A Thousand Pound Sledge Hammer

The first question:

Question 1:

THE QUESTION is from Ananda Prem.

The first thing, Ananda Prem, is that you cannot ask a question that Gramya asks. Nobody else can ask the question that you ask. Even if yon use exactly the same words, the question will be different and you will get a different answer from me.

I am not answering the question, I am answering the questioner - that must be understood. You can write a question in exactly the same way as Gramya and I will not answer in the same way. You are not Gramya, Gramya is not you. Everybody is unique, everybody is individual; never before has there been anybody like you, never again will there be anybody like you. You are simply you there is only one you, there is nobody else like you.

So how can somebody else ask a question like you? How can you ask a question like somebody else? The wording, the language, the formulation of the question is not important at all it arises out of your consciousness, out of your mind. And you have a different mind and a different consciousness, a different character a different past. It arises out of your past.

So never compare others' questions. When I answer you, I answer you that's why I insist that you should write your names on the question. Otherwise the question becomes general and then the answer is in the abstract, it is not addressed to anybody. And the answer, to be meaningful, has to be particular. It has to be addressed to a particular individual in a specific way - only then does it apply to you, otherwise not.

IT SEEMED TO ME THAT GRAMYA'S QUESTION WAS PRACTICALLY THE SAME AS MINE ON SUNDAY - no, neither practically the same nor theoretically the same only worded differently. Don't deceive yourself. It was worded differently, true, but even if it had not been worded differently my answer would have been the same.

Even when we use the same words we don't mean the same thing. The meaning is not in the words, the meaning is in the mind that uses them.

Meditate on this anecdote.

The business executive was told by his doctor that he had a heart condition. On the same day he was advised by mail that if he didn't meet a heavy mortgage payment, his home would be seized.

Driving nervously down the highway in a new car on which five payments were due, he rammed into the compact car of one of his best customers and made a sardine can out of it. Continuing to his office, he arrived at the factory just as the firemen were watering down the hot embers. There his book-keeper handed him a note informing him that all his insurance policies had lapsed.

Disgusted, he took a cab home, walked slowly into the living room and was greeted cheerfully by his wife. 'Darling,' she said enthusiastically, 'I hope you'll forgive me but I must run; tonight is my bridge night.'

'Just give me a chance to change my shirt,' answered the husband, 'and I'll jump with you!'

Her bridge night. But how can it mean the same thing to the husband? In that state it cannot mean the same. You speak the same words but still you convey different meanings. The meaning is given by the mind. The word is an outside thing, the meaning is an inside thing.

Because of the fog, the plane was in serious trouble. All the passengers were numb with fear, except the minister aboard. He took complete control of the situation.

'Let us kneel and pray,' he suggested to the passengers, and everyone kneeled except a small-time bookie.

'Why aren't you praying with us?' asked the minister.

'Because,' confessed the bookie, 'I don't know how.'

'In that case,' the minister advised, 'just behave as though you were in a church.'

So the bookie went down the aisle and took up a collection.

That is the only thing the bookie can understand, that is the only thing he would become interested in in a church.

Remember always that it is you who comes through loud and clear in your questions. I am not much interested in how they are worded, in how they are formulated. I seek for you, I grope for you in your question and unless I have got hold of you I don't answer because then it is meaningless .

Don't feel jealous of Gramya. It seems that Ananda Prem has become jealous of Gramya. That again shows her mind. Rather than understanding what I have said to her she is more worried about why I have answered Gramya so lovingly and her not so lovingly. She was not so interested in the answer, she was more interested in love being shown to her. That again shows her mind.

The question was not asked for the answer, the question was just a trick so that I could show my love to her. Then why go so roundabout? Why not simply write: 'Osho, say some beautiful things about me? That would be easy, simple - why send such big questions? Then be direct: 'I need to be appreciated, applauded.' But the mind is tricky. You may ask something but you may not be at all interested in the question or in the answer. There may be some secret desire lurking behind it.

Seeing that desire I had to use the thousand-pound sledge hammer.

But you missed. You ducked. You should have bowed down before that thousand-pound hammer, you should have received it, accepted it, welcomed it. It would have given you tremendous insight.

But you missed. Rather than listen-ing to what I said to you, you listened more to what I said to Gramya and now you feel jealous - why have I not said the same thing to you?

It was not your need. When you come to me I have to give you the medicine that you need. You cannot say, 'Why have you given Gramya a very sweet medicine and me a very bitter thing?' You need it. The sweet medicine may kill you: it is not your need. I am a physician, I am trying to help you to come out of your diseases. You may not be too interested in coming out of your diseases, but that is my only interest. I am not interested in anything else. You may be simply hankering for sympathy. Sympathy is poison and has to be used only when poison is needed. Sometimes a ill person needs poison too - all of allopathy depends o poison.

But you should not tell the doctor what medicine should be given to you, you should not prescribe for yourself. Not only have you come with a disease, you have come with a prescription also! You want me to sign it, then you will be very happy. If you can doctor yourself then the need for me is not there - then doctor yourself. If you cannot doctor yourself then listen to what I say, meditate over it - all the nuances of it, all the meanings, subtle and gross, in it. You should have meditated. That hammer would have helped you tremendously.

A thousand-pound sledge hammer had to be used because. Ananda Prem, you have a very thick head. It is almost a rock. In fact, when I use the hammer I am always worried whether the hammer is going to survive or not!

And you ask: WHY HAVE YOU BECOME SO HARD ON OLD DISCIPLES? That's what the old disciple is for. You have graduated. Ananda Prem. Gramya will also graduate - wait! The older you are, the harder I will be; because I hope that you will have become more capable. I hope that now you will be able to receive greater shocks.

Naturally, when a new disciple comes, I cannot hit him very hard. I have to be very cautious, I go slowly. The closer and closer the disciple comes to me, the more and more I can become certain when the moment is and the disciple can be hit hard. Because deep down the whole function of a Master is to behead you. The Master is a sword. Says Jesus. 'I have not brought peace into the world, I have brought a sword.

Buddhists have given a special name for it, they have called it 'Manjushree's sword.' Manjushree was a great disciple of Buddha, he functioned as Buddha s sword. Whenever Buddha SAW that somebody needed a real shock he would be sent to Manjushree. Manjushree was really terrible!

He would simply smash you. He would not allow any illusions. He was so hard in his hitting that the moment Buddha prescribed, 'Go to Manjushree,' people would start trembling. Manjushree? That meant almost death. But Manjushree was really a great, compassionate Buddha and it became famous in Buddha's time that whenever a disciple had really grown, Buddha sent him to Manjushree the butcher.

When you are older I hope that you will be capable of much more understanding. The day you are really old and you have come very close to me, I am going to cut your head off. And that has to be done so suddenly, so fast, that not even a drop of blood comes out. It has to be done very fast. But tor that you have to become by and by more and more prepared.

The work of the Master is not to console you. If you have come here for consolation you have come into the wrong company. Go somewhere else. If you have come for transformation only, then be here - otherwise I am not the person tor you. I know your secret desires are not for transformation, your secret desires are for improvement. And improvement and transformation are just diametrically opposite. Improvement means that you remain the same but you become more and more rich your ego becomes more and more decorated. You remain the same - whatsoever happens becomes a new layer on you but you remain the same. The new is an addition to you but you remain continuous with the old. You ale for improvement. You want to become beautiful, you want to become more blissful, you want to become more knowledgeable, you want to become a Buddha - this and that.

The Buddha disease....

I am not here to improve upon you; if the base remains wrong all improvement is going to lead you into more and more trouble. The base has to be transformed; from the roots you have to be cut.

Naturally it is going to be hard. arduous.

Just the other day I was telling you about the Hebrew word 'mariam', Jesus' mother's name. It means rebellion. It has another meaning also - both meanings are beautiful. One is 'rebellion', another is 'arduous, hard'. The path is a razor's edge. It is hard and arduous. Jesus comes through that arduous path, through Mariam - it is rebellious and arduous.

The greatest difficulty to be encountered is the ego. Ananda Prem asked the question and she must have been listening with the idea that I will decorate her ego a little bit here and there, will give her new enthusiasm. And I took away the very ground underneath her feet. That shocked her.

If you are one of the old around me, wait for many shocks. That's the only way I can show my love to you.

You ask: AND, OSHO, DON'T YOU LOVE ME ANY MORE? Now I have started loving you, Ananda Prem, hence the thousand-pound sledge hammer. And when I love you even more I will have to take even weightier hammers. Otherwise why should I bother to hit you at all? For what profit? By hitting you there are only two possibilities: either you receive it and you become more understanding, or you escape from me. What am I going to gain out of it? Either you are going to gain or I am going to miss you - there is no gain for me in it at all. The alternatives are two: either you escape from me become very much afraid - then I have lost a disciple; or you become enlightened- then too I have lost a disciple. So what is the gain? For me at least, there is no gain. I am going to be a loser either way.

And finally she says in a bracket: I AM WITH YOU WHATEVER IS THE CASE. That I know - I know your stubbornness.

During a flood in a little town, a little girl was perched on the top of a house with a small boy.

As they sat watching, they noticed a derby hat float by. Presently the hat turned and came back.

Then again it turned and went down stream and once more turned and came back again.

The little girl said, 'What do you think of that derby? First it goes downstream, then it turns and comes back.'

The boy replied, 'Oh, that's my father. He said, "Come hell or high water, I'm going to cut the grass today."'

And I know Ananda Prem is that type. She is absolutely stubborn. I can trust her that much. She will not leave, so only one possibility is left. If she becomes capable of re-ceiving the shocks that I am going to give - this is just the beginning - then there is a.possibility of a new light dawning in her soul.

The second question:

Question 2:

THAT means the discourse has succeeded. I don't mean you to memorise it. If you have understood it the fragrance enters into your soul. It is not a question of memorising. This is not a university. And nobody is going to examine your memory, nobody is going to ask you how much you remembered.

When I say ponder over it I don't mean repeat it, remember it, cram it - no. When I say ponder over it I mean: let the fragrance of it be released into your soul.

Buddha has said that there are three steps in how to listen to a Buddha - three steps. First, hearing; second, pondering; third, living. Hearing means that when you are listening to me you should simply listen, not think about it. Do not go on commenting inside you: right, wrong, good. bad. No commentary on your part is needed, all commentary will be a distraction. And you will miss.

When I say 'listen' I don't mean concentrate, because if you concentrate you will become very tense.

In a tense mind meditation is not possible. So when I say 'listen' the first step - it means: simply be relaxed, open, available. I am singing a song to you, let this song reach and vibrate in you. You should not be worried about whether you will be able to remember it or not - that is not the point at all. Once you have vibrated with it, something of it will have penetrated into your being, will become part of you. In fact. that which becomes part of you is real knowledge and you need not cram it. The unreal knowledge is that which you have crammed and has not become a part of you.

When a student goes to an examination he remembers a thousand and one things, but after three months, if you ask him, ninety-nine per cent of it has gone down the drain. Somehow it was just managed, with very great tension and strain. He was keeping it, holding it, for the examination. once the examination is finished he will lose that hold and things will disappear.

Can't you observe it in your own life? How much do you remember of that which you crammed in your university days how much? If you are examined again you will all fail. You will not be able to remember. Even the professors who teach in the universities will all fail if they are examined again because the examination was just a momentary effort. But real knowledge is never forgotten because real knowledge is never remembered. That which is remembered will be forgotten: that which is not remembered cannot be forgotten, there is no way to forget it.

There are a few things you cannot forget for example, swimming. You cannot forget it. You may not have been to a river for fifty years but you cannot forget it because it has never been remembered, it has gone into your being, it has become part of you. This is real knowledge. All that is real becomes part of you it remains available forever and ever. There is no way to forget it. That which I call know-ledge is that which cannot be forgotten. Even if you make an effort to forget it you will fail you cannot forget it.

Watch in life - and you will find two categories, different categories. One is that which you have to remember but you go on forgetting again and again. Another is that which you don't remember but is simply there - is there not as a memory but as part of your being. There is no need to hold it, it is simply there. Even if you want to throw it out you cannot That is real knowledge.

So when I say listen' I am not saying 'be attentive' - because in attention there is tension. The very word is out of tension' - at-tention' means 'at tension'. Your mind is narrowed. When I say 'listen', I mean be relaxed, open; become a sponge. Soak it up. Let it sink into you. Listen to me as you listen to the birds singing in the trees or to the sound of running water. There is no meaning in it. Or, listen to me as you listen to music. Music has no intellectual meaning. You listen to it - you simply drink it, you let it in you allow it into your very innermost core. And you enjoy it. If somebody later on asks if you remember what music you have heard, you will not be able to say anything. You will say, 'I enjoyed it, it was beautiful, it was something that thrilled me to the very core. I was refreshed through it. I became more alive through it, I felt a sudden joy bursting in my heart.' But these are the impacts that happen to you: there is nothing to say about the music. Listen to me as you do to music.

So don't be worried. If you forget, good. I am not saying these things to be remembered. I am not here to make you knowledgeable, professional pundits, no. I am not here to give you a memory training. But an upsurge of under-standing can happen. You can respond. To whatsoever I am saying you can respond, you can vibrate with it. And that will be real hearing. That is the first step.

The second step is pondering. The first step, hearing, is through the mind door, because you have to use the ears and you have to use the mechanical device of the mind. It goes through the mind. If you are not thinking, the mind allows it. If the mind is thinking, the mind obstructs, distorts. and does many things to it. If the mind is not thinking then mind becomes simply a pure passage, a receptivity.

Hearing is through mind, pondering is through heart. When the mind has allowed it, all that you listen to in silence, in love, in rapport with my being - falls into your heart and accumulates there.

Remember the difference. If you want to remember it, it will be retained in the head. The memory exists in the head. If you don't want to retain it, if you are not interested in remembering it, then it goes into the heart; it falls, pours into the heart and accumulates there.

But then it has a totally different impact on your being. You will not remember it but it will surround you like a fragrance. When I say 'ponder' I mean: let it reach to your heart. Don't listen through thinking, listen through feeling - that is the meaning of pondering. To ponder over it means: let your feeling be aroused - not your thought, not your logic, but your love. Let your love respond. That's the difference.

When an outsider comes to listen to me just as an out-sider, he will at the most be able to accumulate something in the head. When you become a sannyasin it changes, it changes completely. Then you listen in a totally different way. Then you are not fighting me, you are not arguing with me - then you are simply enjoying the song. You dance with me, you sing with me, you be with me - then it reaches to the heart and you feel with me.

Whatsoever I say to you has nothing to do with my head. It comes from the heart. I say it because I feel for you, I say it because I love you, I say it because great compassion is there, I say it because I want to share my heart with you. It is not a lecture. I am not lecturing you, I am not your enemy.

Why should I lecture you? I am simply opening my heart, I am allowing you to come into me, I am inviting you to become my guest, I am inviting you to partake of something of my being. That's what Jesus means when he says to his disciples, 'Eat me. Drink me.' This is a feast! When I say 'ponder'

I also mean: eat me, drink me, feel me. Let your feeling be thrilled, stirred. Let your heart dance.

Rejoice with me. It is a great tiding. I bring you a gospel.

And the third is living. First hear, with thought not interfering; then feel, fall in rapport with me, in tune with me; and then live it. It is not a question of cramming, remembering. Living, yes, living is the thing.

You hear me. If it goes into your heart it will be very easy to live it. because from the heart where else can it go? It will go into your being. These are the three layers. The first layer is thinking, the head. Deeper than the head is the heart, feeling. And deeper than the heart is being. So if it soaks through the head it reaches to the heart. If it soaks through the heart it reaches to your being. And from there comes living.

I am not saying practise it. Practice happens only when something has not reached your heart but has been retained by the head. And then you try to practise it. Practice means that you are avoiding the heart, keeping in the head, and now you are thinking about what to do, how to manage. how to practise, how to create a character on the base of it. If it reaches your heart then you can relax. By and by it will start affecting your living.

So what has to be done about the third point? You only have not to force it and not to obstruct it when it comes. Don't stand in the way. To many people it is happening every day. Something I said to you six months before, which you had completely forgotten, is suddenly there when a situation arises - it starts functioning and you behave accordingly.

Not that you try - if you try that is not the real thing. that is pseudo - but suddenly, one day, you feel you are not behaving in the usual pattern, the gestalt has changed. Somebody insults you and you don't feel hurt. You are surprised yourself. What has happened? If this happens. allow it to happen, support it, co-operate with it; it is very new and fragile, it will need your support. Sometimes it happens but you obstruct it because you think, This man is insulting me and this is not the time to ponder on great things. If I allow him to insult me he will insult me more. Today he will insult me but tomorrow he will start beating me.'

Then your mind starts bringing in the old pattern. Your heart is saying, 'Relax, this is the moment, smile.' All those beautiful parables and all that fragrance you have been accumulating in your heart is ready to explode, but your mind says, 'Wait, this is not the moment to meditate and this is not the moment to think about great things. This is dangerous. And you shrink. If you shrink. then that which was happening naturally has been obstructed.

So all that you can do is negative. Don't obstruct. Hearing, don't think that is negative. Let it be there. Pondering on the heart is positive feel. Again, living is negative. Don't obstruct. Let it take its own form and shape. Let it flow wherever it goes. Don't be worried. Don't start manipulating the energy. Allow it. Be in a let-go. Hearing is negative, pondering is positive, living is again negative.

And then you will come to know the ultimate positive, the fourth step, what in India we have called TURIYA, the fourth. That is your selfless self, beingless being, being as non-being - what Buddha calls ANATTA, no-selfness. That is the most positive thing that will happen. Negative, hearing; positive, pondering; negative, living; and then happens the ultimate positive. the ultimate being.

But the most basic problem arises in the first step. The first step is always the most basic. The second follows easily, the third even more easily, the fourth without any problem - it comes on its own accord. But the first is the most difficult step .

Have you not watched a small child starting to walk? The first step is the most difficult step. The child hesitates. He has never walked. The child has no self-confidence. He cannot trust that he will be able to walk - how can you trust the unknown? That which you have never done before I Again and again the child starts crawling, afraid that he may fall, that he may hurt himself. The first step is the most difficult step. Once he has taken the first step then it is very difficult to prevent him from taking the second, from taking the third. It is impossible to prevent him. Whenever the mother is not looking he will try again. He may fall but now he has known the adventure, the beauty of it - that he can stand on his own.

So the first step is listening without thinking. When I am talking there is every possibility that you are continuously thinking about how to practise it. That is your greed. Beware of it. The greed will not allow you to hear.

Two millionaires were discussing their personal buying habits.

'I like to shop at Lord & Taylor's. They're very reliable, said the first. 'I tore my coat on a nail in front of the store and they immediately gave me ten dollars.'

'Really?' gasped the second. 'Do you think the nail is still there?'

Now this man cannot listen. He has already moved into greed. 'Do you think the nail is still there?'

He only appears to listen but he has gone into the future. He has started planning what to do, how to get those ten dollars. He may even be a millionaire - that doesn't matter.

When you listen to me don't start trips in your mind. It happens every day. I can even feel when a person has gone on a trip. His face changes, he is no longer here. A certain lust can be seen on his face, a greed. He has started thinking about what to do, how to do it and how beautiful it will be if he can do it.

Listening, just listen; don't move from here. One way is to move into the future - don't do that; another way is to move into the past don't do that either. When you listen to me you start thinking, 'Yes, I have heard this, I have read about this. That's what I also think.' But you have stopped listening.

It was one of the greatest manhunts of all time and Detective O'Sherlock was hot on the trail of the killer. He trailed him into a department store, then he trailed him into a restaurant, then he trailed him into a trailer. But he lost him eventually.

'How in God's name did you lose him?' the chief roared angrily.

'I followed him into every hole in town,' explained the great O'Sherlock, ace of the force. 'Into everything from men's toiletries to men's toilets but I didn't follow him when he went into the movies.

That's where I lost him.'

'And why didn't you follow him into the movies?' the chief calmly queried, bursting a blood vessel.

'Because I had already seen the picture.'

Remember, don't bring in the picture you have seen before. Don't bring in your memories. When I am taking you into something, just relax and go with me. Don't allow the future to interfere, don't allow the past to interfere. When the past and future are not interfering, you are hearing. When you are hearing, the second step is very easy - your heart will gather the fragrance of whatsoever is being poured into you, has been told to you. Your heart will start throbbing with a new rhythm that you had not known before, with new energy, with new vitality. The heart will start a new movement of energy.

Then enjoy it, don't be afraid of it - you are very afraid of the heart. You have been taught to control the heart. You have been taught to reduce the heart to being a slave and to make the head the master. You will have to do just the opposite if you really want to go with me into the unknown.

The head has not to be the master any more. Instead of the head, the heart has to be crowned again. the heart has to become the emperor again. The heart is the master. Feeling should be the master, not thinking - because joy is a feeling, not a thought; because love is a feeling, not a thought; because happiness is a feeling, not a thought; because silence is a feeling, not a thought; because God is; feeling, not a thought. Let feeling be the supreme-most, the sovereign, and let the head serve it. This turn, this conversion. makes one religious.

And then the third is even more easy - just don't obstruct. When your heart starts functioning in your day-to-day life. allow it, go with it. Take the risk. That's what I mean when I say, 'Meditate over this parable.'

The third question:

Question 3:

THIS is from Deva Nirvesh. First, Swami Yoga Chinmaya's name makes you laugh - and it saves me a joke. That is economical. Second it makes you happy, it makes Swami Chinmaya happy, it makes me happy. You are happy, you laugh; Chinmaya is happy, his name has been mentioned; I am happy because you all are happy. So at no cost everybody is simply happy! That's why.

And it is a tacit understanding now that when Swami Yoga Chinmaya asks a question it is bound to be ridiculous. So just mentioning the name is enough! He is a great seeker and when you are a great seeker you stumble upon many ridiculous questions. He goes on thinking about everything and when you go on thinking about everything you are bound to find many ridiculous questions.

In fact, deep down, every question is ridiculous. Life simply is; it is not a question and there is no answer to it. It simply is. There is no question-mark to life. If you look deeply you will find there is an exclamation-mark but no question-mark. Life is a wonder, a mystery. But that happens only when you look at life as a poet.

Chinmaya looks at life as a thinker - then the exclamation-mark appears to be a question-mark.

That is the mistake every thinker is bound to commit. And he is a very logical thinker. He thinks logically. But logic always leads into absurdities so what can he do? He goes to the very end and then the thing turns into a ridiculous question. He is courageous to ask.

So it is a tacit understanding - when I mention the name of Swami Yoga Chinmaya you can relax.

You know that something beautiful is coming.

I have heard.

It happened that in a madhouse, a new superintendent had come to take charge. The old superintendent introduced him to the inmates. A great meeting was called of all the mad people, of which there were many.

The new superintendent was very surprised. He could not believe what was happening because, instead of a speech, the old superintendent merely said a few numbers. He said, 'Forty-nine,' and everybody started laughing. And they laughed so uproariously that they were bursting. They started rolling on the floor. And then he said, Seventy-two,' and they started going mad.

The new superintendent could not understand what was happening. So when the speech was finished it was just numbers - he asked, 'What is the matter? What are these numbers?' And the old superintendent said, 'l have been here for many years and they have also been here for many years so we have a tacit understanding. I have numbered my jokes. What is the point of telling the same joke again and again and again? Forty-nine - and they know, so they laugh. It is an arrangement. Seventy-two is the most ridiculous, that's why they were jumping and rolling on the floor. Everybody knows!'

The new superintendent said, 'This is beautiful. I will try tomorrow.' So he listened to a few jokes, remembered the numbers and the next day he stood there and said, 'Forty-nine.' But nobody laughed. What had happened? So thinking that maybe they were not in such a jovial mood that day he said, 'Seventy-two.' But they just sat there, nobody smiled. He looked at the old superintendent and said, 'What is the matter?' The old man said, 'You just don't know how to tell a joke.'

So please remember, if you say 'Swami Yoga Chinmaya'. nobody will laugh. It is a number, a tacit understanding: one has to know how to say it.

The woman sought the hallowed advice of the marriage counsellor.

'I just don't know what to do!' She was obviously distressed. 'The first year my husband spoke to me only once and we had a son. The second year he spoke twice and we had twins. The third year he spoke to me thrice and we had triplets. The fourth year, four times, and we had quadruplets. What shall I do?'

'Tell him just to point, you'll know what he means.'

It is a tacit understanding by now that if I say Swami Yoga Chinmaya it is enough. You can trust me.

You ask me: I AM TERRIBLY SCARED TO ASK THIS QUESTION. You should not be scared. Why you should be scared? This is such a beautiful question. Nirvesh, if you go on asking such questions you can become a second name. I need a Ma too. Swami Yoga Chinmaya is one, Ma Deva Nirvesh can become a second. So go on, persist, persevere. You should not be scared. And I have heard the rumour that Nirvesh is moving with Swami Yoga Chinmaya. It is a rumour, I cannot vouch for it. Rumours go around here fast - so many women, you know. Women may not have a sense of humour but they have a sense of rumour.

And you ask: AND WHY DOES SOMETHING IN ME HAVE TO ASK THIS QUESTION? Now, that you have to ask yourself. You must be feeling sympathetic to Swami Yoga Chinmaya. Beware. Only wrong people feel sympathetic to Yoga Chinmaya. Beware. Up to now he has had only one great follower - Ma Ananda Prem - now you may be the second.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

IT is just the other way round. Your mind is dull that's why you are not getting enlightened! Now you are putting things in completely the wrong sequence. Don't wait for enlightenment to come and don't hope that when enlightenment comes then you will be intelligent.

It will never come. Intelligence is the first requirement for it to happen at all. Intelligence is the preparation for it. Be intelligent. Behave intelligently. Live intelligently. Otherwise enlightenment is not going to happen at all. If you are hoping that one day enlightenment will come and then you will be intelligent, a genius, you are wrong.

There are a few people who go on saying nonsense things like this. One of them is old Pundit Gopi Krishna. He thinks that when kundalini arises one becomes a genius, one becomes tremendously intelligent. This is not true. If you are tre-mendously intelligent only then does your kundalini arise.

otherwise not. If Gopi Krishna is right, it means that a dull-head, a stupid person, can make his kundalini rise and can become intelligent. That is impossible.

To help your energy rise and soar high you will need tremendous intelligence, sharp intelligence.

Otherwise you will not be able to bring your energy up so high. A stupid person cannot do that.

Enlightenment, nirvana, moksha, liberation, the arousal of your kundalini whatsoever the name - are just names, symbolic. But one thing is certain: intelligence has to precede them. You cannot afford to be stupid and hope that someday something will happen and you will become enlightened.

Then you are hoping in vain. You will have to create intelligence.

How to create intelligence? First become more and more alert in small things. Walking along the road, become more alert, try to be more alert. For such a simple process walking along the road - you need not have any alertness. You can remain stupid and walk well. That's what everyone is doing. The stupidity does not hinder you at all. Start from small things. Taking your bath, be alert; standing under the shower, become very alert. That cold water falling on you, the body enjoying it...

become alert, become conscious of what is happening, be relaxed yet conscious.

And this moment of consciousness has to be brought in again and again, in a thousand and one ways: eating, talking, meeting a friend, listening to me, meditating, making love. In all situations try to become more and more alert. It is hard, it is certainly difficult, but it is not impossible. Slowly, slowly, the dust will disappear and your mirror-like consciousness will reveal itself; you will become more intelligent.

Then live intelligently. You live in such a confused way, in such a stupid way, that if you see somebody else living that way you will immediately say that he is stupid. But you are doing the same, although somehow one manages not to look at one's own life.

A man came to me and he said, 'What to do Osho? I have fallen in love with two women.' Now one is enough, one will do enough harm but he has fallen in love with two women. So both are struggling and he is crushed. And he says, 'I am in misery. ,Both are fighting over me.' And naturally from both the sides he is being hit. And if I say to him, 'Choose one,' he says that it is difficult. This means that one person is riding on two horses. He says it is difficult to choose one. Then let it be, have it your own way. You will destroy your life. Choosing two women or two men as your love-objects is bound to split you. You will become a schizophrenic and you will start falling apart.

This is stupid. It is so simple to look into the phenomenon. Maybe sometimes it is difficult it IS difficult - but then too one has to choose. You cannot go in all the directions simultaneously. If you have come to listen to me you have chosen. You have missed a few things. You could have been in a restaurant sitting with friends, sipping coffee, but you have chosen not to do that. You could have gone to a movie. but you have chosen not to go there. Or you could have chosen just to lie down on your bed and relax and be a Taoist - but that you have not chosen. You have come to Listen to me and to sit on this hard marble floor, cold and hurting - but you have chosen.

What will you say about a man who just stands outside his house and says, 'I am in difficulty. I cannot go to the lectures and I cannot go to bed because I want to do both together. So I am standing here.? He will miss both.

If you look into your life you will find how unintelligently you have been behaving. You read a book and you accumu-late knowledge and you start thinking that you know. You have learned the word 'God' and you think you have known God. You are ready to argue - not only argue, you are ready to kill and be killed. How many Mohammedans, how many Hindus, how many Christians have been killed for something they have read only in book! Tremendously stupid people. One is fighting for the Koran, another is fighting for the Gita, another is fighting for the Bible - for books you are fighting and killing living people and sacrificing your tremendously valuable life! What are you doing?

But man has behaved in stupid ways. Just because everybody else is behaving in the same way does not make it intelligent. If all are fools it does not make you intelligent because you are following them.

I have heard.

A flock of birds was flying into the sky and one bird asked another, 'Why do we always follow this stupid leader?

And the other said, 'I don't know. I have heard that only he has the map.'

The map! Nobody has the map. But you go on following the Pope, and the Shankaracharya, and a MAULVI and a pundit and you think that they have the map, that they know. Just look into their lives.

What do they know? They may even be far more stupid than you are. Just look at the unintelligent way they are living. Watch their life. Are they happy? Is there a dance in their life? Is there fragrance in their life? Just looking at them do you feel a silence showering on you? Nothing of the sort. Just because they have a book and they have read it and studied it for years, it does not make any sense to follow them.

Become a man of knowing, not a man of knowledge. Then you live intelligently.

To me intelligence is the basic morality, the basic virtue. If you are intelligent you will not harm anybody because that is foolish. If you are intelligent you will not harm your-self because that is foolish. Life is so precious, it is not to be wasted; it has to be lived in deep celebration, in deep gratitude. And one has to be very careful and watchful because a moment gone is gone forever.

It will never return. So if you waste it in stupidity you are wasting a great opportunity. Live each moment so totally, so fully aware, that you never repent later on that you didn't live, that you could have lived more, that you could have enjoyed more. That's what intelligence is: to live life so totally that there is no repentance, never. One is always contented. One knows that one has lived to one's uttermost.

Then, in the uttermost state of awareness, enlightenment happens. You say: I AM NOT ENLIGHTENED SO I FEEL MY MIND IS BECOMING DULL. No, sir, your mind is dull, that's why you have not become enlightened. So don't wait for enlightenment to come and do everything for you - do something so that your dullness is dropped.

And it can be dropped, because nobody is born dull, every child is born intelligent. Can't you see it in children? - how intelligent they are, how full of life, how full of love, how full of joy. Look into their eyes. How much shine there is in their eyes. They are the glories of God. Then the society jumps on them and the parents and the teachers and the education system and everybody starts making them dull because the society needs dull people. Only dull people can be dominated, oppressed Only dull people can be ordered to go here and there, to do this and that. Only dull people are needed by the society because dull people are very efficient, they don't have any mind, they are not dangerous. Dull people are very convenient. Dull people drag their whole life.

Just think of people who are intelligent. Do you think anybody would be ready to waste his whole life as a clerk? Just think of it. Would anybody be ready to waste his whole life as a politician? Would anybody be ready to waste his whole life as a soldier? For what? One would like to live an intelligent life of love, art, creativity. Many things would disappear from the world if people were intelligent; almost ninety-nine per cent of things would disappear.

War would not be possible. On the earth, war is almost the major work of humanity - it has been for centuries. Seventy per cent of money is wasted on war - seventy per cent! What are you doing?

Simply preparing for war? You don't know anything else. You know only how to kill. People have become efficient only in killing. This can be done only by dull people. Intelligent people will throw away the arms. They will dump all the atom bombs in the Pacific and they will say goodbye to all war.

For what? Life is so short and there is so much to enjoy the stars and the moon and the flowers and the men and the women and the rivers and the mountains. And you are just fighting and living a very dull and stupid life.

Society needs dull people, remember it. So be aware that the society would not like you to become intelligent. It would like you to become a machine efficient, certainly, but not intelligent. Do the work that is given to you and die. Drag your life from the office to the house, from the house to the office your whole life is from the office to the house, from the house to the office. In the house you will have a wife to nag you and in the office you will have a boss to insult and humiliate you. And on the road there is the mad traffic. Go to the office, back home, to the office, again home - and then one day you die. That is the only hope - that one day you will die!

Mulla Nasrudin went for a world trip. He was on a ship for the first time. And, of course, he was suffering tremendously, terribly, from sea-sickness. He could not eat anything, he could not drink anything, he was continuously vomiting.

Then the Captain came and he said to Nasrudin, 'Don't be worried. I have been in the force for twenty years and I have never seen or heard of a man dying of sea-sickness. Don't be worried.'

And Mulla beat his head and he said, 'That was my only hope! I was hoping to die, but now you say that nobody has ever died!'

Your only hope is that one day you will die. So just a little more, tolerate it a little more, a few more days of the office, a few more days of the house.... Tolerate. Death is coming to deliver you. That is your only hope.

What kind of life is this where man hopes that death will deliver him? What kind of life is this where people commit suicide? What kind of life is this where people go mad, insane, just because they cannot tolerate it any more. because it becomes too much, it breaks their nerves. No we are living very unintelligently. And in this unintelligence enlightenment is not possible.

But remember, basically you came with intelligence unintelligence is forced on you by society. So there is hope. It can be dropped too. It is just dust that has been gathered on the mirror. The mirror is still clean and clear, the dust just has to be removed. Once the dust is removed the mirror will be as clear as ever. Everybody is a genius. God never creates anything else, God only creates geniuses. Everybody is intelligent, nobody is mediocre, cannot be. How can some-body come out of God and be a mediocre? God does not deal in mediocres, he only makes masterpieces. But the society has forced you to become dull. So much dust has gathered on your mirror that you don't look like a mirror at all.

What is enlightenment? It is to attain to your mirror-like quality again. It is a recovery. It is not something that you invent, it is already the case - deep down you are en-lightened. Dust has just gathered on the surface, you need a good cleansing.

That's what we are doing here. You need a good cleansing. You need a good bath. Meditation is an inner bath. Sannyas is a total cleansing. It is trying to live intelligently, whatsoever the cost. It is trying to live courageously. It is trying to live your life in your own way, trying to do your own thing in your own way and not bothering what others say. With that declaration you become intelligent. With that declaration of individuality you become intelligent. And only through intelligence does the bird of enlightenment one day come. Open the window of intelligence and wait.

The last question:

Question 5:

WHY should I be against marriage? First, I have never been married so why should I be against marriage? You need experience for such things.

A youngster was thinking about getting married. So he wrote to his father for some personal advice.

His father wrote back:

I can't tell you how happy I am to hear about your impending marriage. You will find marriage the most beautiful state of bliss and happiness. As I look across the table at your dear mother, I realise with great pride how full and wonderful our years together have been. By all means, get married.

You have our blessings. It will be the happiest day of your life. Sincerely, Dad. Ps. Your mother just left the room. Stay single, you idiot!

I have no experience, why should I be against marriage? And fortunately my parents were very simple people. They have also not created anything in me to be against marriage. They have loved each other tremendously, innocently. In my childhood I never saw them fighting, quarrelling, nagging. They have lived as peacefully as possible. It is very rare to find such a peaceful couple.

She watched the young man have his soup with the wrong spoon, grasp the utensils with the wrong fingers, eat the main course with his hands and pour tea into the saucer and blow on it.

'Hasn't watching your mother and dad at the dinner table taught you anything?' she asked.

'Yeah,' said the boy. 'Never to get married.'

I could not have deduced it from my parents so why should I be against marriage?

Those who know, they are against but then it is too late.

Once a friend told Alfred Adler about a certain Miss X who was going to be married soon. Usually in such situations people enquire 'to whom?' but Adler asked 'against whom?' He had suffered much.

He knew that a marriage is not with somebody, but against somebody, so it was not right to ask 'with whom?' but 'against whom?'

What you call marriage is nothing but an arrangement a social arrangement. What you call marriage is nothing but an institution. And it is not good to live in an institution. It is not love, it is a poor substitute for love. If marriage arises out of love it is beautiful - but then it is not really marriage, it is a totally different thing. But if marriage is just a legal binding and there is no love in it then you are entering into an imprisonment - and on your own accord.

Marriage as such is going to disappear from the world; it should disappear. Love should be enough cause to be together. I know that there is danger, because love is something like a breeze: when it comes it comes, when it goes it goes. It is not very dependable. It is not an electric fan whose button you switch on and the fan starts. Marriage is a electric fan, you can depend on it. Love is a natural breeze sometimes it is there, then it is beautiful, but then it can go too, any moment it can be gone.

Love is like a rose flower - it blooms and withers. Marriage is a plastic flower - it never blooms and it never withers. It is very permanent. Many people have chosen the plastic flower against the rose flower, the real flower, because they are afraid of its momentariness.

But life is momentary life is a flux. To hope that one can create something permanent in life is to hope in vain. You are looking for frustration. The whole of life is a continuous movement: things change. Except change everything changes. The only thing that is permanent is change.

So whatsoever is real is changing that's why fear arises in man's mind. Love cannot be depended on so you have to bring the court and the law in so that things become permanent. When love disappears the court will bind you but anything that binds is ugly. Unity is one thing, to be tied together is another.

One night, Mulla Nasrudin and his wife were sitting by the fireside. It was a cold night. Mulla was reading his newspaper and his wife was doing some knitting. And the dog and the cat of the family were also resting by the fireside, dreaming, enjoying.

The wife suddenly said, 'Nasrudin look at the dog and the cat and how peacefully they live together.

Why can't we do that?'

Nasrudin said. Why can't we do that? Tie them together and see what happens.'

Once two persons are tied together freedom is lost and anger arises. When freedom is lost everything becomes ugly. Love means that freedom remains intact: marriage means that freedom has been dropped. You have bargained for permanence, for security, and you have paid for it with freedom.

Marriage is going to disappear, should disappear. And now the point is coming in the history of humanity where it becomes possible that marriage can disappear. It is already an outmoded phenomenon, it has lived too long and it has created nothing but misery. Marriage should disappear and love should flower again. One should live with insecurity and freedom. That I call intelligence.

To seek for marriage is to be dull; to seek for love is to be intelligent. Anything that gives you a false sense of security makes you dull, makes you less alert; anything that keeps the insecurity as it is - and life is insecure, love is insecure, everything is insecure - makes you remain alert. Because then you have to be alert every moment, you cannot depend on anything, you cannot go to sleep, you have to keep aware. Then life will have a deeper significance and life will become more natural - that is the meaning of living the life of Tao. Living life in insecurity is to live the life of Tao.

I am not against marriage, I am against the ugly institution that has evolved in the name of marriage.

If marriage allows freedom and love to exist together, it is good but then marriage is totally different.

Always be aware: never lose your freedom and never dominate anybody so that he or she loses his or her freedom. Freedom is the goal and freedom should be the very foundation of life. Love is beautiful when it flowers in freedom; when it flowers in a hothouse, closed from everywhere, it is simply a phony thing. It is not true and it cannot satisfy you. To be real the flower needs the storm, the lightning, the thundering, the clouds, the sun, the wind - it needs all these challenges to be real.

When you protect it too much, in that very protection it loses all reality, it becomes pale, it becomes anaemic; it is already dead before its death.

I am not saying that through love your life will become more secure - no, I am not saying that.

Through love your life will become more insecure. But I am all for insecurity because through insecurity is growth. When you are secure you are in your grave.