Sympathy is a false coin

Question 1:

Humanity can be divided into two parts: the first is sadist, the second is masochist. The sadist enjoys torturing others; the masochist enjoys torturing himself.

This is a very ugly situation, but for centuries we have been cultivating this split. The people who are masochists have become great saints. Their only quality, their only genius, was that they tortured themselves. It was thought and propagated by the religions of the world that to torture oneself is the way to God. There is no logic in it because why, if there is any God, would he like his children to torture themselves? - unless he himself is a sadist and enjoys people being tortured by others or by themselves.

These philosophies of masochism have been predominant. The people who had no other talents, no other creative possibilities, easily chose to torture themselves - fast, beat yourself, find out new ways of torturing, sleep on a bed of thorns, renounce everything that is pleasant, remain naked when it is too cold, cover yourself with a blanket when it is too hot. Certainly these people were very inventive, but because it was associated with spirituality by a certain fake logic... the person who tortures himself in this world is passing through a fire test of his trust in God.

Jesus belongs to these masochists. Mahavira in India belongs to these masochists. And thousands of saints were only famous because there was no competing with them; they were far ahead in torturing themselves in every possible way. People were cutting their genitals, women were cutting their breasts - and religions were supporting it. Naturally these people were miserable, but misery became now a kind of investment. You be miserable here and all the pleasures of paradise will be yours forever. The misery is only for one life; the reward is for eternity.

The others who worshiped these masochists were sadists; they enjoyed people torturing themselves. They worshiped a person more if he tortured more; if he fasted for months, he became a great saint. If he became just a skeleton, millions came to worship him, but their psychological joy was seeing somebody torture himself. And, of course, they fitted together perfectly.

The sadists became disciples, followers; and the masochists became prophets, messiahs, saviors - and they were complementary to each other. And nobody thought that this is a very sick psychology.

But religions were becoming prosperous, and people were engaged in this stupid game. They had no energy for any revolution against the politicians. They had no energy to go against the rich and create a classless society. Their whole mind became centered only on these two things.

That schizophrenic mind still remains. It has gone very deep into the unconscious of man. It is not only in Switzerland, it is the same all over the world. People who have all kinds of things - every pleasure is possible for them, and they are free from ordinary mundane work - can use this time and energy for inner growth, for the evolution of consciousness. But no, they are attached to their suffering or they are attached to making other people suffer, to making other people miserable.

Adolf Hitler is a sadist; he killed millions of Jews for no reason at all.

Mahatma Gandhi is a masochist; he tried to create suffering for himself as much as possible.

These people are all around. Everywhere these are the two kinds of people.

My effort is to bring in the third kind of human being - which is very difficult. Somebody is enjoying his own suffering, which looks absurd, but deep down he sees that this is the way to spirituality, there is nothing else to be done. And there are people who are making grounds for others to suffer; they are also thought to be great religious people.

In America I received a letter from the president of the Nazi party of America threatening me, "If you don't stop criticizing Adolf Hitler, we are going to sue you in the court because it hurts our religious feelings."

I was not aware of it. Perhaps you don't know that Adolf Hitler, according to the letter, was no one but the Old Testament prophet Elijah reincarnated.

The more I have looked into human beings' minds, the more I have found some kind of sickness has been given to you as heritage.

In Switzerland, when people are prosperous, why are they not enquiring about their selves, about the mystery of life? Why are they not entering inwards? Why are they not meditating, raising their consciousness to higher levels?

They are too much attached to their suffering; it is their old friend, and the friendship has gone very deep. It is centuries old, it is a heritage. Moreover, when you are in suffering, in anguish, people sympathize with you - and this supports your sick mind. People never sympathize with you if you are dancing, singing, playing on your guitar, rejoicing in life, loving your woman - nobody comes to sympathize with you. They inform the police that something has gone wrong: to be blissful is to be wrong.

But if you are suffering, if you are sad, miserable, then all the neighbors are so compassionate towards you. Why? Sympathy is a very cunning strategy. First, the people who are sympathizing with the suffering person are enjoying the fact that they are not suffering; and second, they feel you deserve it - "It is our kindness that we are sympathizing with you." It gives them a great egoistic euphoria. It does not make them jealous of you.

But if you are rejoicing, enjoying, then nobody comes close to you because your rejoicing makes them jealous. They are not rejoicing, and your rejoicing does not help their ego. You are higher and they are lower. When you are suffering, you are lower, they are higher.

In India I have one very rich friend. He is also a politician and has been education minister. Now his only desire is to become the prime minister. He used to come to me and ask, "I have helped everybody who has come to me - friend or stranger. I have helped the poor, I have opened schools and hospitals, I have helped all my relatives and made them rich, opened factories, shops, given them presents so none of my relatives remains poor - even faraway relatives. But nobody has any sympathy for me."

I said, "You don't understand the workings of sympathy. They all hate you. I know a few of your relatives and friends whom you have financially supported. They all hate you for the simple reason that by your support you have put them down. You don't accept even a flower from anybody. You are so egoistic - and of course you are not in any need, and however rich your relatives have become, they are not in any way rich compared to you. But even a small gift from them on your birthday you return."

He said, "That has been my principle my whole ife, never to receive any present."

I said, "Then you should not be worried about their antipathy towards you. If you want their sympathy, it is not through your financial help. If you can take some small thing from them they will feel happy and higher: they have also done something for you. Right now you are the doer and they are only poor receivers."

He said, "Perhaps that is the reason they never come to see me, they never rejoice at meeting me.

They all look sore whenever I meet them, and I can see in their eyes some kind of anger... and I have simply helped them."

I said, "You have not helped them, you have been simply emphasizing your ego - and nobody can love your ego. Everybody is going to hate your ego. Allow them to do small things for you. They cannot do big things, because you are very rich, but even by doing small things they will feel they can also do something for you."

But he said, "That is impossible. I cannot let anyone be in a higher position than me, that they are the giver and I am the receiver. No."

Then I said, "You have chosen your suffering, your isolated state where nobody is a friend to you.

You have chosen it."

If we study deeply the workings of man's mind, the people who are rich in Switzerland or anywhere else enjoy their suffering because that suffering brings sympathy from people - which they cannot purchase with their money. Although sympathy is not love but a very poor substitute, something is better than nothing.

These people have never been loved by anyone. Those who have loved them have loved their money; those who have been friends with them have been friends because of their money.

I was a professor in a university and in the whole university there was only one man who had a car, one professor. That professor had never talked to me. Then I brought another car into the university, and the day I brought the car he came to me and said, "Hello."

I said, "What is the matter? This is so strange... I have been here for three years and you have never said hello to me."

He said, "I have a principle: I make friends only with people who have cars."

I said, "Great principles you have. Why do you have such a principle?"

He said, "The trouble is, if you make a friend with someone who does not have a car, sooner or later he is going to ask you, 'Can I borrow your car?' And I hate it. I don't want to give my car to anybody, so I make friends only with people who have cars. They are not going to ask me."

I said to the professor, "Then I am not going to be a friend to you. Never again say hello to me - because you are saying hello to the car. You can say hello to the car, I have no objection; but I am out of the question. I was here for three years, and you never tried to be introduced to me. You can say hello to my car - good morning, good evening, whatever you want; I have no objection at all.

But as far as I am concerned, I don't want to talk to you again. Your very mind is ugly."

Rich people have that problem. If people don't make friends with them, it is because of their richness; if people don't sympathize with them, it is because of their richness. But these people have never been loved. Even if sometimes somebody has loved them it was because of their wealth - and there is such a difference. When you love a person because of his possessions, not because of himself, it hurts, it hurts tremendously.

So rich people by and by learn that love is not for them. All that they can get at the most is sympathy, and sympathy is possible only when they are miserable, suffering. Then hundreds of people will be sympathetic to them. Those people will enjoy one thing: "Although he has so much money, he is suffering. We don't have that much money but we are not suffering, we are still in a higher state of mind than him."

There is no harm in sympathizing with the person... but the person cannot leave his suffering because the moment he leaves his suffering all those sympathizers will be gone. He is caught in a net. And his life has not been a total lie - he has only been an earning machine. He has earned enough - at the cost of everything that is valuable, at the cost of everything which cannot be purchased with money. You cannot purchase love with money, you cannot purchase truth with money, you cannot purchase beauty with money, you cannot purchase understanding with money; you cannot purchase anything that has real value with money.

He has wasted his whole life in earning money and now he is at a dead end. Money is there and he is just a beggar. His whole life he has learned only one art: how to earn more and more. He has never paid any attention to great music, to great art, to great paintings, to great architecture, although there was time. His whole life was devoted to one thing - he had only one god: money.

Now the money is there but he remains a very primitive barbarous being - uncivilized, uncultured, unsophisticated.

I have heard a small story which will help you.... Mulla Nasruddin was very rich - it is a Sufi story - and he had devoted his whole life to earning money. One day a friend said, "Mulla, you are getting old but you have never seen a movie."

Mulla said, "I don't have any time."

The man said, "I have brought a ticket for you too. You don't have to waste money, just a little time."

Mulla goes with him to the movie. In the movie there is a classical singer, and the whole movie is around the life of that classical singer.

Indian classical music is totally different from that of the West; it is far more scientific. Each scale is played in a different way, and for each time of day there are different songs, different kinds of music, to be in tune with nature. For the morning there is one kind of music; the song may be the same, but it will be sung in a different way, with a different emphasis. In the evening the song may be the same, but it will have a different way of singing. It is a very subtle art.

In the movies it is early morning and the sun is rising. The classical singer is sitting under a tree playing morning music and he sings, "Ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh" - he gives different tones, different emphases, to one note, ahhhh. The man who had brought Mulla was puzzled: when the classical singer started singing, Mulla started crying.

The man asked, "What is the matter? I never thought that you were such a lover of classical music."

He said, "To hell with classical music! This is not classical music, I tell you. I had a goat which cried 'ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh,' the whole night and finally died. This man is certain to die. Do something!"

He had all the money, but only the money. The man was empty, no sensitivity for anything, no understanding for anything.

The people you are asking about in Switzerland have beautiful houses, a beautiful land, all the money that they need or perhaps more than they need, but they are stuck. From where is their misery coming? Their misery is coming because they have never learned anything else than accumulating money. Their being is hollow, empty. From that emptiness their misery is coming.

And now they have lived with that misery their whole lives; that is their only companion, and that misery is the only thing that they get sympathy for. Nobody sympathizes with their beautiful houses, beautiful cars, beautiful jewelry. Everybody is jealous of all those things, but nobody is jealous of their misery, of their emptiness, of their hollowness. Everybody is sympathetic, and because they have never known love, they think sympathy is love.

Sympathy is a false coin. It is not love, and it cannot move higher.

You are asking why they are not using their freedom for higher values, for higher consciousnesses.

They don't have any idea, they are beggars. For those higher values you have to go through a hierarchy. There are beauties of the body, but they have never enjoyed the beauties of the body.

There are beauties of the mind - listening to great music or reading great poetry are beauties of the mind - but they have never bothered.

Unless you go from body to mind, you cannot go beyond mind. You will have to pass through the mind. They know only one thing in life and that is greed; they have learned only one art - how to fulfill the greed. And now they are at the end of their lives, it seems too late to begin, and even the idea of beginning will not happen to them.

In ancient India you will be surprised to know that great kings and emperors used to send their sons, when they were growing up, to great prostitutes' houses to live there. Prostitutes in India have a totally different meaning from prostitutes outside India. The prostitute in India was an immensely cultured woman, and even kings had to send their sons to them to learn manners, to learn art, to learn music, to learn dancing, to learn what beauty is.

Once they had come from the prostitutes' houses, after two or three years of learning there, they were given new teachers - wise people who could help them to move into the world of the sacred, who could teach them how to be silent, how to be serene. The king was only going to declare his son his successor when the successor was ready as a wise man - not empty, not miserable, but joyful, rejoicing.

When he is ready he can be given the whole empire; he knows something better than the empire.

He would rather, if the time comes, to lose the empire, but not the beautiful experiences that he has gained about truth, beauty, love. Those are far more valuable.

This was the maxim: unless you know something better than the empire, you cannot become a real emperor. Unless you are somewhat higher than the empire, you are not worthy to be an emperor.

But that was the feudal world; in a capitalist world things have changed. You have to earn money, and you have to earn it fast because life is small and competition is hard. In earning money you forget that there is much more to life than money. Money is nothing; it is a good means of exchange, but more than that it has no value, no spiritual value.

Somebody has to point out to the rich people of Switzerland, "You are not rich, you are utterly poor." They have to be made aware that they have lost themselves and found money, they have sold themselves and gathered junk.

Unless a rich man realizes his emptiness, there is no way for him to start working to gain the things that he has missed in his life. And it is never too late - because it is only a question of understanding.

If he can see his poverty... he knows how to destroy physical poverty; now the same art, the same intensity, and the same totality is needed to destroy the inner poverty.

Then he will become, for the first time, really rich, overflowingly rich. Then there will be no suffering, no misery; then for the first time he will not be sick but healthy and whole. In fact, people will become jealous of him, people will even start condemning him, criticizing him. But nothing matters; the opinion of the people carries no weight when you have found your inner treasure. You are so self-contented that even if the whole world condemns you, you can still smile and laugh, you can still sing and dance.

Switzerland is missing a religious revolution. It is one of the most beautiful countries, has some of the nicest people, and yet no flowering of consciousness... Perhaps they are even afraid of anybody pointing to their emptiness.

For two months I have been waiting for a tourist visa to go to Switzerland. My people who are there are trying hard, and the Swiss government has sent a telegram to the ambassador here, "Keep cool."

I don't understand why they are afraid of me. Perhaps it is an unconscious fear that I am going to point to their inner poverty, that I am going to point to their inner ugliness. "Everything is beautiful outside, but what about your inner consciousness?"

And this message from the government to the ambassador - "Keep cool" - can mean just don't act. This may take years. Keeping cool has no time limit, and particularly for Swiss people who are accustomed to being cold - they can keep cool as long as you want, their whole lives.

But I am coming from a hot country; I can't keep cool. I love Switzerland, and if there is no visa then my love will be the visa. I will enter.

Question 2:

It is true that life functions on a principle of balance. I give you something, not for nothing; you have to give something in return. In fact, I give you something which is not profitable to me and I get something from you which is more profitable to me. You give me something which is not profitable to you and you get from me something which is profitable to you. Both parties should be earning in the exchange. That's how the whole economics, the whole structure of society runs - it is pure business.

I am reminded of a small school....

The lady teacher was talking about Jesus Christ for almost one hour, and then she asked the children, "Who is the biggest man in history, the greatest man?"

An American boy raised his hand and said, "Abraham Lincoln."

The teacher was shocked a little. After one hour of telling them the greatness of Jesus, his miracles and everything... But still she said, "Your answer is good, but not good enough."

The second boy raised his hand - he was an Indian - and he said, "Mahatma Gandhi."

The teacher was even more shocked; things are going even further away from Jesus Christ. She said, "Your answer is also good, but not good enough."

And a third small kid raised his hand. She asked him, "Yes, what is your idea of the greatest man in the world?"

The boy was a Jew so the teacher was afraid that Jesus Christ seems to have no place. But the boy said, "Jesus Christ."

This was even more shocking - but because there was a beautiful award, a gold medal for the right answer, the gold medal went to the little boy.

When everybody had gone she kept him back and asked him, "Aren't you a Jew?"

He said, "I am a Jew."

"Then why did you say Jesus Christ?"

He said, "Business is business. In my heart of hearts I know Moses is the greatest man in the world.

But that is a question of the heart; this is a question of business."

In the world of business this principle of balance goes on working, and everybody profits by it. But in times of war, things are different; then there is no exchange of goods. It is not, "I give you something and you give me something"; it is a question of either/or: either I have everything or you have everything; either I am the winner or you are the winner; either I will be dead or you will be dead.

The ordinary system of balance breaks down. In war it is not a question of balance, it is a question of victory.

That's why war has been preventing human progress at each step. It disrupts all the principles that ordinarily function perfectly, it destroys all balance of life; it creates chaos.

In three thousand years there have been five thousand wars. It seems we have been continuously fighting, some way or other; and it is simply destructive, it has no value for life. It is in the service of death, not in the service of life.

And now we are faced with a third world war - which is simply idiotic. It is not even a war; it has broken even the principles of war. The principle of war is that either I win or you win. The third world war has brought destructive forces to a point where nobody wins, nobody is defeated; everybody is destroyed.

If the third world war happens that will show only that humanity has been living for thousands of years an insane life. This is the culmination of centuries of madness.

It was okay once in a while - sometimes in Vietnam, sometimes in Korea, sometimes in the Middle East people were mad, but the rest of the world kept doing its business; everything went on smoothly.

But the third world war is not going to be local, it is going to be total. Everybody - not only man, but all the animals, all the birds, all the trees, all that is living - will be involved. So if man decides for that war, that will simply be nothing but insanity.

The third world war is a good point at which to drop war as such, and instead of putting so much energy into war put the energy into creating a better man, creating a better society, creating a new humanity.

Question 3:

Change is the fundamental principle of life. Anything that does not change is dead - that should be the criterion.

Change means movement, change means growth, change means evolution. And in life there is never anything perfect - because perfection will be a kind of death. To be perfect means now there is nothing more to happen; all has happened. Perfection means you have only past, no future.

In life, everything is imperfect. And it is beautiful that it is imperfect; it means there is a future, there is an opening, things can be different, things can be better, you can be creative.

Life is not one-dimensional either. You may have known one dimension of life: don't be satisfied so soon. There are many more dimensions waiting to be explored, and there is no end to exploration.

There will always be more dimensions waiting to be explored.

We are living in an inexhaustible universe.

According to the basic principle of change, religion changes, takes a more and more loving, human attitude. For example, if you look back, the Jewish God says, "I am not nice, I am not your uncle. I am a very jealous God." Now even a Jew will not agree with the definition. God not nice... jealous?

Those things don't fit. But when the Old Testament must have been written, that was the attitude of people.

There is no God. People simply project their own attitudes. They were not nice, they were jealous, they were angry; and it was natural for them, because Moses had brought them from Egypt out of slavery. You cannot expect a slave to be nice - nice for what? Life gives him slavery, he is beaten every day...

Just look at the pyramids in Egypt. Even scientists are puzzled how those great stones have managed to reach the very top. Cranes were not in existence... Human beings were carrying those stones. Thousands of people died creating a single pyramid: they were not treated like human beings; if one died, he was thrown by the side of the road and another Jew was forced in his place.

Every day hundreds of people were dying just to create stupid pyramids which make no sense.

Small graves would have done for the great kings and the queens of Egypt. These people were hungry, beaten, sick, old. Do you want them to be nice? Do you expect them not to be angry, not to be jealous of all those who were in power? It was a projection.

Jesus changed the definition of God. He said, "God is love." He could do it. Now the Jews were settled, life was no longer slavery. They were no longer treated like cattle - with no value, with no human dignity. It was possible to project God as love.

I say today even that definition has to be changed, because when you say God is love it simply shows one attribute of God. He may be having many other attributes - love is only one of the attributes. He may be wisdom, he may be a creator; he can be many things other than love. Love is only an attribute.

I have changed it. I say, "Love is God." When I say love is God, it is a very radical change. In fact, I am saying there is no God; love is all that you have.

Love is the only God.

There is no other God.

I have disposed of God too.

Jesus disposed of jealousy, anger, but he kept the idea of God. I say to you that love is enough unto itself. Love is the only creativity in existence, and there is no need for any other God. This is the way religion changes.

And when I say love also changes, then you have to look into love. Small children also love; we call it baby love. They are simply learning - the first fluttering of their wings. They have not yet opened their wings into the sky; they are still in the nest fluttering, getting ready. And young people love, but their love is more biological really than love; it is hormonal.

A few hormones are taken from your beloved, your love will disappear; if a few hormones are added to your beloved, your love will disappear. It is the attraction between hormones, it is chemical.

Young people love but they do not know higher peaks of love; they love the other person, but there is something in the other person which attracts them almost like gravitation - that's why the phrase "falling in love." Why not rising in love? - it is a fall, because it is not something conscious. No lover can say why he loves a certain woman or a certain man; he can simply say, "I don't know what I feel... tremendously attracted." That attraction is biological, chemical, hormonal. Love will move through more seasons, will become more seasoned.

Old people also love. Now the hormones are gone, the biological pull is gone, but something new has entered into life. For the first time they feel that without the lover or the beloved they are too lonely. Now this is a new appearance, love has taken a new shape. They want the other because otherwise they are so lonely, in such a cold existence; they need the warmth of the other, the presence of the other. This is to forget their loneliness, but this too is dependence.

Real love, pure love, can only be out of independence; and that happens only when you have become so meditative that you don't experience loneliness at all. On the contrary, your loneliness has changed into a beautiful experience of aloneness.

Remember the difference between the two words; they are not synonymous. I am not bothered about the dictionaries; I am talking about existence, real experience.

Loneliness is missing the other.

Aloneness is finding oneself.

Out of aloneness, a totally new kind of love arises. Now there is no need - no chemistry, no biology, no psychological loneliness. You are completely full in yourself. There is no need. Love is no longer a need; now love is only a playfulness. It has gone beyond the world of needs.

When you need a person, you are dependent on the person, and when you are dependent on the person you are angry at the person.

Two persons who have reached to aloneness can be in an immense loving space, but there is no dependence, no anger, no conflict; and this love is no longer a relationship either. This love is a state of being. When one is alone, sufficient unto himself, he radiates love. It is not addressed to anybody in particular.

It is just like the perfume of a rose: it is not addressed to somebody's nostrils, everybody is invited.

Whoever is capable, receptive, is not suffering from a cold, can enjoy the fragrance.

Love goes on changing its color. Finally it becomes only a state of love, no longer a relationship.

Then too there are changes... the change never stops.

The state of love in the beginning is only for human beings. Soon it starts including animals, birds, trees, all that is alive. It goes on growing, and soon the ocean, the rivers, the mountains, will be part of it. A moment comes when your love fills the whole universe - and the universe is continuously expanding.

First it was thought that the universe is static. The last fifty years' research about the stars has changed the whole idea. They are all spreading out; just like a bud opens its petals and goes on spreading its petals, the universe is opening. Scientists think there is no end to this opening, it will go on opening - and the speed of its opening is really fast. All these stars are going farther and farther away with the speed of light - and the speed of light is the ultimate speed.

Light moves one hundred eighty-six thousand miles in one second, so the universe is expanding one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second, and it has been expanding for eternity and it will continue to expand for eternity.

Your love will go on expanding with the universe. Soon you will disappear and there will be only love expanded - and that also will not be a static fixed state.

There is only one thing that never changes and that is change; otherwise everything changes.

Change is life.