In Search of a Ghost

The first question

Question 1:

YES, DEVABHAKTA. I CAN SAY MORE about it because I have felt that same fear in you when you come close to me. You keep a certain distance. You are afraid. The fear is not suicidal - or is suicidal in a very different sense, in a spiritual sense.

You are not afraid of the ordinary death; you are afraid of what Zen people call 'the great death'. You are afraid of disappearing, you are afraid of melting. You are afraid of losing your hold upon yourself.

And everybody is afraid of that in one way or other.

That's why we live always in control. Control is not only imposed by the society; even if the society removes all control, people will continue to live in control, they will create their own control, their own discipline. Even if society decides to make everybody absolutely free, people will not be free, people will not accept freedom. They will create their own bondage, they will create their own imprisonments, they will create their own chains. They will become their own jailors.

Freedom is frightening, because freedom simply means you will not be there. It is not that you are going to be free: you are going to be free from yourself. You are the bondage - when the bondage disappears, you disappear.

And sometimes that fear can come to you when you are close to a window on a high building, or close to an abyss in the mountains. That feeling can take possession of you. That physical situation can become a triggering inside your psyche. It can give you the idea that it is possible to disappear.

And remember, there is both fear and there is attraction - it is always so. Whenever you are attracted by something, you are also afraid of it. That's why man is attracted towards women and IS afraid of women.

That's why I say your so-called saints who are still afraid of women are still in love with women.

Certainly they are - they are obsessed, because fear and love go together. They may have moved to the Himalayan caves; sitting in their caves they may not be thinking at all that they are in any way interested in women, but they are frightened. If the rumour comes that a beautiful woman is coming to the mountains to visit, something will stir inside them. Fear it will be! But fear shows attraction; fear shows that you are still involved.

The scriptures that say anything against women are scriptures written by people who were obsessed with women. They may have renounced but they have not changed; they are the same people. One day they were rushing towards women, another day they start rushing away from women, but it is the same game played in a different way. The woman remains their attraction, their fear.

And so is the case when you are attracted to a man.When a woman is attracted towards a man, there is fear. ALL love creates fear, immediately brings fear.

So these two things go together. You are attracted to the open windows, because there is great attraction in being free from this cage that has become your life. But this is the only life that you know of. Then there comes fear - who knows? is there another life or not? You may simply disappear as you are and you may not appear on another plane, in another existence - then what?

Making love to a woman or man, the same fear grips you. That's why orgasm is so impossible, so difficult. And don't think that only women find it difficult to have orgasm - it is exactly as difficult for men as it is for women. With man one simple thing helps him to pretend: his ejaculation helps him - he thinks he has attained the orgasm because he can see something visible happening. The woman has no visible ejaculation, so she is puzzled, worried whether she had the orgasm or not.

Ejaculation is not orgasm. Orgasm means you use the other's being as a window and you leap into the unknown; the other uses your window and leaps into the unknown... then there is orgasm.

When you disappear, orgasm happens. Orgasm is a state of IMMENSE expansion. It is expansion of consciousness, it is a state of unboundedness. You become one with the sky. You are no more tiny, you are no more in limitations.

YOU ARE NO MORE! Because as long as you are, there are limitations, boundaries, definitions.

When all definitions have been broken and you are simply there, indefinable, inexpressible, something of the grandeur of God has happened to you... for a moment you have melted and you have known and you have tasted.

The same happens to a disciple coming to a master - the fear. Hence, down the ages, so much has been talked about trust. What is trust? Trust means simply the courage to take the jump. It is risky, it is a gamble, because there can be no security. What security is there to be with mc? What security is there to surrender to me? I don't guarantee you anything! I can't say what is going to happen, because it can't be said. You have to move in darkness and you have to move in great trust - only then can you move.

You would like some objective proof of God. That's why people ask about proofs of God. You would like some objective proof of samadhi, of Buddhahood. You would like something tangible that you can touch and see and hold in your hands, and you can feel and you can judge. Then trust will be easy - but then trust will not be needed.

You don't trust in the sun, you don't trust in the moon they are simply there. Nobody asks any proof for the sun or for the moon. They are simply there, they are facts. Trust is not needed. That's why in science trust is not needed, because science searches for the facts.

In religion trust is needed because trust makes you available towards the ultimate and makes truth available to you. Trust is the door, a window to truth. But courage will be needed.

Devabhakta, that fear, that attraction to the windows, that you were pulled also, was showing one thing: that from your very childhood you have been in a search. Maybe the search has been carried down the ages through other lives - that's my feeling about you. You have been groping and searching; you have been continuously searching . Hence the fear and the attraction. Attraction because the search is there, and fear because who knows? - if you go too close to the window, in a sudden mad moment you may be so much thrilled, you may be so much possessed by the idea, you may take the jump. Then what? So it is better not to go very close.

And that I have been watching in you when you came to me.

Even in Germany you were not wearing orange and the mala - that too is part of that fear. You don't want to get too much involved with me; you want to keep a safe distance. When you come here you allow a little bit of closeness, but when you go away you start avoiding me. And I have been trying to contact you, but you were not available. I can contact you only if you remain involved with me. I wanted to help you, but you were disconnected.

So if somebody is trying to cheat me, he is really cheating himself. I go on trying to contact my people, and I can contact only those who are REALLY with me - in thick and thin, in joy and in misery, in ecstasy and agony, in life and death. I can contact only those people.

So now become a little more alert. Much is possible. I am also a window. There is no need to be afraid - fear is natural, still there is no need to be afraid . In spite of the fear, come close to me. One kind of suicide will happen: the ego will commit suicide. That's what sannyas is all about.

Attraction is there, so you have become a sannyasin; and fear is there, so you are trying to avoid still. Hesitantly, you take one step towards Me and one step away from me. This hesitation can destroy this opportunity. Jumping from a high building from a window is not going to help. But now the window is available for which you have been hankering, and you can jump, and you can die and be reborn.

The second question

Question 2:

SO YOU HAVE STARTED LISTENING TO ME. Shivananda, that's the way to listen to me - through tears. That's the way to listen to me - through love, through the heart. Pulsate with me. Let my words be drowned into your tears. You will not be at a loss, because what I am saying is not important. Far more important is some other energy that goes surrounding those words that reach you.

Don't pay too much attention to the words. If your heart is open, the energy will be released into the heart. My words are just carriers, they are containers. The content is utterly different. The content is diametrically opposite. The container is the word, but the content is a wordless silence. It is my love.

The word is just a capsule. The capsule is not the medicine; the medicine is inside it. Forget about the capsule. Drink me - and the best way to drink is to be with tears, because then you participate, then you come very very close.

Those tears are indicative that your heart starts pulsating with me, that there are moments when you start breathing just in tune with me - then suddenly those tears will arise. Those tears are symbolic.

They are like flowers. Rejoice!

The third question

Question 3:

THEY ARE NOT RELIGIOUS OR RELIGION in the ordinary sense of the term. They are far more...

they are far deeper and higher. The so-called society has no vision; it consists of blind people. It has always been happening.

When Buddha appeared, they didn't believe that his teachings were religious. When Jesus appeared, they crucified him. When Mansoor declared, "I am God," they killed him. Mohammedans thought Mansoor was one of the greatest irreligious persons who has ever been on the earth - to declare oneself God? This is KUFR; this is irreligion, this is anti-religion.

Whenever it happens that something of the pure truth is expressed, is sung, the society starts becoming uneasy about it. It is natural, because the society has a very pseudo kind of religion - comfortable, convenient, consolatory. It has false temples to worship in, false gods to worship, false priests to follow. And it is very convenient because they don't disturb your life. You can remain a Christian. In fact, it never disturbs your life - on the contrary, it helps your life. The so-called society, the so-called society's rules, moralities - you fit better if you are a Christian. But to follow Christ is dangerous.

No Christian ever follows Christ - cannot follow. In fact, being a Christian is a way of avoiding Christ. To be a Buddhist is a way of avoiding Buddha. If you really love Buddha, then you would like to become a Buddha, you would like to become a Buddhist. Why should one want to become a Christian? Either be Christ or forget all about it! But Christ is dangerous. He was not killed by immoral people, bad people; he was killed by good people, respectable people. Remember it always.

Buddha was not attacked by the criminals. He was attacked by those who you can never think of as criminals - good people, moral people, puritans. Why does it happen? Jesus is killed by rabbis, religious people, scholars, priests - in every way good. Their lives are completely clean, people who have character. And he was loved by people who have no character - a Magdalen.

Just a few days ago, a young woman came from Switzerland; her name is Magdalena. I didn't change her name - she took sannyas. I love that name, Magdalena. A prostitute followed Jesus, and rabbis killed him! Thieves and drunkards and gamblers followed Jesus, and rabbis killed him.

All the so-called saints were against him and the so-called sinners were for him - what kind of world is this? What paradox? Why has it been happening always? There is a certain reason in it.

Whenever a new religion, a new dispensation arrives on the earth, whenever a new glimpse of God arrives on the earth, whenever a new window or door opens to God, it is accepted first by those who are not very respectable. Why? Because they have nothing to lose; they can accept. They can even accept truth - they have nothing to lose. What did Magdalen have to lose?

But the chief rabbi had much to lose. He had an investment in the old religion, the rotten religion, which was dead and had been dead for long, was stinking; it was just a corpse - but he had an investment in it. He was the chief priest of it! If he follows Jesus he will not be the chief priest any more, and all the prerogatives that one has by being the chief priest will be lost. He has the most beautiful house, he has the best salary. He was the most respected person - why should he follow this vagabond, Jesus? It would have been just a loss for him.

Magdalen could follow Jesus. She had nothing to lose but to gain. A gambler, a drunkard, have nothing to lose but to gain. ALL great religions start with rebellious people. All great religions start with young people, because old people have investments. Their whole life they have been praying, worshipping, now suddenly they can't stop it. If they stop that means that their whole life has been wrong. To accept that goes against the grain, against the ego. So only a few rarely courageous old people can follow a Jesus, a Buddha - those who are so courageous that they can see the point and they can say, "Okay, so it was wrong and I drop it. My whole life was wrong and I start anew." To start anew in old age is very difficult, very difficult, because ahead there is only death, no time left - and you are starting something new? Great trust is needed - great trust in life, great trust in God, and adventurousness.

All great religions start with adventurous people, young people, the downtrodden, oppressed, criminals, sinners. And all religions die when they become respectable and saints arrive and churches evolve - they die.

A new flower is opening up here. All the so-called religious people will be against it - they are against. They have to be against. All their investments, all their privileges, all their consolations - how can they risk so much? They will cling, they will fight with me - they are fighting with me.

They are creating ALL kinds of troubles for me. You may not be aware because I never talk about it, because what is the point? I never say anything about it - you may not be at all aware of what kinds of troubles continuously go on being created.

For one year continuously I have been trying to find a place to move to, but they go on creating troubles - some legal troubles, some other troubles. And the politicians are with them, and the priests are there and all the respectable people are with them. And they have power; they can create a thousand and one troubles. They don't want the commune to be established because they are very much afraid: once the commune is there and the work really starts - because this is just an introduction - when the real work starts, then all those who are courageous anywhere in the world are going to come. Thousands and thousands of people are going to come and BE transformed. I just need a right situation, a Buddhafield. So they are creating in every way, every kind of trouble.

And the more my work spreads, the more troubles will be coming, because the more they will become apprehensive, afraid.

You ask me: WHY ARE YOUR TEACHINGS NOT ACCEPTED AS RELIGION OR RELIGIOUS?

How can they be accepted as religion and religious? It is pure religion - that's why it cannot be accepted as religious. I am not Hindu, otherwise they would have been very happy. They would have loved you all if I had been Hindu. They would have said, "Look! Our religion is so great - so many people from all over the world, from all the races, are being converted to Hinduism." They would have worshipped you. They would have invited you to stay in their houses. They would have bragged about it in their papers, magazines, books, radio stations, TV. They would have bragged, "Look! See the beauty and the grandeur of Hinduism - so many people are being converted to Hinduism!" But I am not a Hindu.

They have to repress everything that is happening here; it should not reach to anybody. Nobody should hear about it, what is happening here. Or if somebody hears, then some wrong information has to be given, in such a way that nobody becomes attracted to come here.

I am not a Mohammedan, I am not a Jain, I am not a Christian, I am not a Buddhist, so naturally all those people are against me. They are all joined at least in one thing: they are all against me.

About that they have no differences. The Hindu and Mohammedan, the Christian and the Jain, they are all together about one thing, at least about one thing they agree, at least I have given them one thing to agree about: that this man is wrong.

What I am saying is rebellion. It is going to destroy their very foundation. Hence, they cannot accept it as religion. They will deny, they will fight. They will try to crush this opening bud. They will be against you. You will have to face a thousand and one difficulties. That's the risk you take by being with me, and that is the challenge too. And that challenge is going to become a blessing to you.

Those who will be able to accept the challenge and be with me, and those who will be so much in love with me that they can suffer for me, they will grow. They will grow to infinite heights. They will know something which is not ordinarily known by human beings. It is not available in the churches, it is not available in the temples. It becomes available only when a master lives and when a disciple allow s himself to be so open to the master that the master starts living in the disciple too, when this transfer of energy happens....

They think they know what religion is; they have certain definitions. I don't fit in any of their definitions. Naturally. how can they call it religion?

And just see, then it will be clear to you: Christianity cannot believe that Buddhism is a religion, because they have a definition and Buddhism does not fit in it. How can there be a religion without God? So Christians cannot call Buddhism a religion. At the most, they can accept it as a morality, but not as a religion. HOW can there be a religion without God? And ask the Buddhist, "Is Christianity a religion?" and he says, "No - how can a religion be there when people are so stupid that they believe in God? They have not known anything. How can a religious person BELIEVE in God?" Buddhism has its definition. To believe in God means a deluded person, a person in hallucination, a person who is pathological, who needs psychiatric treatment.

Ask the Jains and they will not agree that Christianity is a religion or Buddhism is a religion. And ask the Mohammedans... nobody will agree that the other religion is a religion. What is the problem?

They have a certain definition, a fixed idea. If something fits with that idea, it is religion; if it doesn't fit, it is not religion.

So whenever a new insight arises... and new insights continuously arise. They have to arise because old insights slowly slowly become so much rusty, so much dusty, become covered with so many interpretations, jargon, that they lose aliveness. New insights have to go on coming. When a new insight comes, certainly it will not fit with any definition available - then it cannot be called religion.

EACH new religion has to create itself and its definition. Remember it. When my orange people have spread all over the world, and we have millions of orange people, then it will be a religion because we will have created our definition of what religion is.

Definition comes later on. First the religion has to come; first the religion has to penetrate people's hearts, then slowly slowly definition arises. Definition is not there ready-made beforehand. Each Buddha has to create his religion, the definition, the following, the field, and it always has to be started from ABC, from scratch. No old temple can be used for it - the new temple has to be raised.

And not only that, but the old temple has to be erased, destroyed, because only when the old temple is no more a temple in people's eyes do they start searching again, do they start groping for the new again.

So it is very natural that my approach will not be thought of as religion, as religious. It depends on you: if you start living what I am saying, you will be creating the definition. It depends on you. It solely depends on you! What I am saying, if you become one with it and you start living it in its totality, sooner or later the definition will follow. But who cares about it? Live what I am saying! Don't be worried what people think about it.

The fourth question

Question 4:

IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN SO. It will always be so. When Jesus said, "I and my father are one," do you think people thought he was a very humble man? When Jesus said, "I am the truth, the way, the door," do you think the rabbis came rushing and fell at his feet and said, "Such a humble man! Never seen before." They said, "This man is arrogant. This man is egoistic."

And logically, they look right - this looks like arrogance! When Krishna said to Arjuna, "SARVA DHARMA PARITYAJYA MAMEKAM SHARANAM VRAJA - leave all the religions aside and come and fall unto my feet," do you think people thought this a humble statement? "Leave all religions aside and fall unto my feet!" This is pure arrogance.

And you will be surprised. It is said that the first words of Gautam the Buddha were... the legend has it that when Buddha was born he exclaimed, "Above the heavens and below the heavens, I alone am the honoured one - I alone am the honoured one." When he was born, just a child, the first assertion - not that he became Buddha, then he declared this. The legend is beautiful! The first-day child, the first moment's assertion, expression, he declared to the world, "Above the heavens and below the heavens, I alone am the honoured one."

What do you think about it? That it is sheer arrogance?

Truth is truth. It is neither arrogant nor humble. It has to be declared as it is. It can appear humble to you if you understand; it will appear arrogant to you if you don't understand. And if you don't understand, then there is no need to go to such statements which apparently look arrogant. People who don't understand or don't want to understand can find arrogance anywhere.

Once it happened, I read these words of Lao Tzu to a professor: "When the superior man hears of the Tao, he practises it; when the ordinary man hears of the Tao, he ignores it; when the inferior man hears of the Tao, he laughs at it. If it were not laughed at it would not be the true Tao."

And do you know what the professor said? He said, "How arrogant of Lao TZU - who does he think he is to know? He thinks himself the superior man? the sage? that he knows? How arrogant of him to claim that he knows Tao! So Lao Tzu thinks," he said, "he is one of the superior who really understands the Tao, while lesser people ignore or laugh at it? How arrogant!"

Now it is not very apparent. You could not have thought this way, but it can be interpreted this way.

Just to see the resistance of the professor, I quoted Jesus to him.Jesus said: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

And what did he say? He said, "These words are also arrogant. Who does this guy, Jesus, think he is, taking such a superior, condescending, arrogant, forgiving attitude?"

Now, it is not apparent, but it can be found. If you search, you can say this man is arrogant - who does he think he IS? "Father, forgive them...." Who are you to forgive?

That's exactly what Friedrich Nietzsche used to say against Jesus, "He was the most arrogant man.

He is saying to God: Forgive these foolish people because they know not what they do - they are all foolish, forgive them! He is insulting them. He does not even allow them the dignity of knowing what they are doing; he does not think them human beings. He is treating them as if they are worms - forgive them - this holier-than-thou attitude."

Friedrich Nietzsche used to say that Jesus has said that when somebody hits one of your cheeks, give him the other. And Nietzsche said this is very very inhuman, because that makes you look very superior. Looked at from Nietzsche's viewpoint, when somebody hits your face and you give him the other check, this is inhuman. The human way is: Hit him back! At least give him that much respect that "You are also a human being, as much as I am; we are equals." Giving him the other check means you have reduced the man to a worm. This is really insulting. This way it can be interpreted.

My statements are neither arrogant nor humble, because they can't be arrogant and they can't be humble. Ordinarily you think humbleness is opposite to arrogance. It is not. Humbleness and arrogance are both the same. They are like hot and cold - degrees of the same energy.

The humble person has as much ego as the arrogant person. The arrogant person claims the ego, the humble person denies the ego - but the ego is there. The arrogant person says, "I am special,"

and the humble person says, "I am nobody, sir - just the dust underneath your feet." One is claiming, the other IS ALSO claiming in a different way.

When you really see your nature, ego disappears, and with ego disappear arrogance and humbleness - BOTH disappear. Jesus is neither humble nor arrogant. Buddha is neither humble nor arrogant. They simply state the fact. Now, it depends on you how you interpret it.

You say:

WHY DO YOUR STATEMENTS SEEM TO ME TO BE ARROGANT?

There must be something in you that is creating the trouble, something in you that is resisting, fighting. Look deep inside yourself. And once you have seen what is creating this idea in you, you will be free of it. Then things will be very simple.

Just similarly, another question is there:

Question 5:

To call a spade a spade is not to attack it. I have not attacked any Sivananda; I have simply said whatever is the case. But you must have some attachment with Sivananda. Your attachment is feeling hurt. It has nothing to do with Sivananda! Something inside you is feeling hurt. Look into your own wound.

And you say: HOW DO YOU KNOW HIS METHOD DOES NOT WORK - because no method ever works. It is not a question of HIS method - even my methods... no method ever works! And because he believed that methods work, that's why I say he was a stupid person.

Methods we use, because there are people just like you who need methods, who cannot go easily, simply into reality, who can only go the hard way. If you tell them to sit silently, they can't understand it. They say, "Then, just by sitting silently? Is something going to happen just by sitting silently?"

They cannot sit silently - and all happens only when you sit silently.

This is the ultimate truth. But you cannot let it grow. You say, "I cannot just sit and let the grass grow - I have to pull the grass upwards!" So I say, "Okay, then follow Sivananda, then do something. Then jump, do Kundalini. Or if that does not feel enough, then do Dynamic, Chaotic. Or if you have some other karmas to suffer, then go to Encounter."

These methods are used here just because of your stupidities. Their whole function is to make you so tired of doing that one day you come to me and say, "Osho, can't I sit silently?" That's all. I go on sending you into groups and meditations and tortures and go on waiting... some day you will come crying and weeping and crawling and you will say, "Enough is enough! Can't I sit silently?" And I will say, "I have been waiting for this moment.

SITTING SILENTLY, DOING NOTHING, THE SPRING COMES AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF; No method ever helps. How can a method help? A method can help to create something unnatural.

Nature has not to be created - it is already there. It has to be lived, enjoyed, danced, sung. It is already there! You need not do anything. The grass is already growing. The spring has come! But you cannot sit silently. You have so much restlessness - that restlessness needs methods.

I give you methods, not because through methods you will become enlightened, but through methods you will come to know how stupid you are - and that is great enlightenment!

I have heard about a politician: He went to a master, a Sufi master, and asked, "You had told me to meditate, to pray, this and that, and I do, but no revelation ever happens."

The master looked at him and said, "Go outside and stand in the street tor ten minutes." It was raining hard.

The politician said, "Stand in the street when it is raining so much?

The master said, "Just go and a revelation is going to come."

And the politician thought, "When the revelation is going to come then it is worth trying. Ten minutes just standing in the falling rain is not such a big problem."

He stood there. He looked stupid, because people were passing and they thought, "What is our Prime Minister doing?" But be kept his eyes closed, and he looked again and again at his watch - ten minutes was a long time because a crowd gathered and people started laughing. They were puzzled, "What has happened to the Prime Minister?"

And then he rushed into the house and told the master, "Nothing happened! You deceived me."

The master said, "But just tell me how you felt?'

He said, "I felt like a very stupid person standing there, absolutely stupid!"

He said, "This is a great revelation! What do you think? In just ten minutes' time to come to know that you are a very stupid person - don't you think it a great revelation?"

This is what happens in meditations, in yoga, in therapy groups - slowly slowly this understanding penetrates your heart: "What am I doing? Shouting, screaming, fighting - what am I doing?" Just that very revelation and you can see the point, and then you can sit silently. And ALL that you need is already available.

That's why I said that his methods don't work - not that somebody else's methods work. No method ever works.

AND WHAT RIGHT HAVE YOU TO JUDGE HIM?

I have not judged him. I have simply said what he is! What judgement are you talking about? I have not condemned him. To call a spade a spade is not to condemn it. I am simply factual.

But the question is from Mark. He must be a new person here. He can't understand me; he has no participation with me yet. He must have felt offended. He may be following things like Sivananda's, something like that. His ego is hurt. Rather than saying, "My ego is hurt," he has changed the question. That is a camouflage; that is utterly meaningless. If something is going to happen between me and Sivananda, that is my business - don't you be worried. If you meet some time, then it is for us to decide whether I should have judged him or not, or why I called him stupid. He can ask me, but why should you be worried?

You must have something else inside; this is just a rationalization. You may be doing those kinds of methods. But ego is so subtle, it protects itself. You have made a question in such a way that you can hide - but you cannot hide from me. Mark, mark it! you cannot hide from me. And remember, I never miss the mark. You are going to be caught. Now you cannot escape, because if you have been doing these things, then how long will it take for you to realize, how long will it take for you to allow the revelation to happen? And I have made ALL kinds of methods available here, all kinds of nonsense that you can get anywhere in the world. Even people are coming from Californialand - HERE!

The sixth question

Question 6:

VADAN, A BRAINLESS ROBOT CANNOT SURRENDER. And those who find it very difficult to surrender are brainless robots. To surrender, great understanding is needed, great intelligence.

You will be surprised to know that the more stupid a person is, the less possibility of surrender.

Idiots can't surrender, although those who can't surrender think they are very intelligent and that's why they are not surrendering. But have you ever heard of any idiot surrendering? Imbeciles cannot surrender, retarded people cannot surrender.

The highest intelligence is needed to surrender - to see the point that "I have been running in circles.

If I go on depending on myself, I will go on running in the same circles again and again." The only possibility to get out of the wheel is to take somebody else's hand, somebody who is outside the vicious circle. To take that support is what surrender is.

Down the ages it has been thought that the intelligent person can't surrender, that it is the gullible who surrenders. That is not so. Modern research says something else: it is only the very very intelligent who can surrender. The gullible believes, but does not surrender. The intelligent surrenders, docs not believe. And the difference is great.

You can believe without surrendering; then the belief is just a lip-service. You say yes on the surface, and deep down you go on doing whatsoever you are doing.

To be surrendered means you have said yes from the circumference to the very core. You have become a yes from the center to the circumference. There is only one quality of consciousness:

yes. And immediately, in this yes, you come out of the ego - because ego exists on no, ego feeds on no. The more you say no, the more ego is strengthened. No is the food for the ego: yes is the food for egolessness.

It is a simple phenomenon! But only very very intelligent people can understand it.

Have you observed? Whenever you say no, you feel very clearly that you are. That's why people enjoy saying no. When there is no need, even then they will say no. The child asks the mother, "Can I go out to play?" and she says, "No!" Now there is no need to say no. And she knows perfectly well that the child is not going to listen either. And the child also knows perfectly well that if he creates some tantrum she is going to say yes, so he creates some tantrum. But the mother says no. She feels good by saying no. And then the child starts saying no to the mother, because that is how he creates HIS ego.

That's why parents and children are always in conflict. Teachers and students are always in conflict.

The universities are not just accidentally burning all over the world - the conflict is that the teacher says no and the student says no. Two no's fighting. Husbands and wives are fighting continuously - two no's fighting. And each HAS to say no. And ego feels very hurt. Watch: whenever you HAVE to say yes, it feels that you are defeated, the other is a winner. Then you try to find a situation where you can again say no and remain with your no and force the yes on the other.

This is how the ego exists. The day the child learns to say no is the beginning of the ego. Before that there was primal innocence. Before that the child was in trust; he had no idea of who he is. There was utter silence and peace and joy and celebration. The day he says no, something closes up; he becomes defensive, he creates an armour. And now he starts saying as many no's as possible.

If the parents say, "Don't smoke," he will smoke. If the parents say, "Don't do this," he will have to do it. The rebellion has started. He HAS to become an ego.

Surrender means: you have lived through the ego and you have seen the futility of it, you have seen the utter misery of it. You have lived through the ego and you know that you have not been able to live through it. It does not allow you to live, because it does not allow you any expansion. It makes you smaller and smaller and smaller; it encages you deeper and deeper. It puts you into a windowless state, all openings disappear. You start living in a kind of grave. To surrender means to see this! and then to find a person with whom it will be easier to say yes, a person who has had a glimpse of the real man and to whom love has happened, who has become love.

If you can find a man with whom you can say yes easily, you have found your master. This is the criterion for how one has to decide that one has come across a master: if you can say yes easily, simply, innocently. The presence of the man makes you feel to say yes. No becomes difficult - even if you want to say no out of old habit and structure, you hesitate, you find it hard to say. And yes comes easy, like a flood. And whenever you say yes, great joy arises; and whenever you say no, you feel great misery, as if you have harmed yourself.

Whenever you have found a person with whom this starts happening, you have found the master.

Then forget about the whole world, what they say about the master! You have found the master. He may not be the master for others, hut he is the master for you. Disappear into him.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING TOTALLY SURRENDERED AND BEING A BRAINLESS ROBOT?

A robot can never surrender, not even partially. Only an utterly intelligent person can surrender.

And, of course, in the beginning it is partial; slowly slowly, one gathers more and more courage.

The more one tastes the joys of it, the more one adventures, explores into it. And the man of utter intelligence surrenders totally.

In that surrender, the ego disappears. Not that in that surrender you become a slave to the master - there is nobody to make you a slave. In fact, because there was nobody to make you a slave, that's why you were feeling so beautiful in saying yes to the man. If there was somebody to make you a slave you would have naturally felt it impossible to say yes. His ego would have offended your ego.

There is a subtle interaction between egos.

If the man has helped you to surrender, that simply means that there was nobody to offend you.

There was pure love, there was nobody trying to possess you. You were not being cowed down. And once you have surrendered the ego, you will be surprised that there is nobody to take possession of you - the ego has disappeared. The master and the surrender was just a device. You have attained to primal innocence. Now you can move on your own.

When the master sees that you have surrendered totally, he makes you absolutely free. He says, "Now there is no need, now there is no question of surrender." Once surrendered, then there is no need for any surrender. The need for surrender is because of the ego - once the disease has disappeared, the medicine has to be thrown. The master takes it himself.

And then you are free of ego a1ld free of egolessness. That's what Ikkyu calls REAL emptiness:

you are empty of everything and empty of emptiness too. Ego has gone and egolessness has also gone. Now there is nobody... absolute nothingness. And the purity of it and the benediction of it are such that if you don't taste it in this life, you have wasted it again.

The seventh question

Question 7:

LET THE OTHER PARTY BOTHER. Why should you be worried? But my feeling is that you have not asked the question rightly. You must be worried about those who have to pay the rent to you - if they disappear.

It happened: A man came to a psychoanalyst and he was very much worried and going berserk.

The psychiatrist asked, "What is your problem really?"

He said, "I am worried. The worry is that I have to pay ten thousand dollars I owe to people. And there seems to be no way! And I am thinking to commit suicide, because this is becoming too heavy and I cannot live with this heaviness."

And the psychoanalyst said, "Don't you be worried. Just look at me: I had to pay one thousand dollars to a man. I simply dropped the idea of paying and all worry disappeared."

And the man said, "I know it - I know about it. You tell me something else."

The psychoanalyst asked, "How do you know it?"

He said, "I am the man to whom you were going to pay Why are you worried: IF I DISAPPEAR WHO WILL PAY THE RENT? Is rent so very important? Are you here only to pay the rent?

I have heard:

The Scotsman was visiting London for the day and called upon a lady of pleasure in Soho and, after he had partaken of her bodily delights, he gave her a hundred pounds.

"Why, that's incredibly generous of you!" exclaimed the surprised lady. "No man has ever given me so much. And yet, from your accent you sound Scottish, which makes it even more incredible for you to be generous. Which part of Scotland do you come from?"

"From Edinburgh," replied the Scotsman.

"How fantastic! My father works in Edinburgh."

"I know," said the Scotsman. "When your father heard was coming to London he gave me a hundred pounds to give to you."

Do you come from Scotland?! What part? Thinking of paying the rent? There is nobody to pay the rent, there is nobody to be paid - there is really no rent either, no house either. That's what Ikkyu says - all is dream.

Have you not heard this: A madman was asked, "What are the differences between psychoanalysts, psychologists and psychiatrists?"

The madman said, "Psychologists build castles in the air, psychoanalysts live in them, and psychiatrists collect the rent."

What are you talking about? Forget all about it! Disappear!

And remember, when you disappear as an ego, that docs not necessarily mean that you disappear from the world - the world continues. Kabir disappeared as an ego but continued to remain a weaver, continued to work, but now it is no longer serious, now it is just a dream. If others are enjoying, why disturb them? You can disappear and still pay the rent. Don't be worried about it - unless you don't want to pay the rent and only for that you want to disappear. That is another matter. Otherwise, what is the problem? You disappear and still pay the rent!

IF I DISAPPEAR, WHO WILL PAY THE RENT?

YESTERDAY YOU TALKED OF NATURAL AND UNNATURAL. MONEY, IT SEEMS, MUST COME INTO THE UNNATURAL CATEGORY. WITH THE EGO AND THE MIND, IT IS RELATIVELY EASY TO DEAL WITH IT. BUT IF WE ARE TO LIVE IN THE MARKETPLACE AND TO LIVE NATURALLY, WILL MONEY NOT BECOME PROBLEM?

Money is not a problem at all - unless you want to make it a problem. Down the ages, the so-called religious people have been very much worried about money. Such a foolish thing like money! and so much worried. Play with it! If you have it, enjoy; if you don't have it, enjoy. What else can you do when you don't have it? Enjoy! When you have it, what else can you do? Enjoy! Don't make unnecessary problems about it. Money is a toy. Sometimes you have it - play with it.

But my feeling is: people who can't play with money, they renounce money - they are very serious about it. Then they become very much afraid about money, because deep down clinging is there.

Do you know? The chief disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, can't look at money. If you bring a one rupee note - which is worthless, which has no money in it, not at all - he closes his eyes. Now what kind of attitude is this? And this is thought to be very saintly; it is praised all over the country, that he is so free of money. If you are really free of money, why do you close the eyes?

Is that one rupee note so attractive that you have to close your eyes? Is there some fear that if you don't close your eyes you may jump upon the man? Something must be there. This looks a little obsessive. There is great fear - otherwise why close your eyes? So many things are passing and you don't close your eyes - just poor money.

And money is nothing - just a device to exchange things. But people who are really misers deep down, clingers, because of their clinging, their miserliness, they are very much in despair, in misery.

Finally, one day, they think that it is money that is causing their misery. It is not money that is causing your misery. How can money cause your misery? It is miserliness that is causing your misery. Thinking that it is money that is causing misery, they renounce money, they escape from the world of money. Then they are continuously afraid; then in their dreams they must be entering into banks and opening treasures and things like that - and making love to money. That is bound to happen.

Money is not a problem! It can be used! If you have it, use it; if you don't have it, then use that freedom that comes when you don't have the money. This is my approach. If you are rich, enjoy; richness has a few things which no poor person can enjoy. I have been both rich and poor, and I tell you honestly, there are a few things only rich people can enjoy. Enjoy when you are rich. And I tell you again, I have been both rich and poor, and there are a few things which only poor people can enjoy. And there is no way to enjoy both together.

So, whenever, whatsoever is happening, enjoy it. A poor person has a kind of freedom. Poverty has a kind of cleanness, a relaxedness, contentedness. Mind is not very much worried; there is nothing to worry about. You can sleep perfectly well; insomnia is impossible for a poor man. So sleep well and snore, and enjoy the freedom that comes from poverty.

And sometimes when you find yourself rich, enjoy richness, because there are a few things only a rich person can enjoy. You can have the greatest paintings on your walls; a poor man cannot have that. You can have the best music in your house; the poor man cannot have that. You create a Zen garden around your house; the poor man cannot have that. You can read poetry, you can paint, you can play on the guitar, you can sing, you can dance, you can meditate - a thousand and one things that become available.

My approach is: whatsoever is the case, just see what you can make out of it. If it is poverty, become a Buddha, start wandering; take a begging-bowl - and enjoy that beauty that only a beggar can have. He belongs nowhere. Today he is here, tomorrow he is gone. He is a flow; he clings nowhere, he has no home. He need not worry that the rains are coming and the roof has to be fixed.

He need not worry that somebody may steal something from him - he has nothing.

Enjoy poverty when you are poor, and enjoy richness? then become a JANAKA, an emperor, and enjoy all the beauties that become available through money.

My approach is total. I don't teach you to choose. I simply say: whatsoever is the case, the intelligent person will make something beautiful out of it. The unintelligent person suffers. If he has money he suffers because money brings worries; he does not enjoy the music that money can bring, the dance that money can bring, the painting. If he has money, he does not go to the Himalayas for a rest, to meditate and to sing and to shout in the valleys and to talk with the stars. He worries, loses his sleep, loses his appetite - he chooses the wrong when he has money. And this man, if somehow he becomes poor, by God's grace if he becomes poor, then he suffers poverty. Then he is continuously worried that "I don't have this and I don't have that." You have POVERTY! Enjoy it!

But there are people who are wrong in every situation: wherever they are, they will always chose the negative part of it, and they will suffer. And there are people, and I call those people intelligent people, and I would like my people to be INTELLIGENT people... wherever you are, try to enjoy it.

In my childhood it happened: once my father was very angry, so he locked me into the bathroom. I meditated! - what is the point...? After three, four hours, he became worried. He was at the shop, but he was restless. He became worried about what had happened to me, and no message had come from the home - mother had not sent any message, no servant had come to say what had happened to me. Have I disappeared? or what? Or has somebody opened the bathroom? So he could not do his work there; he had to come.

He came close and he listened and there was silence. He knocked and I told him, "Don't disturb me." That was the last time he punished me that way. It is pointless! He said, "I became so worried I could not do my work in the shop - I had to come."

I said. "This is nonsense! - I enjoyed it."

In my school when I was small, second grade, my teacher was a very strict one and he used to punish by giving: "Go running seven times round the school, run!" And he gave me this punishment - go seven times - I said, "Why not seventeen?" He said, "Are you mad?" I said, "This is such a good exercise and every morning I would like to do it."

And I started doing it every morning. He would see me and he would beat his head - he would say this.... I destroyed his punishment by making it an exercise. I USED it! Then he stopped giving me punishment.

Why not use an opportunity, whatsoever it is? And if you are alert you can find opportunities everywhere - even if you are imprisoned you can use that as a great opportunity. And there are people who are under the sky, free, and not using that opportunity.

Money or no money, house or no house... the question is not what you should have: the question is what you should do, whatsoever you have.

See, my emphasis is totally different. You disappear... and then let things happen. If you feel good to be in the marketplace, then that is natural, because there are born shopkeepers. Don't think that there are only born poets - that is wrong;. There are born shopkeepers too. Whatso-ever you make of them, they will become shopkeepers; wherever they are they will open a shop. They cannot avoid it.

Have you not heard about the Jew?

A ship was moving and it was attacked by a crocodile - a great crocodile, a very great crocodile.

And they started throwing things in her mouth - chairs and things, tables and a bag of oranges, and finally the Jew. But again and again the crocodile came to attack. Finally they decided, "This is not going to help. We go on giving it things; just for a few moments the crocodile becomes engaged, and again it comes." So all together they attacked and cut open the belly of the crocodile - and what did they see? Do you know? The Jew was sitting on the chair, the table was in front of him, he had opened the bag of oranges and he was selling to other people who had been swallowed by the crocodile before.

You cannot escape... where will you go? There are born shopkeepers. So if you are a born shopkeeper, even when you have disappeared you will be in the marketplace. But then it will have a totally different quality to it - you will enjoy it. It is God's world! a beautiful dream. You will know those customers are dream customers, and the thing? that you are giving to them are just dream, and the money that you are collecting is just dream - but why not enjoy it? That enjoyment is not dream.

Let me remind you again: everything is dream, but if you can consciously enjoy it, that joy is not dream - that joy is the goal of all religions. And you can enjoy more if everything is a dream. Then there is nothing to be worried about. If success comes, good; if failure comes, good.

The last question

Question 8:

THIS WORLD is NOT ROTTEN. This world is full of God - or, in Buddha's words: full of nothingness, which is the same. If anything is rotten, it is your mind. And, yes, it is very difficult with a rotten mind to find love.

And never think in terms of spiritual and material love - love is simply love. It is neither material nor spiritual. How can love be material or spiritual? Love is simply love. Love means the joy of sharing your life with somebody. Yes, your body can be shared, your being can be shared - but sharing is love, not what.you share. Sharing is love. So all love is simply love.

But I can see the problem must be coming from your upbringing: I KNOW THAT I AM NOT MY BODY... who told you? You are more your body than your mind. You are more your body than your so-called self. That's what Ikkyu is saying: that self is a false entity, rotten. And the mind is just a phenomenon conditioned by the society. Your body is truer than your mind and than your self; your body belongs to existence.

But you must have been contaminated by the priests that you are not the body. They have created a dichotomy in everybody that "You are the soul, and how can a soul fall so much as to love a body?"

And you will not find ghosts around here - you will find people who live in their bodies, who are their bodies.

That's why you cannot find somebody to love and by loved by - you are in search of a ghost. And I don't think if you really come across a ghost that you will like it. But that's what you are hankering for. You have been told to condemn your body; and if you condemn your body and if you don't like your body, do you think somebody else is going to like it? If even you don't like it, who is going to like it? By liking your body, by loving your body, you create a situation in which somebody else can also love your body. But you create that milieu, that climate.

A man or a woman who hates his own body... and that's how you hate deep down, because from the very beginning you have been told to hate the body - body is something ugly, body is something unspiritual. You have been taught that the body is the enemy. The body is the temple of God. In this body lives that nothingness Buddha talks about; in this body lives that seed of enlightenment I go on talking about. This body contains your greatest joy, this body contains God. Don't condemn it, otherwise it will be impossible.

You say: I KNOW THAT I AM NOT MY BODY, BUT STILL I WANT TO LOVE AND BE LOVED.

That desire is natural! - to love and to be loved. That is part of human consciousness, an intrinsic part of it, built in. The society can contaminate your ideas about the body, but it cannot destroy your desire to be loved and to love. So that desire continues. But now it becomes impossible because that desire can be fulfilled only through the body. So you ARE in a fix.

Either drop the idea of love... which you cannot do, which nobody can do, because we are made of the stuff called love. It is impossible to drop it. Just let me remind you again: a single glimpse of the real man, and you are in love. Even at the ultimate stage, love explodes, love remains; you really become totally loving.

So you cannot drop that. That is your destiny; that has to be fulfilled. But if you condemn your body, it is very difficult. You want to go to the other shore and you condemn the bridge. You want to go to the other shore and you condemn the boat. Now, how are you going to manage it? The bridge can take you to the other shore. The bridge can take you beyond the bridge. The boat can take you beyond the boat, but only the boat can take you.

Love your body. Accept yourself as your body. Receive it with gratitude, it is a gift. Otherwise it will be impossible. And even if somebody falls in love with you - the question is from a woman - if somebody falls in love with you, you will not allow him to love you. If he wants to hold your hand, you will shrink back. You will think, "Here comes a hedonist, a materialist. He wants to hold my hand!

He should only hold my ghost hand, spiritual hand, not my real hand. This is just the rotten body."

And he wants to hug you and you will escape because this is that same rotten lust. You won't allow anybody to approach you.

And, naturally, when a person wants to have communion with you, he would like to hold your hand. It is not that he wants just to hold your hand - it is through the hand that something else is contacted.

It is not necessarily so that it will be contacted, but there is no other way to contact it either. When he holds your hand, he is holding something of you - and there is no way to hold it without holding your hand. If he hugs you, he is hugging your soul; but the body is the visible part of the soul. It is through the body that you communicate.

Even if silence has to be communicated, words have to be used. Words are the body of the silence; silence is the soul. Even I have to use words, Buddha has to use words.

Drop that conditioning. And drop the idea that this world is rotten, because if it is rotten then nothing is going to happen in it. You have already become prejudiced.

Meditate over this anecdote:

Cuthbert married a very refined virgin from an impeccable background, and took her away to Tunis for their honeymoon.

On the first night in their hotel, Cuthbert quickly stripped off all his clothes and jumped into bed and then watched while his wife slowly removed all her garments.

But Cuthbert was rather surprised when she clambered into bed completely naked except for her white gloves.

"Why don't you take your gloves off?" he asked.

"Because mummy said that I might actually have to touch the beastly thing," she replied.

Now, this type of mind is not going to know what love is. This type of mind is closed, absolutely closed. And this type of mind is there in everybody, more or less. Drop this mind.

All is good and all is divine - body is included. The whole body is included. Never make any distinction between body of the lower and the higher - there is nothing lower and nothing higher.

The whole body is one, it is a unity. Accept it, welcome it, and you will start blooming, and you will start radiating love. And that radiating love will attract others towards you.

You must not be attracting; you must have become very very repulsive. The idea that this world is rotten, that "I am not my body," that "I want some spiritual kind of love," are all wrong ideas. They will poison your whole life.

And I know there is a love that goes far beyond the ordinary forms, but that love is not against the ordinary forms - it is based, rooted, in the ordinary forms. The tree goes very high in the sky and starts whispering with the stars, but it remains rooted in the earth. The tree blooms into beautiful flowers, but it remains rooted into the earth, in the dark earth, with a thousand and one roots, invisible.

God is rooted in matter, the spirit is rooted in matter. Never be against matter. Once you create this dichotomy - matter and spirit - you are forever going to remain a schizophrenic.

Bridge yourself. Come together! Become one piece. And out of becoming one piece, peace arises, love flows, life becomes a fragrance.