Religion: the Ultimate Luxury

The first question:

Question 1:

Durga Prasad Pandari,

It is a very natural phenomenon. Religion is the ultimate luxury.

Man lives on three planes. If his bodily needs are fulfilled, only then psychological needs become significant; otherwise not. A hungry man will not be interested in the music of Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner. he will not be interested in the paintings of Michelangelo, Vincent Van Gogh, Picasso. It is natural. His first basic needs are not fulfilled. Once his bodily needs are fulfilled, immediately his consciousness shifts from the physical plane to the psychological. Consciousness remains attached to the plane where it is needed most. You know it in ordinary day-to-day existence too. If your leg is hurting you forget the whole body, your consciousness becomes focused on the leg. If you have a headache, only then you become aware of the existence of the head; otherwise, you remain absolutely unaware of its existence. It goes on functioning silently, your attention is not needed.

Body is the foundation, and the East is suffering from physical needs. Its physical needs are tremendous, so whatsoever goes on in the name of religion is not really religion in the East - it cannot be - it is something else. People gather around Satya Sai Baba, or persons like him, not for spiritual needs, but for physical needs. Somebody is ill and would like a miracle to happen so that he can be cured. Somebody is blind, somebody has no children, somebody has no employment, and they are hoping that by going to the saints, by the blessings of the saints, or by praying into the churches, into the temples, in the mosques, in the GURUDWARAS, their needs will be fulfilled. This is hoping in vain, but the poor man cannot help. He goes on hanging around these illusions. It is a vicious circle: he hangs around illusions in the hope that his needs will be fulfilled, and because he hangs around illusions he does not make any real effort to fulfill his needs. Those needs go on growing bigger and bigger. Then he goes on moving more and more into the illusory. His religion is more of wish-fulfillment - not of growth, not of maturity not of spiritual flight, but of dreaming, hallucinating.

You go for a long fast and you will start fantasizing about food - twenty-four hours you will fantasize about food. You go into loneliness and after the third week you will start talking to yourself. The need is such that you will start living in an illusion, as if there is somebody with whom you are having a dialogue.

The poor man creates a poor God, a God which is nothing but his imagination, a God which exists nowhere. The East has known one day the true religion, now only footprints are left. Buddha knew true religion, Mahavira knew true religion, Krishna knew true religion. They had touched the ultimate peaks of consciousness, but only now echoes are there in the atmosphere. The reality has disappeared long before, we are worshipping the foot-prints.

So people in the East become interested into a kind of religion which I call pseudo, false, basically illusory - and not only that, but positively harmful, because it prevents scientific growth.

If you are hungry you need better technology, not better prayers, not YAGNAS, not offerings to the fire god - that is utter stupidity. You are already poor and you are wasting money, food, purified butter in the fire, in the hope that gods will bless you. How long you have been hoping this way?

And those gods have not heard at all. And how long you are going to be deceived by yourself? But just as I said, it is a vicious circle. The hungrier, the more starving, the more undernourished, the more crowded you become - the more your problems become unmanageable - the more you start hoping, wishing, imagining, dreaming, the more you start going to some stupid people in the hope that miracles will be done. They have never been done and they will never be done. Miracles don't exist.

Miracles are absolutely non-existential, but the poor man's religion remains focused on the possibility of a miracle.

Have you heard about the latest miracle performed by the Polack Pope? He has made a blind man deaf.

Once a couple were thinking about having a baby one evening after an especially good session of love-making.

The woman joyfully exclaimed, "Ah, dear, I think that did it! Ah, I am so happy. What will we call it?"

The husband smiled, removing the unnoticed condom from himself, and said, "We will call him Houdini."

A madman went to the local Jewish tailor who was a kind of philosopher, to try on his new uniform.

He dressed in the uniform and went to look in the mirror.

"Wow!" he shouted, "Look at that, Mr. Tailor! You made me a jumpsuit with three sleeves."

"Well," said the tailor, "you never told me how many you wanted."

Mad people going to mad people.

But these mad people are known as MAHATMAS in the East, and the East is full of MAHATMAS . When YOU get tired of one MAHATMA there are other MAHATMAS, and you go on moving from one shop to another shop. And life is short, you can go on remaining in illusion.

The poor man's religion is that of miracles, that's why Christianity has a deep attraction for the eastern man. You can see it happening.

Buddhism has great appeal in the West. Hundreds of Buddhist monasteries are opening up in America, in Europe, in Holland, in Germany; and in India, thousands of people are converting themselves every day into Christianity. What is this mathematics? How it is happening? - for the simple reason, the religion of Gautam the Buddha is appealing only to those whose all needs are fulfilled. It is the highest quality of religion, it is like an Everest.

Jesus has appeal - not because people understand Jesus - he has appeal only because of his miracles. Take the miracles away and people will stop getting into Christianity, they will lose all interest. Hence the Christian theologians, the Christian missionaries go on emphasizing the miracle part, which is just a mythology, which is not true, which is absolutely false - but it is not new.

It has been in the air for long, for the simple reason because Jesus also was working in poor people. He was a poor man's son. All his friends, followers were poor people. They can understand only a language which appealed to their needs. ALL his followers were either farmers, gardeners, fishermen, carpenters, or people like these - uneducated, uncultured, unsophisticated. They must have created these stories about him, otherwise they would not have remained with him. These miracle stories function like glue. And for two thousand years that has been the appeal of Christianity.

It always appeals the poor. In India also you will not see Jainas being converted into Christianity - they are rich enough for that. You will not see BRAHMINS being converted to Christianity - they are rich enough for that. Then who are the people who are being converted to Christianity? The very poor people, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the aboriginals, the untouchables, the hungry, the starving, the crippled, the paralyzed, the blind, the deaf, the ill, the orphans - these are the people who become interested in Christianity.

Now what they have to do with meditation? They need miracles; they don't want any inward eye, they don't want any spiritual nourishment. That is the first and the most important reason, Durga Prasad, that people are not interested towards my vision, particularly in the East. But about that too, one condition has to be remembered.

In the East too, Japanese are interested in me; because that is the only country which is rich. You will find hundreds of Japanese here. Many centers are opening in Japan for me, many books are being published in Japan. There is great stir in Japan, and I have been really surprised Whenever people come to me I ask, "How long you are going to stay?" Germans almost always stay for three months, four months. Japanese always stay for six months, nine months, twelve months, two years.

Japan is the only country which has come to a level of affluence which is rich, and their needs are now totally different. They will not go to Satya Sai Baba, they will not be interested there at all.

India is too poor to understand me, to be interested in me. Indians come here to stay for one day, two days - at the most three days. They come here only for one day, but they want to be treated like others They feel very shocked when they come to know that I will not be initiating them myself, that some of my disciples will initiate them. They feel very shocked: Why this treatment with us?

But you are staying only one day here. In the morning you come, you want sannyas in the evening, and tomorrow you are gone. And the people who have been here for six months meditating, going through dozens of growth groups, working hard, you want that you should be treated exactly like them. You may stay the same way, you go through the same processes, you risk as much as they risk - for that they are not ready. But they feel offended, that they should be given the same opportunity.

Again and again they write to me, "Westerners are sitting in front of you and we are told to sit at the back." You should be happy that even you are allowed to sit at the back. Soon there will be no space at the back. You have to earn it. The people who are sitting in front of me have been here for six years, seven years. There are people who have come once and never gone again. They deserve it, they have earned it.

This is the first reason, Durga Prasad, that I am talking about the highest form of religion; because I am talking about the whole world. To me, nations don't mean anything, races don't mean anything, colors don't mean anything. I am talking about a New Man, which is going to be born, which has become almost an absolute necessity because without the New Man the humanity cannot survive anymore. The old is rotten, and we have to get rid of it; but before we get rid of the old the new has to be brought on the scene. My work here consists in giving birth to the New Man, to a new humanity.

The second reason why the Indians are afraid is that Indians already think they know, and they know nothing. They are simply carrying a dead heritage. They are very knowledgeable, they can recite the Gita and the Vedas and the Upanishadas, parrotlike, not knowing what they are saying. They have not experienced those truths, but they can recite them like gramophone records. And because of this, they think they know what religion is. Why they should come here?

The West in that way is innocent, is not knowledgeable. It has a tremendous inquiry, but no blocks; it is ready to explore. The knowledgeable person is always willing to explore; he is always afraid because something may go against his knowledge. He would like truth to be according to him, not vice versa. He is not ready to be according to the truth - which needs guts, which needs an open mind.

In the East, particularly in India, people don't have open mind at all. They have very closed minds.

They are so full of holy cow dung that there is no space inside.

I can have an appeal only to those who are explorers, adventurers, inquirers, who are in a way innocent.

And the third reason... The third reason is concerned with those people who are neither poor nor knowledgeable. Why they are not coming here? There are rich people in this country. This is a country of contrasts: ninety-eight percent people are very poor, two percent people are very rich.

Those two percent rich people are afraid to come, for the simple reason: just to be associated with my name is a danger. They write to me that, "We would like to come, but we are afraid." Just to be associated with my name is dangerous. People will start talking to them, "So you have also become a victim? So you are also hypnotized? We had never thought that you are so mad, so crazy!"

And then, coming to listen to me does not mean just listening, as it means when you go to listen to Krishnamurti. You can listen and go home. Here listening means slowly slowly getting committed.

It is involvement, and involvement means your whole life will change with it. Your family life, your personal life, your social life, your business life - everything will be affected by it. You can go and listen to Krishnamurti, there is no problem in it, you remain outside of any commitment. With me, you become committed.

To listen to me is dangerous for two reasons: one, the fear that you may get involved into it, and then where it will lead? Secondly, you will be condemned by everybody and criticized by everybody. That keeps people holding themselves back. They read, they listen to the tapes - thousands of people listen to the tapes, thousands of people read the books, and millions of people talk and discuss about me, for and against. In fact, anybody who has any intelligence is already divided by me: either for me or against me.

But to come here, to enter the gate needs some courage which Indians have lost long before; otherwise they would not have been slaves for two thousand years. They don't have any courage, the backbones are missing, they have no spine. How they manage to walk and live is a miracle.

And there are people who are not knowledgeable either, who cannot say that they are scholars or pundits or they know anything of Vedas or Upanishads; but then their craze is to imitate the West.

Their whole craze is... They have the money, they have the opportunity, they go on rushing towards the West. They go on for world tours they want to have all kinds of gadgets that the West is enjoying.

They are not interested in religion, in spirituality. They may show lip service to religion and spirituality, because that is a traditional thing, conventional. But it is only lip service; their hearts are for absolute materialistic values.

These are the reasons why the eastern people, particularly Indians, are not interested here; but the whole world is interested.

And they are also imitators. Just wait a little. When more and more people from the world will be coming here, they will start following them. They are imitators. They are carbon copies. They always have been imitating for two thousand years. They cannot take any step on their own. If they see the West is coming, they will come; but I don't pay any respect to such people. I don't have any place in my heart for such people who are imitators.

You can see it happen everywhere. Rabindranath Tagore got the Nobel Prize. Before he got the Nobel Prize his book was already published for years - the book on which he got the Nobel Prize, GITANJALI - but nobody has praised it. Once he got the Nobel Prize, the whole India was praising him, and he could see. He refused the invitation of Calcutta Corporation. They wanted to honor him.

He said, "I won't come. I refuse this honor, because the book has been published for many years in the original, and you have never honored me." In fact, no note was taken of his book, and it is one of the greatest books ever written. On the contrary, people were criticizing it, criticizing it because it was not according to the old pattern of Indian poetry. It has something original, and the Indian mind cannot understand anything original; it needs repetitive things, then it praises. But when the whole West started praising him, the whole India was ready to praise him. He became a great "son of the country"; otherwise nobody was bothering about him.

Just now you have seen it happen again. Mother Teresa was here her whole life, working. Nobody was bothering, nobody has really ever heard of her name. Once she got the Nobel Prize, the whole India is agog.

These are imitators. These people don't have any intelligence of their own. They are ready to do anything, whatsoever is being done by the whole world - any stupid thing they will be ready to do.

So just wait, Durga Prasad. Let more and more people come - and they are coming, they are on the way. My invitation has reached to the farthest comer of the world, and I have stirred millions of hearts and they will be coming. And they are my people, because their bodily needs are fulfilled, so they don't come here asking for some stupid miracle. They don't come here for any psychological needs either. If they have any psychological needs I have got one hundred therapies going on here, so those needs can be fulfilled. My work starts only when your bodily and psychological needs are fulfilled. Then only you can look a little beyond to the spiritual realm.

So whosoever is able to look beyond the body-mind complex belongs to me. Whether he is born in the East or in the West, is black or white, does not matter at all. Whether he is man or woman does not matter at all. I am creating world citizens. And I am not creating any religion. It is only a religiousness, a diffused kind of religiousness, not very tangible. You cannot make a creed out of it, you cannot make a church out of it - impossible! I am not leaving a single Bible or Koran or Gita so you can make a church out of it. When I will leave the world I will leave at least one thousand books, so contradictory to each other that anybody trying to make out any dogma out of them will go crazy.

It is impossible to make any dogma out of my ideas, but you can transform your being through them.

Forget about this East and West business; don't waste my time about these things again and again.

The second question:

Question 2:

Hajo,

Each child is born a Buddha, but cannot remain a Buddha for long. That is part of growth: he has to lose it.

Unless he loses it, he will never be able to understand its value. It is like a fish in the ocean... The fish is born in the ocean, lives in the ocean; but knows nothing of the ocean, cannot know. There is no separation, there is no space, there is no gap between the two. Fetch the fish out of the ocean, throw it on the shore, and immediately there is great understanding in the fish. Now the fish knows for the first time the beauty of the ocean, the joy of the ocean. Now the fish longs for it. Let the fish slip back into the ocean again and see its rejoicing, see its joy.

That's exactly the meaning of the biblical story. Adam and Eve have to leave paradise just to regain it - that's the only way to regain it. Paradise has to be lost. Only then there is awareness. Innocence is one thing - every child is innocent - but to be aware of innocence is a totally different thing. Only a Buddha is aware of innocence; hence the Buddha cannot lose it, because he is aware. The child has to lose it, he is not aware - he cannot be in the very nature of things; he has never lost it.

One morning little Johnny comes down in tears. "Mommy, Mommy," sobs Johnny, "I got so frightened. I woke up, ran to your bed and you were not there. Then I ran to Dad's bed and he was not there. Then I ran into my bed and I was not there!"

This experience is needed. Everything has to get lost. Suddenly there is only emptiness, meaninglessness, darkness, and the search starts again for that which is lost.

Meditation is only a way back home. It is not a search for something new; it is a search for something that was intrinsically our own, but we were bound to be unaware of it.

On the first day of kindergarten, Tommy was nervous and upset and wanted to talk to his mother. A teacher helped him place a telephone call to his home, but when the mother answered, Tommy was too nervous to speak right away.

"Hello," the mother said, "who is this?"

"This is your son," said Tommy, bursting into tears. "Have you forgotten me already?"

Children are innocent, but their innocence is not the innocence of a Buddha. The difference is tremendous. It is unconscious innocence, and because it is unconscious it has no virtue. That's why Jesus says, "Unless you are like small children" - note the word: unless you are LIKE the small children - "you shall not enter into the kingdom of God." He is not saying unless you are children; he cannot say that, otherwise every child will enter into the kingdom of God. He is saying unless you are LIKE the small children. The difference is great. To be LIKE the small children certainly means you are NOT children, and yet you are LIKE the children. There is some similarity and some dissimilarity - something common between the two, and something not common.

Little Jeffrey was sad when he found his pet turtle lying on its back on the bank of the pond.

"Never mind," said his father, "we will have a fine funeral for him. I will make a little coffin for him and mother will wrap him in silk. We will buy a white picket fence to put around his grave. After we bury him we will go down to Haagen Dazs and I will buy a big ice-cream cone."

Suddenly the turtle turned over and headed for the water.

"Jeff, look!" shouted his father. "Your turtle is not dead after all."

"Daddy, let's kill it!"

This is innocence, but not Buddha-like. Now the child has become so much interested in the grave and the white fence and the ice-cream, that who cares for the turtle now? Now all that ceremony...

But there is no sin either. There is no virtue, no sin; he is simply unaware. You cannot say that he is violent or murderous, no, not at all. He is simply unconscious.

Innocence plus consciousness is equal to Buddhahood. Innocence minus consciousness is equal to childhoodness. And how one can be conscious? The only way - and let me emphasize - the ONLY way is to lose it and gain it again.

You ask me, Hajo: IF AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON CANNOT LOSE HIS BUDDHAHOOD, HOW DOES A BABY BORN AS A BUDDHA LOSE HIS?

The enlightened person has lost it and found it. The baby has not lost it, and has not yet found it; he is born with it, oblivious of it. Hence you will see in the eyes of small children something of the saints, something of the same beauty; but also a deep ignorance. The innocence is there but full of ignorance. The saint is innocent but full of awareness, knowing. His innocence is not mixed with ignorance; it is wisdom.

And the children are bound to lose their innocence. The sooner, the better. The more intelligent children will lose it sooner; the stupid children will lose it a little later; the retarded children may not lose it ever. More intelligent the child is, the quicker he will lose his innocence, because he will start inquiring, exploring. He would like to know more and more, he will be very curious, he will ask thousand-and-one questions - questions which even his father, his mother, his teachers can't answer.

A child was walking with his father, and he asked "Why the roses are red?"

And the father said, "I don't know."

A little afterwards, he asked, "Why the river always flows downward? Why not upward?"

The father said, "Shut up! I don't know! Don't bother me!"

After few seconds, again he asked, "Where are the stars in the daytime?"

And the father said, "I don't know." And the father mumbled to himself, "What would have happened if I had asked all these questions to my father?"

The child said, "Then you would have been able to answer me." But then the child remained silent.

The silence was so long that the father became worried - it was so rare, because he was constantly asking - A very intelligent child he must have been - that he asked, "Why are you not asking anything?"

The child said, "What is the point?"

And the father said, "Then how you going to learn?"

We want children to ask, we want children to inquire although we don't have answers ourselves. We want them to become knowledgeable, informed, because it will be needed in their life, but we are not very authentic, very true. Even with our small children we are false. A really loving father, a loving mother, a loving teacher, will always say what he knows and what he does not know. He will not pretend.

If the child asks, "Who made the world?" he will not say, "God" because he does not know. He will say, "I have been inquiring, I have not found the answer yet. You also inquire. If you find before me, tell me. If I find before you I will tell you; but I have not found." And there will arise a great friendship and a great understanding between the child and the father. And the child will respect such a father his whole life; otherwise sooner or later he will discover that all your answers were just bullshit. You were pretending that you know; you know nothing. Then all his respect will disappear.

Two boys were talking about their dogs. "I can't figure it out," complained one. "How can you teach your dog all those tricks? And I can't teach my dog anything!"

"Well," said the other boy, "to begin with you have to know more than your dog."

Naturally, children have to learn, and learning means conditioning. From whom they are going to learn? From people who are not Buddhas, from people who have not arrived, from people who are themselves groping in the dark, from people whose inner being is a dark continent, from people who have no light of their own - they will learn things from these people, they will become just like these people. They will be lost into the jungle of the world, unless one day they are intelligent enough to see what has happened - how they have lost those beautiful, wonderful, awe-inspiring days, how they have lost the purity, the innocence of their childhood - and they start searching for it again.

That is the moment when meditation begins. That is the moment when religion is born.

Religion is not Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism; religion is the beginning of going back to your original source, trying to find out your innermost core that you had brought from the unknown, and that is still there wrapped around with information, knowledge - all kinds of things. You will have to peel it like an onion. You will have to go on peeling, because there are layers and layers, and you have learned so many lies. You have been told to learn lies, you have been brought up in lies - Christian lies, Hindu lies, Mohammedan lies. Beautiful lies - very appealing, but they are not true.

Truth has to be discovered within one's own being.

A brother and sister are making love...

It must have happened in France; it cannot happen anywhere else!

The brother says, "Mm, you are better than Mum."

"Yes," answers the sister. "Daddy told me this morning."

Now these children will be corrupted by you. They are corrupted; in thousand-and-one ways we corrupt them. We are also helpless, because we have been corrupted by others; that's our heritage - corruption. That's what we get from one generation to another, and we go on handing to the new generation.

But the intelligent child sooner or later will discover all this corruption and all this deception, and will be able to get out of it. That's my definition of sannyas: getting out of all that has been told, taught, that has been given to you by others, discarding it all in toto, so that you can regain your innocence again. Then one becomes a Buddha. Now you cannot lose this, because this is your achievement.

Now you are fully aware of it. Now nobody can destroy it, because there is nothing more valuable than this.

The child was unaware; it was bound to happen. So the child cannot be protected, the child cannot be prevented. All that loving parents can do is to go on making him aware that whatsoever is being told to you, taught to you, is only hypothetical; it is not truth. Remember it. It is utilitarian, it is the best lie that we have discovered up to now, but it is not the truth. Truth you will have to discover on your own, you will have to discover within your own being. You will have to become a light unto yourself.

The third question:

Question 3:

Ramo,

It is good that you have confessed it. It is good that you are truthful about it. It is good that you are not hiding it, because whenever you expose yourself in totality, it is the beginning of a transformation.

Don't be worried. One has to go beyond sex one day, whether it is homosexuality or heterosexuality or bisexuality - it does not matter much. Sex is sex, these are only preferences, differences of liking.

Don't feel much guilty about it, and this is not your fault.

Homosexuality has come into existence because of repressive measures, because of repressive moralities, because of thousands of years of separating man and woman into separate camps. In the colleges, in the schools, in the army, in the monasteries - everywhere men and women are kept apart. The natural outcome is going to be homosexualism, lesbianism, because the natural energy will try to find out some outlet.

Homosexuality is a byproduct of your so-called religions. The first homosexual must have been born in a monastery, that is almost certain. We don't know his name, but a memorial should be made dedicated to the unknown - the first homosexual. He must have been a monk.

It is a well known fact that Christian monasteries, Buddhist monasteries have been full of homosexuality. It was bound to happen because you don't give them the science of transcending sex, and you simply tell them to repress the energy. Now the energy starts moving into perverted ways.

And don't take offense at the word perversion. It simply means unnatural, it simply means not as it was prescribed by the biology. The biological route is heterosexual. If you prevent it... It is like a small stream is flowing: you put a rock in its way, it will start flowing from some other side, it will go by passing the rock, it will become two streams instead of one. You can go on preventing it and it will go on splitting into many streams. It will find out some way. It has a source of water that has to be taken to the ocean.

Don't be worried about it, because worrying won't help. Accept it. Just as repression has created it, a deep acceptance can dissolve it. Accept it. You are a victim of a thousands of years conditioning.

Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."

People go on hiding it, but sooner or later you have to find out somebody, and there are ways how homosexuals indicate. They walk differently - they may not say, but they walk differently. They look differently, they talk differently, their gestures are different, and other homosexuals immediately understand the language.

And it is not a small minority, remember. Ten percent people all over the world are homosexuals. Out of ten, one person is a homosexual; it is a big number. And this is increasing every day, because the women's liberation movement is creating lesbianism. "Why depend on men, even for love?

Sisterhood is beautiful. Love your sisters." The natural outcome will be that many brothers will be left alone.

The new bride, frustrated by her groom's indifference, could not contain herself anymore. "Listen,"

she said, "if you are gonna keep on reading these newspapers, I am going downtown to get myself a man."

"Far out!" he said. "Would you get me one too?"

A homo and a hetero went into the desert.

"Ah," said the horny hetero, "even if there was a fly here, I could screw it."

"Z-z-z-z," replied the homo.

In a bar two homosexuals are drinking their martinis with chips and olives. Suddenly one of them pricks his lip with the toothpick. At the sight of the blood he exclaims, "Ah, my, I have got my period."

A little bit perverted, but so what. Nothing to be worried, Ramo. Accept it.

My fundamental principle is acceptance - tathata. Whatsoever is the situation, you accept it. From there things can begin. Don't reject it. It is out of rejection that the problem has arisen, so only with acceptance... Relax into it and you will be surprised. If you can accept it without any guilt, slowly slowly your homosexuality will turn into heterosexuality again. Why? - because guilt is also a religious phenomenon, and homosexuality too. They are joined together, they are tied together.

If you go on feeling guilty, you will remain homosexual. Drop the guilt, accept it. Nothing is wrong, just you are carrying the whole ugly past of humanity. What can you do? You have come a little late, people have preceded before. They have dirtied the whole beach. So we have to clean it.

But what is the point of crying and weeping and feeling guilty? There is no need to waste energies in that. Accept it with no guilt at all. And with the disappearance of the guilt you will be surprised:

if you are a Christian your Christianity disappears; if you are a Jew your Judaism disappears; if you are a Hindu your Hinduism disappears. This is really a miracle: when the guilt is dropped your religions disappear. And when religions disappear you become a far more natural being. You can start seeing things clearly. In fact, what you are seeking into the other man, you cannot find in him.

There will be frustration. What the other man is trying to find in you, he cannot find in you; there will be frustration.

Friendship is possible, but love is not possible, and friendship and love are different dimensions.

Friendship has its own beauty. Love needs polar opposites, only then there is attraction, only then there is tension enough. Love needs a subtle dialectics, it is a process of dialectics. The man and woman relationship is a dialectical process full of hazards, adventures, fights. It is a kind of intimate enmity. In the morning the fight, in the evening the love, in the morning again the fight, and it goes on moving from one polarity to the other.

But this is how it keeps itself alive. It is Hegelian dialectics: thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and again synthesis becomes the thesis. Just the other night you had reached to a treaty, a peaceful state, and in the morning it disappears. And you were thinking, "Now, things are going smooth." But from the same point, in the morning the argument starts, and by the evening the same point leads you to lovemaking.

In fact, unless you fight before, you will not be able to make love really, tremendously. A good fight before making love gives you zest, gusto - just a good fight and you become hot; otherwise, civilized people have become cool. Just a good fight - shouting, throwing things, exchange of pillows, and then relaxing into each other in the warmth of each other. The fight creates the distance. The farther away you are - it is a kind of mini-divorce, then comes a mini-honeymoon.

It can't happen in a homosexual relationship. That's why homosexuals are called gay; there is no dialectics, they are always smiling. But their smile seems to be shallow; it cannot be very deep.

They are smiling because there is not any possibility of tears, and they understand each other. They are both men or both women, so they understand each other. With understanding there is no fight.

A man and woman never understand each other, they cannot. If they understand, immediately all is finished, they both have become Buddhas.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

Moses,

I know you are a mathematician and a Jew and also an Italian. It is a rare combination. The mathematician is always calculating, but he can never take the jump. Calculation will not allow you to take the jump, it is impossible for the calculating mind. And you will never be fully ready. How you will be fully ready? There are things you become ready only when you have entered in them.

No two lovers are fully ready before they enter into a love relationship. If they want to be fully ready, then there will never happen any love relationship. Where they are going to get ready for it? And why this readiness? Is it not out of fear? - something may go wrong...

But your whole life what have you done? You have been calculating, calculating, living in a very businesslike way . What have you achieved? Sometimes taking risks has a beauty of its own.

In fact, all great radical changes happen only when you move into some dimension without any calculations.

Sannyas is a love affair; it is not mathematics.

A mathematician passing through the security check at an airport is discovered to have a bomb in his hand luggage.

"You are arrested," said the security officer.

"Arrested? What for? I am not a hijacker, I am a mathematician. "

"Then what is this bomb doing in your bag?"

"Why, it is a matter of security."

"I don't understand," replied the security officer.

"Well, my man, consider. If the possibility of one bomb being on board the plane is removed, then the possibility of two bombs being on board the same plane is practically non-existent."

This is calculation. He is going very mathematically.

Sannyas will never happen to you, Moses. It is not mathematics; it is poetry, it is music, it is dance, it is celebration. It is a mad, mad love affair. And you are a Jew too. Maybe it is because of your Jewishness that you have become a mathematician. Jews are good mathematicians. It is no wonder that Albert Einstein proved to be the great est mathematician of the world. Who else can be the greatest mathematician than a Jew?

Aaron Silberstein called his little son Moise, gave him a ruble and said, "Moise, go to the grocer and get two pounds of butter."

Moise went off, taking the little dog of the Silberstein family along. On the way to the grocer's he decided to make better use of his father's money. Instead of getting two pounds of butter, he bought two pounds of sweets from the grocer. After he had hidden the sweets in the barn, Moise put on a sad face and went in to meet his father.

"What happened?" asked the father. "Where is the butter?"

"The dog," said little Moise, "the fucking beast snatched the butter away from me and ate it all up."

Silberstein grabbed the little dog and put it on the scale. The scale indicated exactly two pounds.

He turned to his son and said, "Okay, son. This is the butter, now where is the dog?"

Take a jump out of your Jewishness, out of your mathematics. I say you are fully ready; I can certify.

Do you think all of my sannyasins were fully ready before they took the jump? They dared! And it is not a question of being fully ready. How you are going to measure? How you are going to weigh?

At what point you are fully ready? What is the criterion? You can ask me.

The very question says that a deep desire has arisen in you, but your mind is holding you back. Your spirit wants to take the jump, but your mind is not willing. The mind says, "First get ready," because the mind knows perfectly well one is never ready.

The great mathematician was getting old and his health was deteriorating every day. He went to his physician. After a complete check the doctor took a deep breath and began.

"Dear sir, in a case like this it is better to be frank and tell you the whole truth."

"Tell me, doctor, whatever it is."

"It is difficult."

"Tell me the truth, doctor. How long do I have to live? A year?"

"Less."

"Less? Well, better I should know. Six months, then?"

"Less."

"Okay, okay. I can take it. one month?"

"I am sorry to have to say it but..."

"It is okay, doctor, I accept." So saying he left the room. The doctor was very much impressed at the way the man had taken the news, and he went to the window to take a last look at him.

He was standing on the pavement about to cross the road. Just then a hearse passed by, at which he raised his hand and shouted, "Taxi! Taxi!"

Tomorrow is not certain. Who knows? - tomorrow may come, may not come. If you are feeling an urge, a deep longing, then take the jump, and don't be so afraid. Gather a little courage. Sannyas has to be a discontinuity with your past. If it is not a discontinuity with the past, it is not sannyas at all. And if you are fully ready it will not be a discontinuity; it will be continuous. You were ready and will come out of that readiness, it will remain part of your past.

Sannyas has to be a discontinuous thing. The past simply disappears as if it had existed never. You start anew, fresh.

And you are burdened with problems, I can see: mathematician, and a Jew, living in Italy...

In a concentration camp it is Christmas Eve, and the general calls all the prisoners into the courtyard and lines them in three rows.

"Christmas makes me feel good," says the general, "and I want to ease your sufferings. The first row one step forward." The first row does as it is told. The general shouts, "Fire!" and they are all killed. The same happens with the second row. Then again the general shouts, "One step forward, the third row." All the prisoners step forward except two; they are Italians.

They look at each other and then one says, "Ah well, let us step forward, otherwise he gets pissed off."

You ask me, Moses: CANNOT I WAIT A LITTLE BEFORE TAKING THE JUMP INTO SANNYAS?

You can wait as long as you want, but how long it will take? And death can always end the game.

Even the next moment is not certain. All that is certain is this moment, and I can feel a longing.

Whenever I see the longing that is enough proof that one is prepared. And don't ask for perfection.

Nobody is ever perfect. Don't be a perfectionist. Perfectionists are all neurotics. Become a sannyasin the way you are, as you are. Don't wait any more. You have waited enough. You have been here at least for six to seven weeks, asking me again and again. Now I think it is time.

And this longing is not going to leave you. It will become stronger and stronger. If you leave without becoming a sannyasin, you will have to come back. It will haunt you wherever you are. I will follow you.

The boss calls for the Jewish accountant, and the secretary says, "He went out, boss. He went to play the sports lottery."

The next day at the same time the boss calls for the accountant again. "He went out, boss. He went to play the horses," answers the secretary.

The third day the boss calls for the accountant again. The secretary explains, "He went out, boss.

He went to play the lottery again."

"What is this?" exclaims the boss. "Is he mad? Every day he is going out at work time to play."

The secretary said, "It is the last chance he has to balance the books this month."

That's all I can say to you, Moses. This is the last chance. I may not meet you again. You may not find a madman like me again. Buddhas will be there always, but rarely a Buddha like me who will accept all kinds of crazy people.

Gautam Buddha was very particular. You had to go through a long initiation process. There were many steps to be fulfilled. But once a man came to him - his name was Sariputta - who became one of his greatest disciples. Sariputta touched Buddha's feet and said, "Please initiate me." Buddha said, "First you have to fulfill many other things."

Sariputta said, "I will fulfill everything afterwards, but first initiate me."

Buddha said, "You have not even fulfilled the ordinary formality" - of going three times around Buddha, touching his feet three times, and asking three times, "Lord, initiate me."

Sariputta said, "If I die doing all this ritual, will you be responsible for me? If I miss this opportunity, will you be responsible for me? Then I am ready. I will do three hundred rounds around you, I will touch three hundred times your feet - or as many times as you want. But are you ready to take my responsibility? Because who knows - I may not be here, you may not be here..."

Buddha looked at Sariputta, smiled, and Sariputta was the first disciple who was initiated without any requirements fulfilled by him. His other disciples were angry, and they said, "We had to go through years of training. What this man has done?"

Buddha said, "I looked into his eyes. I saw his longing - a pure flame. I can agree with him, he can fulfill all these things later on; these are formalities, these are for fools. But he is not a foolish man, he has tremendous intelligence."

Bodhidharma, one of Buddha's greatest inheritors, went around this country but could not find a single man to initiate, because nobody was able to fulfill his conditions. His conditions were impossible; hence, he had to go to China in search of a disciple. And there too, thousands came but he refused. And he sat facing the wall for nine years, and told that "Unless the right person turns up, I am not going to look at his face."

And then a disciple turned - out of hundreds, thousands who came and went away, and he will not look back. And this disciple cut his hand, threw it before Bodhidharma, and said, "Turn towards me!

Otherwise I will cut my head!"

And he had to turn immediately, a hundred-eighty-degree turn, and he said, "Wait, don't be in such a hurry. I have been waiting for you." He initiated only four persons in China.

There are different kind of Buddhas. You will not find a man like me again - it is very rare. It has never been before and I don't think there is going to be a man like me again.

So Moses, I don't think it is good, wise, Jewish to miss.

The last question:

Question 5:

Reverend Banana, Michael Potato Singh, Michael Tomato; dear gentlemen or ladies as the case may be... Because nobody has yet been able to decide whether these fellows are gentlemen or ladies.

It is a difficult question. I had to look in the Akashic records, and not in the past Akashic records - because it is not recorded there - but in the future Akashic records. This is a future story. Listen carefully.

It happened in Moksha, the ultimate resting place of the awakened ones. A journalist for the local newspaper, THE NIRVANA TIMELESS, was desperately seeking material to fill up the center page of the next edition which was due to appear in twenty-five hundred years. There was not much news around in Moksha, and soon he realized that he would have to make something up himself if the center page was not to be left empty again, as it had been for countless ages.

Finally, he hit on the idea of choosing which of the many Buddhas, Arhatas, Bodhisattvas, Christs, Kutubs and other enlightened beings abounding in the lotus paradise was the Master of Masters - in short, a spiritual Mr. Universe competition.

He summoned all the enlightened ones together and asked them to encapsulate in a short phrase the essence of their teaching, which would entitle them to the title of Master of Masters. There was, as usual, a deep silence which lasted a few hundred years. Finally a Zen Master stood forward and hit the journalist hard on the head. This was considered to be well deserved, but not very original.

Another hundred years passed and then a Sufi stood up and began to whirl. Unfortunately he was out of training, and after a couple of months he fell flat on his face, causing some merriment among the Hassidic Masters, who had been surreptitiously pouring oil on the floor to bring the uppity Arab down.

After some goading by Manjushree and Subhuti, Buddha slowly stood up and addressed the gathering in the following way: "There is no teaching and no one to be taught. There is no Master and nothing to master. Nothing can be said; there is no one to hear it." Then he held up a flower and Mahakashyap giggled as usual. Many applauded the Buddha, but to the journalist it did not appear like the kind of news which would help him to sell his paper.

One after another the enlightened ones came forward to make their bids for the title. Moses gave a few new commandments. Bodhidharma stared at a wall for ninety years. Jesus made a mountain out of a molehill, and delivered a sermon from it. Diogenes displayed his suntan. Shiva and Parvati ran through one hundred twelve now positions they had invented. Gurdjieff drank twenty bottles of brandy, then walked on his hands on a tightrope over the plenum void, smiling with the left side of his face and grimacing with the right. Lao Tzu had a good belly laugh at all these antics. Mansoor would not stop shouting, "Ana'l Haq! Ana'l Haq!" and finally had to be put in a straitjacket and given a couple of valium. Vatsyayana gave himself a blow job to demonstrate existentially that sex and samadhi were manifestations of the same energy - and so on.

It proved impossible to choose which of the awakened ones was the Master of Masters, since even the journalist h.ld attained to choiceless awareness long ago. But the day seemed saved when Teertha, a relative newcomer from England, stood up and declared with typical British diplomacy, "The greatest Master is the one who has yet to come." Suddenly an Indian mahatma jumped to his feet and cried triumphantly, "Then that must be me - for I have been celibate for eighty-four million lives."

By unanimous agreement the awakened ones decided that the mahatma's samadhi was not yet "seedless", and he was dispelled back to samsara to spill his seed once and for all.

Just as the mahatma disappeared from sight, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh came out of his room, where he had been sitting all this time, and made his way towards a small marble podium in the corner of the hall. A deathly hush gripped the audience, and even Mansoor shut up. If a look of dread could be said to cloud those tranquil eyes, this is what happened to the gathering.

As Bhagwan sat down and leaned towards the microphone, a cry arose from Mahavira, "Wait! Wait!

We proclaim you Master of Masters! Now please go back to your room."

Bhagwan smiled innocently and left the hall. There was a sigh of relief.

The journalist turned to Mahavira in consternation: "I don't understand. Why did he get the title?

What did he do?"