The Ego on the Tip of the Nose

The first question:

Question 1:

NEVER! NEVER CAN ONE BECOME a great horse by seeking. Seeking is the only barrier to realising your greatness. The very idea of seeking sends you away from yourself. Seeking means seeking somewhere else. Seeking means seeking outside. Seeking means you are looking everywhere else except in your own being. Non-seeking means not looking anywhere, just being centred in your being, just being there. When you are not seeking you are in your own being. In that very moment you are a great horse.

Everybody is a great horse - the good ones and the bad ones too. The bad ones have gone seeking along the bad lines and the good ones have gone seeking along the good lines. The bad ones have become criminals, immoral, and the good ones have become moral, saintly - but both are seeking.

Both are always on the way. There is a goal in their life. And they are rushing away from themselves.

Everybody is born a great horse. When you become tired and frustrated with your seeking you drop all seeking to be good or to be bad. Then you just close your eyes and it is there, the great horse is there. It has been always there, it is your nature.

Nobody is born who is not great. Nothing else ever happens in this existence except greatness - because it is out of God. How can you not be great? You are great. Greatness will not be a real greatness - deep down you know that you are not great, deep down you know that you have practised it, deep down you know that it is just on the surface, a mask. You are pretending that you are Alexander, pretending that you are Christ, pretending that you are a Buddha, pretending this and that.

You can pretend, you can deceive the whole world, but how can you deceive yourself? You will always know who you are. You may be pretending to be brave but deep down you are a coward.

You have hidden your cowardness by painting bravery on top of it. You may be smiling but hidden behind are tears. How can you deceive yourself?

So the first thing to remember is that nobody has ever come home by seeking. Seeking means going astray. Only non-seekers come home. But to become a non-seeker one has first to become a seeker. Seeking is a part, a part of attaining non-seeking. Even a Buddha has to seek and go astray and suffer. That pain is a must. That is the price we pay. Then one day, when you have sought in every direction, in every dimension, and nowhere have you found anything that you wanted, when your frustration is utterly total, in that very moment of frustration all seeking drops. Suddenly you are back home. But to come home one has to knock on many doors.

So I am not saying you should drop your seeking - unless you are utterly confused, utterly frustrated.

If you are still hankering, if there is still hope lurking somewhere in your mind that you can find by seeking, then seek, seek by all means - even though nobody has ever attained by seeking. I will say, 'Seek. Seek by all means - so that you can be frustrated, so that you can recognise the hopelessness of the very effort.' In that hopelessness is hope, in that frustration dances a totally new existence - the world of being. Seeking is the world of becoming.

To me you are already great horses. I have never come across anybody who is not a great horse.

He may think he is not - that is his problem. He may think or Even believe that he is not.... And people behave according to their beliefs. If you believe you are not a great horse you will behave in a way that is suitable to one who is not a great horse. If you believe you are bad you will behave in that way. If you believe you are good you will behave in that way.

But your pretensions are your pretension, your acting. I see your original face, I see you as you are.

The day I saw my own great horse, that very day all other kinds of horses disappeared for me. I look into every face, into every eye, and the great horse is there. The same horse that exists in me exists in you, there are not two horses - it is the same greatness. It is the same ocean that waves in you and that waves in me, that waves in a Buddha, in a Christ, in a Krishna.

But when you are seeking, you cannot look inside yourself. Seeking means you have moved into the future; seeking means you have already gone to the goal; seeking means you have already reached where you believe you have to be. It is a projection, it is a fantasy trip, it is a mind-journey.

Non-seeking means that mind has stopped; non-seeking means that there is no movement inside you you are not going anywhere.

sitting silently, doing nothing.

the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.

The second question:

Question 2:

THIS FOOLISH QUESTION comes again and again so it is better to be finished with it.

The first thing: the East has developed a totally different kind of psychology than the West. The needs are different. Different medicines are needed.

In the West the psychology that has grown down the ages is extrovert; it is outgoing. The psychology that has been developed in the East is introvert; it is ingoing. For a real Eastern person growth groups are not needed. He needs meditations like VIPASSANA or ZA-ZEN in which he can forget the whole outside world and just drown in his own being. He does not need any relationship. Relating is not needed. He needs only to unrelate himself from the world, to be in a state of total, utter aloneness. Deep solitude is needed.

Down the centuries the East has developed introversion; it is very natural for the real Eastern person to be introverted. I am saying the REAL Eastern person because it is very difficult to find a real Eastern person. The West has contaminated everybody. The Western education, the Western victory over nature, the Western domination of the East, has contaminated everybody. The real Eastern mind does not have any need to do any growth groups.

The growth group is needed because you have a tremendous need to relate, to love, to communicate. In the West the basic problem is how to communicate, how to relate. Many Westerners are here. When they come to me in darshan their problems are a hundred per cent relationship problems - how to relate.

Not even a single Indian has come who has said, 'How to relate?' That is not a problem at all.

He says, 'How to be silent? How to be into one's own being?' His question is how to drop out of relationship. He wants to be non-attached, he wants to break all the bridges that exist. He wants to know how to live in the world and yet live in such a way that he does not live there, he is far away in the Himalayas. Even if one has to live in the world one wants to live in the world of the Himalayas - at least spiritually, inwardly. Not a single Indian comes who says, 'This is my problem - how to relate to my wife, how to relate to my son, how to relate to my mother, how to relate to my friend.'

Relationship is a question of group dynamics. The Indian asks, 'How not to relate? How to forget my wife, how to forget my children, how to forget my job, how to be just alone in my inner being - crystal-pure, clean, non-reflecting, with not even a shadow moving there?'

This is a different psychology. Both are ways to reach the ultimate: one is meditation, another is love. The East has developed the mind for meditation, the West has developed the mind for love.

Love means relationship, meditation means non-relationship.

That's why I do not send Easterners to groups - except Japanese. I have sent a few Japanese because Japan is the most Western part of the East. I have sent Indians only once or twice - and these were only name's-sake Indians. They have been born in the East but their mind has not been developed by the Eastern concept, their mind is Western. They have been taught by Christian missionaries in Christian schools. Their whole education and up-bringing is Western.

This is the first thing to understand. The West will move through love easily and through love will come to itself. It is a longer way. Meditation is a short-cut. Love means: 'I go into the other, see my face in the eyes of the other, encounter the other - and in encountering the other, I come to know about myself. And then I come back. It is via the other but I come back to myself.' Love also comes to the inner solitude but it is a long way. It goes through the other. It is a big circle.

Meditation is a short way, it reduces everything to the minimum. You don't go to the other; you simply close your eyes and you drown yourself in yourself. You drop into your own being.

Both are perfectly right. It depends on the person - on what he needs. To a few Westerners also I don't suggest groups. When I see some Westerner who has no need to relate then I don't suggest groups, then I say there is no need.

But at least five thousand years of different psychological conditioning exists. That has to be taken note of. I cannot say the Easterner and the Westerner are just the same - they are not. At the innermost core they are, in their being they are, but in their minds they are not. Their approach is different. They need different methodology.

If a Westerner comes and I put him directly into VIPASSANA-LIKE methods he is simply at a loss, he cannot understand what is happening. It is a torture. He feels as if he is simply a masochist - why is he torturing himself? Why is he sitting in a SIDDHASANA in a Buddha posture, with closed eyes? For what? The Western mind wants to move, relate, dance, sing, celebrate. The Western mind is dynamic. It wants some process - so that it can go step by step into things. One day the Western mind has to come to a silent, meditative state but it has first to go through growth groups.

Then it becomes easier.

If he is sent to a growth group the Eastern person will simply be at a loss. Even Japanese are at a loss. There have been questions from Japanese like: 'Osho, why do you send us to growth groups?

You don't send Indians, why do you send us?' They don't feel good, they feel very worried. It is very difficult for them to relate the way a Western person can relate. They are not open that way. And they don't see the point of it. They don't see any point. Why go into it? When you know a short-cut then why go a long way? The East has known the short-cut always but in the West it has been different.

Here is a question: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON, A MASTER, AND A MESSIAH? which is relevant to this question. An enlightened person is one who has come home, for whom all problems have disappeared, who has no problems to solve, who has just to live, whose life is no longer burdened by any question, whose life is absolutely weightless.

But every enlightened person is not necessarily a Master. Out of a hundred enlightened persons at the most one or two will become Masters. An enlightened person is one who has come home and a Master is one who has compassion for others and would like to help them. But a Master is one who is interested only in individuals, he relates to individuals - one here, one there - he has no idea about society. This is a Master.

A Messiah is one who has compassion for the whole society. He is not worried about individuals but takes the whole society as one unit. In the East enlightened people have existed and Masters have existed but never a Messiah. The Messiah is not an Eastern concept at all. Buddha is not a Messiah, neither is Mahavir, nor Krishna. They are Masters, perfect Masters; their approach is to the individual, direct, personal. Jesus is a Messiah, so is Moses, so is Mohammed. Their approach is not individual, their approach is social, communal. They are interested in changing the whole lot of humanity. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, are all messianic; Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, are non-messianic.

All the basic Eastern religions say that the society does not exist - only the individual exists. And all the Western religions say that the individual is just a part of society; the real thing is the society, the group. The group exists, not the individual. The individual only exists in the group. Both are right in a way because both are half-right. The individual and society both exist - the individual cannot exist without a society nor can the society exist without the individual. Can you conceive of a society where no individual exists? There would be no society at all. Can you conceive of an individual who exists without a society? There would be no individual at all.

Even an individual who exists in the Himalayas, alone, even he exists in the society. He was born to a mother, he was brought up by a father, he lived in a society. Even the idea that one has to renounce all and go to the Himalayas was given by a particular society. Now sitting there in the Himalayas what is he doing? He must be meditating. That meditation was given by Patanjali or Buddha. What will he be doing?

He will be thinking of God, contemplating. That God comes from the society. And in the deepest core of his being he knows that the society exists. If he suddenly comes to know one day that the society he had left has disappeared completely from the earth, he will be shocked, he will be shaken, he will start trembling, perspiring. He will run back to the place to see what has happened to the society. Although he was living alone, in a subtle way he was still part of society.

No individual can exist without society; no society can exist without individuals. So both are true.

But the approaches are different.

Jesus says that the whole society can attain to salvation. If people want to move in groups, in communes, they can attain to salvation. Buddha will say that is not possible. Each has to move alone, each has to move in his own, each has to reach God in solitude. No group can move. Hence all sorts of social philosophies have come out of Christianity but in the East no social philosophy has been born yet.

Communism comes out of Christianity. It is the same messianic idea. Although communism says there is no God and religion is the opium of the people, still it grows out of the same idea: that the society is important and can attain to a higher state. The individual is irrelevant. Fascism, socialism democracy, or other ideologies, are all born in the West they are all part of the same messianic ideal.

The 'Messiah' is a Western idea - that the society can have salvation, that the group can become enlightened as a group.

In the East, Masters have existed but no Messiah. Jesus had a little tinge of politics in his utterances, maybe that's why he was crucified. Buddha was never crucified because the society was never much troubled with him. He was not talking about the society at all, he was talking about individuals. If you go on changing individuals the society can rest - there is nothing to be worried about. But when a person says he is going to change the whole society then there is fear.

Maybe that is the reason why Socrates was poisoned, Mansoor was killed, Jesus was crucified. No Buddha, no Mahavira, no Krishna was killed or crucified or poisoned. Why? There must be some reason. They were very dangerous people - more dangerous than Jesus, or at least as dangerous as Jesus, but their approach was individual. The society does not bother about individuals. If one individual becomes a meditator it doesn't change a whole society. It is as if a drop of water is changed in the whole ocean - who bothers? But Jesus had a program to colour the whole ocean.

Then the priest and the politicians all became afraid; their investment was at stake and they were being overthrown. They were being dethroned, they were being uprooted.

The Messiah naturally has something to do with politics; the Master has nothing to do with politics.

That becomes a problem. Christian missionaries used to come to me and say, 'It is good to help people to meditate, but what about society? What are you doing for the society? People are hungry, starving, ill. Why don't you think about making more hospitals, schools? Why don't you help people to help others? Just meditating? Yes, it is good, a person becomes silent, but is it enough?' I can understand why they are asking the question. The question comes from the messianic ideal, the Messiah. A Master has to be a Messiah.

In the East, no. In the East a Master is simply a Master. His approach is individual, his approach is meditative rather than political, personal rather than social. The East has one psychology, the West has a different psychology. This has to be understood once and for all.

IF GROUPS ARE A SAFER, MORE STIMULATING PLACE TO BEGIN TO EXPAND ANY CONCEIVABLE PERSONAL BOUNDARIES, WHY HAVE YOU NOT ENCOURAGED THE CREATION OF INDIAN GROUPS WITH INDIAN LEADERS?

That would not be possible. Even if I have to create a group for Indians the leaders would be Western. First: it would be difficult to find Indian participants and if I can manage that - because there are a few people who are no longer Eastern or only so-so - then too the leader has to be Western. It will be very difficult to find an Eastern group-leader because he will not have idea of it, he will not have the nuance of it, he will not have the real spirit of it. Yes, he can run a group but it will be mechanical. He will not be a Teertha, he will not be a Somendra, he will not be a Divya - he will not have that insight. He will not be Amitabh, he will not be Anam - no, he will lack the insight.

Those Insights take centuries to develop.

It is happening in other fields also. The scientist is basically a Western by-product. There are Indian scientists - one or two have even got a Nobel prize - but still I have never come across a real scientist in the East, never. The mind is not scientific. They learn, they put their intelligence to it, they learn all that can be learned, but the spirit is lacking. If you look into their personal life you will not find them scientific. Their approach will be non-scientific. When they are in their lab they may become scientific but when you go into their house you will find them doing PUJA, worshipping a statue, or saying a mantra and crying.

In the lab they may be objective but when they are in their home they are no longer objective. There they will be as superstitious as any ordinary person. They may even go and follow Satya Sai Baba, and think that miracles are possible. There are such people!

Now this is very unscientific. A scientist cannot believe that miracles are possible. No miracles are possible - that is a fundamental law of science. Everything is according to the law and a miracle is something which is not according to the law. So how is a miracle possible? A miracle means something is happening which should not happen. Science cannot trust it. If it is happening then it must be according to a law which has not been discovered yet. Then it is not a miracle. Or maybe there is some magic, some trick, some sleight of hand - it is simple, for the scientific mind it is simple. But you can find Indian scientists following Satya Sai Baba and believing that things are appearing out of nothingness.

Their mind is not scientific, their mind is centuries old - and the scientific layer is very thin. They have gone to the West, they have been to Oxford, to Cambridge, they have learned everything, they are intelligent people - but they are not scientific. They may have even discovered something, they may have been given a Nobel prize, but still they are not scientific. At the most they are technical - they know the technique. But if you look deep into them you will find the Eastern religious person who can believe in anything - a believer, gullible - you will not find real logic. All logic will be just superficial.

As far as their work is concerned they will be logical but as far as their life is concerned you will see them going to the palmist or to the astrologer. If their son is getting married they will not bother about any scientific approach towards it, they will go to the astrologer to enquire whether the marriage will succeed or not, whether the couple will be happy or not.

Now a scientific person should go to a scientist to enquire whether the blood specimens mix, whether the hormones go together. He should ask a computer. A computer should be fed with all the information about both the persons and the computer should show what is going to be the outcome of these two persons meeting. Will they suit each other? That will be more scientific than going to an astrologer who will look at their birth chart and who will think about stars and who will decide according to stars. And this scientist will never look at what is happening to the astrologer himself - at him and his wife. They are killing each other!

The Eastern mind is basically non-scientific. One can learn science but to be a scientist one needs a totally different spirit.

And something similar happens in the West. The Western person can become religious, can learn, can come to the East can become religious, but deep down the scientific approach persists. He goes on being logical. Sometimes it happens that books are written about Zen. Zen is an illogical approach, an absurd approach, fundamentally Eastern, and in the West books are written about Zen explaining the illogic in a logical way, trying to find out what the logic of this illogicality is! There must be some logic in it. They are trying to find ex-planations and they find them - when you insist you can always find. You can fill in the gaps, you can see things which are not there. Zen is simply illogical; there is no logic to it.

So if you read Western books written about Zen there is logic. They may say that Zen is illogical but then immediately they will explain why. They will always try to bring things to reason. Rationalisation is the Western approach; the East is irrational.

So it is possible that we could train some Indian to be a group-leader but he would be just a phony group-leader, he would not be able to go deep into it. And he would not be able to be there authentically. Something would be missing.

And, moreover there are many who would like to go out of curiosity they go on asking again and again why Indians are not allowed. I can allow you but you will simply be disturbed. You will come out of it shaken. completely shaken, and there is more possibility that you will escape from me and you will never come back again because you will never be able to figure out what this is. You cannot relate it to religion at all.

Somebody is being angry and beating the pillow or beating the wall and getting mad. The Indian will sit there and he will say, 'What is going on'? What is the point of it all? How iS this man going to become meditative by being mad? These things have to be dropped. And for these things one must come to a group and pay for it? One can do these things at home. How is this man going to be helped by being so angry, so aggressive so violent'? The Indian cannot understand It because the Indian has not suffered two thousand years of Christianity. He does not know what Christianity has done to the West. Two thousand years of repression. That repression has gathered in the pit of the stomach, it is heavy there, it has not been allowed out. Everything has been forced.

When Vivek came here for the first time she was not even able to burp! Repressed, absolutely repressed. Burping is a beautiful thing but in the West you don't burp! From the very childhood a child has to be taught 'Don't burp'. What nonsense! In the East we have a totally different concept.

If you are invited to a feast at somebody's house and you don't burp, it is insulting. That means you are not satisfied.

In my childhood I used to go with my father. He is a great burper. Whenever he went to somebody else's house he would burp loudly. So I asked him, 'Why do you do it that much? You never do it that much at home?' He said, 'It has to be done otherwise the people will think that we are not satisfied.'

The burp gives a satisfactory expression. It says the stomach is full and it is perfectly satisfied and it is happy. It is a physical expression.

I was reading one of Janov's books in which he gives a few certificates from his patients who have been helped by primal therapy. In one certificate one patient says, 'I am very, very thankful to you because after primal therapy I began to burp for the first time in my life.' He said that it was amazing.

I also say it is amazing. Primal therapy is needed to help you to burp! Such a repression!

You don't know what a calamity has happened to the Western mind. Everything has been forced.

You have to be loving and love has disappeared. You have not to be angry and anger has gone deep in the pit of the stomach - it is there solid like a rock. You have to go on smiling, you have to show a face to everybody - this is the etiquette. Falsity, phoniness has been taught. That phoniness has to be dropped before one can enter into meditation.

For the Eastern mind there is not such a problem. Phoniness has never been taught. So it is very difficult - if I send an Indian to the group he may even start being phony by trying to be angry. He will say, 'Everybody is doing that so it has to be done.' He will move to the other extreme - it has to be done because everybody is doing it and they are being helped and they are growing and they are enjoying it and they are feeling so ecstatic. 'I will miss something if I don't do it' - and he will start doing it. He will be simply tired, exhausted. He will come out of it simply feeling spent, not expanded. That's why I have not allowed it.

And then he will go and start creating rumours all around - that is one of the basic curiosities. Again and again Indians ask why I am not allowing them to do the groups. Their curiosity is because they want to see what is happening there. If somebody becomes nude that will be something! The Indian will enjoy that nudity more than anything else. And he will go and spread the news all over and exaggerate as much as he can - in that, Indians are perfect masters! And that will create trouble for the groups, that's all.

The last thing: the West is how-oriented, the East is why-oriented. 'How' means methodology, technique; 'why' means no method, no technique, no effort. The West is effort-oriented, the East is effortlessness. The whole approach of the East is how to relax to know; the Western approach is how to strain, to concentrate to know, how to be more attentive to know. The Eastern approach is how to be so relaxed that there is nothing - a sort of euphoria, no concentration, a sort of vagueness, a cloudiness where boundaries disappear and distinctions are no more valid, where each thing meets and merges into each other thing. When all boundaries are blurred in that vague, void, distinctionless cloud, one comes to know. Methods are to clarify. The West has no vision of the 'why' and the East has no provision for the 'how'.

But now things are getting mixed up. East is no more East, West is no more West. People are travelling, people are being educated here and there, people are coming to the East to learn religion, people are going to the West to learn science everything is meeting and merging.

You must have heard the famous lines of Rudyard Kipling: 'West is West, East is East, and the twain shall never meet.' They are meeting. In the days of Kipling it was almost certain that they would never meet. They are meeting. Things change. That which cannot be conceived becomes conceivable. East and West are meeting.

There is only one problem and only one fear - that Rudyard Kipling may prove right from the other side. The problem is the West can become so Eastern and the East so Western that again they may not meet. That's the only problem. The East may become West, the West may become East, and the twain shall never meet. That is possible. That's why there are not many Eastern people here. I am saying something that the East is no longer interested in. You will find many Eastern students at Harvard, you will find many Eastern students at Oxford, sitting at the feet of a scientist, learning from a scientist, but you will not find very many Eastern people sitting at the feet of a mystic and learning about meditation. And you will find Western people rushing there - a great pilgrimage has started.

You are coming from the West, dropping out of the Oxfords and the Cambridges and the Harvards in search of an inner space, and the Eastern young man is rushing towards the West to know more about technology, engineering, chemistry, physics, mathematics. There is a danger.

It happened once that in a small town there was a great atheist and a great theist. Both were great.

And the whole town was disturbed and puzzled.

The atheist would prove to everyone that there was no God, and his arguments were superb. Then the theist would prove that there was a God, and his arguments were also superb. So the village was in a very difficult situation. What to decide? The whole village was confused. For twenty-four hours, day in, day out, these two persons were contradicting each other and the whole village came to a point where they started feeling they would go mad. Both the arguments were so superb it was difficult to decide. They were almost equal. They negated each other. But then the people were left with a vacuum.

Just to save their sanity the village decided to ask these two persons to have a great debate and convince each other. Either the atheist must become a theist or the theist must become an atheist - whatsoever they decide the village will follow. But it had to be decided. They had had enough of indecision .

So a great debate was arranged and the atheist proved that there was no God and the theist proved that there was a God and by the morning a strange thing happened. The theist became convinced that there was no God and the atheist became convinced that there was a God. The problem remained the same and the village was still in confusion.

It is possible that the West may become East and the East may become West and again there will be the same polarity .

This has to be avoided. For the first time it has become feasible to create one world, for the first time it is practically possible to create one earth. For the first time it is possible to drop the concepts of East and West and create a new third psychology - I call it the 'Psychology of the Buddhas'. I am trying that.

But I have to look to your past. The whole goal here is to create a meditative space. How it is created is irrelevant. If you need group processes I will give you group processes, but the meditative space has to be created. If you don't need group processes, if you need simple meditations, I will give you simple meditations, but the meditative space has to be created. Only in that meditative space will the East and West disappear, will the Eastern and the Western psychology disappear, will the division disappear.

A great experiment is afoot. You may not be aware of how fortunate you are. You may not be aware that something of tremendous import is happening here, something which can become the door to a great synthesis. A great Tao can arise. We can attain to the primordial unity.

The groups are meant to destroy the Western psychology and the simple meditative techniques are meant to destroy the Eastern psychology. When both are dropped then you are human, neither Eastern nor Western. In fact, then you are just existential, with no mind. That no-mind is the goal.

The third question:

Question 3:

IF you have decided then what is the point of knowing the reason? If you have already decided to take sannyas then why this hankering to know the reason? Has there always to be a reason for everything you do? Is it really needed? Have you done everything in your life because of certain reasons?

This is again the Western mind, the Western psychology. There has to be a reason - otherwise why, why should you take it? Can't you take any step without a reason? If you cannot, you will not be able to live, because life is irrational it has no reason. Why are you here at all? Can you show any reason why you are here? Why were you born? Why do you breathe? Why do you love? Why are you happy? Why are you sad? For what?

Because of this 'why', this constant hankering to know the reason, the West has become very suicidal. Then arises the problem of why to live at all. What is the reason? When you feel that there is no reason to live then why not commit suicide?

But I must tell you. There was a great Greek philosopher Xenon. He used to teach his people that there was no reason to live. But he lived to a very old age - eighty-nine years. He lived long. And it is said that many people committed suicide because of his teaching. He was saying, 'There is no reason why you should go on living. Every morning getting up, again going to bed, again getting up... for what?' He puzzled many people.

If you really ask 'why' deeply there is no 'why'. You will be left with only a very uneasy space within you - why? And Xenon was a great scholar and a great logician. He proved to people that there is no reason to live. Somebody asked him, 'But why do you go on living?' He said, 'I have to live to teach people that there is no reason to live. This S my reason.'

When he was dying - at eighty-nine - somebody asked him on his deathbed, 'It is very puzzling and confusing that you lived so long because for at least fifty years you have been teaching that there is no reason to live.' He said, 'That's true, but I could not find the reason to commit suicide either. For what?'

Now look at this man. His life must have been a tremendous misery. You have no reason to live and you have no reason to die.

I have heard.

A young man approached an old Jew. He was in love with the old Jew's daughter. He said to the old man, 'Sir, I want to get married to your daughter.'

The old man looked at him and, as Jews are prone to ask, he said, 'But, young man, what are your reasons? Why do you want to get married to my daughter?'

The young man shrugged his shoulders and said, 'No reasons at all. I am in love.'

'No reasons at all. I am in love.' Love needs no reason.

Sannyas should be a love affair. You should not ask for reasons otherwise sannyas will become very mundane.

When you go to the market and you purchase something, certainly there must be a reason for it.

You go to the market to purchase a car. It is a commodity. There must be some reason for it. You need it. It is a utility. But if you fall in love with a woman or a man there is no utility. What utility has love? What use has love? You look at a rose flower and you are thrilled. What is the reason for being thrilled? What is there? You look at the moon and something in you simply gets connected with it, something starts changing in your being, you feel a coolness. What is the reason? If you look for the reason you will destroy all beauty, love, truth, God meditation - everything.

Please leave a few things in life which have no reasons. Let sannyas be one of those few things.

But I understand. The Western urge is to make everything rational, to find a reason for every act - otherwise you will feel uneasy. So you try to find some kind of rationalisation. Reason there is none, but rationalisation you can find. You can invent it. Why be bothered to ask me? You can invent a rationalisation: it is because you want to search for truth, because you want to go in search of God, because you want to attain to self-realisation or you want to become enlightened. These are all excuses, all rationalisations.

A stranger stopped at Mulla Nasrudin's store for cigarettes. On the wall was a sign: 'This store will be closed on August 28th on account of the weather.' As it was only August 15th, the man asked the Mulla how he could know what the weather would be like so far in advance. 'Well,' said Nasrudin, 'if it rains lightly, I am going fishing. If it rains heavy, I am going to stay home and work on my tackle.'

'But how do you know it's going to rain?' asked the man.

'Don't care if it rains or not,' explained Nasrudin. 'If it's sunny I will go fishing or work on my tackle anyway. All depends on the weather.'

You can find something. 'All depends on the weather.' You can find a rationalisation, an excuse.

If you have decided, let this decision be pure - uncorrupted by any reason. Look at the beauty of what I am saying. If you can do something without any reason it means you can do something without the mind coming in. If you can do something without reason that means you have done something out of no-mind. If you can do something without reason that means something has happened, you have not done it. Let sannyas be a happening. Why bother about reasons?

You must have fallen in love with my orange people. You must have fallen in love with me, you must have fallen in love with the space that is being created here. Let it be a love affair, don't bring reason in. And then your sannyas will go deeper. It can go very deep. It can transform you. With reason it will be superficial. It is for you to choose.

If you want a reason you can find one but my feeling is: try to be courageous, sometimes do something which has no reason at all. You could have avoided it, you could have managed not to do it, but still you allowed it to happen. Let something bigger than you happen to you. You cannot figure out what it is. Going into the unknown is sannyas. Going into the unfamiliar, the uncharted, is sannyas. Going into that without making arrangements about where you are going, for what, just going, as if pulled in by some greater power than you, is sannyas.

The fifth question:

Question 4:

THE first thing: for the man of Tao there is not many and one. For the man of Tao all women are one woman - because the man of Tao looks at the energy and not at the form. For the man of Tao one woman is different from another woman only because of the frame - the sky is the same. For the man of Tao there is feminine energy and masculine energy, yin and yang - whether you stand at one window and look at the sky or you stand at another window and look at the same sky makes no difference. So the first thing is that all women are one woman because there is only one feminine energy. It is one sky framed in different windows.

The second thing: for the man of Tao one woman is all women because when you look from a window into the sky if you are not too much obsessed with the frame it is the same sky, it is one sky. So one woman is all women and all women are one woman for the man of Tao - because a man of Tao thinks in terms, contemplates in terms of energies not of forms. He thinks in terms of the formless. When I look into you I am not bothered at all by the frame you exist in, I look at the painting, I don't look at the frame. The frames differ but the painting is the same. It is the one God, the same one sky.

And for the man of Tao, in fact, the man and the woman also start disappearing by and by. There is only one energy - call it xyz. Taoists call it Tao. It means nothing. It means x. There is only one energy, Tao. It functions in two ways, man and woman. It is the same energy. It has to create a polarity to function otherwise it will not be able to function at all.

These two hands of mine are same energy. I am in both. But if I want to clap them I can clap them, I can put them against each other. I can hit my right hand with my left, or I can love my left hand with my right. But I am flowing in both hands. I am Tao. The right hand is yang, the left hand is yin. You are Tao. The masculine is your right hand, the feminine is your left hand. Now you can create either a clash between the two or you can create a harmony between the two. But whether it is a clash or a harmony, the energy remains the same.

The man who has attained to Tao has gone beyond man and woman. He is Tao.

The sixth question - and now for the bombshell:

Question 5:

WHETHER Lieh Tzu existed or not does not matter. Right or wrong, it does not matter at all.

Western scholars have been very puzzled about Lieh Tzu - about whether he ever existed or not.

There are great treatises. They worked hard for years to find out whether this man really existed. To the Eastern mind this whole scholarship looks stupid because it does not matter whether he existed or not. If you ask me whether he existed or not I say it is all the same. Whosoever wrote these beautiful stories was Lieh Tzu - whosoever. One thing is certain: somebody wrote these beautiful stories. That much is certain because these stories exist.

Now, whether somebody of the name of Lieh Tzu really wrote these stories or somebody of some other name wrote them, how does it make any difference? It will not add anything to the stories, they are perfect. It will not take anything away from the stories, nothing can be taken away. Whether Lieh Tzu was a historical person or not, how is it going to affect these stories? These stories are so beautiful, they have intrinsic value. One thing is certain: somebody wrote them - but why be bothered about what his name was, whether it was Lieh Tzu or something else?

It is possible that they were written by many people then too there is no problem. Whosoever wrote one of these stories must have touched the consciousness of Tao, otherwise they could not have been written. One man may have written them or many men, but whenever these stories were written somebody had penetrated in to the Tao consciousness, somebody had understood what life is, somebody had had a vision.

In the West this is very significant. People go on writing books and books about whether Shakespeare ever existed or not. As if it makes any difference. The plays that Shakespeare wrote are so beautiful - why not look into the plays and love and enjoy them? This seems to be going astray to ask whether Shakespeare existed or not. And the problem arises because it is thought that Shakespeare was an uneducated man so how could he write such beautiful things? Have you ever known very educated men to write beautiful things?

It is thought that it was not Shakespeare but Lord Bacon who was the real author. But I cannot trust this because I have read Lord Bacon's other books - they have nothing to compare with Shakespeare. Lord Bacon is just ordinary. He may have been a very learned man, he may have been a great scholar, but his books are ordinary, rubbish. Just because he is Lord Bacon and a very famous name, who is deceived? Have you ever heard the name of any book by Lord Bacon?

Who is bothered? How could Lord Bacon write these Shakespearian plays? Under his name he has not written a single masterpiece so how could he write one under a pseudo-name? And if he can write such beautiful plays as the Shakespearian plays are, under a pseudo-name, then what was he doing when he was writing under his own name? It doesn't seem right.

So whether Shakespeare was known as Shakespeare or not is not the point. Some consciousness certainly existed which gave birth to these beautiful plays. What is wrong in calling that consciousness Shakespeare?

The same is true about Lieh Tzu - there is suspicion. There is no suspicion in the East, we have never bothered. In India we have many books written by one man, Vyasa. THE MAHABHARATA IS enough. To write a book like THE MAHABHARATA is enough for one author. It is an ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA. It will make one man famous for ages to come. And that is only one of the books that he has written - there are hundreds of books in his name.

Now Western scholars cannot believe that one man can write so many books. I can understand. It does not seem possible. And these books are not written in one age - one book was written five thousand years ago, another book three thousand years ago, another book two thousand years ago.

So this man existed for thousands of years?

But in the East we have never worried about it. Don't we see the problem? We can also see the problem but our approach is different. We say, 'What does it matter who wrote them?' The books are beautiful, very beautiful, tremendously significant. We have enjoyed them down the centuries, we have loved them, we have contemplated over them. The authorship is irrelevant.

And why one man? In fact, the case is this. Once Vyasa's name became famous then other authors simply did not bother to write their own name. They said, 'It will do. Vyasa's name is good and it is a well-known name, it will do.' So down the centuries anybody who wrote a beautiful book and thought that it was worthy of a Vyasa, signed it Vyasa. It was worthy of the man who wrote THE MAHABHARATA SO how could he sign his own name? That would not look right. In fact, it was so beautiful that only Vyasa could write it - so the author signed with the name of Vyasa.

These people were beautiful, they had no egos of their own. They were just vehicles. In fact, later on the name 'Vyasa' became synonymous with 'the author'. 'Vyasa' means 'the author' - written by the author. It does not mean anything else. In the East we know that when a book is written by Vyasa it means: written by the author. Naturally, every book has to be written by the author. 'Vyasa' became synonymous with 'the author'.

Lieh Tzu is suspicious. He does not seem to be a historical person at all, he has not left any trace.

Either he was not a historical person or he was a great horse. My preference is for the second.

He was a great horse who never raised any dust and who never left any track behind. He effaced himself completely. Only this small book exists - the book of Lieh Tzu - with these small parables.

It says nothing about Lieh Tzu.

But why should one bother? This is going into the non-essential, this is looking at the colour of the horse. The colour of the horse was black and the man of Tao reported it as being yellow. And the horse was a stallion and the man reported it as being a mare. Lieh Tzu may have been a woman, he may not have been a man. Who knows? He may not have been a Chinese, he may have been a Tibetan. Who knows? He may not have been at all. It does not matter. But these parables matter.

These parables are doors.

So please don't go into the non-essential. Look into the spirit of the essential. Don't be bothered by the gross, go into the subtle.

The seventh question:

Question 6:

DON'T be worried. It has always been so. Every age and every generation has thought that something great is happening to them, because every generation has a great ego. How is it possible that something great is not happening while you are here? No, something cataclysmic, something great, something really final is going to happen.

This has been so from the very beginning.

I have heard that when Adam and Eve were thrown out, expelled out of the Garden of Eden, the first thing that Adam said to Eve was, 'Darling, we are passing through a great revolution.'

Since then man has always felt the same - again and again and again down the ages. It is nothing new. A six-thousand-year-old stone has been found in Babylon with four or five sentences inscribed on it. When these sentences were deciphered people were puzzled. If you read those sentences you will not believe that they are six thousand years old, they look as if they are part of the editorial of today's POONA HERALD. The first thing that inscription says is: 'Where are those old golden days? The new generation has become very corrupt. The children don't respect their parents....' Six thousand years old! It has not used the word 'hippie', right, but what is the difference? 'Children don't obey their parents. There is no respect left. Love has disappeared. Wives don't love their husbands, husbands don't love their wives. It is the most immoral age ever.' These are the sentences. 'The most immoral age....'

But the ego feels satisfied. Our age is the most immoral age. Nobody else can compete, nobody else can compare. And every age has always felt that it is passing through a very critical moment.

Sir, it has been always so. Don't be worried. Rest and go to sleep. Let the earth shake, it has always been shaking. It IS nothing new.

On the earth almost everything is old and ancient. There IS a saying in India that there is nothing new under the sun. And in a way it is very significant. Only forms differ, everything is the same - the same anger, the same hatred the same war, the same violence, the same inhumanity, the same madness, the same neurosis. Nothing is new under the sun.

Don't waste time about it. Just go within yourself and find out that which is eternal, find out that which is your reality. These outer things have remained the same, changing a little bit here and there but basically repeating the same gestalt: the politics, the politicians, the war amongst nations, the religions and the churches and their violent struggle to survive and crush each other, the greed of man and the aggressiveness of man, and the inhumanity of man towards other human beings.

The last question:

Question 7:

An egotistical lover met a girl in a drugstore and asked her 'How would you like to sleep with me tonight, baby?' The giri, insulted and angry, used her knowledge of judo and swung him out of the door. Jolted and jilted, the egotistical lover returned. 'But baby,' he said, 'You haven't answered my question!'

That's what ego is - the greatest stupidity. You can't see it because you are it. You can always see it in others, you cannot see it in yourself.

A Jew suddenly became very rich and he wanted to show it off to everybody. So he and his wife went to the costliest restaurant dressed in the costliest dresses. The wife was wearing diamonds and emeralds and all that money could purchase - and they had really become very rich. She was looking very ugly with all those diamonds and emeralds because she had no taste. You can become rich suddenly but you cannot gain taste suddenly. You can become rich suddenly but you cannot become cultured suddenly.

And sometimes, when you suddenly become rich, all your ugliness comes to the surface. You purchase all that ugliness with your richness - you can afford it now. Up to now it had been hidden but now it comes to the surface.

They sat down in the restaurant and looked at the menu. But as the menu was in French they could not read it - they did not know anything about French and they did not want to admit it to the waiter.

So the wife asked, 'What are you going to order now?' He told her not to be worried and said to the waiter, 'Bring me one hundred dollars' worth of salami sandwiches - one hundred dollars' worth.'

The ego is just absurd. Asking for one hundred dollars' worth of salami sandwiches!

The waiter could not believe it. He said, 'You are both going to eat them all?'

It is difficult to look at your own ego. The ego is something that everybody is aware of except yourself. Whenever others say something about you, ponder over it, meditate over it. There is every possibility that they will be right. When others say something about your ego, don't deny it, don't reject it. There IS every possibility that they will be right. There is a ninety-nine per cent possibility that they are right - because others can very easily see your ego even if you cannot. And you can see other egos very easily; it is there just exactly on the tip of their noses. In everything they do - walking, talking sitting, listening - it is there. It is so apparent, so obvious to everybody - except to the person himself. He hides behind it.

The actors were out of work when they met in Lindy's one day. 'Say, I got an idea, ' said one. 'Why don't we team up? Do an act together.'

'Sounds good,' said the other. 'What kind of an act you got in mind?'

'Well, I come out and sing. The curtain comes down. Then it goes up and I come out and dance.

Then it comes down. Then it goes up again and I come out and juggle. Then.... '

'Hey, where do I come in?'

'The curtain don't go up and down by itself!'

That's what ego is. You are the emperor and everybody IS a servant. You are the end and everybody is a means This is the basic ingredient of the ego, the very centre - that you are the centre of the whole existence and everybody is here to serve you, to be used by you. If you are using people you are an egoist. If you think of yourself as the centre and everybody else as your periphery then you are an egoist.

If you think that everybody is an end unto himself, then the ego starts disappearing. If you don't put yourself higher than others or lower than others then the ego disappears. Remember, you know that to put yourself higher than others is to be egoistical but I am saying that to put yourself lower than others is also egoistical. It is ego standing on its head but it is ego all the same. So don't put anybody higher than you and don't put anybody lower than you. We are one. We are one existence.

Nobody is lower, nobody is higher. Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior. There are not two gods so how can there be inferiority or superiority? It is one unity. Ego makes you feel separate; non-ego joins you to existence. To feel one with the cosmos is to get out of the ego; to feel separate is to be with the ego.