Mind as a Master is a disaster

Question 1:

Listening to me is less like listening and more like drinking. Although it is a verbal communication, that is only the superficial part of it. Hidden beneath it is the real communion where meanings are absorbed and words are forgotten.

You cannot become my parrot - at least while I am alive.

It is impossible to become my parrot. You will go crazy! My words are so full of contradictions that the poor parrot will be crushed under those contradictions. And it is a sure signal that you are not becoming a parrot because you don't remember my words. The parrot only remembers words, but whatever is being communicated to you is absorbed.

It has to become part of your blood, your bones, your marrow - not part of your memory. Unless it becomes your blood, your bones and your marrow, it cannot transform you.

And the transformation is happening. You are aware of it, that in answering a personal question or responding to a situation, something comes out of you that is not yours. You are surprised even by your own words - because listening silently, not paying attention to the words but to the wordless message contained in them, you are slowly slowly moving your very consciousness.

You will not become more knowledgeable here. You will become a new man, a man who knows the meaning of life, a man who has experienced the great benediction of silence and serenity. His actions are bound to reflect his consciousness.

And if you cannot remember my words, don't be worried about it. You are nourished by the meaning, and it is the meaning that will change you, your actions, your responses. It is not the power of the words that transforms anybody. There is no need to be afraid, you are on the right track.

One thing has to be understood: you remember only things which you have not understood. Things that you have understood need not be remembered - they will act, they will be in your eyes. They will be in your gestures, they will be in your life, they will be in your love, they will be in everything that you do; but they will not be part of your memory system. They are far higher than the memory because they don't belong to the mind.

Mind is the lowest part of your consciousness. It is good enough as far as the world is concerned, but it is not of any use if you are thinking to go on an inner pilgrimage. You will have to leave that mind behind. Its whole training is for the outside world. It will create all kinds of hindrances if you start moving inwards.

It is a trained outsider.

So it is good that words are not being caught by your memory system. Your listening is so total that the words go directly to your very being, to your consciousness - they don't need the mechanism of the mind.

The mechanism of the mind is good as far as the objective world is concerned but in the inner, in the interior of your being, mind has no entry. Mind has never entered into the innermost core of any human being in the whole of history; the very nature of its functioning prohibits it. It is by nature, extrovert. The moment you start moving inwards, you are separating from your mind system, you are leaving it behind. Now you are moving on the wings of consciousness.

If what I am saying to you is becoming a reality in your life, who cares whether you remember my words or not? It is perfectly right not to remember them; any remembrance of the words will be an obstruction. Let only pure meaning spread to the deepest core of your being where words have no access, where only wordless meaning is able to enter.

A bishop, thinking to convert a Zen master - because he saw thousands of disciples, he thought it better if this old man were converted; then naturally all these disciples would be converted too. With great respect he approached the master. He had brought with him THE HOLY BIBLE. He opened the chapter containing the Sermon on the Mount. He wanted to show the Zen master the best of Jesus and if he agrees... and it is very difficult to disagree with the Sermon on the Mount. The argument inside his mind was that it is very difficult, almost impossible, to disagree with the Sermon on the Mount unless you have a superb, logical mind, something parallel to the genius of Friedrich Nietzsche - then perhaps you may be able to disagree.

Nietzsche is the only man in the whole of history who has disagreed with Jesus, and not on weak points but on the strongest. The ordinary way is to find loopholes, weaknesses, and hammer on them. If you cannot find them, create them - nobody is so much interested in going to the original sources to look.

The world lives on newspapers.

Jesus says "Man cannot live by bread alone." I say to you, a man can live without bread but not without the newspaper. The newspaper is his whole wisdom. These are people who cannot argue against Jesus, Zarathustra or Lao Tzu.

For example, Jesus says, that God is love, God is just, always fair, always compassionate. The Old Testament's God is a very angry God - never forgiving, never forgetting; nobody is going to avoid the punishment for his evil acts. The concept of Jesus' God seems to be far more refined.

Loving, just, fair, compassionate... it seems to be closer to the human heart. But Friedrich Nietzsche criticizes it and his criticism is foundational and crucial. He says, "You cannot say God is love because wherever love is, hate is and if your God knows no hate, he cannot know love. How will he find it out that this is love? To define love, a certain experience of hate is needed. To define silence, noise is needed. To define beauty, ugliness is needed. You are alive because every day many people are dying and you can see the distinction. If nobody was dying, you would not even be able to imagine what life is."

His criticism is very psychological. He is saying that you are taking one part, one side of a coin, and leaving the other side. This is impossible. You cannot have a coin with only one side. You can go on making it thinner but the other side will remain - either both or none.

Nietzsche says Jesus' God is nothing but the completion of the Jewish concept of God. He was anger, he was hate, he was rage. Jesus has taken the other side of the coin, but both are halves and God is whole. If there is any God, he can only be whole.

Jesus says, "If somebody slaps you don't be angry, but with humbleness give him the other cheek also." It is such a beautiful idea, but a man like Friedrich Nietzsche has an insight and maturity which the common masses cannot have. His criticism is one of the examples of the highest reaches of logic.

Nietzsche says, "If somebody hits me on one of my cheeks, I am not so inhumane as to give him my other cheek. That is egoistic. It is trying to prove that 'you are just an ordinary human being - I am a messiah, a messenger of God. I forgive you and if you enjoy hitting me, you can hit me more.' Nietzsche's point is that you are reducing the other person to utter humiliation. Nobody in two thousand years' history has raised this question.

Nietzsche says, "If somebody hits me, I will hit him as hard as I can because I am just as human as you are. I don't want to prove myself holier than you, higher than you, superior to you. I respect your humanity and I accept your challenge. You have slapped my face. You have given the challenge to me."

He is saying that Jesus' idea is disrespectful. And certainly if you look deep into its psychology, you will find it is insulting. You are not accepting the other man as a man equal to you. He is an ignorant man, unenlightened. You are awakened. You are creating a distance between yourself and the person who has slapped you.

Nietzsche says, "I cannot create that distance. That distance is nothing but fulfillment of a very subtle kind - and fulfillment not of your being but only of your ego."

But this bishop thought that by reading from the Sermon on the Mount, the old man was bound to be convinced that Jesus was as enlightened as Gautam Buddha. He read two lines and the old man said, "That's enough. Whoever has written these will become enlightened in some future life but as far as this life is concerned, forget all about it."

The bishop said, "But the lines are so beautiful - each word a diamond unto itself."

The Zen master said, "It is not a question of words. While you were reading, I was also listening to the gaps. The man was articulate as far as words are concerned but the gaps expose him completely. What he is saying is only mind stuff, it is not his experience. But the man is good. Don't be worried; in some future life he will become an enlightened person."

Look - life is not a difficult matter. It becomes a problem when your life wants to go one way and your mind drags you in another and you are in a conflict, torn apart. You can go to neither side...

because half of you is trying to go in another direction.

Life becomes absolutely simple once you start functioning from something that is higher than your mind. In the beginning for any seeker the whole search is to find a space above the mind.

Once you have found a small space above the mind, all dualism disappears, all tensions, all anxieties disappear. And strangely enough, the mind which was never in your control, suddenly surrenders itself to you.

Mind as a master is a disaster.

Mind as a servant is a beautiful gift of nature. You just have to find the master - and it is not far away.

It is just above the mind.

Only one step.

Question 2:

The people who have been proposing for thousands of years that they are the mediums of God - in other religions of "gods" - or of those masters who are no more in the body, are becoming vehicles to them, mediums to them. The possibility is there.

If you have loved me, even when I am not in the body there can be still a contact. For love it makes no difference. But the whole thing depends on the medium - his purity, his silence, the absolute stillness of his mind. The silence has to be so great that it is as if he is no longer present - only silence is there. He has become just a hollow bamboo.

I criticized those Californian pretenders who are talking about channeling themselves with dead masters, with the people who have gone beyond and cannot come back to the earth because their work on the earth is complete. These people in California have not gone into any discipline which makes them mediums. They know nothing of meditation. They know nothing of the state of no-mind - because only in the state of no-mind is there a possibility of contacting some unembodied soul.

These people who have become channels are not in any meditative state, one thing. The second thing is that whatever messages they are bringing are such crap that it is disrespectful towards the dead. Those poor fellows cannot say anything now, that "this is not my message."

When a message comes from a master it has to be something so absolutely needed that the masters who are no more in their bodies feel that a message should be sent to all unconscious, sleeping, blind people. But it is only when there is something urgent; otherwise, there is no need.

I have looked into a few of the books which these channels have produced - they are absolutely rubbish! They can be valued only by weighing them - that much paper has been wasted. I have not come across a single mediumistic book which shows the greatness or the grandeur of a Gautam Buddha. And strangely enough, all these mediums are not mentioning the names of the real masters because then, compared to their statements, the rubbish message that they bring will look too poor.

If somebody says, "This is a message from Gautam Buddha," then it has to be of his quality. So they are talking about masters who have never happened, they are talking about masters who happened on the continent of Atlantis which has drowned. Fortunately there is no proof now, no document, no evidence left about whether there was such a master, ever.

But I can say that these statements are not coming from any master. The statements themselves are not luminous. There is nothing that gives them the authority of experience. It is all gibberish.

And you should also see that these people who have been chosen for this great work of becoming vehicles... their lives don't prove it. They are just as greedy, as angry, as jealous as anybody else.

Their mediumship would have transformed them. In fact, unless they were transformed, they could not become mediums.

My sannyasins working around the world in therapy groups have felt that sometimes they are open to me, available to me, and sometimes they are closed. It is human nature, ups and downs; they are not enlightened yet.

Sometimes they see the eternal snows, far away in the Himalayas; but they are far away and just once in a while, when there are not clouds and the sun is shining, you can see them.

But you are not there.

When a sannyasin is closed, his first work should be not on the group participants, his first work should be upon himself. He has to open, he has to be available to me. This is simply an excuse - because if he is open to me, he is open to the whole existence.

The moment you open your door, immediately the fragrance of the flowers enters without making any noise. The sun rays enter. A cool breeze comes in. You have opened the door to the whole universe.

To be available to the master is just an excuse. You will be afraid to be open to the whole universe - it will be too much.

The master convinces you that there is no need to open all the doors and all the windows: "You just open a small window - a special window for me." But once you open even a small window, the whole sky enters in. And the joy, the peace, the beauty that you feel will make you open all the windows and all the doors.

My therapists have been seeing the difference in their work. When they are open and available they can see and feel so decisively, so indubitably, that something from beyond is pouring through them.

They have just become a hollow bamboo, playing the song, allowing the song to flow. The song is not of the flute. The greatness of the flute is that it does not hinder the song in any way but helps it, allows it to reach into the world.

There is no question of channeling - although I have given you my number. It is a difficult number.

Zero is my number and unless you are zero, you cannot find it. You have to be zero to be in tune with me.

But then you will see a tremendous change in the quality of your work. You can do miracles to the participants.

If you are closed, you may be able to conduct a group because you know the technical side.... Do you know the difference between the scientist and the technician? The technician is not a scientist, and the scientist is not a technician. The scientist discovers the hidden treasures of existence and also discovers the techniques and methods to use those treasures. The technician is only concerned with the technique. He is not a discoverer, but he knows exactly what has to be done.

There will be a great difference of quality but it may not be felt by the people who have never known anything higher.

A therapist who is not in deep meditation, is not open, is not merging into the universe, will not be able to become a real help to the participants. Perhaps a consolation... perhaps those participants will feel the euphoria for a few days and then it will fade out. Then again they need another group.

They become addicts.

Group addicts are in the same category as drug addicts. The group has not helped them to be free and independent; the group has made them slaves. Now they will be continuously searching - this group, that group.

But no group is going to give them an insight into themselves because the therapists themselves are not in a situation where all problems are solved, all questions dissolved, where they are simply relishing each breath. They have their problems just like you have.

It happened....

One of the great psychologists, one of the founders of the movement of psychology, Alfred Adler - he is one of the trinity: Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung and Alfred Adler, these are the three pillars. He was talking to his students and a very embarrassing situation arose. One statement he made, that "My experience..." and it was a lifelong experience of the thousands of patients he had studied. He said, "My experience with people is that it is not just an accident that a person becomes a teacher in a school. He wants domination. He is not strong enough to become a terrorist, but he can become a teacher and can torture thirty small boys and girls."

It seems there is some truth in what he is saying.

Everybody chooses a particular profession; there must be a psychology behind it. It has been found in many surveys that the people who study medicine are the people who are most afraid of death.

Your doctors are more afraid of death than anybody else. They have come to medicine in search, unconsciously, of finding a way that leads beyond death. It is not a deliberate decision but if they are hypnotized and asked, the answer comes clear: they are afraid of death and they have joined the profession out of that fear.

In the life of one of the emperors of India, Jehangir, there is an incident. He had revolted against his father, kept him in jail, and taken over the empire. He writes in his autobiography: "My father requested of me from jail, 'I would like to have at least thirty students to whom I can teach religion, literature, poetry. In this way I will remain engaged, and engaged in an activity which is very close to my heart. I love children, I love poetry, and now there is no work for me.'"

The comment of his son is, "He still wants to dominate. The desire for having thirty students has nothing to do with education because in his whole life he was never interested in education; he never opened great universities or colleges or anything. He never did anything for poetry or literature. Now, in jail, he wants thirty students so that he can dominate. He can still remain an emperor although the empire will be very small - only thirty students."

But people are even satisfied with one person - one woman, one man. Just a small empire confined in a small flat.

Adler was saying that politicians are all suffering from an inferiority complex. They feel inferior for any stupid reason. For example, Lenin, the man who created the Soviet revolution and the Soviet Union was very much worried and concerned and always was conscious of the fact that his legs were small. His upper body was bigger and his lower body was very small. His legs could not reach to the floor. Sitting on the chair, his legs were just dangling there and he was trying to hide them in every possible way so that nobody would see them hanging there in the air.

That was Lenin's problem. That created the Russian revolution. That made him the greatest revolutionary in the world. That made him the greatest, most powerful man on one-sixth of the land of the earth - the Soviet Union is one-sixth of the land of the whole earth. It is almost two continents. It starts in Europe and it ends in Asia, it covers the whole of Europe and Asia.

All politicians are in search of power. It is a will to power. But why? You must be feeling somehow powerless. You want to prove to yourself and to the world that you are not powerless because you know that if you don't do anything, you will suffer your whole life from inferiority and everybody else will look at you as inferior.

This situation has to be changed.

In this way, Adler was going to describe every profession possible, and what is the psychological reason behind it. Just then, a student stood up and asked, "What about the psychologists? Is there something loose in their heads? Why does anybody choose psychology? According to the philosophy you have expounded there must be something wrong with his mind, and I agree totally with it."

Adler was very much shocked - that meant he was mentally retarded, sick, something was wrong in his mind. He never mentioned that theory again! He mentioned it only once in his whole life. That is rare, because the theory is very significant and very true.

Why does a man want to be a therapist? Has he done his own therapy? Is he finished with his homework? If not, then what right has he got to interfere in other people's lives, their minds, their unconscious, their superconscious? He has only read these words, and he is trying these words on poor people - poor because they are being treated as guinea pigs, poor because they have paid two hundred and fifty dollars to be treated as a guinea pig!

And there is a human tendency which is not taken note of.... When somebody pays two hundred and fifty dollars for a therapy session, if he says after the session, "Nothing happened," then everybody will say, "You are an idiot! They cheated you - two hundred and fifty dollars gone. And we have been telling you that you were hanging around wrong people, but you never listened."

Now two hundred and fifty dollars are gone, the whole week is destroyed, and to be treated by people as an idiot... this can be avoided.

They come out and before they get out of the therapy premises, they start smiling. They start walking as they have never done before, so light! Now, let the people ask.

And people will say, "We were wrong, something has happened. Look at that man - singing a song, unafraid of the world. He has never been like that. It is worth two hundred and fifty dollars." And when they ask him, he tells them what great things have happened, great experiences. This way he saves face.

This is an old phenomenon, and the psychology is simple.

I must have told you a story....

A man was caught in the middle of the night, in the bed of somebody else's wife. The man was not supposed to come home that night but his work was finished so he came home earlier. He could not believe it. His wife was very devoted - that's how he had known her - and this man was also well known to him. He was certainly a nice gentleman, but what was happening was not nice. He became so furious that he took out a knife and cut off the man's nose.

The man was well respected in the society... now everybody would be asking tomorrow: "What happened? How come you were found in that house? Why did you go there in the middle of the night?" - a thousand and one questions, and he had no answer. And this nose, absent, will be seen more than when it was present and nobody bothered about it.

There was not much time. He escaped in the night.

On the way, reaching the other town, he met another traveler who was going in the same direction.

The traveler asked, "What happened to your nose?"

He smiled, he danced....

The traveler said, "What is the matter?"

He said, "It is so simple. My master used to say, 'It is very simple but unless you experience it yourself, there is no way.'"

He asked, "What do you mean by all these things?"

He said, "I have experienced God. Only the nose has to be sacrificed, the nose symbolizes the ego."

The man said, "That's right! I am also a seeker. It will be a blessing if you accept me as your first disciple."

So he took the man by the side of the road, behind a bush and cut off his nose. The nose was gone.

The man looked all around and he said, "But I don't see any God."

The master said, "Neither do I. But what to do? When your nose is gone some reasonable, rational and acceptable explanation is needed. Now you go into town, smile, dance and whoever asks, 'What is the matter?' just tell him that, 'It was such a simple thing and religions have made it so complicated just to exploit people. You have only to cut off your nose. Except for the nose, there is nothing between you and God.'"

People said, "We never heard this philosophy before. We have seen all kinds of scriptures and all kinds of religious preachers have been in the town. Nobody has told us that the nose is the problem."

He said, "You come to my master. He does not go inside the town, he remains outside. I am his chief disciple. Those who are interested in seeing God, I can give them appointments."

A few people were interested. In the evening, a few more noses disappeared and everybody looked all around and said, "But where is God?"

The master said, "Don't be foolish, there is no God. Now there is no nose either! But you will have to say something to people; otherwise, they will call you an idiot. It is up to you - to be intelligent, wise, enlightened or to be idiots."

Within two weeks, almost half of the town was without noses. And everybody was talking about God and the beautiful experiences. Even the king became interested.

He said, "Just for a nose, losing God is stupidity. So many people cannot be wrong... and they are my people." He called them and asked them, "Tell us exactly what happened."

They told the king, "We met this great master and he said that there is not much of a problem. If you are just ready to remove your nose, the curtain is opened; God is available, and everything that saints have been talking about for centuries. And he was right. Now for the first time we are alive."

And they started dancing....

The king said, "These are all intelligent people, so make an appointment for me."

The prime minister to the king was an old man. He said, "Just wait a little. Let me try to find out exactly what the situation is because nobody has ever heard that cutting off the nose is the shortest way to God. You just give me three days and let me look into the whole thing.

In the night, he came with a group of army people and caught hold of the man, who had now become a great master. They took him to the palace, gave him a good beating and told him, "Unless you tell the truth, the beating will continue."

He said, "You know the truth, I know the truth, everybody knows the truth. I have been caught in the bed of somebody else's wife and that madman has cut off my nose. Now what do you suppose I should do? - go around town telling everybody what happened? So I thought this was a good chance. I have been thinking many times to renounce the world and this is the best chance. Even if I don't want to, I have to renounce at least this town where people know me and go to another town.

Then I talked with this man on the road who was a fellow traveler. I was not certain that he would be convinced - because it is so stupid. But people are stupid, and the man agreed!

"I was feeling sad for the poor guy. It was at least relevant in my case because I was caught with somebody else's wife and he was angry. Now this poor guy has not even been caught with somebody's wife but he was so convinced... I tried to tell him, 'You are too young. First live your life - and this is a simple method, you can come any time.' But he wouldn't leave me so I had to cut off his nose.

"He could not find any God and I told him that I had also not found any God, but now this is the only way to protect our respectability. 'You go into the town and dance and sing and declare that, "Whoever wants to see God need not wait a single moment. My master is there, I will give you the appointment."'"

The prime minister brought the man to the king and said, "Listen to the story - and you were going to get your nose removed! Then you would have started seeing God - that seems to be very logical.

And perhaps all of us in your court would have been forced to remove our noses because it does not look right that the king has achieved God-realization and you are living with a God-realized person, still in ignorance."

They told the man, "You go back to your home town. Otherwise, you will have to remain in jail."

This man certainly seems to be criminal.

But all your religions are doing almost exactly the same in different ways.

The therapist has to remember that the moment he comes in he should, if he is honest, tell the participants that "I am no longer open to he should tell the participants existence and in this state of closedness, I can only do harm to you. I will work only when I am open, vulnerable."

And the master is only an excuse.

It is easier to be open towards me because you love me and you trust me. But while you are becoming open to me, you are becoming open to everything.

So it is not really being open to me - that is only a strategy, a device. The reality is to be open to the whole existence. With that vastness, clouds wandering inside your chest, you will be able to help many people to understand their situation, to accept whatever they are, to learn methods of becoming more conscious.

And the therapist has to remind people continually that he is not the master. The moment the therapist starts playing the role of the master, then he is going to do much harm to people.

I have known hundreds of therapists. They have the same problems as you have, perhaps more, and they are trying to help you. They are drowning and they are trying to save somebody who is drowning - perhaps drowning together is better than drowning alone.

The therapist knows nothing beyond mind. His only work is to bring people to a normal, peaceful mind. This is not a great achievement but you will make the person able to function in life in a normal way.

The madman is nothing but one who is behaving abnormally. The therapist simply pulls down the abnormal man to the normal state. His whole work is confined within the mind.

He cannot be a master and if he wants his therapy to be of significance, he has to function as a vehicle, as a channel to a master he loves.

Then therapy goes through a transformation.

Then you are not just trying to work out how these people should be brought to normality; that is only a preparation. You have prepared the ground, but don't think you have prepared a garden. After preparing the ground you will need seeds, plants and much care and much love to make a beautiful garden.

A man can be normally mad - that's what the whole of humanity is. A man can be abnormally mad - psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists are trying to somehow bring him back.

And the third category is the man who has gone beyond mind.

The function of the master is to take you beyond the mind.

The therapist can be helpful, he can prepare the ground, he can take out the weeds, but that does not mean that he becomes a master, that does not mean he becomes a gardener. That is a totally different affair.

Therapy in itself can be used as a step, but if you know only therapy and nothing more beyond it, that which was going to become a step, becomes a block. It is the same stone. Either you use it as a stepping stone or it becomes a block preventing you from moving further, higher, closer to your sources.

Right now, all over the world there are many therapists. But my therapist is unique in the sense that he is not only working according to the findings of psychology - he is working according to the findings of Yoga, of Tantra, of Sufism, of Zen, of Tao, of Hassidism. He's a spiritual guide. But for that, knowledge acquired only from books will not help.

You will have to go through a transformation.

And the participants in your groups can also be helpful to you, just as you can be helpful to them; because their problems are your problems, your problems are their problems. And remember one thing: it is easier to solve somebody else's problem because you are not involved. You are detached, you can see more clearly because you are not in the mess. You can help that man to come out and you can learn something for yourself because many times, you will be in the same situation.

I allowed therapists in my communes to work on the participants and to work on themselves.

The real work is upon yourself.

Only when you have a light within you, you may be able to share it with others.

Question 3:

A mouse can become a Gautam Buddha.

He just needs a bottle of alcohol; as he becomes drunk, he starts forgetting that he is a mouse. Who says he is a mouse? Under the impact of alcohol, he may start roaring like a lion. But as the alcohol goes, with its influence on your mind and body, you will be a mouse again.

And it is very painful. To be a mouse is okay but to be a mouse again - that hurts! But the mouse has his own qualities, he has his own intelligence. Millions of human beings have many potentialities, many talents, and they remain unused.

So if other animals who are deeper in darkness, deeper in unconscious, cannot achieve to higher states of consciousness, you should not laugh at them.

You must have heard the ancient story, which is almost universal - in every language, in every country, something like that story exists....

For centuries it has been going on: that the mice are always tortured by the cats and they are always having conferences, discussion groups - how to get rid of the cats?

Finally, one old mouse said, "I have heard from the ancients... there is a way. You have to tie a bell round the neck of the cat, and all problems will be solved - because wherever she is, we will know.

It is only when we do not know that we are caught."

But the whole crowd laughed, giggled. They said, "We have been hearing this type of thing in every conference, but the question remains the same: who is going to tie a bell around the neck of a cat?"

The old man said, "The solution is in our hands, but the person who can manage to transform it into a reality has not happened."

A young boy said, "I can do it. This is nothing."

They said, "You must be mad. You are not even adult, you don't have any voting rights."

But the young boy said, "The problem confronting us has nothing to do with citizenship, old age. It has nothing to do with these things, it has something to do with intelligence. I have it."

They said, "Okay, give him a chance. We are afraid - because your father and mother have gone for a holy pilgrimage and surely you will be eaten by the cat. What answer will we give them?"

The boy said, "Don't be worried. I have figured it out completely scientifically." And he managed!

He used to go into the neighborhood medical store; that was his most-loved place. So he brought a few sleeping pills and dropped them in the cat's milk. Naturally, once the cat drank the milk, she fell unconscious for fifteen or twenty minutes. That was enough time - he tied the bell around her neck and the next day everybody was puzzled, the cats were puzzled because they could not get a single mouse. The mice were puzzled..."For centuries we knew that the only solution was a bell but nobody did anything. And now we can see that it was a simple thing."

If you look into the lives, the past lives of Mahavira - in many of his lives he was an animal. The same is the case with Gautam Buddha. Both have told hundreds of stories of their past lives. In many of their lives, they were plants, in many of their lives they were birds, in many of their lives they were other animals.

In one story, Buddha said he was an elephant and the forest caught fire and he was running - all the animals were running out of the forest. The fire was becoming more and more dangerous. The elephant was running and he came out of the circle of fire. Just for few minutes he wanted to rest under a tree, and as he was going to put his fourth foot on the ground, he was alerted by a small rabbit who was sitting there, under the protection of his foot.

The elephant was in trouble. If he put his foot down on the ground, the rabbit would be finished. If he did not put his foot down... the fire was coming. And the fire came but the elephant remained determined not to kill the rabbit. He died in the fire. Gautam Buddha said, "I was born as a man because of my small act of compassion towards the rabbit."

No animal, no tree, nothing in existence is incapable of becoming enlightened. It may take a little time, or a little more time, but enlightenment is a destiny. It is a destiny of the whole existence.

The whole existence has to become one day a festival of lights.

The idea of non-violence in the East arose because of this discovery: that each animal has the potential to become the highest peak of truth, consciousness, love. It is ugly to kill them for eating.

The idea of not killing animals for eating came from the experience that they all are capable of becoming gods in their own right. They are equal to you - maybe a little more unconscious, a little more in the dark, but they are not different.

We are one family.

And it is not only so about the animals; this whole existence is one family.

To see and experience it as one family is what I mean by love.

Love becomes the most important phenomenon in the transformation of man.

You have not asked a question for eight years. There is no need to be worried about it. You may not have asked, but I have been answering your questions too. It is only a question of waiting a little; if you are not going to ask, I am going to answer anyway.

And don't be worried that you have fear in your heart.

Everybody has fear in the heart because everybody has death in the future.

It cannot be said that you can enter into discipleship only when you have dropped fear - that will be closing the door. I say unto you: fear, greed, anger, everything is allowed.

You just come a little closer, enter the temple.

The very entry burns out all that is false in you.

Only pure gold remains.