every country is wasting almost ten percent of its income on the army. Even the poorest country, even this country is doing the same idiotic thing. Fifty percent of the people in this country are on the verge of any day becoming an Ethiopia, a bigger Ethiopia. In Ethiopia one thousand people were dying per day. The day India starts becoming another Ethiopia - and it is not far away - then one thousand will not do; it will be many thousands of people dying every day.

By the end of this century the population of India will be the biggest in the whole world. So far it has never been; it has always been China who was ahead. By the end of the century - and there are not many years left, just within twelve years we will be reaching the end - India will have one billion people. Five hundred million people are bound to die, because there is no food for so many people.

But still the politicians, those who are in power are not concerned at all what happens to humanity.

Their concern is whether power remains in their hands or not. They can sacrifice half of the country to death, but they will go on making efforts to have atomic weapons, nuclear missiles.

It is a very insane kind of society that we have created in thousands of years. Its insanity has come now to a high peak, there is no going back. It seems we are all sitting on a volcano which can explode any moment.

Revolutions in the past have happened all around the world, but no revolution has succeeded in doing what it promised. It promised equality, without understanding the psychology of human individuality. Each human individual is so unique that to force them to equality is not going to make people happy, but utterly miserable.

I also love the idea of equality, but in a totally different way. My idea of equality is equal opportunity to all to be unequal, equal opportunity to all to be unique and themselves. Certainly they will be different from each other, and a society which does not have variety and differences is a very poor society. Variety brings beauty, richness, color.

But it has not yet dawned on the millions around the world that revolution has not helped, and they still go on thinking in terms of revolution. They have not understood anything from the history of man.

It is said that history repeats itself. I say it is not history that repeats itself; it only seems to repeat itself because man is absolutely unconscious and he goes on doing the same thing again and again without learning anything, without becoming mature, alert and aware.

When all the revolutions have failed some new door should be opened. There is no point in again and again changing the powerful into the powerless and the powerless into the powerful; this is a circle that goes on moving.

I don't preach revolution.

I am utterly against revolution.

I say unto you that my word for the future, and for those who are intelligent enough in the present, is rebellion.

What is the difference?

Rebellion is individual action; it has nothing to do with the crowd. Rebellion has nothing to do with politics, power, violence. Rebellion has something to do with changing your consciousness, your silence, your being. It is a spiritual metamorphosis.

And each individual passing through a rebellion is not fighting with anybody else, but is fighting only with his own darkness. Swords are not needed, bombs are not needed; what is needed is more alertness, more meditativeness, more love, more prayerfulness, more gratitude. Surrounded by all these qualities you are born anew.

I teach this new man, and this rebellion can become the womb for the new man I teach. We have tried collective efforts and they have failed. Now let us try individual efforts. And if one man becomes aflame with consciousness, joy and blissfulness, he will become contagious to many more.

Rebellion is a very silent phenomenon that will go on spreading without making any noise and without even leaving any footprints behind. It will move from heart to heart in deep silences, and the day it has reached to millions of people without any bloodshed, just the understanding of those millions of people will change our old primitive animalistic ways.

It will change our greed, and the day greed is gone there is no question of accumulating money. No revolution has been able to destroy greed; those who come in power become greedy.

We have passed through a revolution just now in this country, and it is a very significant example to understand. The people who were leading the revolution in this country against the British rule were followers of Mahatma Gandhi, who preached poverty, who preached non-possessiveness. The moment they came into power all his disciples started living in palaces which were made for viceroys.

All his disciples who had been thinking their whole lives that they are servants of the people became masters of the people.

There is more corruption in this country than anywhere else. This is very strange - this is Gandhian corruption, very religious, very pious, and the people who are doing it were trained, disciplined to be servants of the people. But power has a tremendous capacity to change people; the moment you have power you are immediately a different person. You start behaving exactly like any other powerful people who have gone before.

I was very young when India became independent, so I have been watching this independence for forty years. My whole family was involved in the freedom struggle, and when freedom came there was so much celebration all over the country. But each year the celebration became less and less, and sadness started settling.

I used to tease my father, my uncles, who had all been to jail, suffered as much as possible, and because all the elders were in the jails, we suffered too because there was nobody to look after the children. There were only women and children left, and Indian women cannot be of much help. They cannot even come out into society; they are not capable of earning money.

I know how difficult it was when all the elders of the family were thrown into jail. After the freedom I used to tease them, "Is this freedom? You destroyed your family, you destroyed yourself, you suffered and you made us suffer. Is this freedom?"

And my father used to say, "Don't say such things. We know this is not the freedom that we have been fighting for. We were thinking that when the country becomes free, everybody will enjoy freedom."

But nothing has changed. Only the Britishers are gone, and in their place a single party has been ruling for forty years. Now it is not just a single party, but a single family; it has become a dynasty - and the exploitation continues and the poverty continues - it has grown at least a hundred times more since the British Empire has been gone.

Everything has deteriorated - the morality, the character, the integrity, everything has become a commodity. You can purchase anybody; all you need is money. There is not a single individual in the whole country who is not a commodity in the marketplace; all you need is money. Everybody is purchasable - judges are purchasable, police commissioners are purchasable, politicians are purchasable. Even under the British rule this country has never known such corruption.

What has the country gained? The rulers have changed, but what does that signify? Unless there is a rebelliousness spreading from individual to individual, unless we can create an atmosphere of enlightenment around the world where greed will fall down on its own accord, where anger will not be possible, where violence will become impossible, where love will be just the way you live... where life should be respected, where the body should be loved, appreciated, where comfort should not be condemned. It is natural to ask for comfort.

Even the trees... In Africa, trees grow very high; the same trees in India don't grow that high. I was puzzled, what happens? I was trying to find out why they should grow to the same height but they don't, and the reason I found was that unless there is a density of trees, trees won't grow high. Even at a lesser height the sun is available, and that is their comfort, that is their life, that is their joy. In Africa the jungles are so thick that every tree tries in every way to grow as high as possible, because only then can it have the joy of the sun, the joy of the rain, the joy of the wind. Only then can it dance; otherwise there is nothing but death.

The whole of nature wants comfort, the whole of nature wants all the luxury that is possible. But our religions have been teaching us against luxury, against comfort, against riches.

A man of enlightenment sees with clarity that it is unnatural to demand from people, "You should be content with your poverty, you should be content with your sicknesses, you should be content with all kinds of exploitation, you should be content and you should not try to rise higher, to reach to the sun and the rain and the wind." This is an absolutely unnatural conditioning that we are all carrying.

Only a rebellion in your being can bring you to this clarity.

You say, Devageet, that in history all the rebellions were based on "no." Those were not rebellions; change the word. All the revolutions were based on "no." They were negative, they were against something, they were destructive, they were revengeful and violent.

Certainly, my rebellion is based on "yes" - yes to existence, yes to nature, yes to yourself. Whatever the religions may be saying and whatever the ancient traditions may be saying, they are all saying no to yourself, no to nature, no to existence; they are all life-negative.

My rebellion is life-affirmative. I want you to dance and sing and love and live as intensely as possible and as totally as possible. In this total affirmation of life, in this absolute yes to nature we can bring a totally new earth and a totally new humanity into being.

The past was "no."

The future has to be "yes."

We have lived enough with the no, we have suffered enough and there has been nothing but misery.

I want people to be as joyful as birds singing in the morning, as colorful as flowers, as free as the bird on the wing with no bondages, with no conditioning, with no past - just an open future, an open sky and you can fly to the stars.

Because I am saying yes to life, all the no-sayers are against me, all over the world. My yes-saying goes against all the religions and against all the ideologies that have been forced upon man. My yes is my rebellion. The day you will be able also to say yes it will be your rebellion.

We can have rebellious people functioning together, but each will be an independent individual, not belonging to a political party or to a religious organization. Just out of freedom and out of love and out of the same beautiful yes we will meet. Our meeting will not be a contract, our meeting will not be in any way a surrender; our meeting will make every individual more individual. Supported by everybody else, our meeting will not take away freedom, will not enslave you; our meeting will give you more freedom, more support so that you can be stronger in your freedom. Long has been the slavery, and long has been our burden. We have become weak because of the thousands of years of darkness that have been poured on us.

The people who love to say yes, who understand the meaning of rebellion, will not be alone; they will be individuals. But the people who are on the same path, fellow-travelers, friends, will be supporting each other in their meditativeness, in their joy, in their dance, in their music. They will become a spiritual orchestra, where so many people are playing instruments but creating one music. So many people can be together and yet they may be creating the same consciousness, the same light, the same joy, the same fragrance.

It is a long way - "no" seems to be a shortcut - that's why it has not been tried up to now. Whenever I have discussed it with people, they said, "Perhaps you are right, but when will it be possible that the whole earth will say yes?"

I said, "Anyway we have been on this earth for millions of years and you have been saying no - and what is your achievement? It is time. Give a chance to yes too."

My feeling is that no is a quality of death; yes is the very center of life. No had to fail because death cannot succeed, cannot be victorious over life. If we give a chance to yes based in rebelliousness it is bound to become a wildfire, because everybody deep down wants it to happen. I have not found a single person in my life who does not want to live a natural, relaxed, peaceful, silent life.

But that life is possible only if everybody else is also living the same kind of life.

I can understand the fear of people that individual rebellion may take a long time, but there is no problem in it.

In fact each individual who passes through this rebellious fire becomes at least for himself a bliss and an ecstasy, and there is every possibility that he will sow the seeds around him. But he has not failed; he has conquered, he has reached to the very peak of his potential. He has blossomed.

There is nothing more that he can think of; the whole existence is his.

So as far as that individual is concerned the rebellion is complete. He will be able to sow seeds all around. And there is no hurry; eternity is available. Slowly, slowly more and more people will become more and more conscious, more alert. Enlightenment will become a common phenomenon.

It should not be that only once in a while there is a Gautam Buddha, once in a while there is a Jesus, once in a while there is a Socrates - the names can be counted on only ten fingers. This is simply unbelievable. It is as if your garden is full of rosebushes, thousands of rosebushes, and once in a while one rosebush blossoms and gives you roses. And the remaining thousands remain without flowers...?

Unless a rosebush comes to blossom it cannot dance - for what? It cannot share; it has nothing to share. It remains poor, empty, meaningless. Whether it lived or not makes no difference.

The only difference is when it blossoms and offers its songs and its flowers and its fragrance to existence and to anybody who is willing to receive. The rosebush is fulfilled. Its life has not been just a meaningless drag; it has become a beautiful dance full of songs, a deep fulfillment that goes to the very roots.

I am not worried about time. If the concept is understood, time is available; enough time is available.

In the East we have a beautiful proverb: The man who loses the path in the morning, if he returns home by the evening he should not be called lost. What does it matter? In the morning he went astray - just little adventures here and there - and by the evening he is back home. A few people may have come a little earlier; he has come a little late, but he is not necessarily poorer than those who have come earlier. It may be just vice versa: he may be more experienced. He has known more because he has wandered more; he has known more because he has committed more mistakes.

He is much more mature and experienced because he has gone wandering so far astray. And then coming back again, falling and getting up... he is not necessarily a loser.

So time is not at all a consideration to me.

Devageet, my rebellion is absolutely individual and it will spread from individual to individual.

Sometime this whole planet is bound to become enlightened. Idiots may try to wait and see what happens to others, but they also finally have to join the caravan.

The very idea of enlightenment is so new, although it is not something that has not been known before. There have been enlightened people, but they never brought enlightenment as a rebellion.

That is what is new about it. They became enlightened, they became contented, they became fulfilled, and a great fallacy happened and I have to point it out. Although I feel not to show any mistakes of the enlightened ones - I feel sad about it - but my responsibility is not for the dead. My responsibility is for those who are alive and for those who will be coming.

So I have to make it clear. Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Adinatha, Lao Tzu, Kabir, all these people who became enlightened attained to tremendous beauty, to great joy, to utter ecstasy - to what I have been calling satyam, shivam, sundram, the truth, the godliness of the truth and the beauty of that godliness.

But because they had become enlightened they started teaching people to be contented: "Remain peaceful, remain silent." This is the fallacy. They attained contentment after a long search. It was a conclusion, not a beginning; it was the very end product of their enlightenment, but they started telling people that you can be contented right now: "Be fulfilled, be silent."

That's how they became anti-rebellious, without perhaps knowing that if a poor man remains contented with his poverty it is dangerous; if a slave remains contented with his slavery, that is dangerous.

So all the enlightened people of the past attained to great heights, about which there is no doubt.

But there is a fallacy that they all perpetuated without exception. The fallacy is that they began telling people to start with that which comes in the end. The flower comes only in the end; one has to start with the roots, with the seed. And if you tell people to start with the roses, then the only way is to purchase roses of plastic. The only way to be contented without meditation is to be a hypocrite, because deep down you are angry, deep down you are furious, deep down you want to freak out, and on the surface you are showing immense peace. This peace has been like a cancer to humanity.

You can see it happening in this country more clearly than anywhere else, because this country was fortunate, blessed by more enlightened people than any other country - but unfortunately, because so many enlightened people committed the same fallacy, this country remained for twenty centuries continuously a slave. This country has remained for centuries poor, hungry, starving; no science has developed, no technology has developed. Who is responsible for all this?

Because these people were loved, respected - and they deserve to be loved and respected - when they committed fallacies, naturally nobody could imagine that they could make mistakes. Their greatest mistake was to teach people things which come only in the end; if you try to bring them in the beginning you will become simply a hypocrite, a pretender. You will start having a mask. On the surface you will be one person; inside you will be just the opposite, and a house divided cannot stand for long.

Man is divided into false personality and authentic individuality. Every man on the earth who is not in deep meditation is schizophrenic; there is no need for any other symptoms. It is just the natural, almost natural condition, from being told for thousands of years to be hypocrites.

The alchemy of yes, Devageet, can make you one single integrated individual. It can bring you back your lost dignity. It can bring you back the capacity to stand alone in absolute blissfulness, not needing anybody, not being dependent on anything. It will take away all your spiritual diseases - greed and jealousy and violence and lust - and it will bring a tremendous showering of all that is great, incalculably great, so great that you cannot say, "I have got it," you can only say, "Existence has given it to me." It is always a gift from the beyond; your ecstasy, your blessing, your truth, your benediction, simply shower on you.

But you will have to learn to say yes in absolute totality to nature and to existence. Your hypocrisy will not do - saying yes with your personality and deep down your individuality is saying no. What is deep down is more authentic than what shows on the surface; the surface is always made-up.

A very tight-haloed English vicar was preaching his sermon in a very snobbish English church when he kept being interrupted by a black American in the congregation.

"The lord says..." began the preacher.

"Far out man!" came a cry from the back.

"The rich shall perish..."

"Hey man, right on!" the American called.

"And the mighty shall..."

"Hallelujia!" came the response from the back.

The vicar managed to get to the end of his sermon, but at the end went up to the American and said, "Excuse me, I'm afraid in this country we like to keep a bit of decorum. We try to keep a stiff upper lip. It is the queen's own country, this is a place of God, and I frankly found your behavior rather disconcerting."

"Hey man, I'm sorry, you are right on. I just loved the quaint way you gave us all that great shit about Moses and the Ten Commandments and I thought I would throw a few thousand greenbacks in your direction for this great thing going on here."

"Cool man!" said the preacher.

It does not take much to find out what is deep inside. All decorum, all culture is so superficial; it will be a tremendous joy to see people in their authenticity, in their reality, without any decorum, without any make-up, just as they are. The world will be tremendously benefited if all this falseness disappears.

The alchemy of yes and the rebellion based on yes are capable of destroying all that is false. And can discover all that is real and has been covered for centuries, layer upon layer by every generation, so much that even you yourself have forgotten who you are.

If suddenly somebody wakes you up in the middle of the night and asks you, "Who are you?" you will take a little time to remember who you used to be in the night before when you went to bed.

It happened that George Bernard Shaw was going to deliver a lecture some distance away from London. On the way in the train came the ticket-checker. Bernard Shaw looked in every pocket, opened all his suitcases, but the ticket was not there. Finally, he was perspiring and the ticket- checker said, "Don't be worried, I know who you are; the whole country knows, the whole world knows. The ticket must be somewhere, you don't be worried. And even if it is lost, I am here to help you get out at the station, wherever you want to get out."

George Bernard Shaw said, "Shut up! I am already in confusion and you are making me more confused. I am trying to remember where I am going! That ticket was the only thing... I am not searching for the ticket for you, idiot; I don't care about you, you can get lost. Bring me my ticket!"

The man said, "But how can can I find your ticket?"

George Bernard Shaw said, "Then what am I supposed to do? Where should I get down? Because unless I know the name of the station..."

It is almost the same situation with everybody. You don't know who you are; your name is just a label that has been put upon you, it is not your being. Where are you going? - you don't have any ticket to show you where you are going to get down, and you are just hoping that somebody may push you somewhere, or maybe somewhere the terminus comes and the train stops and it does not go anywhere else....

But why are you traveling in the first place? In fact, for all these fundamental questions you have only one answer: I don't know. In this state of unawareness your revolutions cannot succeed. In this state of unawareness your desire for freedom is just a dream. You cannot understand what freedom is. For whom are you asking freedom?

My idea of a rebellion based on yes means a rebellion based on meditation, for the first time in the history of man. And because each individual has to work upon himself, there is no question of any fight, there is no question of any organization, there is no question of any conspiracy, there is no question of planting bombs and hijacking airplanes.

Some idiot at the Poona airport has put on the computer, "Beware of the sannyasins of Osho; they can hijack airplanes!" It is really a very insane world. One of my sannyasins who has to go often to Bombay and come back says, "Every time I see that computer I start trembling inside that they may catch hold of me and ask, 'Why do you come again and again? Are you intending to hijack an Indian Airlines airplane? It is enough that you come once - but why do you come and go at least three times in the week?'"

He was saying, "What to do? By road it seems you are going to hell, and on the airplane they have that computer.... Every time I am there, immediately the computer says, 'Beware of sannyasins.'"

I am not interested in hijacking airplanes, neither am I interested in destroying any governments. But it will be the final result of my individual rebellion based on meditation: governments will disappear.

They have to disappear; they have been nothing but nuisance on the earth. Nations have to disappear. There is no need of any nations; the whole earth belongs to the whole of humanity.

There is no need of any passports, there is no need of any visas.

This earth is ours, and what kind of freedom is there if we cannot even move? Everywhere there are barriers, every nation is a big imprisonment. Just because you cannot see the boundaries you think you are free. Just try to pass through the boundary and immediately you will be faced with a loaded gun: "Go back inside the prison. You belong to this prison. You cannot enter into another prison without permission." These are your nations!

Certainly, a rebellion of my vision will take away all this garbage of nations, and discriminations between white and black, and give the whole of humanity a natural, relaxed, comfortable life. This is possible, because science has given us everything that we need, even if the population of the earth is three times more than it is today.

Just a little intelligence is needed - which will be released by meditation - and we can have a beautiful earth with beautiful people, and a multidimensional freedom which is not just a word in the dead constitution books but a living reality.

Devageet, one thing finally to be remembered: the days of revolution are past. We have tried them many times, and every time the same story is repeated. Enough. Now something new is urgently needed. And except the idea that I am giving to you of a rebellion, individual and based on meditativeness, there is no other alternative proposed anywhere in the world.

And I am not a philosopher; I am absolutely pragmatic and practical. I am not only talking about meditative rebellion, I am preparing people for it. Whether they know it or not doesn't matter.

Whoever comes close to me is going to become a rebellious individual, and wherever he will go he will spread this contagious health. It will make people aware of their dignity, it will make people aware of their potentiality. It will make people alert to what they can become, what they are, and why they are stuck.

My sannyasins' function is not to be missionaries, but to be so loving, compassionate, such fragrant individuals... It is not a question of converting people from one ideology to another ideology. It is a far deeper transformation - from the whole past to a totally new and unknown future. It is the greatest adventure that one can think of.

You are fortunate to be part of this great adventure.

Question 2:

Prem Hareesh, your contentment is not much of a contentment! A contentment that can be disturbed by a small thought cannot be valued very much. This is the contentment I have been talking about that has been created by the past enlightened people - a superficial layer. And your thought was more significant than your contentment, so it is better it is disturbed.

The question that arose in you is more significant: "What do I do when I find that what I am looking for is what is doing the looking?" This is the ancientmost question, always asked by meditators in some way or other.

And this is the time when the master tells you, "Don't do anything."

There is no need to do anything.

If you understand your question... I will repeat it again: "What do I do when I find that what I am looking for is what is doing the looking?" There is no question of doing if you have got the point. It is not a question, it is a revelation.

Nancy Reagan had been looking over every paper fan in the pushcart, feeling them, holding them, waving them back and forth. Finally she bought the cheapest - a one-dollar fan.

The next day she returned holding the fan which was ripped down the middle.

"Look what is happening," she said to the shopkeeper. "I want my money back."

The shopkeeper said, "I am not a rich man, madam. How much did I charge you for this fan?"

"A dollar." she answered.

"And what did you do with it?" asked the shopkeeper.

"I am not silly: I waved it back and forth in front of my face."

"Well," said the shopkeeper, "that is your problem. That's what you do with a five-dollar fan. With a one-dollar fan you hold the fan still and you wave your head!"

With your small contentment you should not raise such five-dollar questions!

Hareesh, you don't have to do anything. Just put the fan aside. You don't know the whole story, and I think nobody here knows how the story ends. But I think if you wave the fan from side to side you destroy the fan; if you wave your head from side to side you will destroy your head. It is better not to wave anything. Put the fan back and sit still just like a buddha, doing nothing.

If you have felt the question arising in you, that "what I am looking for is really the one who is looking,"

this is a tremendously beautiful understanding and revelation. Now don't ask to do anything; just sit silently at ease with the energy that was involved in looking. You are it!

This is for all - particularly for Ronald Reagan so that he does not feel bad that I talked about Nancy Reagan. People are very disturbed if you talk about their wives and don't talk about them.

Ronald Reagan is sitting in the barber's chair having a haircut, when the barber casually says to him, "Hey, Ronnie, the newspapers reported today that Osho told a great joke about you."

"Yeah? What did he say?" asks Reagan.

"It was about how you became the president of the United States after a surgeon grafted a smile onto a donkey!"

Reagan, who shows no sign of discomfort, mumbles to the barber, "Yeah, very funny. Just finish my haircut, and I will have a shave as soon as you are finished."

"Hey, Ronnie," continues the barber, "and did you hear what Osho said about you being worse than Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, and Ivan the Terrible put together?"

Ronald Reagan's face turns bright red but he does not say a word.

The barber continues, "And did you hear what Osho said about...?"

Ronald Reagan interrupts the barber, saying, "Will you just get on with the haircut. Why are you always so interested in Osho, anyway?!"

"Well," replies the barber, "besides the fact that he is a very far out guy, every time I mention the name Osho, your hair stands on end and it makes it a lot easier to cut!"

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.