Out of the Mud and the Mire

The first question:

Question 1:

First, there is no success as far as the outer is concerned. All success is just an effort to cover failure. There is only one success, there are not many successes - and that one success is to know oneself, to be oneself.

I understand what you mean by being successful by outer standards. Man has created outer standards of success to deceive himself. You can have money, you can have a name, you can have prestige, but if you are not, what does it matter? You can have the whole world but if you are not, what does it matter?

In fact, man tries to possess things because he does not possess himself. This is a strategy to hide the fact that he does not possess himself. This is a strategy to hide the fact that he does not possess himself; this is a way of explaining away the inner emptiness; this is a way to feel, 'Look, I have so many things, what else does one need?' When you are surrounded by too many things - what you call 'success by outer standards' - what exactly are you doing? You are trying to create a substitute of 'having' for an emptiness which you are feeling inside. Being is missing, and you are trying to replace it by having. And it cannot be replaced by any having.

This is the whole struggle of human mind. These are the two directions: having and being. In the West you have worked very hard to have more; in the East we have worked hard to be more.

Yes, sometimes it happens that even a beggar may have more being than a rich man, than a king.

Somebody who has nothing, may have himself; and in that very having there is peace, there is bliss, there is benediction.

So the first thing I would like to tell you is that there are no outer standards of success. They are efforts to cover up your inner emptiness, efforts to deceive yourself and to make you feel that you have not failed. There is only one success, absolutely only one - that is to be. Through that, one attains to ecstasy; through that, one attains to the ultimate.

So it is good that I and people like me have destroyed your illusion. Once that illusion goes you will be in a deep crisis. That is what is happening to you.

The questioner's name is Walter Hoffman - that's what is happening to you, Hoffman. Now you will have to take a very decisive step, a radical step. You will have to learn the ways of inner success.

Now the outer will never appeal to you. Yes, I and people like me are to blame. The outer will never appeal to you any more. So don't go on making efforts in the outer. Direct your energy towards the inner. Now only that can have any meaning.

Right now you are in a limbo. The outer is there but has no meaning; the inner seems to have meaning but is not there. This is the critical stage. But every seeker has to pass through it. I understand this pain, this anguish, and I have all sympathy for you. But although it looks like pain right now. once you have started contacting the inner, you will be surprised - it was not pain, it was a growth pain, it was a birth pain. And you will feel blessed that it happened because you will be reborn out of it.

You say: As A U. S. PSYCHIATRIST I AM WELL-TRAINED, EXPERIENCED, AND HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL BY OUTER STANDARDS.... Something important is to be understood. Each age creates its own myth to live by. The modern myth is the myth of the completely analysed person.

People are trying to be completely analysed in the hope that if they are completely analysed. there will be joy. It does not happen. Even the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, was not a joyous man. And if it did not happen to the founder, it is not going to happen to anybody.

You can go on analysing - it is infinite. The mind is very creative, it goes on creating. It is not a limited phenomenon - that one day you can come to the end of the mind by analysing it. You can go on analysing and something will still remain to be analysed. You can still go on and something will still remain to be analysed. It is a non-ending process.

The East has worked in a totally different way. The East says that the mind has not to be analysed, one has to drop out of the mind. The problem has not to be solved, the problem has to be dropped.

In solving, you will remain in it; in solving, you will create more and more problems. And this is happening. People who can afford analysis - it is a costly thing, millions cannot afford it - but those who can afford it go into it for years. They go on changing from one analyst to another analyst in the hope that if it has not happened with this one, it will happen with somebody else.

It is not going to happen. Through analysis mind can never come to a state in which you can become something beyond mind. By analysing, you will remain it. You may become a little more smooth in your life but you will be as neurotic as anybody else. Yes, there will be one difference - you will be more smooth in your neurosis, more adjusted, a little more understanding, but that does not make any radical change. The radical change comes from the understanding that through analysis there is no way. One has to jump out of the mind.

That's what meditation is. Meditation is just the contrary to analysis. Meditation means that, seeing that the mind is infinite, there is no need to bother about it - you can get out of it. You are not the mind - why go into it? You can slip out of it. The mind remains in its same place but you are out of it. And once you are out of it, you are the master of your mind. Then you can use it; then you will not be used by it.

This myth of the completely analysed person is a new dream. Man likes to dream, man likes to invent new ideas to hope for. Sometimes it is moksha, nirvana; sometimes it is money, power, prestige; sometimes it can become the completely analysed person.

I have many psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and other kinds of therapists here. The greatest number of any profession that has come to me is from therapy. There is a reason for it. Those who have been working in therapy have by and by become aware of one fact - that it keeps you moving in a circle. It does not lead you anywhere, it only pretends. It promises but it never delivers the goods.

It is just an infinite circle - one can go on and on and on. It keeps you hoping, waiting, but that's all. Once you have become aware of it then forget about analysis and try something totally different - that is meditation. Meditation does not mean that you have to think about the mind - you have to drop out of it. Meditation is an escape from the mind. meditation is creating a distance from the mind, meditation is a transcendence.

And once you are standing above the mind, away, aloof, a watcher on the hills, things are totally different. Then those problems are no longer relevant. When you are in them, they are relevant. It is just like having a dream, a nightmare, at night, and being really troubled by it. A lion is following you and you are running and running and the lion is coming closer and closer every moment. You can feel his breath on your back. It is terrible! And you start climbing a tree and the lion starts climbing it with you - because in a dream everything is possible. Your heart is in a turmoil, your whole body is perspiring. And when you reach the top of the tree the lion is also there with you. A scream comes out of you, and because of the scream you become awake. And suddenly you start laughing, although the body is still trembling and your breath is not rhythmic. and your body is perspiring; you can see the beads on your forehead. But now you start laughing. You laugh at the whole thing, the ridiculousness of it - it was just a dream.

What has happened? Just a moment ago you were in it. It was not a dream because you were in it, you were identified with it, you thought it was a reality. The idea that it was real was driving you crazy. Now that you are out of it, aloof, alert, you can see that it was just a dream. Mind is a dream - sometimes very sweet and sometimes very nightmarish. But it is a dream.

The effort that we have been making in the East down through the centuries, is not to solve the problems. For example, in your nightmare you try to solve the problem of what to do with this lion who is following you. That's what psychoanalysis is. Or you start trying to find out where it comes from, how it happened in the first place - 'Why is this lion following me? And from where is this fear coming? And why am I climbing the tree?' And you meet somebody who is very expert in analysing things, in explaining, in creating theories, in telling you how it happened in the first place. Maybe it is a birth trauma or maybe your parents have not treated you well. Or maybe this lion is nobody. Just look directly into its eyes - it is your wife or your husband and you are afraid of your wife or your husband.

But all these explanations take one thing for granted - that it is real. And that is the basic problem, not where the lion has come from or what the symbolic meaning of the lion is. That is not the real problem. The real problem is that the lion is real. Psychoanalysis does not help you to become aware that mind is an unreal thing - illusion, maya. In fact, it takes you more into the mud and the mire. It takes you deeper, to the roots. But an illusion cannot have any roots. You will always be getting to the roots but you will not arrive. An illusion cannot have any cause.

Now let me repeat it, because this will make the difference very clear. An illusion cannot have any cause, so you cannot search for the cause. You can go on and on, you can go into the unconscious of man.... Freud did that, and did it perfectly, but that didn't solve anything. Jung had to go deeper.

He had to find something like the collective unconscious. And you can go on. Then you can find the universal unconscious, and so on, so forth, layer upon layer. You can go on analysing - that maybe it is a birth trauma, that you became very much afraid when you came out of the birth canal from your mother's womb. But things don't end there because you were in your mother's womb for nine months. Those nine months cannot be simply dropped. In those nine months much happened to you. You have to go into analysing that.

And if you go deep enough you will have to enter into your previous life - that's what Hindu analysts have done. They say 'previous life', and then 'previous to previous', and go on and on backwards.

And you reach nowhere. Either way you come to a point where you see the whole futility of it.

To see the futility of the mind and to see that an illusion cannot have any cause and cannot be analysed, the only thing that can be done is to make yourself a little bit alert, aware. In that very awareness the dream disappears. It has no grip over you. And once the mind is not there gripping you, you are a totally new man. A new consciousness is born in you.

And Hoffman must be aware of the futility. He has been helping people, analysing - but it has not even helped himself. That analysing has not even helped himself. Maybe it makes things a little more clear, maybe it helps things to be a little more categorised, pigeon-holed - it is a kind of labelling - but nothing essential happens. And if something happens sometimes, it is not because of analysis. If something happens sometimes, it may have some other causes; it has to have some other causes.

A man may become very much fed-up with the whole thing called analysis. That very fed-upness with analysis, may create a new awareness in him. He may get bored. One day he may understand that enough is enough. Rushing from one psychotherapist to another psychotherapist, from one school to another school, a time comes when one thinks that now it is enough, one need not bother about it. It doesn't matter. In that indifference something is possible.

Or, something is possible through the magnetic personality of the therapist. My own understanding is that the therapist helps more than the therapy. If the therapist has a charisma - as Freud had, Jung had, Adler had - if the analyst has a charisma, a magnetic personality, a certain kind of presence, that helps, that is therapeutic. That is why it happens again and again that when the therapist is alive, it works; but when the therapist is gone, by and by it disappears. The therapy works no more.

Psychoanalysis died with Sigmund Freud. It was his charisma not analysis itself. Freud had a certain magnetism of personality, something that is very mysterious. One has it or one does not have it.

Whatsoever he was doing would look meaningful, because he put the meaning into it. When a man of charisma, magnetic energy, does anything, that thing seems to be very important. In another's hand it may become very ordinary, mediocre. that's what it became.

Jung helped people not by what he was saying, not by what he was analysing, but just by what he was.

But therapists are as yet unaware of the fact that it is the personal factor that helps - not the theories and the dogmas and the principles. It is something mysterious, the personal factor, that helps.

Have you watched it sometimes? You are ill and your doctor comes. And the moment he enters the room you start feeling good. He has not given you any medicine yet, he has not even diagnosed what kind of illness you have, he has not even touched you. He just enters. The moment you know your doctor has come, your physician is there, something that was a worry disappears. You need not worry. The tension is there no more. Now the doctor will take care. If the doctor has some personal aura in him, even while he is testing you, taking your blood pressure and your pulse, you have already started to be healed. Before he prescribes any medicine you are fifty per cent healed.

The medicine may not do much but the doctor has done much. It is your confidence in him, your trust in him, his personal aura, his certainty - 'Don't be afraid. Now I am here.'

Psychotherapy has not yet become fully alert of the phenomenon that it is not the therapy that helps but the personal factor. The person may not be aware himself that he is functioning as a healing force. If you understand me rightly, it is always God who heals. God is the only healer. If somebody is alive, flowing, then God flows through him. Psychotherapy has yet to understand this magic, this MANA, this energy.

In the East a person will simply go to his Master, touch the feet of the Master, and be healed. The Master is not doing any analysis, any therapy, nothing, the Master has no expertise about it - it is just the personal energy, the aroma that surrounds the Master, and the trust that the patient brings.

What psychoanalysis is doing in the East is nil because there are so few psychoanalysts in the East.

But people are more psychologically healthy, far more psychologically healthy, than the Western counterpart.

And much is going on to help people in the West, great energy is being put into helping people psychologically, but still they remain psychologically ill. Psychoanalysis has not yet come home; it has yet far to go. And when it really comes home it will be found that it is not the theory but the person that helps.

Now, Hoffman says: BUT NOW WHAT TO DO? I NO LONGER FEEL THAT I AM A DOCTOR OR THERAPIST OR ANALYST, ONLY A PERSON, AND PERHAPS A TEACHER. YOU AND OTHERS LIKE YOU ARE TO BLAME FOR THIS. If you are not feeling like a doctor, not feeling like a therapist, not feeling like an analyst, you are coming close to the point which I am talking about. You are becoming a person. A person means a presence. If you are feeling like a person you will be able to help many more people than you have ever helped before, but now be conscious of the phenomenon that everything else is secondary.

The most primary thing is the presence that the therapist brings to the patient. The patient has lost hope, the patient has fallen into a negative space, the patient is in despair, the patient cannot trust any more, the patient has become shrunken into himself, he has collapsed. The real therapist will bring his presence, his positivity, his aliveness, his streaming energy to the patient. He will come there like a fresh breeze, new sunrays. He will bring something of the divine to the patient, something of prayer and meditation. He will overwhelm the patient, he will surround him from everywhere, he will become a womb, a warm womb for the patient, and things will start happening. Miracles start happening.

And I am not saying that you should drop your expertise. Use it - but it is secondary. First have a person-to-person contact with the patient, first let him share something of your presence so that he starts hoping again, so that his negative space starts turning into a positive space. Let him feel your joy, let him feel your trust in life, let him feel you - that you are there. Let him see that life is not meaningless. Sing a song or dance around him but let this message be very loud and clear to him - that life has meaning. Let him see that it has meaning for you, why can't it have meaning for him?

And he will start coming out of his despair. You have reached him, you have taken his hand in your hand; you can pull him out of his confusion, you can pull him out of his anguish.

Once he is pulled out of his despair, healing forces start working. Healing forces are always around, God is always around. When you fall into a negative space you cannot connect with god and then you need a link - one who can connect with God.

So, Hoffman, perfectly good! Become a person. Forget therapy, forget analysis. Become a person.

And when I say 'forget therapy, forget analysis' I don't mean don't use them - but don't be identified with them. They will be there, your whole knowledge, your experience, will be there; but now let this experience and knowledge become secondary to your presence. It will help to a certain extent, it will be good.

In Zen they say that if you really want to become a painter then learn painting for years. Then for a few years forget all about painting. Throw away the brush and the canvas and the colour and do something else and become completely oblivious to the fact that you know anything about painting.

First learn, then unlearn - and then one day, suddenly, you will be painting. And your painting wi!l have innocence - the inno-cence of a child - and the expertise of one who knows. Both will be there. And when both are there, there is great art.

Remember, you may be very, very feelingful, you may be very poetic, but you may not know how to put it into colour, you may not know the technique. then your painting will be just worthless, amateur.

Or you can become a great technician, you can know everything about colour and the brush and form, you can have studied in an academy, you can be a great technician, but you don't have any feeling, you don't have any love, you don't have any poetry. Your heart has no song. Then you can paint - and your painting will be perfect technically - but it will be dead. The real artist has both qualities - the innocence of a child and technical expertise. But when he paints he forgets all technicalities. They are there, from the deep unconscious they are working, but he forgets all expertise. He becomes inno-cent. He paints like an amateur. He does not know anything he paints from the mind of not-knowing - so there is freshness, there is vision. And the expertise goes on functioning from the unconscious. It is there, it is in his blood, in his bones. There is no need to remember it, there is no need to be self-conscious about it. Then something of the unknown descends into the known.

And the same should be the principle for every kind of life you are going to live. Know it well technically and then forget the techniques. Then go into it very innocently. If you are feeling like a person, that is the best thing that can happen to a person.

... AND PERHAPS A TEACHER. Good. That word 'perhaps' is beautiful. If you were very certain about being a teacher I would have told you to drop that idea; it is dangerous. 'Perhaps' is good, hesitation is good. A good teacher is always 'perhaps'. He is not dogmatic, he is not rigid; he is liquid, he is flowing, he is spontaneous. He cannot destroy; he can only create. When you become very dogmatic and certain, you become destructive. You become a pedagogue, not a teacher.

So both things are good, Hoffman. Go inwards, become a person and perhaps a teacher.

You say: NOW I AM ONLY LISTENING TO THE INNER VOICE FOR DIRECTION. IS THERE ANY MORE I CAN DO? No, if you do anything you will disturb the whole thing. You simply wait. Simply wait, prayerfully, meditatively. Things are happening. The inner voice will start leading you. And when the inner voice starts leading you, don't be cunning, don't choose. Don't say, 'This I will choose and this I will not choose.' Then it will not be of any meaning. Then even if it does come from the inner voice, if you remain the chooser you decide from the ego. Now relax into the inner voice.

Let it take possession of you.

It will be difficult for you because you say you are 'experienced, well-trained and successful'. It will be difficult for you because one never knows where the inner voice is leading. The inner voice may say to you 'become a sannyasin' - that's what my feeling is. But then don't bring your experienced mind and successful past and your well-trained state into it. Don't interfere. If the inner voice says 'become a sannyasin', then become a sannyasin - there is nothing to do on your part. Just be possessed. The more you trust the inner voice, the more clear and loud it will become. And the more you trust and act accordingly, by and by you will see there is no need to think about anything.

God goes on giving you hints, but you don't listen. God goes on saying what has to be done, but he whispers - that's true. He does not shout. And we are so full of noise that that whisper is lost.

Listen to the inner voice, that is God's voice. And don't only listen, act on it. Move into commitment, into involvement.

When you start acting on the inner voice.... Sometimes it will be very risky, but take the risk - because only when there is risk is there life, only when there is risk is there growth. Live dangerously.

If the voice says 'do this' then do it and don't bother too much about consequences. Nothing else matters.

And sometimes your mind will tell you that this is too much - think about it. If you think, the inner voice will be lost. It is lost in thinking. Don't think. Act. And you will see that each act brings you closer and closer to the voice. And when you have acted many times and have seen that the voice always takes you to the right place, then there will be no doubt. And then thinking can be dropped.

It is a substitute. Because we have forgotten how to listen to God, we have to think.

The real man of awareness need not think. God goes on supplying him with all that is needed, whenever it is needed.

The second and third questions are connected:

Question 2:

And the third:

Question 3:

The second is from Big Prem and the third from Anand Samatha.

That is the meaning of a commune. A commune slowly, slowly grows a soul. And if the soul is missing, the commune is not a commune. then it is a crowd. A crowd has no soul. When a crowd has a soul, it is a commune. Then there is a centre where all meet.

I am your centre. You are here because of me. You are all here because of me; each of you is deeply involved with me. I am functioning as a centre to you all. Prem is involved with me, so is Samatha involved with me. And when you all are involved with me, naturally you become involved with all. Each becomes involved with all.

I am your space, your bridge, from where you move into each other. If you really love me, this is going to happen more and more. Before you have asked the question, it will be answered. Before you have asked the question, many will have asked it. You need only to wait a little.

And there will be moods - when the whole commune will pass through a phase and a cycle simultaneously. This is going to happen. The closer you come to me, the more it will be happening.

Yes, something is up. And Prem has felt it rightly.

You are disappearing as separate units.

This is the meaning of a church, really. This is the meaning of a church, a commune. We pool our consciousnesses into one space and then each affects each other. Then great energy is released.

Alone you cannot go very high. Alone, you are alone. Alone, you have all kinds of limitations. When you are one with many, infinite energy is available. And many things will start happening which cannot happen alone.

For example, a solo guitar player is one thing. An orchestra is totally different. Yes, it is beautiful, a solo guitarist is beautiful, but there is a kind of limitation. It cannot be very rich, because it will not have many dimensions to it. It is solo. The orchestra is far more rich. Many dimensions, many directions, meet in it. Many kinds of instruments and many artists pool their energy and a harmony arises. This is what a commune is - an orchestra.

You are pooling your energies with me. and, naturally, you will start feeling the same kind of rhythm, the same moods passing through the whole commune.

If you are alone it is difficult to keep awake. But if you are with a few people - laughing, talking, joking - you can keep awake the whole night very easily. It would have been difficult for each to remain alert the whole night, but together it is simple. The total energy is so much - laughing, joking, singing, talking - that it keeps you alert.

And this whole experiment is to bring a kind of Buddhahood into the world. This commune is not an ordinary commune. This is an experiment to provoke God. You may not be aware of what is going to happen. You may be aware of only your prob-lems. You may have come to me only to solve your problems. That is secondary. I am cooking something else.

I am trying to create a space where God can descend more and more. This commune will become a connection. The world has lost the connection. God is no more a reality. As far as this century is concerned, Neitzsche is right that God is dead. The connection is broken. God can only be through the connection. God will be there, we are here, but there is no bridge. So how do we know?

This commune is an experiment to create the bridge. Fall more and more in harmony. Pool your energies. And remember, a small stream cannot reach the ocean. It will be lost somewhere, it is so far away. It will be lost in some desertland, some wasteland. But if many small streams pool into one, they become a Ganges. Then it can reach the ocean. Even the Ganges cannot reach alone.

If you go to the source of the Ganges it is just drops dripping. In Gangotri, the source of Ganges, there is a marble cow mouth and the Ganges comes out of it. So small. How can you hope it will reach the ocean? But millions of tributaries, millions of small streams and rivers, pool their energies and the Ganges becomes a great river. then nothing can hold it. Then it reaches the ocean.

A commune is an effort to create a Ganges of consciousness. It is happening. And it will be happening more and more if you become more co-operative and more conscious of it. Don't create any conflict here. Don't be resistant about small things. Relax, co-operate. Even if you have to lose something, don't be afraid - because your losing will be a gaining in the end.

Don't bring your egos in, otherwise you destroy my work. Throw your egos away. Something far more valuable is happening here. And soon many will be coming, and you will become the precedent, you will become the pattern of what will happen to them. Soon many will be coming, in thousands.

Before they start coming you have to prepare the orchestra, otherwise there will be a great noise.

Have you watched it? If thirty persons are singing in rhythm, in harmony, and you join in, immediately you start falling into rhythm and harmony. But if they are just noisy, and there is no rhythm and no harmony and there is just chaos, you also become a chaos.

I am working slowly - slowly I am adding more people to your commune. Soon there will be thousands. I want to create a small city, sooner or later, where people will be living totally egolessly.

And the more people there will be, the greater is the possibility for happenings, for miracles - because God will be more available. The sky will come more close to you.

Remember it always - whenever your small ego comes in as a conflict. When a small river comes to meet the Ganges, naturally the ego will come in. The ego will say, 'What are you doing? You will be lost. You will no longer be yourself. You will lose your identity. If you move with the Ganges you will be called Ganges - your name will be lost.'

That's what sannyas is. The moment you take sannyas you are part of me; you are lost. You will be known by me, you will not be known by yourself. That is courage. By taking sannyas you are simply merging into a totally different kind of existence because you are merging into me. Sannyas is your death, and a rebirth - death as an ego, and rebirth as a consciousness.

But if the small river thinks, 'I am not ready to lose myself in the Ganges,' then the river will be lost in a desert. And that will be suicide. With the Ganges it is not suicide. With the Ganges, the river becomes the Ganges. It is only a question of how you look at it. If you look poSitively, the river becomes bigger. It is no longer small, no longer confined to its own small banks. Now the Ganges is what she is, now the Ganges' being is her being. That is another way of looking at it. And that should be the attitude.

When you join me as a sannyasin, you are dropping yourself, disappearing. When you join the commune then you have to utterly efface yourself. If a little bit is hanging there, then you will be a trouble to yourself and to the commune too. And you will not be benefitted by me.

This is happening, and this is going to happen more and more. Be prepared for it.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

Precisely! It happened because of such a logical, rational mind. The rational mind cannot go beyond suicide and madness. That is the ultimate that has to happen. If some logical person is not mad it simply means that he is not logical enough. If some logical person has not committed suicide yet, it simply means that he is mediocre. He has not touched the pinnacle of logicality. If you reach to the pinnacle of logicality, life loses all meaning - because logic cannot give any meaning. Logic takes away all meaning. Logic is destructive, poisonous.

It is love that gives meaning to life, it is love that blooms and flowers, it is love that sings and dances, it is love that becomes celebration. A logical mind by and by loses all possibility of loving - because love is so illogical it cannot exist with logic. They prohibit each other, they exclude each other. If you love, you become illogical; if you are very logical, you become unloving. and without love, what is there to live by, to live with, to live for? What is there?

Ayn Rand was a very egoistic, rationalistic, realistic woman. Her philosophy is that of absolute selfishness. If you are absolutely selfish, how can you be loving? It is impossible. Her philosophy is absolutely realistic, materialistic. When there is only matter, what is there to bloom into? There is no soul. All search disappears. Life is flat and dull. There is no mystery. With the soul enter mystery and life. With mystery there is joy, because there is a possibility to enquire, to explore, to expand.

There is a possibility that something may happen, can happen.

Man is more than he knows. You are more than you know. Not only that, you are more than you can ever know, because your intrinsic reality remains mysterious, always remains unknown, unknowable.

You can go on knowing more and more and more but that does not reduce your mystery. That's what we mean by soul - utterly mysterious.

For Ayn Rand there was no mystery. When there is no mystery, how can there be life? Then what is there to live for? Suicide seems to be the logical conclusion. And if you don't commit suicide, then madness is the conclusion. Those seem to be the two alternatives. Either go mad - mad means go illogical, drop your rational mind - or commit suicide, drop this useless life.

Jean Paul Sartre has said: 'Man is a useless passion.' Now my feeling is that Sartre is not very, very logical, otherwise he would have committed suicide. If man is a useless passion, if there is no meaning in it, if life is meaninglessness, then why go on living? Why think of tomorrow - that you would like to exist tomorrow? That is very irrational. If nothing is going to happen, if nothing has ever happened, if nothing happens in the very reality, then why go on living? Why go on eating and why go on sleeping and getting up again and again? It is nauseating.

Another book of Sartre's is NAUSEA. But it seems it is still philosophical, he has not taken it existentially - otherwise suicide would be the logical conclusion to the philosophy. Beware. These possibilities are in you too. If you become too logical, madness or suicide or both will be the conclusion.

That's why I teach you love not logic, feeling not reasoning, heart not mind. Then life has such beauty, such beatitude, such joy, that one cannot contain it. It is so much, it is so over-flowing, so overwhelming.

You ask me: AYN RAND, THE ORIGINATOR OF OBJECTIVISM PHILOSOPHY, WENT MAD AND COMMITTED SUICIDE. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO SUCH A RARE LOGICAL MIND? The question is from Sudheer Saraswati. I say 'Precisely. '

The fifth question:

Question 5:

Keep breathing!

The sixth question:

Question 6:

Get lost!

And the seventh question:

Question 7:

Make sure that her husband is not at home.

So you like one-liners! But God has not heard about it!

I have heard....

God called together his writers, 'Gentlemen, I have a big show coming up next week on Mount Sinai and I need some material.'

'How about: "Thou shalt not steal"?' one of them volunteered.

'Thou shalt not kill,' suggested another.

'Thou shalt not.... '

'Wait!' thundered the Lord. 'How many times have I told you I can't use one-liners!'

But people like them! Sometimes just a single word, unexplained, unelaborated, goes deep, falls like a seed in the heart, can open doors.

The eighth question:

Question 8:

The question is from Chaman Bharti.

I do not do miracles, but they happen. The happening is a totally different phenomenon. They are happening every day. I am not doing them, you are not doing them, they are happening. We are creating a space where it becomes possible for them to happen.

The real miracles are never done, they happen. And those which are done are not miracles, they are just magic tricks. When the doer is there, how can there be a miracle? A miracle means something out of God, something from the beyond, something that nobody has done but has suddenly concretised out of nothing.

Christians have a very wrong notion when they say, 'Jesus did this, Jesus did that.' Jesus never did anything, not a single miracle. Miracles happen, that is true. Miracles always happen. The whole life is so miraculous! If you have a little alertness you will see miracles and miracles all around. A bud opening into a flower - you don't call it a miracle because you have become so accustomed to it. A seed sprouting, coming out of the earth - you don't call it a miracle. What more can a miracle do? A dewdrop just slipping down a grass leaf, with the sun reflected in it - just a dewdrop. It looks so precious; the whole existence is reflected in it. A star in the night, a small baby smiling, a woman crying with eyes full of tears - all is miraculous because all is mysterious.

You are dull, dead, insensitive, so you go on missing it. Otherwise it is all over the place. And there is no need to do. One has just to be receptive.

The ninth question:

Question 9:

The questioner is Swami Prabhu Anuragi. The name means: lover of God - hence the question.

He says: I LIKE MY NAME BUT I LIKE WOMEN TOO. But who has told you that God is against women, or that God is not in women? In fact, God is far more in women than in men. Men. have gone further astray than women have; women are still closer to nature, closer to feeling, closer to God.

When you love a woman, what do you really love in her? It will be different with different people and it will be different at different times. If love really grows, this is the way: first you fall in love with the woman because her body is beautiful. That is the first available beauty - her face, her eyes, her proportion, her elegance, her dancing, pulsating energy. Her body is beautiful. That is the first approach. You fall in love.

Then after a few days you start going deeper into the woman. You start loving her heart. Now a far more beautiful revelation is coming to you. The body becomes secondary; the heart becomes primary. A new vision has arisen, a new peak. If you go on loving the woman, sooner or later you will find there are peaks beyond peaks, depths beyond depths. Then you start loving the soul of the woman. Then it is not only her heart - now that has become secondary. Now it is the very person, the very presence, the very radiance, the aliveness, that unknown phenomenon of her being - that she is. The body is very far away, the heart has also gone away - now the being is.

And then one day this particular woman's being becomes far away. Now you start loving womanhood in her, the femininity, the feminineness, that receptivity. Now she is not a particular woman at all, she simply reflects womanhood, a particular form of womanhood. Now it is no longer individual, it is becoming more and more universal. And one day that womanhood has also disappeared - you love the humanity in her. Now she is not just a representative of woman, she is also a representative of man as much. The sky is becoming bigger and bigger. Then one day it is not humanity, but existence. That she exists, that's all that you want - that she exists. You are coming very close to God.

Then the last point comes - all formulations and all forms disappear and there is God. You have found God through your woman, through your man. Each love is an echo of God's love.

So no need to be worried, Prabhu Anuragi. I have given you the name lover of God, but that does not mean you have to destroy your love for women, that does not mean you have to destroy your love for anything. It simply means you have to deepen it, you have to go on deepening it. Dig more and more, dig deeper, and one day you will find your beloved has disappeared and God is standing there - because God is hiding in every being, in every form. He is dwelling in every house. Your woman is a house, is a temple; so is your man.

I am for love. Even when you fall in love with the body, I am not against it. It is the farthest from God, but still it is related to God. It is a very faraway echo but still it is an echo - the original is still there somewhere. Never let your love stop anywhere.

The tenth question:

Question 10:

There is no need to stop or drop judging people; you have to understand why you judge and how you judge.

You can judge only the behaviour because only the behaviour is available. You cannot judge the person because the person is hiding behind, the person is a mystery. You can judge the act but you cannot judge the being.

And the act is irrelevant. It will not be right to judge a being through the act. Sometimes it happens that a man is smiling. The act is there on the surface and deep inside he may be sad. In fact, he may be smiling because he is sad. He does not want to show his sadness to anybody - why bring one's wounds to everybody? Why? That seems embarrassing. Maybe he is smiling just because he is crying deep down.

Nietzsche has said, 'I go on smiling. People think I am a very jolly person and that is absolutely wrong. I go on laughing because I am afraid that if I don't laugh, I may start crying. So I have to convert my energy somewhere otherwise it will become tears. Before it becomes tears it has to become laughter.' The insight is perfectly true. Nietzsche is one of the most perceptive men ever born on the earth. Tears and smiles are very close.

In Indian villages women say to their children, 'Don't laugh too much otherwise you will start crying.'

And that happens. If a child laughs too much he starts crying. Tears and smiles are very close. If you want to hide your tears the best way is to smile - that's why people are smiling. Just by seeing a smiling face you cannot judge what is happening inside. The inside is not available to you. The inside is private; it is not available to anybody.

So the first thing to understand is that you can look only at the behaviour and the behaviour does not mean much. All that is really significant is the person behind. And you don't know. Your judgements are going to be wrong. And you know it - because when people judge you by your acts, you always feel that they have judged you wrongly. You don't judge yourself by your acts, you judge yourself by your being. So everybody feels that all judgements are unjust. You feel that judgements are unjust because to you your being is available - and the being is such a big phenomenon and the act is so tiny and small. It does not define anything. It may be just a momentary thing.

You said something to somebody and he became angry, but don't judge him by his anger because it may be just a momentary flash. He may be a very loving person. If you judge him by his anger you misjudge him. And then your behaviour will depend on your judgement. And you will always wait for the man to be angry and you will always think that he is an angry man. You will avoid the person. You have missed an opportunity. Never judge anybody by their action - but that is the only thing available to you. So what to do? Judge ye not.

By and by become more and more aware of the privacy of being. Every being inside his own soul is so private there is no way to penetrate it. Even when you love, something at the deepest core remains private. That is man's dignity. That is the meaning when we say man has a soul. Soul means that which can never become public. Something of it will always remain deep, lost in some mystery.

I have heard....

Two men were called to a home and asked to haul some trash to a garbage heap. After they had loaded the truck the back of the truck was overflowing with all the trash.

One man said, 'You may get into trouble with the police if we drive through town and the trash blows onto the street.'

The other man said, 'Don't worry, I have an idea. You drive and I will spread my body over the trash and that will keep it from blowing about.'

On the way to the garbage heap they passed under a bridge. As they drove under it, two men standing on top of the bridge happened to look down and saw the man lying on top of the garbage, arms and legs spread wide.

One of the men said, 'Will you look at that! Someone is throwing away perfectly good men!'

From the outside that's what we can judge. From the outside it is always wrong.

Seeing it again and again, understanding it again and again, penetrating it again and again, you will not need to drop judgements, they drop of their own accord.

Just watch. Whenever you judge, you are doing something foolish. It does not apply to the person at all, it can apply only to the act. And that act too is taken out of context because you don't know his whole life. It is as if you tear a page from a novel and you read it and you judge the novel by it. It is not right; it is out of context. The whole novel may be a totally different thing. You may have taken a negative part, an ugly part.

But you don't know anybody's life in its totality. A man has lived for forty years before you come to meet him. Those forty years of context are there. The man is going to live forty years more when you have left him. Those forty years of context are going to be there. And you saw the man, just a single instance of him, and you judged him. That is not right. That is just stupid. It will not have any relevance to the man himself.

Your judgement will show something more about you than about the man. 'Judge ye not so that ye may not be judged' - that's what Jesus says. Your judgement shows something about you, nothing about the person you have judged - because his history remains unavailable to you, his being remains unavailable to you. All contexts are lost, there is just a momentary flash - and your interpretation will be your interpretation. It will show something about you.

Seeing this, judging disappears.

The last question:

Question 11:

Not all. How can all words be useless? Words are useful as far as the world is concerned, the outer; words are useless as far as you are concerned, the inner. When you start moving inwards you have to drop words. They are not needed. They are an unnecessary load on you, a disturbance, a noise.

But when you go outwards and you meet people, you need language. When you are talking about things, you need language. Language is perfectly adequate for the world - otherwise there would be great difficulty. If you go to the market and you want to purchase something, you will be in difficulty without words. And it will be an unnecessary wastage of time. Words are tremendously useful instruments.

If you want to see it, one day go into the market and try to purchase things without words. Each small thing will take so much time and so much trouble, and each shopkeeper will try to avoid you - 'You please go somewhere else.' You will be such a nuisance.

In the world, words are perfectly useful. In the inner journey they are not useful because in the inner journey they are not needed at all. You are alone, so what are the words needed for? When you are with somebody, words are needed.

If you are working in some objective reality, some scientific work, words are useful. Thinking is needed. You have to be very precise and very exact. You are thinking with your logic. But if you are meditating, going towards God, words are not needed. Silence is the medium there.

So listening to me and hearing again and again that words are not needed, that words are useless, don't misunderstand me. Meditate over this small story....

A man went to his Local doctor and said, 'Doctor, I want to be castrated.'

'What?' said the doctor. 'That's a very drastic operation - are you sure?'

'Quite sure,' said the man.

'Are you married, or do you have a regular girl friend?' said the doctor.

'I'm married,' said the man, 'but what has that got to do with it?'

'Well,' said the doctor, 'it would be a good idea to discuss it with your wife - it will affect her too.'

'Yes, true, but only for a time.' said the patient.

'Nevertheless,' said the doctor, 'I think you should ask her about it tonight and if you still want to go ahead tomorrow, I'll book you into the hospital. It's very quick and you'll be in and out in one day.'

The next day the man returned, affirmed the situation and was booked in that morning. The operation was completed and he was lying in bed that afternoon, coming out of the anaesthetic.

Looking round with a smile, feeling good. he winked at the man in the next bed and said cheerily, 'Hello, and what are you in for?'

'Oh,' said the other, 'I've come in to be circumcised.'

The castrated patient clicked his fingers, whistled through his teeth and said, 'Shit, that's the word I was trying to think of!!!'

And the really, really last question:

Question 12:

This is significant. This is significant to you all. There is always a choice. If you are miserable, it is your choice. Never throw the responsibility onto anybody else. If you throw the responsibility onto somebody else, you will remain miserable. By throwing the responsibility onto somebody you are throwing away your freedom, you are throwing away your freedom to choose.

This has to be one of the most fundamental principles around here - that misery or happiness is your choice. Let it sink deep in you. You choose it. When you are unhappy you have chosen to be unhappy. There is no other excuse. Once you understand this you will be freed from the prison.

Then it is up to you.

I have heard about a great Sufi mystic who was always happy, always cheerful, always blissed out.

A disciple asked him, 'Master, you always look so happy. I have been watching you for many years, in many situations. Day in, day out, for years I have observed you. All kinds of situations have passed, must have passed, but you always remain happy. What is your secret?'

The Master said, 'There is no secret in it. Whatsoever situation confronts me, I always have the choice: to be happy or to be unhappy. And I always choose to be happy.'

Try it. This is a magic formula. In each situation, look before you become unhappy or happy - look.

Is there a possibility of being happy? And you will always find that the possibility is there. There is always something to be happy about. If you want to be unhappy then there is always something to be unhappy about.

The world is full of thorns and full of flowers. It is neither a rose-bed nor a thorn-bed - it is full of both. It depends on you. You can choose flowers and you can make a bed of flowers and sleep on the bed of roses. Or you can choose thorns and suffer. Hell is your creation, so is heaven.

Vani is an important case. Vani had been asking to come into the ashram again and again for two, three years, and I was postponing it. I told her, 'You are needed there.' She was a hostess, well-paid in the German airlines. But she persisted.

Why was I postponing? Why was I saying to her, 'You just wait a little more?' - because she was always so miserable and I don't want miserable people to be around here. One miserable person is enough to create much misery in others, because others are just coming out of their misery and when they see somebody, a great miserable person, they tend to fall back into their old habit. Then they start competing with the miserable person - 'What! Do you think you are ahead? I can beat you.'

So I put Vani off but she persisted - the German persistence - and finally she came. And, of course, she has remained miserable for these few months she has been here. She got more and more miserable.

But this is beautiful of her - that she has understood the fact. I have been telling her again and again in so many ways that it is her choice. She has come out of it. I hope she will remain out of it.

It will be difficult. Old habits die hard. One tends to slip back into them. They are very comfortable and cosy. One feels very good falling into the old habits. One knows them, one has known them so long. They are so familiar and so friendly. The new is so strange.

So, Vani, this is good. I was waiting for this to happen some day. It has happened. You say:

BELOVED OSHO, I HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER. MY HEART IS FILLED WITH JOY WHERE THERE WAS ALWAYS PAIN. I FEEL WITH GREAT SURPRISE THAT IT IS TRUE - I HAVE A CHOICE. I BOW IN GRATITUDE.

Continue to remember it. Don't forget it for a single moment. For just a few days you will have to remember it. Once it has become your climate then the old cannot win over it. The old was so ugly, the new is so beautiful. The new is so heavenly, the old was nightmarish and hellish. It cannot win over it. But the new needs a little time so that it can take root in your being.

I am happy, Vani. With all my blessings go deeper into your new space.