The full stop never comes

Question 1:

My secret is simple: I don't have a name, I don't have a form, I don't have any kind of identity. I am one with the whole. So the moment you remember me, you will not find somebody appearing on the screen of your consciousness, but only an empty sky.

Friedrich Nietzsche or others are tremendously important, but they are not one with the whole. On the contrary, they are super-egoists - particularly Nietzsche. I love him, too. He has a tremendous insight into things; great revelations have come through his mind. And he's the one most neglected all over the world - perhaps out of fear, because once you are deep into Nietzsche, you cannot be the same person you have been before. Nietzsche is going to change you.

His thoughts are rational; his insights have no parallel in the whole history of philosophy but still, he is not a meditator. It is all mind.

And this is the distinction I would like you to remember: There have been two types of influences in the world, people who have changed millions of lives. One belongs to the mind - all the philosophers, all the thinkers; they have great genius as far as mind is concerned. They have impressed millions of people for thousands of years and they are still fresh. But there is an different line of people like Gautam Buddha, Bodhidharma, Jesus Christ, Lao Tzu - these are not philosophers. What they are saying is not coming from the mind. It is coming from beyond the mind. They have put the mind aside.

To understand them, just intellect is not enough. To understand them, you will have to go on the same path as they traveled.

Mind goes nowhere.

All philosophers are playing with words. Sometimes there is immense beauty even in words, great poetry, logic, that you cannot deny. Nietzsche, Hegel, Kant, Bertrand Russell, Jean Paul Sartre, Jaspers or Martin Heidegger are pinnacles of intellectuality. You are bound to be impressed - but you are not going to be transformed. And to be impressed is to be enslaved. Unless a transformation happens, your slavery goes on deeper and deeper.

You say that Friedrich Nietzsche, although dead, is still alive in spirit. Not only that, you talk with him. You have not said anything in your question but I assume that he must be answering too.

Both the things have to be done by you - the asking and the answering. But look at the life of Friedrich Nietzsche, not just his philosophical approaches towards reality. His life is one of utter misery. You would not like to be Friedrich Nietzsche if you knew his life. He lived absolutely alone, without friends, because he was such an egoist that to make friends with him was impossible. He was high above; you are just creeping on the ground. What friendship? - he does not consider you to be even a human being. He considers you as a subhuman species. And his whole philosophy is how to create the real human being which he used to call the 'superman.' But he himself was not even an ordinary man, what to say about a superman? - physically ugly... but that can be pardoned; he could not manage in his whole life to love a woman, because love to him was domination and nothing else. He wanted a servant, not a beloved - a slave to dance according to his tune.

Looking at his life, one feels deep compassion. He lived his whole life alone with his sister. The sister sacrificed her own life because somebody was needed to take care of Nietzsche. And finally, he went mad.

And remember, nobody goes mad suddenly. Madness is something that grows slowly until it is too much and everybody else becomes aware of it. He was mad from the very beginning, but it was not known; it was within the normal insanity of humanity. But soon, he crossed the line. In the end, even though he was declared mad, he had forgotten all his philosophy, he had not forgotten one thing - even in his madness. And you will be surprised: what is that one thing? That one thing was that he would always sign his signature as "Anti-Christ, Friedrich Nietzsche." That "Anti-Christ"

was the only thing that remained even in his madness. Not a single letter has he signed without writing "Anti-Christ" before his name. If he had been born in India, he would have been anti-Gautam Buddha; if he had been born in China, he would have been anti-Chuang Tzu.

It doesn't matter, these names are not the point. Why was he anti-Christ? - because Christ is not a philosopher. Christ does not give any reasons for his assertions, he speaks on his own authority.

He gives no arguments, there is no need. Because he feels the truth, he expresses it. He does not argue. In fact, only lies need arguments. You can see in any court, so many arguments....

Truth is naked. Its very presence is enough to convince you. And if truth can not have self-validity and depends on arguments, it is not truth. Arguments may change. Somebody may be more logical than you are....

I am reminded of one great logician, Keshav Chandra. Perhaps in this past century in India there has been nobody else with such a sharp mind and with such perfect arguments. He lived in Calcutta, at the time when Ramakrishna was also living outside Calcutta.

Keshav Chandra had a small following of intellectuals, but they were all puzzled: "Thousands of people go to Ramakrishna... that idiot! He's uneducated, he cannot even make his signature. Why are these people going to this madman?" Finally, Keshav Chandra could not resist the temptation to go and see with his own eyes - and he knew that a few arguments would finish this man forever.

He sent a challenge saying, "I want to argue with you. When can I come?"

Ramakrishna said, "Keshav is coming? There is no need to postpone; today is as good as any day.

Go back and tell him: Come, and argue as much as you can!"

Keshav Chandra had forgotten. In giving the challenge, he had said, "I want to argue with you," but if the other person simply listens and tells you - "argue!".... You cannot force somebody to argue.

But Keshav Chandra had no idea, because he had never come across such a man.

He went to Dakshineshwar where Ramakrishna used to live in a temple. His disciples were very much afraid. They knew - Keshav Chandra's arguments are like spears, they go directly to the heart. They can kill a man. And Ramakrishna is so simple... perhaps he does not understand the meaning of argument. Perhaps he does not understand the meaning of the challenge. But from the side of Ramakrishna - he was coming out of the temple again and again and asking, "Keshav has not come?"

Finally, Keshav Chandra came with a group of his intimate followers. Ramakrishna hugged him, although he could not respond to Ramakrishna's hug; he was withdrawing backwards. Ramakrishna said, "Keshava, you don't know how to hug people? You know only how to argue? You are missing much that is valuable - human warmth, human love - but it is good that you have come. I am so happy, I have always wanted to listen to your arguments."

Keshav Chandra could not make any sense of it. He started: "There is no God."

Ramakrishna said, "What a beautiful statement! Can I hug you again?" And he hugged him again.

Keshav was feeling very embarassed. His following was feeling very embarassed - what is happening? And Ramakrishna said, "Did you receive my answer or not?"

Keshav said, "You have not said anything. You have simply hugged me."

Ramakrishna said, "That is a way of saying things which cannot be said. You said, 'God does not exist.' And I say you are the proof that God exists; otherwise, from where such beautiful intelligence?"

Now, how to argue with such a man?

After ten minutes, Keshav Chandra was at the feet of Ramakrishna - "Just forgive me, I had no idea of a man who is not in the mind but in the being. You have made it clear to me. You are not a man of logic, you are a man of love - but love is far higher, logic is mundane. Please accept me as one of your disciples."

Nietzsche is a great logician, a great philosopher, but he knows nothing of reality. All that he says is mind - guesses, inferences. Assumptions supported by argument may befool people but they cannot befool a man who knows. Nietzsche does not know. But he writes beautifully. He writes very consistently, he reaches to the very heights of argumentation. But these are not things of real, authentic value.

The only thing valuable is experience, not argument. And Nietzsche is absolutely without any experience. He has never meditated, he has never been in his own being. He has never contacted the vast, beautiful universe that surrounds us. It is our womb. We are in it, continuously being nourished.

The West is rich as far as useless things are concerned and poor as far real values are concerned.

Nietzsche was "Anti-Christ" for the simple reason that millions of people follow Jesus, and Jesus has not given a single argument to prove his philosophy. And to disprove his philosophy, Nietzsche goes on giving, one after another, hundreds of arguments - beautiful arguments, very refined arguments, but arguments are just arguments. You can go on arguing about love your whole life, but that will not give you the experience of love.

The West has produced only philosophers. The East knows nothing of philosophy, it knows only mysticism. And mysticism is based on the simple phenomenon that experience needs no argument.

Experience is its own validity.

Go inwards.

Find your inner space, and suddenly, you will find an explosion of light, of beauty, of ecstasy - as if suddenly thousands of roses have blossomed within you and you are full of their fragrance.

You say that when you think about thinkers, philosophers like Nietzsche, you are almost in communication, as if they are not dead - but with me you feel a difference. Whenever you remember me you feel silence, you feel joy. You may burst into a song, you may start dancing or playing on a flute. But you will not find me there. You will find there the whole existence showering all its ecstasies on you.

This is the difference between the mystics and the philosophers:

Philosophers live in words; mystics live in authentic experience.

Philosophy has been a curse to the West. All the geniuses turn towards philosophy because the whole tradition is of philosophers - from the ancient Greeks up to now. The philosopher seems to be the highest peak of human evolution. It is absolutely absurd! The philosopher is just playing a mind game. He's as poor in consciousness as you are.

The East never got into that trap. The East is poor as far as material things are concerned, but the East has touched the highest peaks of luxury as far as spiritual experiences are concerned. And that is the only thing that counts in the ultimate reckoning. You will not be asked how many houses you had, you will not be asked about your arguments. You will be asked, "Has your heart opened up and become a lotus? Have you blossomed? Has your spring come, or not?"

The East has seen the spring, people flowering. It is perfectly good to read Nietszche, Hegel, Kant, Feuerbach, Karl Marx... or you can go to older philosophers - Aristotle, Plato - but you will not get anything except empty words.

And words mean whatever you want them to mean.

They don't have any content of their own.

I have heard.... One masochist - a masochist is a person who enjoys being tortured and a sadist is a person who enjoys torturing. And there are a few very complicated people who are sado-masochists; they enjoy both.

One masochist is sitting by the side of a beautiful lake. A sadist, his friend, is also sitting there but he has not said a single word. Somebody passes and asks the sadist: "You are friends, but you are sitting like enemies, back to back. And you have not spoken a single word."

He said, "That's what he enjoys - torture."

This is a subtle torture, that somebody is sitting with you and will not say a single word.

I have also heard that one optimist, who sees in everything, something beautiful - silver lines in the black clouds. And these are not just fictions. He was standing in a park with one of his friends who was a pessimist - a pessimist sees in the smallest silver line, a big, black cloud. They were friends.

The optimist said, "Our world is the best world out of all possible worlds."

The pessimist said, "You are right!" It is a little delicate... you will have to think over it in the middle of the night.

Just the same word, the same statement, in a different context, on different lips, takes a different color, a different meaning. Many philosophers have written beautiful sentences, but they are dead.

When a man like Jesus or Buddha or Bodhidharma or Kabir speaks - ordinary words, but they are so full of juice. They are so full of truth that it is overflowing.

Read the philosophers - it is good exercise for sharpening your intelligence. But don't get too much involved with them. They are drowning, or they have drowned. In their own words, they have lost their light.

Go deeper into mystics, because they are the people who have reached the sunlit peaks of consciousness. They are the people the world needs.

I want my sannyasins to become a Noah's Ark.

When the world is drowning, a Noah's Ark is needed.

You meditate. You experience your own life's sources, and only when you have experienced your own life's sources and juices, will you be able to see them all around.

This universe is such a mystery, is such a miracle - if you can contact the miracle, you will also become part of it. Your life will become a dance, your every breath will become a joy.

I am not against the philosophers. I am simply making it clear that they should be kept in their place.

Mystics have been forgotten, for the simple reason that they are not argumentative. They don't say much. They have nothing to say. They have something to show and those who are courageous enough to put their hands in their hands... they will take them to the place from where you can see the unbelievable.

After that, there is not going to be any misery in your life, any anxiety, any anguish, any death. You have become part of the eternal flow of life. No philosopher can give you anything.

Question 2:

A sympathizer is on the way to becoming a sannyasin. There is no difference. The sannyasin has reached, the sympathizer is coming.

But your question is very interesting, that you had been waiting for so many years for an absolute certainty to take sannyas. Have you waited in the same way for other things? Getting married?

Falling in love?... waiting for fifteen years, falling and falling and falling and falling.... Just watch your life - if you start waiting that long... fifteen years is a long time. You are hungry. Will you eat only when you are absolutely certain that this food is not going to give you food poisoning? Absolute certainty!...

You are sitting here - are you certain that this roof is not going to fall? Have you waited for fifteen years to see that the roof is okay?

Now it is time to get in.

Life is so short that unless you start, even though you are not absolutely certain.... In fact, how can you be absolutely certain about something you have not experienced? In what way?

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin wanted to learn swimming. He went to a teacher who used to teach swimming and they both went to the river. Just on the steps - he must have been very much afraid, because he was not absolutely certain that he wanted to enter this dangerous water, and who knows about this man with absolute certainty, that he is trustworthy? He must have been thinking fast, so he slipped just on the steps, got up and started running back towards his home.

The teacher said, "Where are you going? You had come to learn swimming."

Mulla Nasruddin said, "Forget all about it. I will come only when I am absolutely certain."

The teacher said, "But how are you going to be absolutely certain?"

He said, "First, I will try on my bed - no danger - and when I am completely satisfied, I will come to you." He never came, because nobody can learn swimming on the bed. You have to go into the water. And going into the water, you cannot go with absolute certainty. You have to go with an adventurous spirit, accepting that risks are there, dangers are there, failures are there.

In sannyas, you will be moving into deeper realms of existence - how can you have absolute certainty right now? You will have to trust somebody - somebody who knows the path, who has been traveling the path.

And it is not difficult to find whether the man is authentic or not. Just look into his eyes. Just watch his movement, just listen to the authority of his words. Just feel his presence.

Otherwise, fifteen years or fifteen lives makes no difference; you will remain in the same situation.

Absolute certainty comes at the end, not before it. The beginning... the beginning has to be not with absolute certainty, but with absolute interest.

If you are interested to explore your own being and the secrets of existence, that's enough. Certainty will come as your experience matures. But if you are waiting for absolute certainty to come first, then forget all about it.

Question 3:

I am a German!

And soon Germany will be the first sannyas land. No politicians can prevent it, it is just destined to happen.

Question 4:

Two sides of one coin - both are right. You can see this side, you can see that side. The higher you go, the closer you come to me. At the highest point, certainly this question arises: Who are you? - me or yourself? In fact, those two entities have disappeared into one organic whole. This is what I call devotion, the ultimate state of disciplehood.

Question 5:

My God!

Nobody has ever transformed guilt. It has to be simply dropped.

Why transform it? Do you want to preserve it in some form or other?

Guilt is not something that you are born with, it is not part of your nature. Guilt is created by the society.

For example, every religion creates guilt - in different ways, but the technique is the same. All the religions live, thrive, on guilty human beings. First make them guilty - once you have succeeded in making somebody feel guilty, you have almost killed his spirit. Now he will be a soulless slave to you.

As far as I am concerned, my whole work is in how to free you from guilt - not to transform it.

I was born in a Jaina family. It is a very orthodox religion. You cannot conceive - small things become guilt. You cannot eat in the night, that is guilt. If you have eaten in the night, you have gone down towards hell; you have taken one step downwards.

I don't see any problem. The religion is very old - at that time, there was no light, no electricity, and it was understandable to prohibit people from eating in the night - but why make it guilt? Just a rational explanation is enough, but religions are not interested in rational explanations. They don't miss a single opportunity in which they can make you feel guilty. Guilt is their power over you.

If we can remove all guilt from humanity, all the churches will be empty, all the temples will be empty.

There will be nobody praying, nobody carrying Holy Bibles. But anything can be made into guilt.

Sometimes it is very hilarious....

Up to my eighteenth year, I had not eaten in the night, and I was praised for it and I used to feel higher and holier than all the Hindus who lived around me - they are eating in the night, poor fellows. They are all bound to go to hell. I was feeling tremendously happy that I was saved and these people were destroyed. But eating in the night... whenever you eat, somewhere it is night! So what difference does it make whether the night is here or the night is in London? The night is around.

In the Sikh religion, a Sikh is expected to follow five principles and each of those five is simply hilarious. A Sikh must have long hair... in the Punjabi language, these are called five "K's." The first K means kesh, hair; you cannot cut any hair of the body. The second K is katar. Katar means a special kind of sword - now, what has a sword to do with a religion? - every Sikh has to carry a sword. The third K is even more strange. I have been trying to find the religiousness of it but I have not been able to yet. It is called kachchha. Kachchha means underwear - without underwear, you are finished.

My God! As far as I know, God himself has no underwear... because in no religious scripture is it described that God has underwear. But these poor Sikhs are having underwear. I was thinking, what is the matter? Why did underwear enter into it and become a religious principle?

Those were the days when Sikhism was born. India was under Mohammedan rule. And in war, if you use something that falls - you are running and your dhoti falls away - then kachchha is needed.

Otherwise, katar will not do anything and you will become unnecessarily a laughingstock. But now there is no war and nothing is a problem. You can put the kachchha to rest!

But a Sikh cannot cut his hair. If he cuts it, he feels guilty. You have never felt guilty - cutting your hair or shaving your beard, you have never felt guilty - not even a far away, faint idea of guilt. What is there to feel guilty about?

But once the idea is put in your mind, and from the very childhood conditioned continuously, then it becomes difficult.

One Sikh driver used to drive me, he was my chauffeur. One night, when he was snoring, I cut his hair. In the morning he came running, crying, tears... he said, "I resign from the job."

I said, "What has happened?"

He said, "Can't you see? Somebody has cut all my hairs. He has destroyed my religion, my spirituality."

I said, "Just sit down. How, by cutting your hair, can your religion be destroyed?"

He said, "I don't want to listen to anything. It is written in the scriptures, and I don't want to listen to anything against my scriptures. So please, give me my kachchha and I am going."

Because while I was cutting his hair, I thought it would be good to take his kachchha also. So I pulled his kachchha out and he was so deeply asleep....

I said, "Kachchha? Who has taken your kachchha? You never take a bath - I can say that my chauffeur is within a one mile radius, your kachchha sends such disgusting radiations. If somebody has taken it, be finished with it!"

He said, "No, it is my religion! And first I want to know who the person is."

And he had his sword in his hand. I said, "Calm down. I will bring you a new kachchha."

He said, "What about the hair?"

I said, "False hairs are available."

He said, "Then it is good."

These fools are all over the world, and they feel guilty. So you have to understand the psychology of guilt. Just understanding is enough, and it drops.

You have to understand that people, to make you spiritual slaves, have put ideas in your mind that "these things are wrong." That "if you do these things, God will be angry and throw you into hell." And naturally, nobody wants to go to hell - except me, because I am immensely interested in hell. I don't want to go to heaven, for the simple reason that in heaven, you will find only dry bones, ugly saints, somebody holding his kachchha. In hell, you will find the best company possible. All great artists are there, all great poets are there. All great philosophers are there, all great mystics are there. In fact, anything that has happened on this earth and is beautiful, you will find in hell, not in heaven.

In heaven, you will find dusty old saints who are now suffering - why have they made so much effort to come to heaven? And remember one thing that shows the situation: from heaven there is no exit. You can only enter, and finished. From hell, there are both doors - entrance and exit. If you want to go, you can go. But nobody goes out. All the beautiful women, all the beautiful men - it is twenty-four hours a celebration.

So I told my chauffeur, "Don't be worried. If you are going into hell, I am coming with you. You can remain my chauffeur there too!"

He said, "But I don't want to go."

But I said, "You don't understand. In heaven, there is no car - what will you do?"

He said, "That is a real question - I know only one job. Are you sure there is no car?"

I said, "Never heard... you can look into all your scriptures, in all the religions' scriptures. There is no car."

He said, "My God! Then it is better - be finished with this kachchha and this kesh, I am coming with you! If you are going to hell, then there must be something in it."

Guilt has to be dropped.

Simple understanding, that's all.

You have been befooled, you have been conditioned.

Just drop it.

The moment you understand that this is something absurd, drop it. Transformation is not needed.

And transformation is not possible either, because guilt is not a real thing. It is just an idea enforced in your mind. It is like a person who by mistake has learned that two plus two are five. Now, do you think some transformation is needed? All that is needed is to tell that person: "Two plus two are not five but only four." Just put four chairs before him - two chairs on this side, two chairs on this side - bring them together and tell him to count, whether they are five or four. And do you think he will have much difficulty in dropping the idea of five? There is no question. The moment he sees that two plus two is four, the five is finished.

Guilt is exactly like that.

It is the greatest crime against humanity done by your religious people. They cannot be forgiven.

Question 6:

Milarepa, my business is to put people into dilemma. It is not my business to take them out. But for you, I will make an exception. You have only one misunderstanding in your question - the full stop.

It is not a full stop, it is a semicolon.

Everything will continue but on a higher level, on a better level. The moment sex disappears it does not mean that you don't have life anymore, unless you have this wrong idea that sex and life are synonymous. They are not. The moment sex starts disappearing, a great spiritual revolution starts happening in you. The same energy that was moving downwards starts moving upwards. It is the same energy that has brought you into the world. It is the same energy that can take you to the other world - called by different religions, different names - nirvana, moksha, paradise, the kingdom of god... just different names.

Sex energy is the only energy there is. Either you can destroy it, spoil it, throw it away, or you can be more articulate, more wise, and transform it.

I said guilt cannot be transformed because it is not part of your being, but sex can be transformed because you are nothing but made of sex energy. All the cells of your body are sexual cells.

So don't be worried. Looking at me, you could have dropped your worries. I'm not dead. I have passed the full stop you talk about and I have found it was a semicolon.

The full stop never comes. It is always a comma or a semicolon, but life goes on and on without any full stop.

And about your beloved - who must be freaking out that at just forty-two, you will be finished with sex? So give her all the kinds of documents she wants, in writing, because I know your beloved.

She will be in the semicolon before you. In fact, you will be in trouble, not she. Your beloved is no one but Shunyo. You can give her any kind of guarantee, any kind of stamp, signature, writing - don't be worried.

In fact, I have been forcing her to ask you - "give me in writing...." Poor Shunyo herself would not do such a thing, it is all my doing.