Cancel your ticket, there's nowhere to go!

Question 1:

The parents represent the establishment. They love you, they have no intention to harm you, but they are unconscious beings - with all good intentions.

They have joined hands with the vested interests not to allow their children to become intelligent, to become courageous, to become self-respectful, to have a certain pride that existence has chosen you to be. They have done this to their children instead of making them feel at home in existence, helping them to be more and more in tune with the seasons, with the trees, with the clouds, so that by the time they are mature enough they can have a religion....

The word religion originates from a root which means 'that which joins you' - joins you with what?

'That which connects you' - connects you with what?

If you are not being conditioned, if your mind has not been filled with superstitions of all kinds, if your search has not been killed, if your parents have really loved you - and the first requirement of real love is to allow absolute freedom, unconditional freedom to the other - then one day you will find your religion.

Religion is not a commodity. You cannot purchase it in the marketplace and you cannot have it just by believing in certain scriptures, rituals. You cannot get it so cheap - just by believing in Jesus Christ, in Gautam Buddha, in Mohammed, in Krishna.

Religion has to be earned. It is the greatest learning on the earth; it needs tremendous awareness, so that you are not influenced by others. And this must be the duty of the parents, to see that their children are not influenced by others, because all influences create a spiritual slavery. If you remain fresh, clean, open, searching, you will find it.

There has never been any exception. Anybody who has been open to reality, available to existence, immediately gets connected with the whole. And to be connected with the whole is the greatest experience that life can provide to you.

When you are born, you are disconnected from the womb, from the mother. You had lived in the womb for nine months as one with the mother's body, mind, soul. There was no separation. You were not in any way different from your mother. Her heartbeats were your heartbeats, her breathing was your breathing, her blood was your blood.

The disconnection from the mother is the most traumatic experience in life, the most painful, the most agonizing. Just think of the small child who is being taken away from his home, who is being taken away from his very world, the only world he knows; he is being taken away from love and warmth. The shock is great.

Psychologically, the search for truth, for God, for home, is nothing but an effort to be again connected with the universe. It is a search for the mother's womb. Of course you cannot find your mother's womb, but you can find the existential womb. The whole existence can become the womb for you - nourishment, life, relaxation, silence. This is religion.

Christianity is not religion; Hinduism and Mohammedanism are not religions. In the whole history of man very few people have experienced religion, although everybody has been a member of some religion.

The strange phenomenon is that those who experienced religion were the people who renounced the religion into which they were born - that was the barrier. Something false was given to you when

you were so innocent and so trusting that you believed - "This is the truth." And when you think you have the truth, there is no question of inquiry, there is no question of searching.

This is how the whole of humanity is blocked, remains unevolved, remains blind, dark, in a kind of coma. And these people go on producing children; naturally, whatever they know they share with their children. If they are Christians they drag you to the church, if they are Hindus they drag you to the temple.

What happened with you - and this is not only your story, this is the story of most of the young sannyasins who are somehow dependent on their parents - was that you found something that felt as if "This is the path." And the feeling was so total, there was no doubt anywhere in your consciousness. To me, this is conversion. Not a Hindu becoming a Christian; that is stupidity. Not a Christian becoming a Hindu; that is simply changing your prisons, changing your superstitions. It is just moving from one darkness into another. Perhaps the newness may have a little appeal, but for how long? The new will become old tomorrow.

But you came here, and suddenly your heart fell in tune with the mysterious change that is happening here.

Naturally, your parents at home forced you to drop sannyas, threatened you legally, and of course parents can threaten you. And it is a good experience; in this way you know your parents in their reality. They can take away all your legal rights to their property, they can disown you, and the whole society is with them - the government is with them, the school authorities are with them, and wherever you go you will be treated as an outsider.

Naturally a child is not in a position to fight. He has to agree, although what he is agreeing to is not from love of the parents but from fear. It is not because of intimacy with the parents, but because of their blackmail.

They have lived without religion, they don't know the real taste. They have never been drunk with the divine. They are too much in the world, they know only the mundane. They have never raised their eyes upwards to see the stars. There is no challenge in their life and a man is dead if he has no challenge in his life. It is the challenge that proves that you are alive - just breathing and temperature and heartbeats do not prove that you are alive, they only prove that the body is still alive. Whether you are alive or not is a different question.

You are alive when faraway stars challenge you for a pilgrimage. Unknown realities, unheard-of truths, unexperienced beauties... when they become your real world you have a life with joy and with dance and with song.

Out of this joy, this rejuvenation, arises the most delicate phenomenon in life: gratitude, gratitude to the whole.

Gratitude is the only prayer, all other prayers are false.

And gratitude need not be expressed in words.

It is just a wordless fragrance arising out of you.

It is good you are back. In fact, anybody who has been a sannyasin, who has known individuality, has known freedom, has known playfulness... it is impossible that anything can prevent the person forever from going deeper into the experience of sannyas.

Your parents stopped you, they forced you not to be a sannyasin. That does not matter. In fact, their forcing you and taking away your sannyas has taken you away from them; they have created a gap unknowingly. Now there will not be any communion, everything has become formal. They have destroyed something which they cannot create; they have destroyed innocent trust, they have destroyed innocent love.

But it has not been in any way harmful to you. You are back - with better insight into human relationships, with better insight into the fact that even parents are trying to dominate, that it is a political relationship and there is no love. Their whole effort is... in the world they may not be able to be dominating, but at home they can dominate the children. As long as the lust for domination remains, love does not appear.

But to you, particularly... I would like you to remember that whatever they have done they have done almost in sleep, so don't be angry at them. They have done to you what their parents have done to them - so rather than being angry you should feel sad for them, you should feel pity for them. You are fortunate because you have found something which your parents, their parents, and for centuries the whole line of your family, have not been able to find.

Rejoice. Be silent and be as joyful as possible. Perhaps you can become a message to your parents and your family members, your neighbors. But the message cannot be delivered in words. In words, people know everything, they are all knowledgeable. And nobody wants to accept that he is ignorant.

The only way to break the ice is not through words but through your life, through your very being.

They will still resist, because their whole life - not only theirs but their forefathers' - all their wisdom, all their philosophy, all their religion is at stake. You are proposing a new way of life. They cannot easily accept that all their parents since Adam and Eve have been ignorant and only you are no longer ignorant. So it will take a little time for them to come down from their egoistic attitude.

You can help them. Never try to show that you know more than their knowledge; that is something which hurts people very much, because knowledge is the most nourishing element for the ego.

When you challenge somebody's knowledge, you have challenged his whole being; all that he knows himself to be is just his ego.

I have heard that a Catholic priest was watching Michael, and he saw that he pulled out two ten dollar bills from the collection plate and did not put anything in the plate. The priest said to himself, "I had better be watchful of Michael."

The next Sunday it happened again. Now, this was too much! Again, Michael pulled out two ten dollar bills. The priest went outside the church and waited there for him. As the mass finished, Michael came out and the priest accosted him, asking him, "Michael, why are you doing this?

Instead of putting something in the collection plate, for two weeks you have been taking twenty dollars each time, and I have been waiting...."

Michael had tears in his eyes... he said, "Father, forgive me, but I was in such a situation that I had to do it. If you were in my situation even you would have done it."

The father said, "What was the situation?"

Michael said, "I so much wanted a blow job."

The priest had never heard the words "blow job," but nobody wants to recognize his ignorance, to admit, "I don't know what this is."

So he said, "Okay, okay - do whatsoever job you want to do, but don't pull money out of the plate!

Otherwise I will have to expose you before the whole congregation."

But now... more than those dollars, the priest was worried about this blow job! What is it? He has read all the literature... theology, psychology - blow job? He could not do anything else, he was continuously thinking - what is it? But who to ask? because asking means you don't know, asking means recognizing your ignorance.

He couldn't sleep. That blow job continued in his mind. Finally he got up and phoned Mother Agatha.

She was an old lady, experienced, and he thought she could be asked. Many times when there had been some theological problem he had asked her, and she had always given him good advice.

So he asked her, "Mother Agatha, you have always been such a help to me - whenever I am stuck with some problem you have always given me the right key. Today I again have a question for you:

What is a blow job?"

Mother Agatha said, "Oh, about twelve dollars."

For the poor priest nothing was solved. He knows the price, but he does not know what the job is!

But it was better now to keep silent.

Never make anybody feel ignorant, never make anybody feel judged, never make anybody feel inferior. Be respectful, be loving, even to those who may not agree with you. Perhaps you can create an atmosphere, and you can become the bridge for your whole family, your friends, to sannyas.

Sannyas has to be shared.

It is the alchemy of inner transformation.

You would like anybody you love to be a sannyasin.

Question 2:

Sudha, one thing - in fact, you will have to forgive me. I cannot forgive, for the simple reason that I have never been angry, I have never taken any offence.

For what can I forgive you? I can only rejoice in your understanding.

This has been your problem - like many other people, you love me and naturally you would like a response from me.

Your conception of love is very small. I cannot manage to love in such a small way. That does not mean I don't love you, that simply means you are not receptive and open and available to me so that I need not come down, rather I can take you upwards.

Love can do both miracles. It can bring you down - and in all the ancient literature of all religions, love has been portrayed as bringing people's consciousness downwards. Nobody has explored the psychology behind all those stories and parables, but it is a tremendously rewarding experience to look into the psychology of them.

For example, in the East there are hundreds of stories that whenever somebody is coming close to enlightenment... In Indian mythology the god Indra - who is the highest god in heaven - becomes troubled, because if somebody becomes enlightened there is a possibility that he may be chosen by existence to be Indra, and Indra may be demoted. There should not be any enlightenment anywhere; that is a protection of his power. Otherwise there will be a competitor who may be far superior.

So whenever somebody is coming close to enlightenment, immediately Indra sends beautiful girls from heaven to drag that man down from enlightenment. Just a step or two and he would have been enlightened, but the beautiful girls, called UPSARAS... they are not just women. They are always young, they never grow old. They don't perspire, they don't need deodorant. They are always fragrant.

And naturally, a man who has been avoiding the world, escaping deeper into the Himalayas, who has been repressing all his natural instincts - particularly sex - is sitting almost on a volcano, the sexual energy can explode.

It is the same energy that was taking him to enlightenment. Enlightenment is also an explosion, but creative. It gives you a new birth.

But these beautiful girls are sent to provoke the person sexually, dance sexual dances around him, create a whole pornographic atmosphere.

In most cases the man falls down, thinking it is love, and love sent from heaven! But those women have come simply to destroy his meditation, to create lust in him, and once that work is done they disappear. Only when they disappear does the person become aware that he was reaching to the climax of consciousness and now he is standing in total darkness.

In all the languages of the world, strangely enough, people use the phrase "falling in love." Without any exception, in all the languages people say "I have fallen in love." But why should you fall? Why can't you rise in love?

Love up to now has been the condemned part of humanity.

To me, love is the only divine quality in you. All other qualities are part and parcel of your godliness, but love is the center.

You love me. I can accept your love. But you will receive my love only by rising a little higher towards enlightenment in your consciousness.

It is just the opposite from the whole of history. I want you to say one day, "I have risen in love."

Love should bring more light to you, more understanding, more maturity, more freedom, more creativity.

Sudha, you need not be sad about your past. You may have desired the same kind of love; it is natural. You know only one kind of love and you can desire only that love.

My whole life is devoted to you, to making you aware of a higher love - a love which replaces God, a love beyond which nothing exists. But to understand my love you will have to climb higher in consciousness.

You will start feeling me only when you are close to enlightenment. It will be the same moment as when the god Indra becomes troubled: you will feel my love.

And if you become enlightened you will see all the psychedelic colors of love. Only the enlightened person knows the very spirit of love.

So it is not your fault but just your laziness in becoming enlightened!

And remember: I cannot forgive your laziness, because I am here today; tomorrow I may not be. I cannot be here with you forever; while I exist in the body, be a little quicker. If you can taste a little love while I am alive, then even after my death your connection with me, your trust, your love, will remain valid. It will go on for eternity. And a love that is not for eternity is just a biological strategy to produce more children.

Have you observed one fact, that while animals are making love, they don't seem to be happy?

Just... you know I am a little crazy; I have been studying things nobody else bothers about. My father was very much ashamed, because two dogs would be making love and I would be following them for half a mile, and my father would say, "You are a strange person. People come to us...."

I said, "But that is none of their business, I am studying."

My father said, "My God, can't you find something else to study?"

I said, "This is the most essential thing."

I have watched all kinds of animals, birds... deep in the countryside near the villages it is so easy to see and watch. But nobody looks happy, that is the problem. They are making love... and just look at their faces! It seems they don't mean it, it seems that it is a kind of torture.

They are unhappy, and there is a reason for it: they feel the biological slavery. They are more sensitive than you are. They can see that it is not their love, it is just something else forcing them.

They are doing it in spite of themselves.

That's why all animals just have small seasons for reproduction; it seems biology has not been able to convince the animals to make love all year round. And once the season is over the animals completely forget all about love and sex and girlfriends and boyfriends. Looking at the animals I used to wonder: is "boyfriend and girlfriend" applicable to animals? Because they look so sad that it seems "boy-enemy and girl-enemy" would be a better description of the reality.

It is only man who makes love all year round, and it is only man who thinks that this love is all. This love is not all; otherwise the whole world would have been a beautiful place to live.

This world is created by your love, your relationships - and you have virtually created a better hell than the one described in the scriptures! And everybody is loving - the father is loving, the mother is loving, the husband is loving, the wife is loving, the children are loving, the teachers are loving.

Everybody is loving and the total result is always a world war. This is a strange kind of logic.

Everybody loving, and then finally... where does the war come from?

Our love is of the very lowest kind, it is animal love. This love is not going to help you. This love can only be part of your biological slavery. And you have accepted it, you have not even raised the question that it is slavery.

When you come to me and you love me, your love has shadows on it of your past experiences. I cannot meet you on that wavelength. That does not mean that I don't love you. I love you, but it just goes on above your heads. I try hard to hit your head at least, but it goes on above your heads.

If this understanding settles in you, Sudha, that you should try to raise your consciousness higher, then forget all about my love. One day suddenly you will be showered by it. You have been showered by it always.

But your umbrella is open, so close your umbrella!

Question 3:

There is no need to know where you are going.

There is no need to know why you are going.

All that is needed to be known is that you are going joyously, because if you are going joyously you cannot go wrong.

If you are going dancing, singing, celebrating, the direction does not matter, the road does not matter, the goal does not matter. Every moment becomes paradise.

Let me repeat it again to you: there is no goal in existence. There are only moments, and the art is to squeeze the moment, its whole juice, herenow. And as moments go on coming into your hands, go on squeezing all the juices that existence contains for you.

In fact, you are where you are supposed to be, so if you are going somewhere it is just a morning walk. Don't be worried. There is no goal, you can turn back from any point. You are not going anywhere!

My whole teaching is just to be here and let all the blissfulnesses of existence shower on you.

Why should you go anywhere? And anyway, where will you go? Trains are there, buses are there, planes are there and you can go wherever you want - to the moon you can go. In just a few years you may be able to go to Mars; in a few more years you may be able to go to some star. But that is all stupidness - what are you going to do standing on the moon? Have you ever thought about it?

You will look utterly weird to yourself: "What are you doing here?"

Life is the way.

Life has no goal.

That's why I love the word Tao. Tao means the way, with no goal. Simply the way. It was courageous of Lao Tzu, twenty-five centuries ago, to tell people that there is no goal and we are not going anywhere. We are just going to be here, so make the time as beautiful, as loving, as joyous as possible. He called his philosophy Tao, and Tao means simply 'the way.'

Many asked him, "Why have you chosen the name Tao? Because you don't have any goal in your philosophy...."

He said, "Specifically for that reason I have chosen to call it 'the way,' so that nobody forgets there is no goal, but only the way."

And the way is beautiful, the way is full of flowers. And the way goes on becoming more and more beautiful as your consciousness goes on becoming higher. The moment you have reached the peak, everything becomes so sweet, so ecstatic, that you suddenly realize that this is the place, this is home. You were unnecessarily running here and there.

Never think of going somewhere.

Think in terms of transforming yourself here.

"There" is a cunning strategy of the mind to deceive you. The mind always makes you interested in things far away, there, so that you can be led away from here. Or at least your attention is no longer

here, it is there. And you will never be there. Going from here to there, slowly, slowly you acquire the habit of always looking there, so wherever you reach, that place is no longer in your focus - your goal has shifted somewhere else.

In India there is an ancient proverb - diya tale andhera - "there is darkness under the lamp." The lamp gives light all around, and just exactly underneath it there is darkness. This is the situation of man. You are capable of seeing everywhere, all around, but you are incapable of seeing where you are, who you are.

So cancel all the tickets you have booked! There is nowhere to go; just being here is so blissful.

Close your eyes, so that you can see the reality of the here.

There and then are only fictions.

Here and now are the only realities.

Question 4:

First: I am not far away, I am here.

The difference between you and me is not of how far away I am.

The difference is of depth.

I am here, but at the deepest, most interior center of my being. You are also here, but just on the circumference. And the difference between the center and the circumference is not big, because they are related. The circumference belongs to the center and the center belongs to the circumference. They cannot exist separately, they are always together. Can you have a center without a circumference, or can you have a circumference without a center?

But you can choose one, become obsessed with it, and completely forget your own center. It is easy to forget it, because it is obvious. It is easy to forget it because you are born with it. You have not earned it, you have not traveled to it, it has not been arduous for you. It has been the sheer grace of existence to give you a center, a soul, a consciousness.

Secondly, it may seem to you and to thousands of people that I contain so much... what is my secret? There is no secret, because I am not containing anything.

I am just an open space, alive, fully alert. So when you ask a question, it is not from some stored knowledge that the answer comes to you. When you raise a question, my whole being responds to it. It is not my memory. In this moment, this is my response. It is not an answer which was accumulated within me.

I have been living in my room for many years, and people are naturally curious because I don't do anything. I don't even look outside the window! So to me, whether I am in India or in America or in England or in France does not matter. I am always in a room.

Living in my room for almost twenty, twenty-five years, I am simply sitting in emptiness. But it is such an exquisite experience that I don't want anything more... although every day something more goes on happening.

But basically, I remain empty. When you ask me a question I have to encounter the question as if it is my question, and what I would do if this were my question, and then I reply to you. But the reply, the answer, was not waiting there in my memory system.

I am the most empty man on the earth today.

Yes, I am full only of one thing, and that is emptiness. But emptiness is not a negative state, emptiness is full of existence. The whole of existence has come out of emptiness, and whenever it becomes tired it goes back into emptiness. You are born out of emptiness and you die to again rejuvenate yourself in emptiness. You will be born again... thousands of times you have been coming and going.

Emptiness is the complete, total rest, where everything ceases. But in that rest and in that cessation of everything you are becoming again ready to go for another run, another existence... thousands of lives.

My answers are not confined to any religion, confined to any theology. My answers are confined only to this minute - and I am not committed. Tomorrow you cannot say to me, "You are contradicting yourself." What can I do? It was so yesterday, and this is how it is today.

I cannot lie.

I can answer only that which arises in my emptiness.

But to you it will seem... I must have answered at least fifty thousand questions. Anybody looking at those questions is bound to wonder how much knowledge I contain.

The reality is, I don't contain any knowledge at all.

I am just a mirror, an empty mirror.

You bring your question - that is, you bring your face - and my mirror reflects. The moment you are gone, my mirror is empty again; your coming and going leave no marks on my mirror.

This should be understood clearly, because any wrong understanding about me and you will start following that line. You may start collecting more knowledge, more scriptures. I have done that dirty work, and I have wasted so much time on your holy scriptures and the commentaries, but they are all just words. In fact, to expect more from books is not logical; books are collections of dead words.

While I am here, you have the opportunity to listen to a living word. Once I am gone, you will read the same words in books, but they will be dead. My warmth, my love, my heartbeat will not be in them.

And if you cannot understand while I am behind my words, it is absolutely impossible that you will be able to understand them from a book when I am no longer behind those words. So while listening to me you have to be aware of a few more things. It is not just a lecture. It is not imparting information to you, it is not something that you have to remember. It is a totally different phenomenon.

Listening to me is not listening to my words.

Of course, you will hear them.

Hear my words, but listen to me.

And while listening to me, remember: it has to be more like drinking something, eating something, digesting something; not accumulating something in the memory.

While listening to me, just be as empty as I am.

The answer is coming from emptiness.

And this kind of answer can be understood only if it is heard in emptiness.

Question 5:

I am taking you to yourself.

You have gone far away from yourself. Perhaps you have completely forgotten the way back. I am persuading you that unless you discover your home, you will remain miserable.

Don't go anywhere - just stop going.

If the energy is not moving towards objects and goals, the energy starts turning upon itself. That can be called enlightenment, samadhi, sambodhi, awakening.

You always want to go somewhere. People are running all over the world, from Kaaba to Manali, from Manali to Kathmandu, from Kathmandu to Goa, from Goa to Bombay. They are just running, hoping that somehow they will reach. Where they want to reach they don't know. Whether there is any need to reach anywhere they don't know. Whether there is any place they can reach, they don't know.

I say to you, there is no place for you to reach.

You are already born in that place, in that space.

My whole effort is somehow to convince you - not with my words but with my silence and presence, with my love and with my joy - that you are at the very center of the universe, every one of you - because there is only one center. Only on the periphery are we separate; at the center we are one.

And only at the center, the blossoming of your being happens.

But people are going in all directions, doing all kinds of things. It is really hilarious how much energy is spent. Even animals are wiser.... A few days ago there was news of a bishop in Europe who was caught making love to animals. He admitted in the court that for twelve years he had seen making love to animals, and he said, "I am not the only one who does it."

The natural sexual energy has been prevented; now it will go into perversions. And it is easier to make love to an animal, because the poor animal cannot tell anybody what this priest, this bishop, this cardinal is doing. He cannot go to a police station. So the thing will remain unknown to people.

I have heard that one woman had a beautiful parrot. The woman was a prostitute, but a high- class prostitute. Being in the wrong company, the parrot was completely spoiled. And particularly, whenever that woman would bring a man with her into the house, the parrot would start using obscenities, four-letter words. And he would always end up with the sentence: "It is gonna happen to somebody tonight, it is gonna happen." It was very strange for the man who had come, and for the woman also, it was very awkward.

She went to a pet shop to inquire what to do. The man said, "There is no problem. It is so simple - and even a woman like you cannot see the problem - the parrot needs a lady parrot. Right now I don't have any lady parrots on hand. I will order one immediately, and within two weeks you will have her. And for two weeks you can take this beautiful owl. Just put it beside him. Perhaps... because he has remained a monk for years, and in a place of prostitutes! Perhaps he will get interested...

and this owl is a beautiful lady."

So she took the owl and put the owl's cage next to the parrot. But from the beginning the woman suspected that it was not going to work, because the parrot did not even look at the owl. But by the evening she had brought a gentleman home and this time she was not feeling her usual nervous self because of the parrot. She thought he must be engaged by now.

But as she opened the door and the man entered, the parrot said, "Ahah, so here it goes again,"

and he started all his obscenities. He ended up with the same, "It is gonna happen to somebody tonight."

The lady owl asked, "Hoo, hoo?"

And the parrot said, "You sonofabitch, it is not gonna happen to you, that much is certain!"

Even animals can understand that a parrot will not be interested in an owl... but a priest can be.

The repressed mind is the ugliest thing in the world. And for thousands of years we have not been doing anything else - we have been only repressing and repressing, so you are full of repression.

I am utterly empty.

If there is any truth in my words, that truth comes out of my emptiness. It does not belong to me, I am just a passage. I allow existence to connect with you - and it is possible only if I am absolutely empty.

Waking up in the morning, I have to think whether it is morning or afternoon, because I sleep in the afternoon too. And sometimes things get puzzled. One day in the afternoon, I went to the bathroom without looking at the clock - thinking that it was morning - and prepared, took a bath, got ready, because you must be coming. Only when I got out of the bathroom did I ask Nirvano. She said, "It is not time to get ready for the meeting."

Then I looked at the clock and I said, "My God, now I will have to take a third bath!"

When I was in the American jails they would ask the names of my attorneys. I said, "Don't ask such great philosophical questions. If you want to ask, you can ask about God, about heaven and hell, but about attorneys.... In one jail I was really in difficulty, because the U.S. marshall in the jail was insisting - in the middle of the night - that I should sign not my name on the form, but the name of David Washington.

I said, "This is illegal and you will repent for it, because soon I will be out and the whole world will know what has been done to me. On what grounds do you want me to sign under the name of David Washington? And do you think that I am not able to understand a simple thing? It means that even if you kill me, nobody will be able to find out where I disappeared - because even in the register, in your files, on my form, there is no mention of my name. I never entered this jail according to your records. So I am not going to sign as David Washington. And if you want - because I can see you are tired in the middle of the night, you want to go home - you fill in the form in your own handwriting.

I will simply sign it with my signature."

He could not figure out what the purpose was, so he filled out the form and I signed my signature, which is known all over the world. He looked at the signature and he said, "What have you written?"

I said, "How can I write anything other than David Washington?"

He said, "But I cannot see any sign of David Washington in it."

I said, "This is your problem, but this is my signature." I asked him, "Before you leave I want to contact my attorneys, because this paper shows your intentions."

He said, "You can phone."

I said, "My God, I have never phoned in my life! And I don't know the numbers of the attorneys, I don't exactly know how the phone operates, so you will have to find my attorney's phone number and get him on the phone."

He said, "This is strange."

I said, "It is not strange because I have so many secretaries, and they are doing their work so well.

And I hate the telephone; it is a nuisance."

He said, "That's right, it is certainly a nuisance. And there seems to be no way to get rid of it."

I said, "There is a way, I can throw it out right now."

He said, "Wait, don't do that."

I said, "Go and get into your bed because in the morning, on all the televisions and radio stations, in the newspapers, the news is going to be there: Osho has been forced to sign under the name of David Washington. You are going to be in trouble."

"But," he said, "how could you manage it? I know the press people are surrounding the jail" - at every jail where I was kept, the press was surrounding it twenty-four hours a day, so they could not take me somewhere else in the middle of the night or any other time - "but how can you send the message to them?"

I said, "I have sent the message."

One girl was going to be released, and she had filled out her forms and everything just before me.

Then she came and sat by my side and she said, "We all feel so much for you. Although we don't know much, we have heard you on television, we have been reading your books in the jail library. I would like to do something for you, whatever you want."

I said, "Just do one thing, don't leave right now. Slip into the corner where it is darker and wait until my conversation with the marshall is finished. Then go outside and tell all the newspapermen who are waiting there exactly what you have heard."

And she did well. She reported exactly every word. At five o'clock in the morning it was in the newspapers, on the radio. And the marshall came running and perspiring and he said, "You are right. I could not sleep the whole night, I was turning and tossing. And it was in the newspapers - but how did you manage it?"

I said, "Truth always has a way of managing things."

He said, "You get up and get ready, because you have to leave this jail."

I said, "I am not in the mood. First let all the press come here and let them see the form. Once I leave this jail you are going to destroy that form with my signature. You cannot destroy it while I am here, so I will wait. And remember, you cannot do any violence to me. You cannot force me outside, because outside are the press, all the cameras are ready - then you will be in more difficulties. I had warned you last night, but you didn't listen."

He said, "Find some way... because I will be in trouble."

I said, "Do you have a back door?"

He said, "Yes, there is a back door." So he went out the back door, but he was not aware that the press people were all over the place. They were at the back door too.

And they asked me only one thing: "What do you think about this incident? Is it true?"

I said, "It is more than true, but remember that these people will destroy the documents once I have left. That's why they are in such a hurry to take me out of this jail. Try to find the documents; their photographs should go on television."

And that man became very polite... I said, "Don't be deceived by his politeness, because he is the man who kept me waiting for three hours in the middle of the night because I was not ready to sign under David Washington's name. And this man's coat has writing on it saying the 'Department of Justice' - I asked him, 'Under what kind of justice or law can you ask me to change my name?' But he didn't listen. I even asked him to at least remove his coat, because it is embarrassing to me to see that people who are there to protect the law, to protect people's rights, are doing just the opposite.

They are destroying the law. They are destroying the constitution and they are destroying the values upon which the constitution stands. They are destroying individuals, they are not protecting them."

This is the world in which we are living. It is almost insane.

And the reason for its insanity is that nobody knows where he is going, why he is going, from where he is coming and what is the meaning of it all.

Unless you know the meaning of life and the significance of existence, you cannot call yourself a sane person.

I want my sannyasins to be the sanest people on the earth. The earth has been very thirsty for sanity.