Gladly Beyond any Experience

The first question

Question 1:

YES, CHINMAYA, CLARITY ALWAYS BRINGS A SENSE OF HUMOUR. One starts laughing, not at others but at oneself. At the whole ridiculousness of the ego games, at the whole stupidity of human mind. And when there is laughter, tears are not far away; they are aspects of one energy. They are not diametrically opposite, they are complementary.

Whenever there is deep laughter, there are bound to be tears following it. And whenever there are deep tears. Laughter will be coming soon. They go together, they are parts of one climate the climate of clarity, depth, insight.

You may be surprised to know that schizophrenics cannot laugh - and a person who cannot laugh has something of schizophrenia in him, is mentally ill. Schizophrenics start laughing only when they are getting out of their schizophrenia. It has been observed that the psychoanalyst can terminate the treatment once he sees the schizophrenic laughing. This is a fact of great importance.

So many so-called saints are really schizophrenic - they cannot laugh. And if you cannot laugh, how can you weep? how can you cry? Both become impossible. When laughter and crying are impossible, your heart is completely dosed. You don't have any emotions, you start living only in the head. Your whole reality consists of thoughts. Thoughts are dry - they cannot bring laughter, they cannot bring tears. Tears and laughter come from the heart. And clarity is not of the mind, clarity is of the heart. Confusion is of the min d.

So, Chinmaya, it has been a good experience. Your schizophrenia is disappearing; I can terminate the treatment. Laugh more, cry more, become a child again. Seriousness is your disease: drop seriousness.

And never be confused between seriousness and sincerity - seriousness is not sincerity. Sincerity need not be serious; sincerity can have laughter, can cry, can weep. Seriousness is a blocked stage of mind, a stage where you cannot flow. A state of unflow stagnancy. Serious people are ill people.

Religion has been destroyed by serious people. And there is one thing about the serious people that you have to be reminded of again and again: serious people are very articulate, because they live in the head. They are logic-choppers. They can express well. And because they have no heart, because they cannot feel, they are very authoritative. A man of feeling cannot be authoritative - how can compassion be authoritative?

And a man of feeling always hesitates; he cannot make dogmatic statements. The man of feeling whispers, per-suades. The man of feeling cannot convince; he comes indirectly, like a subtle breeze.

But the serious person, the person who lives in the head, the schizophrenic, he is articulate, verbal, logical, rational, loud, authoritative. And because of these qualities, he starts gathering a following.

All political leaders are schizophrenic. The crowd follows them because of their dogmatic statements; their dogmatic statements convince people. People are very vague, un-certain, insecure - they need somebody to make them feel secure. He may be a fool, he may be just like an Adolf Hitler....

It is a great puzzle to those who ponder over human problems how Adolf Hitler - a mediocre person, of below-average IQ - could convince a country like Germany, an intellectual country, an intelligent country, a country of professors, philosophers, thinkers. How was it possible that this idiotic person, Adolf Hitler, could convince people? And such an intelligent race!

To me, it is not a problem at all. I can see through and through how it happened. Adolf Hitler was dogmatic. Whatsoever he said, he said it absolutely. Only a foolish person can be dogmatic.

Lao Tzu hesitates. Lao Tzu says: I walk as one walks in cold winter in a cold stream. Everybody is certain except me. I am uncertain, I hesitate. I cannot claim knowledge, because all is so mysterious.

Now, Lao Tzu is not going to convince people. If you hesitate, nobody is going to follow you. People ARE in deep confusion. People need somebody to shout loudly in their ears - so loudly that they are convinced: "This man must be true, this man must be in the know about things. How can he shout so loudly? how can he argue so loudly? Only truth can be so loud." They are mistaken.

And these dogmatic people go on repeating. Adolf Hitler continued to repeat the same theme.

Slowly slowly, when all untruth is repeated again and again it starts appearing like a truth. And people need somebody to lean to. They are uncertain, they need somebody who is absolutely certain.

Politics is dominated by schizophrenics. Religion is also dominated by schizophrenics. Because these people are very very articulate, convincing, they lead masses, religions are founded, churches are founded, organizations are made.

Jesus could not manage to lead many people - do you know? It has been estimated that he had a following not bigger than five hundred. And when he was crucified, thousands gathered to jeer at him. He had only twelve close disciples, only twelve - a man of the qualities of Jesus! What happened? Was he not convincing?

He was not convincing the way people need. He was saying things in a mysterious way - in parables, in metaphors, in poetry. He was not logical, he was utterly illogical. He was vague. He was hinting, pointing, but he was not assertive.

Christianity was not born with Christ, it was born with Saint Paul - who must have been a schizophrenic, certainly. First he was against Christ - his name was Saul - and he was so against that he wanted to destroy all the Christians and all the followers. He was moving towards the country where Jesus' followers were slowly slowly gathering, slowly slowly becoming courageous, slowly slowly starting to teach people, spreading the message - he was going there to argue, to discuss, to defeat.

And on the road something happened. He was possessed by the spirit of Christ - that's how the story goes. He fell down on the road, dust in his mouth. He could not believe it! He saw Jesus.

He asked forgiveness, he became converted - from Saul he became Paul. And this man was the founder of Christianity.

Now, what actually happened in psychological terms? This man must have had a split personality, he must have been a schizophrenic. Nobody appeared - no Christ appeared. But he was so much against Christ - that was one part of his mind which was against - and he was completely unaware of another part. When he went deep into that part which was against Christ, the pendulum swung from one extreme to another extreme. That's how it always happens.

He was going to persecute Christians - that small number of people who were talking of Jesus and remembering old things and the man and the beauty of that man. And the suffering that he went through for them, and the message that he had given to them - slowly slowly the word was spreading. And this man was going to persecute these people. And he was able to argue well.

Jesus' followers would not have been able to convince him; he would have convinced them. They were simple people, innocent people - farmers and fisherman and carpenters - not very educated either.

But when you go to one extreme, then the pendulum swings of its own accord. It swung, it moved to the other extreme. The other part of his being took possession of him. That's what actually happened. He had a dream, a vision - there was no Christ, but he saw him. And he was convinced and he was converted. And this schizophrenic created the whole Christianity. He was going to persecute Christians: he converted the whole world to Christianity. He created the church.

It has always been so. Whenever a religion is born, sooner or later schizophrenics will catch hold of it. They are great leaders; they convince people. Their impact is great, their slogans convert people.

They are loud, logical; they collect proofs, they argue.

Because of these people, no religion remains pure for long. The really religious persons are those who are not articulate, who are innocent. Who are simple, meditative, loving - they cannot convince anybody. They simply live the religion. But they cannot create great religions; great religious empires they cannot create.

It is good that humour is arising in Chinmaya. Allow it, don't crush it. Help it to come, let it surface.

Humour will join your split parts, humour will glue your fragments into one whole. Have you not observed it? When you have a hearty laugh, suddenly all fragments disappear and you become one. When you laugh, your soul and your body are one - they laugh together. When you think, your body and soul are separate. When you cry, your body and soul are one; they function in harmony.

Remember always: all those things are good, for the good, which make you one whole. Laughter, crying, dancing, singing - all that makes you one piece, in which you function as one harmony, not separate. Thinking can go on in the head, and the body can go on doing a thousand and one things; you can go on eating, and the mind can go on thinking. This is split. You walk on the road: the body is walking and you are thinking. Not thinking of the road, not thinking of the trees that surround it, not thinking of the sun, not thinking of the people who are passing, but thinking of other things, of other worlds.

But laugh, and if the laugh is really deep, if it is not just a pseudo-laugh, just on the lips, suddenly you feel your body and your soul are functioning together. It is not only in the body, it goes deepest into your core. It arises from your very being and spreads towards the circumference. You are one in laughter.

Or in crying, or in dancing, or in singing! Whatsoever makes you feel ONE IS good, is meditative, is prayerful.

The second question

Question 2:

THE PURPOSE OF THE THERAPY GROUPS is not to bring the participants to their natural self - not at all. The purpose of the therapy groups is to bring you to the point where you can see your unnaturalness. Nobody can bring you to your natural self; there can be no method, no technique, no device, which can bring you to your natural self - because all that you will do will make you more and more unnatural.

Then what is the purpose of a therapy group? It simply makes you aware of the unnatural patterns that you have evolved in your being. It simply helps you to see the unnaturalness of your life, that's all. Seeing it, it starts dispersing. To see it is to annihilate it, because once you have seen something as unnatural in your being, you cannot persist in it any longer. And seeing something as unnatural, you have also felt what IS natural - but that is indirect, that is vague, that is not clear. What is clear is this, that you have seen that something is unnatural in you. Seeing the unnatural you can feel the natural. Seeing the unnatural, you cannot support it any more. It existed because of your support - nothing can exist without your support. Your co-operation is needed.

If you co-operate something exists. Certainly the unnatural cannot exist without your co-operation.

From where will it get the energy? The natural can exist without your co-operation, but the unnatural cannot exist. The unnatural needs constant support, it needs constant care, it needs constant control. Once you have seen that this is unnatural, your grip on it becomes loose. Your fist opens of its own accord.

The group is not a device to open your fist. It is just to help you see that what you are doing is unnatural. In that very seeing, the transformation.

You ask: IS THE PURPOSE OF THE THERAPY GROUPS TO BRING THE PARTICIPANTS TO THEIR NATURAL SELF?

No, that is not the purpose. The purpose is simply to make you aware of where you are, what you have done to your-self - what harm you have been doing continuously and you are still doing.

What wounds you are creating in your being. On each of the wounds is your signature - that is the purpose of the group, to make you alert about your signature. That it is signed by you, that nobody else has been doing it. That all the chains that you have around yourself are created by you. That the prison you live in is your own work. Nobody is doing it to you.

Seeing it, that "I am creating my own prison," how long can you go on creating it? If you want to live in the prison, that's another matter - but nobody ever wants to live in the prison. People live because they think, "Others are creating the prisons, what can we do?" They always gO on throwing the responsibility on somebody else. Down the ages, they have found new and different devices, but the purpose remains the same: throw the responsibility on somebody else.

And you will be surprised at what excuses man has been trying to find. In the ancient days, man used to think, "This is the way God has made us, so the responsibility is God's - what can we do?

We are just creatures, and we are the way he has made us. We have to live this misery. This is destined."

That was a trick. You are relieving yourself of all res-ponsibility. But it happens that when a trick has worked for long it becomes a cliche. It works no more; people are fed up with it. They start searching for new ideas, but the purpose remains the same.

Marx says it is the society, the economic structure of the society - the exploitation, the exploiters, the imperialists, the capitalists, they are doing the harm, they are the reason. Again you are relieved of the responsibility. So what can you do? The slavery is imposed upon you, you have been MADE miserable. Unless the revolution Comes nothing is going to happen. So you can postpone.

And the revolution never comes; it has not happened yet. Not in Russia, not in China - nowhere.

The revolution never comes; it is just a postponement. Man is as miserable in Russia as he is anywhere else, as much in the mire of the mind as anywhere else. Jealousy is as much in Russia as anywhere else. Anger is as much, violence is as much.

nothing has changed.

Freud says it is because of the upbringing. In your childhood you have been brought up wrongly - what can you do? It has already happened; now there is no way of undoing it. At the most, you can accept it and live it. Or you can go on fighting unnecessarily - but there is no hope.

Freud is one of the greatest pessimists ever. He says there is no hope for man, because in childhood the pattern is settled - settled for ever. Then you go on repeating the pattern. Again the responsibility is thrown. So your mother is responsible. And the mother thinks what can SHE do? - her own mother is responsible... and so on and so forth.

These are all devices, but the purpose is the same - different devices for the same purpose. What is the purpose? To take responsibility off your shoulders.

The group therapy is to make you aware that neither God is responsible nor is society responsible nor are parent? responsible. If there is anybody who is responsible it is you? A group process is a hammering of this simple fact - that it is you who are responsible. And this hammering has a great significance. Because once you understand that "This is ME, I myself am doing wrong to myself,"

then the doors open. Then there is hope. Then something is possible.

Revolution is possible through responsibility, individual responsibility. You can transmute; you can drop those old patterns. They are not your destiny. But if you accept them as your destiny they become your destiny. It is all a question of whether to support them or not.

And I am not saying that parents have not done something to you, remember. And I am not saying that the society has not done anything to you - I am not saying that either. The society has done much, the parents have done much, the education and the priest, they have done much. But, still, the ultimate key is in your hands. You can DROP it, you can drop the whole conditioning.

Whatsoever they have done, you can erase it - because your consciousness at the deepest core always remains free. That is the purpose of a therapy group, to bring this truth home: that you are responsible. 'Responsibility' is the MOST important word in a group-therapy process. Nobody wants to take the responsibility, because it hurts. Just to see the point, "I am the cause of my misery," hurts very much. If somebody else is the cause, one can accept it, one is helpless. But if I am the cause of my misery, it hurts. It goes against the ego, it goes against the pride.

That's why group therapy is a difficult process, hard. You want to escape - from encounter, from tao, from primal therapy, you want to escape. Why do you want to escape? Because you have always believed that you are perfectly right, you are perfectly good - others have been doing harm to you.

Now the whole thing has to be changed; you have to put everything upside-down. Nobody is doing any harm to you. And if they are doing any harm, it is through your co-operation. So finally you are responsible, you have chosen it. You say, "My husband is doing harm to me" - but you have chosen THIS husband, in fact, only so that he can do harm to you. You wanted to be harmed and that's why you have chosen THIS husband, THIS wife.

Just watch people who go on changing their wives. You will be surprised - again and again they find the same type of woman. It is a difficult thing to find the same type of woman, but they find. And within six months they are complaining again. And the complaints are exactly the same.

I have heard about one man who married eight times, and again and again he managed to find the same type of woman. Just see the point: the point is that he has a certain kind of mind, a certain conditioning. In that conditioning, only a certain type of woman appeals to him. A blonde or a brunette - a certain kind of woman appeals to him. The long nose, the black eyes, or something.

Always he is attracted by a certain kind of woman. And then that woman starts doing the same things. And then he is puzzled - and he was thinking he was changing the woman.

You ARE changing the woman, but you have not changed your mind! So your choice remains the old, because the chooser is the old. It is not going to help; you will be in the same trap. The colour of the trap may change, the fiber of the trap may change, but the trap is there and you will be trapped again and again. And the same misery will arise.

Group therapy is a great process of understanding "What I have been doing to myself!" And if you go still deeper... where no group therapy has yet gone, not even primal therapy. But Buddha has gone deeper. He says: If you have chosen a certain kind of parent, that too is your choice.

See the point. Millions of foolish people were making love when you were hovering to take birth.

But still you have chosen a certain couple - why? You must have a certain idea; it is your choice.

And then you say, "My parents have done harm to me." In the first place, why did you choose them?

Then your wife, your husband... and you think they have done harm? Then the society - who has created this society? You have created this society. It does not come out of the blue.

The beggar on the road has not appeared suddenly from the blue. WE have created him. If you want to become rich, somebody has to become a beggar. And seeing the beggar you feel very sorry. Whom are you trying to deceive ? And you still carry the idea of becoming rich. If you want to become rich, somebody is going to become a beggar. If you want to become somebody, then somebody will not be able to reach that fame, name. It is a competitive world. You don't want wars, but you are violent - in everything you are violent. And you condemn wars.

And have you seen the pacifists and their processions How violent they look! Their slogans against war, their shouts against war - and sooner or later the procession turn into a riot. And they are burning cars and destroying offices and burning buses and trains and attacking the police - and they had gone to protest against war!

Now what is happening? These people are violent people; war is just an excuse. Their protest is nothing but their expression of violence. They are not concerned about war, they are using it as a pretext.

This society is created by you. And then you say that society is responsible.

NOBODY IS RESPONSIBLE EXCEPT YOU. This is one of the hardest truths to accept. But once you accept it, it brings great freedom, it creates great space. Because with this, another possibility immediately opens up: "If I am responsible then I can change. If I am not responsible, how can I change? If I am doing it to myself, then it hurts but it also brings a new possibility - that I can stop hurting myself, I can stop being miserable."

A group process is not to make you natural; it is to make you aware of your unnaturalness, of your phoniness.

IS THE PURPOSE OF THE THERAPY GROUPS TO BRING THE PARTICIPANTS TO THEIR NATURAL SELF?

No, not at all. The purpose is just to make them aware of the unnatural self. And then the natural self comes of its own accord. Nobody can bring it - when the unnatural disappears, the natural is found.

The natural has always been there, hidden under the rubbish. Unnatural gone, you are natural. You don't become natural; you have always been natural. How can one become natural? All becoming will lead you into unnaturalness.

IF SO, ISN'T THE EFFORT TO BE NATURAL UNNATURAL?

Yes, the EFFORT to be natural is always unnatural. But to understand the unnaturalness is not the effort to be natural, it is simple understanding. Seeing that you have been trying to squeeze oil out of sand, when you have seen the futility of it you drop the whole project. Seeing that you have been trying to pass through a wall and hurting your head, seeing it, you stop passing through the wall.

You start looking for the door.

Yes, exactly like that.

IF NOT, WHAT IS THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NATURAL AND UNNATURAL?

Natural is that which you have been given as a gift - a gift from the whole. Unnatural is that which you have created - by teachings, scriptures, character, morality. The unnatural is that which you have imposed upon the natural, the given. The natural is from God, the unnatural is from yourself. Take away all that you have imposed upon yourself, and God will burst forth into a thousand bloomings in your being.

Somebody asks Jesus, "What is your fundamental message?" And he says, "Ask the fowl and the fish and the flower."

What does he mean "Ask the fowl and the fish and the flower?" He is saying: Ask nature!

My message is: Allow nature to take possession of you; don't try to create any character. All characters are wrong. Be characterless. Don't create any sort of personality; all personalities are false. Don't be a personality.

Then, slowly slowly, you will see something arising from the deepest core of your being. That is nature. Its fragrance is great. It is good; it is never bad. And it is not cultivated, not at all. Hence it has no tensions in it, no anxiety; you need not maintain it.

Truth need not be maintained. Only untruths have to be managed, maintained, need much care and maintenance. And still they are untrue and they never become truth. And only truth liberates.

The therapy available here is not to make you natural. Nobody can make you natural - God has already done that. The problem is not to learn how to be natural: the problem is how to unlearn the unnatural.

The third question

Question 3:

VIDYA, ONE CAN BE TOTAL ONLY WHEN ONE IS NOT. Only emptiness can be total. If you are, you can't be total. Your very presence will be a disturbance in your totality, your very presence will continue interfering with your totality.

That's why Buddha says: Become a nothingness. Just look deep into yourself and Let the cloud of the ego disperse. Let there be empty sky... in that empty sky there is no division. Clouds divide.

When there are no clouds, the sky is undivided, one. Thoughts divide. When there are no thoughts in you, there is totality. And remember, even the thought of totality will be a divisive factor.

Now you ask: HOW TO BE TOTAL.

This is an idea. Listening to me, again and again seeing the grandeur of totality, a greed arises in you: HOW TO BE total? But you have missed the whole point. How can you ask such a question?

Totality is not something that you have to be. If you do something, you will remain partial. Doing can never be total, only non-doing can be total. When you are a non-doer, when there is nobody doing anything, there is totality.

Totality is absence of all doings, all thinkings, all that divides. Totality is silence, utter stillness.

Don't ask: How to be total?Just ask: How to see why I am not total?

Remember, that's why Buddha's path is known as VIA negativa, via the negation. It does not talk about positive things, it simply talks about the negative.

Don't ask how to be natural. Just ask how not to be un-natural. Don't ask how to be total. Just ask how not to be untotal, non-total. Just seeing is the question. Sometimes you ARE total - just see in those moments what happens.

Making love, sometimes it happens, you are total. That totality is called the orgasm. Mind stops for a moment. The frenzy of love, the madness of two energies meeting, merging - the mind is surpassed, transcended. The mind is pushed aside; the mind is no more needed in that space. All thoughts disappear, time StopS, and suddenly you are total.

That's why people are so much in love with love - in spite of all the saints. They don't bother about the saints. People go on loving - they pay lip-service to the saints but they go on living and loving; they don't follow them. They know that they have only one moment of ecstasy, and that is love.

If you have gone to Khajuraho you must have seen the ecstatic expression on the faces of MAITHUNA figures - lovers in deep ecstasy. Even the stone has become ecstatic. Those stone statues, that sculpture, has great poetry, has great softness. Those creators must have been of immense experience; to turn stone into loving ecstasy is great art. I have seen many things, but nothing compared to Khajuraho. Khajuraho remains the greatest wonder on the earth: transforming stone into ecstasy. The faces show something of the transcendental; time HAS stopped. There are no thoughts in the heads; all division has disappeared.

These moments are holy moments, because they come from the whole.

You ask me: HOW TO BE TOTAL?

Just look in some moments when you ARE total, just to see the taste of totality. Listening to music sometimes it happens. Or watching a sunset. Or listening to me. If you are deep in love with me, it happens; it happens again and again every day. I can see on your faces the same expression as is there on Khajuraho statues. You disappear; something stops deep down in you. There is no movement, everything is utterly quiet - and you are total.

I give you th e taste of totality every day. And Vidya, you ask me: HOW TO BE TOTAL? Just allow these moments more and more; don't miss a single opportunity. Looking at the trees, look so deeply that you disappear in the look. Listening to the birds, forget yourself completely. And so on and so forth....

Every moment there is a possibility to be total. Whatsoever you are doing, be absorbed in it so utterly that the mind thinks nothing, is just there, is just a presence. And more and more totality will be coming. And the taste of totality will make you more and more capable of being total.

And try to see when you are not total. Those are the moments which have to be dropped slowly slowly. When you are not total, whenever you are in the head - thinking, brooding, calculating, cunning, clever - you are not total. Slowly slowly, slip out of those moments. It is just an old habit; habits die hard. But they die certainly - if one persists, they die.

I have heard about a man whose wife died. And he was sitting late, very late, in the pub. And somebody asked, "Why do you go on sitting late still? Because you used to tell me that it is because of the wife that you sit in the pub so long. But now the wife is dead!"

The man suddenly stood up. He said, "Thank you! I had completely forgotten - just old habit!"

Just a few months before, it happened: the defence minister of India, Jagjivan Ram, spoke somewhere in the south. For one hour he criticized the Congress party and Indira Gandhi. He himself has been in the Congress his whole life; he was a defence minister in Indira's government too. Then he changed the party, became part of Janata party. For one hour he spoke against the Congress party, and in the end he asked the audience: "Please vote Congress."

Just old habit - must have been doing this for fifty years: "Vote Congress!"

Habits die hard. To be untotal is just a habit. And sometimes, in spite of you, totality happens.

So just watch those moments - when it happens, how it happens. Learn some secrets from those moments and move in those moments more and more. And see when it is not happening - get out of those moments, slip out. It is not a science, it is ; knack. It is a very very subtle art.

You ask: HOW TO BE TOTAL? HOW TO GIVE EVERYTHING?

It is not a question of giving everything. On the contrary, it is a question of recognizing the fact that you have nothing. This idea of HOW TO GIVE EVERYTHING? is again egoistic. What have you got to give? You are beggars - everybody is. You have nothing to give.

And you ask: HOW TO GIVE EVERYTHING?

The very idea of giving is meaningless. When you have something to give, it gives itself, it shares itself. When you are happy, happiness spreads. When you are blissful, it overflows. One never asks "How to give?" One simply GIVES! One cannot do otherwise. That state finds its own way of expression and sharing. When you have a song it sings itself - not that you have to ask "How to sing it?" It bursts forth in jubilation, in a great shout of joy. The shout may he wordless, may be meaningless, but that is not the point.

What is the meaning of 'hallelujah'? There is no meaning in it. It is not a word at all, it is just a shout of joy. You are saying that you have something which cannot be said. You are saying something which has never been said and cannot be said.

But when it is there it happens. When the clouds come and they are full of rain they don't ask, "How can I give everything?" They simply start giving - they start showering. When the flower opens it does not ask, "How can I share my fragrance?" In fact, what can the flower do? There is no question of doing. The fragrance is already on the way, on the wing. It has started moving!

When you have, sharing happens. When you don't have, only then do these questions arise: "How to give? How to share?"

Every evening, people come to ask me: "How to share?" And my problem is that I don't see anything that they are going to share! There is nothing. When you don't have anything, this question arises:

"How to share?" This question keeps you happy that you have something to share but you don't know how to share. This keeps you unaware of the fact that you don't have anything to share - because when you have, it happens spontaneously. You cannot resist it, it has to be given forth.

There is no way to avoid, it is inevitable.

So first thing, you ask: HOW TO BE TOTAL?

Not to be is to be total.

Second, you ask: HOW TO GIVE EVERYTHING?

Know that you have nothing. And wait... and wait in silence, in patience. Something will start flowing out of your being. It will take you unawares. It will be a great surprise - that you have started sharing!

And the most difficult thing in the world is to see that you don't have anything - the most difficult, because it feels so bad that you are empty, that you are a beggar. People go on pretending that they have....

Just the other night, Big Prem's mother came to see me. She has been here for many months. Now, within two or three weeks she will be leaving, so she came to see me for the first time. For so many months she has been here, but avoiding me. Protecting herself, defending - listening to me, and yet not listening to me. Seeing me, and yet with closed eyes. Being here with my people, but keeping aloof.

Last night she was there to see me, and I asked her to become a sannyasin - now it is time. And she said, "I cannot become, because I am a roman catholic. And I BELIEVE in God, and you are against beliefs, and I cannot Leave my belief. And God has been very good to me.

Just the idea of becoming a sannyasin disturbed her deeply. She immediately became defensive.

That's why I had asked - to bring her whole defence mechanism to the surface.

Now she says, "I believe in God, and I cannot drop this belief" I asked her, "Do you believe in your belief more than you want to know God? God is not so very significant, it seems. Your BELIEF in God is more significant. I am saying to you that if you drop your beliefs you will be able to see God!"

But she says, "No. I cannot drop my belief. How can I drop my belief? Why should I drop my belief?

God I been very good to me."

As if God has not been good to everybody else. God is simply good! That is the meaning of the word 'God': unconditionally go o d. It is not so that it is good only when you believe in God. Then what kind of God will it be? If you believe, he is good; if you don't believe, he is bad. If you believe, he brings blessings to you; if you don't believe, he brings curses to you.

Josephine thinks that God has been good because she believes. God is simply good! - believing or not believing makes no difference. The sun shines on both the theist and the atheist. When the moon comes it shares its joy with everybody - communist and capitalist. There is no distinction.

God is good! But people go on thinking this way.

Really she is saying, "If I drop my belief then I am afraid God will not be good." What kind of trust is this? And she says, "I cannot drop my belief."

And I said to her, "Your hands are empty - I see your hands are empty. You don't have anything in your hands." But she wouldn't listen.

God is not important to her - her belief. And what is .I belief? Just hiding your ignorance, pretending that you know. It is very difficult to know that you don't know. It is very difficult to see that you don't have anything, that your hands are empty. This is the courage that I am trying to create in you - to see that you don't have anything, that your hands are empty, that you are empty, that there is no being inside, that all beliefs are just tricks to create the feeling that you have something.

When one becomes so utterly naked and nude and empty, and all disappears and all is dropped from the hands, then comes the great, radical change. One is transformed. In your emptiness, one day you become full. And out of emptiness, fullness is born. And the sharing is inevitable; nobody can stop it, there is nobody to stop it.

The fourth question

Question 4:

SAMVEDANA, THE COMMUNE HAS TO BE SEPARATE from the rest of the world - that does not mean that it has not to be a marketplace. That does not mean that it has to be some other world. It is going to be THIS world, with a different quality to it. It will be a marketplace with meditation and love in it.

I am not against the marketplace. I am not against the mundane, I am all for it. But the mundane can have a suffused quality of the sacred. I am not against the ordinary; the ordinary, lived rightly, becomes extraordinary.

My commune is not going to be a monastery. Yes, it will be a marketplace - with a difference. It will not be a monastery and it will not be the ordinary marketplace. It will be something that transcends both and implies both. It has to be like that, because man is body and soul together. The body needs the marketplace, the soul needs a monastery.

Up to now, the monastery has existed against the marketplace - soul against body. And the marketplace has existed against the monastery - body against soul. I don't want to divide you.

I want to create individuals here, not divided, split personalities. I accept all; the world is beautiful.

The monastery has to become a marketplace, the marketplace has to become a monastery.

It will be separate from this world - not because I am against the world, but because right now this world won't allow a new wave to arise. It will crush it. The new wave has to be protected. The commune is going to be a nursery. Once my sannyasins have become strong enough, then there will be no point, no problem. They can move into the world, they can go into the world and be in the world. But only once they have become strong trees. If they are very soft small plants, just budding, they will be crushed by the world.

The commune is going to be a nursery. And the commune is also going to be a marketplace, because all your needs have to be fulfilled. I am not against your needs. I am not against anything.

I am not life-negative. My approach towards life is not that of an ascetic. My commune will create people who are together - Buddhas and Epicuruses, both together - who enjoy the life, and enjoy God too, and don't create any division.

When the meditation is released, the marketplace becomes a temple. And you can see it happening here too. The people who are working here, their work is their worship.

Josephine was saying to me about her daughter, Big Prem - she cannot believe that she works ten hours every day, typing, typing, typing... with no holiday! And still she seems to be very happy. She could not believe her own eyes; she has watched her for many months.

It looks to you as if she is typing for ten hours. On the surface it is so; deep down something else is happening. It is a love affair with me. Those are my words she is typing. It is worship, it is her prayer, it is her devotion.

And if you love your work, there is no question of any holiday. All days are holidays. each moment is holy.

My commune is going to be of THIS world, and yet a opening for the other. It has to be rooted in the earth - in fact only when something is rooted in the earth can it grow unto the sky. A tree, to go high in the sky, to whisper with the winds, to dance with the sun, to have a dialogue with the stars, needs first to go deep down into the earth, ha to spread its roots to the deepest layers of the earth.

You don't say to a tree, "You are contradictory: you want to rise high in the sky, then why are you spreading your roots into the earth? This is a contradiction." Yes, it is a contradiction as far as logic is concerned. But life is not logic. The tree will laugh at your logic and will call you foolish - because if there are no roots deep in the earth, there will be no branches in the sky. The tree can move only proportionately, in the same proportion - as it goes deep, it goes high. Depth brings height, in the same proportion. It is always balanced.

The marketplace is the earth. My commune is going to be a marketplace. It will be rooted in the earth, it will have roots deep into the earth. And still it will dance with the winds, sing with the sun...

it will rise higher into God.

Where God and the world meet, there real religion exists.

So, Samvedana, you must have some condemnatory idea about the marketplace. The marketplace has not to be dropped but transformed. Nothing has to be dropped, everything has to be transformed. Whatsoever is given to you is given with a purpose; it can be used. The same thing can become manure and can create great fragrance in roses. And if you cannot do that and you go on collecting manure in your house, it will stink. And it is the same manure. It stinks if you collect it.

If you spread it on the soil. it brings thousands of roses, and that fragrance that is not of this world, that freshness that is not of this world.

Each and everything has to be transformed.

My commune has to be magical.

The fifth question

Question 5:

FIRST, BOTH ARE WRONG. Because I think, therefore I am is to put things upside-down. Your being is first; your thinking arises later on. Your thinking cannot become a proof for your being.

Being precedes, being is first; thinking is later.

And Descartes is not aware, he is not aware of the Eastern approach at all - that there comes a moment when thinking can be dropped again, and still you are. That's what happens in meditation:

thinking is no more, but you are. So thinking is arbitrary, non-essential. It is not essential to "I am."

He says: "Cogito, ergo sum - I think, therefore I am." No: "I am, therefore I think." But that is only one dimension. "I am, therefore I feel" - that is another dimension. "I am, therefore I love"... but everything is preceded by " am." That pure existence, that amness, precedes all.

So both statements are false, not true. But if you have to choose between the two, then the second is far better. First is "Cogito, ergo sum - I think, therefore I am." Second is "Coito, ergo sum - I copulate, therefore I am." The second is far better than the first. Because thinking is of the head - very fragmentary. Copulation is more total, more orgasmic.

The second statement can be approved by the whole philosophy of Tantra. The first is ordinary, the second is extraordinary. But one has to remember that being precedes all. You are in the beginning, and you will be in the End. And all else is in-between; like dreams, things come and go.

I have heard:

A villager, an old man, was sitting on his fence watching the traffic go by. Many cars were passing, and trucks and buses, and he was enjoying. A car-driver stopped, seeing the old man, very old - must have been eighty or more - enjoying himself so much just sitting on the fence. And he asked, "What is the matter, old man? You look so happy. I cannot sit on the fence for more than a few minutes; I will become so restless. And you look so happy and so silent. I am always on the go - from one place to another, from one town to another. Only that keeps me happy. I am a traveller, a born vagabond. You are just the opposite."

The old man laughed and he said, "Son, there is not much difference. You go in your car seeing fences pass by. I sit on my fence seeing cars pass by. There is not much difference. It is all the same."

In the beginning I am, in the end I am. In the middle, a thousand and one things happen - what Zen people call 'the ten thousand things' happen. But it is all the same. Misery and happiness, ecstasies, excitements and agonies, pains and pleasures - just dreams on the way. The source remains uncontaminated. And to return to the source is the whole process of coming to truth.

The sixth question

Question 6:

PRAGEETA, I WONDER TOO - because we are not really doing anything here. That's what we are doing: we are learning how to be in a state of non-doing - WU-WEI.

And the last question

Osho...

Question 7:

(I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS ABOUT YOU THAT CLOSES AND OPENS; ONLY SOMETHING IN ME UNDERSTANDS THE VOICE OF YOUR EYES IS DEEPER THAN ALL ROSES)

Thank you, Katya.