Let It Be So

Question 1

THE human mind tends to convert every experience into a question. That is a very destructive step. Please avoid it. Here near me the whole purpose is to know that which is not knowable, to know that which is not expressible, to know that which cannot be put into words. When it starts happening, don't make a problem out of it, don't create a question out of it - because your very questioning will become a stopping. Then your mind will have started something else and you are distracted.

When it starts happening, enjoy it, love it, be nourished by it, savour it, dance it, sing it, but don't make a question about it. Just be it. And allow it total space. It will grow. It needs space in you to grow.

Don't be in a hurry to make a theory out of it. Theories are very dangerous. They can kill the child in the womb. The moment you start thinking in terms of analysing, knowing what it is and what it is not, comparing, labelling, you are moving towards an abortion.

You will miss something that was going to grow - you killed it. Don't be suicidal, don't be analytical, just allow it. Feel its presence - but not with the mind. Feel its presence with your totaility. Let your heart be open to it and it will grow.

And in that very growth, by and by understanding will come. Understanding is not going to come through analysis, through thinking, through brooding, through logic.

Understanding is going to come by deeper and deeper experience.

You say something has happened to you through me but it is something which is inexpressible. Let it be so. Be happy. You are blessed. When something inexpressible starts happening then you are on the right track, you are moving towards God, the ultimate mystery. Whenever you have something within you which you cannot understand, that simply shows something bigger than you has entered in you - otherwise you could have understood it, you could have figured it out. Something bigger than the mind has penetrated you, a ray of light in the dark soul, a ray of light in the dark night of the mind. The mind cannot comprehend it; it is beyond its understanding. But not beyond understanding, remember. Beyond the understanding that is possible for the mind but not beyond understanding - because there is understanding which is not of the mind: the understanding of the total organ, of your total being, of your totality.

But that comes not by analysis, not by dissection; it comes by absorbing the experience.

Eat it! That which is inexpressible has to be eaten by you. Jesus says to his disciples, 'Eat me.' That's what he means: eat the inexpressible, eat the unknown. Digest it, let it circulate into your blood. Let it become part of you. And then you will know. And the knowing will arise as suddenly as the experience has arisen.

Now a ray has entered in you. Allow it to become part of you - only then will you understand it.

This understanding is not the understanding you have been acquainted with up to now.

You have known only the mind and its ways. It labels things very immediately.

Whenever you ask what this is, what are you asking really? You see a bush and a flower and you say, 'What is this?' Somebody says 'a rosebush' and you think you have understood. Somebody has just uttered a word 'rose' and you think you have understood.

But if you don't know the name you feel a little disturbed. That unknown flower confronts you, challenges you. You feel your prestige is at stake. Because that unknown flower continuously says, 'You don't know me, so what kind of knowledge is yours? You don't know even me?' The flower goes on hitting hard at you and you start feeling disturbed. You want to know so that you can finish with this challenge. You go to the library, you look at the books, at the Encyclopedia Britannica; you find out what the name of this rose is. It is 'rose' - okay, you have labelled it. Now you can be at ease.

But what have you done? Just by putting a word to the rosebush do you think you have understood it? You have lost an opportunity of understanding. You have lost a great challenge. Because remember well - the name 'rose' is given by man to the rosebush, the rosebush does not know the name at all. If you talk about the rosebush to the rosebush, the rosebush will not understand it. What are you talking about? What nonsense are you talking about? The rosebush has no name as far as the bush itself is concerned - the name is given by others, given by people like you who cannot tolerate the unknowable anywhere.

The unknowable is such an uneasy thing, it creates so much discomfort. You see somebody; you say, 'Who is this man?' And then somebody says he is a Chinese, or an African, or a Japanese, and you feel at ease. What have you known? Just by saying that he is a Chinese.... There are millions of Chinese - eight hundred million - and no other Chinese is like him. In fact, nothing exists like THE Chinese. There are millions and millions of Chinese - each individual is unique, different; each has his own signature, his own being. What have you understood by labelling a man as a Chinese? But you feel at ease.

What religion does he belong to? He is a Buddhist. Another label has come into your hand. You know a little more now. To what party does he belong? He is a communist.

Still a few more labels you gather - and then you think you have known the man.

Is knowledge as cheap as the mind thinks? Labelling is not knowledge. Labelling is a way to avoid the opportunity that was open. You could have known the man if you had got involved with him. You could have known the rosebush if you had meditated alone with it, if you had allowed its fragrance to enter into your nostrils and into your heart; if you had touched it with love. If you had had a communion with this rosebush you might have known something.

I don't say you can know the rosebush totally. If you can know a single rosebush totally then you have known the whole universe - because in the single rosebush the whole universe is involved: the sun and the moon and the stars and the past and the present and the future. All time and all space is converging on that small roseflower. If you can know it in its totality you will have known the whole universe. Then nothing is left behind.

Each small thing is so great.

And when something like an unknown flower starts blooming within you, don't be in a hurry to dissect it; don't put it on the table and cut it and start looking for the ingredients.

Enjoy it. Love it. Help it to grow. A grace has descended upon you. You have become a Hasid.

That is the meaning of Hasid - grace.

The second question:

Question 2

No, I will not say anything about those techniques - because Hasidism is absolutely non- technical. The whole approach is non-technical. Hasidism has no technique - just a sheer joy in life.

Hasidism is not a path of meditation, it is a path of prayer. Prayer has no technique.

Meditation can have millions of techniques because meditation is a scientific approach to inner reality. Hasidism is not a science, it is an art. Hasidism does not believe in techniques but in love.

Remember well, the technological mind is a mathematical mind. The mind of the lover is non-mathematical; the mind of the lover is the mind of the poet. Love is a romance, not a technique. Love is a dream. not a technique. Love has a totally different approach to life.

Hasidism has no techniques; it has no yoga, no Tantra in it. It simply says: trust life, trust God, and whatsoever has been given to you, enjoy it. Enjoy it so deeply and with such gratitude that every ordinary thing becomes hallowed, becomes holy, each small thing in life becomes sacred. Transform everything into a sacred thing - the profane disappears when you bring your energy of love, grace, gratitude.

Love is not a technique, so nobody can teach you how to love. And if you come across books which say that they can teach you how to love, beware of those books. If you once learn the techniques of love you will never be able to love again. Those techniques will become a barrier. Love is a natural spontaneous phenomenon. Even animals are loving - they don't have Kinseys and Masters and Johnsons and they are achieving orgasm perfectly, without any scientific help. They don't have any sex therapists and they don't go to any guru to be taught how to love. It is an inborn quality. Each being born brings it with himself.

There are a few things which you bring with your birth. A child is born...nobody can teach the child how to breathe. If it depended on teaching then nobody would be able to be alive, because time would be needed to teach the child. He would first have to be sent to school, taught language, disciplined, and then finally, after at least seven, eight or ten years, we would be able to teach him how to breathe - he doesn't understand even the word 'breathe'. No, it doesn't depend on any teaching. The Child is born with the capacity to breathe; it is inborn. It is as inborn as a flower on a bush. It is as inborn as water rushing towards the ocean - naturally.

The moment a child is born the whole being of the child hankers, becomes hungry for breath - not knowing what is happening because he has never breathed before. Nobody has ever taught him, he has never done it, he has no experience about it - it simply happens.

In exactly the same way, one day, at the age of fourteen, the child starts feeling a tremendous attraction towards the other sex. Nobody has taught it; in fact, teachers have been teaching against it. The whole human history seems to be a teaching against sexuality. against sex energy. Religions, cultures, civilisations, priests and politicians - they have all been teaching how to suppress sex. But still it cannot be suppressed. It seems it is impossible to suppress it.

It is a natural phenomenon. It arises. It arises even when you are against it - see the truth of it. Even when you are against it, it arises in spite of you. It is bigger than you. You cannot control it. It is natural.

Hasidism says that if a man starts living a natural life, one day, suddenly, love of God arises as naturally as love for the woman or love for the man arises; as naturally as breathing arises after birth. That precious moment cannot be managed; you cannot plan for it, you cannot prepare for it, there is no need. You simply live a natural life. Don't fight with nature, float with it, and one day suddenly you will see that grace has descended on you. A tremendous urge has arisen in your being, a new LOVE towards existence - call it God. Because when love arises, existence becomes personal. Then it is no more 'it'; it becomes 'thou'. Then it is a relationship between 'I' and 'thou'.

Hasidism simply says don't be unnatural and prayer will be born on its own accord. It has no techniques. And that's the beauty of it.

If you have missed the natural flowering of prayer - then techniques are needed.

Meditation is a substitute for prayer; it is second to prayer. If you have missed prayer then meditation is needed but if prayer has arisen in you then there is no need for any meditation. Prayer is spontaneous meditation; meditation is prayer with effort. Prayer with technique is meditation; meditation without technique is prayer.

Hasidism is the religion of.prayer, that's why in Hasidism there is no renunciation. A Hasid lives the natural life that God has conferred on him. Wherever God has placed him, he lives, he loves; he enjoys the small pleasures of life. And once you start enjoying the small pleasures, the total cumulative effect is a great bliss in your being.

This has to be understood. Don't wait for some great bliss to descend on you. It never happens. Great bliss is nothing but small pleasures accumulating in your being. The total of all the small pleasures is the great bliss. Eating, enjoy it. Drinking, enjoy it. Taking a bath, enjoy it. Walking, enjoy it. Such a beautiful world, such a beautiful morning, such beautiful clouds...what else do you need to celebrate? The sky full of stars...what more do you need to be prayerful? The sun rising from the east...what more do you need to bow down? And amidst a thousand and one thorns a small roseflower arises, opening its buds, so fragile, so vulnerable, yet so strong, so ready to fight with the wind, with the lightning, with the thunderings. Look at the courage...what more do you need to understand trust?

Techniques are needed when you have missed these small openings towards God. If you go on looking in the small openings, the total effect is a great-door. And suddenly you start seeing what prayer is. Not only seeing, you start living it.

Hasidism is a totally different approach to Tantra. And Hasidism is far superior to any Tantra, because it is the natural Tantra, it is the natural way. It is the way of Tao.

But the mind is very cunning. The mind wants to manipulate. The mind wants to manipulate even the relationship of love; the mind wants to manipulate even the mysterious phenomenon of prayer. The mind is a great controller. The obsession of the mind is to control everything, not to allow anything beyond control - hence technique.

The mind is always asking for techniques and the mind goes on planning for every possibility.

If you plan for every possibility, if you manage for everything on your own, you never give a chance to God to penetrate you, to take control onto his shoulders. You never allow Bod to help you. You think you have to be independent; you think there is no other way than self-help. You remain unnecessarily poor.

A small child was playing around his father who was sitting in the garden. And the small child was trying to pull up a big rock. It was too big and he could not do it. He tried hard.

He was perspiring.

The father said, 'You are not using all your energies.'

The child said, 'Wrong. I am using all my energy. And I don't see what more I can do?'

The father said, 'You have not asked me to help. That too is your energy. I am sitting here and you have not asked me to help. You are not using all your energy.'

A man who lives through techniques may think he is using all his energies but he has not asked for God's help. A man who is simply meditating with techniques is a poor man. A Hasid is tremendously rich because he is really using all his energy. A Hasid is open; a technique-oriented mind is a closed mind. It goes on planning everything. Even if your plans are fulfilled you will not be happy, because they are your plans. They are as small as you are. Even if you succeed you will be a failure; even in your success you will have the taste of frustration. Because what will you get? Or, if you fail, you will of course be frustrated. When you fail you are frustrated, but when you succeed then you are frustrated too.

Open yourself to the divine. You live naturally; not trying to improve, not living through ideas, not living through moral disciplines - just living a natural life. Nature should be your only discipline, and whatsoever is natural is good because that's how God wills it to be, wants it to be. If you can accept your life with such gratefulness, that this is how God wants it to be.... If he has given sex to you, he has given sex to you - he knows better.

You need not try to enforce any celibacy on yourself. An enforced celibacy is ugly, more ugly than a natural sex. And if you accept natural sex you will find that beyond a certain point natural sex becomes natural celibacy. Then BRAHMACHARYA arises. Then you start living in a totally different way.

But it comes floating with the river of life.

Do you see? A river descends from the mountains, moves thousands of miles, then one day disappears into the ocean. If the river were a great thinker, and it started thinking, 'This is going downwards. I should not do that. My abode is on the mountains. A river is first just snow peaks of the Himalayas - there is my abode. And I am falling. This is sin.

Falling down in a glacier, moving towards the earth, from the height of the heaven....' If rivers were thinkers they would go crazy, because this is going down, descending into hell. But rivers are not thinkers, they are very fortunate. They accept it. It was God's will to be on the hilltop, it is his will now to explore the depths.

And a person who really wants to know the height has also to know the depth, otherwise he will not be able to know. Depth is the other part of the height. The higher the peak of the mountain, the deeper the valley. If you want to know the tree, you have to know the roots also. The tree goes upwards and roots go downwards. And the tree exists between this: the upward movement and the downward movement. This is the tension that gives life to the tree.

The river moves, trusting, not knowing where she is going - she has never gone before and she has no road map available, no guide to guide. But she goes trusting: if this is how it is happening it must be good. She goes singing and dancing. And then one day every river - whether it runs towards the East or whether it runs towards the West or the South or the North, it makes no difference - every river finally, eventually, reaches the ultimate, disappears into the ocean. In the ocean she has attained the final depth.

Now the journey is complete. She has known the peaks of the Himalayas, now she has known the depth of the ocean. Now the experience is total; now the circle is complete.

Now the river can disappear into nirvana; now the river can disappear into moksha.

This is what liberation is.

A Hasid lives like a river. He trusts. A man who is too obsessed with technique is a non- trusting man, a doubting man. He cannot trust in life, he trusts in his own techniques.

I have heard a very beautiful anecdote. Bodhi has sent it to me.

A gorilla collector was anxious to collect some more gorillas, so he went to Africa. Soon he found himself in the hut of a Great White Hunter. 'And how much do you charge for each catch?' asked the collector. 'Well,' said the Hunter, 'I get five hundred dollars tor myself, five hundred dollars for that little pygmy over there with the rifle, and five hundred dollars for my dog.'

The collector couldn't figure out why the dog should get five hundred dollars, but being a practical man he reasoned that fifteen hundred dollars was reasonable and he didn't care how it got divided up.

On safari the Great White Hunter spied a gorilla up a tree whereupon he climbed up the tree and hit the gorilla over the head. As the gorilla fell to the ground, the dog ran over and grabbed it by the testicles with his teeth, rendering it motionless. Meanwhile the Hunter climbed down the tree, brought a cage over, and pushed the gorilla in it.

The collector was flabbergasted. He said to the Hunter, 'This is simply fantastic! I have never seen anything like it in my life! You are certainly earning your five hundred dollars, and that dog - well, what can I say? - he's simply terrific. But that pygmy with the rifle - he doesn't seem to be doing a thing.'

The Hunter said, 'Don't you worry about the pygmy. He earns his money.'

So on and so forth it went, catching gorilla after gorilla, until finally he came across a gorilla who had been watching the whole proceedings. The Hunter climbed up the tree, and just as he was about to bash the gorilla over the head, the gorilla turned and bashed him first.

As the Hunter was falling from the tree, he yelled to the pygmy, 'Shoot the dog! Shoot the dog!'

Now this is the technique-oriented mind. It arranges for everything, for every possibility.

It does not leave a loophole in the system.

A religious man cannot live in such a planned way, it is not possible. He has to leave many loopholes for Bod to enter in. In fact, if you understand rightly, a religious man is one who plans nothing - because how can we plan? and what are our capacities for planning? We are limited. We have a small light of intelligence but it is too tiny. Trusting it totally creates a very mediocre life. The vast never enters into this mediocre life; the infinite never enters into this mediocre life; the endless never enters into this mediocre life.

Hasidism is a very revolutionary step - a great risk is involved. The risk is in dropping the mind which seems to be our only security; dropping the mind which seems to be our only certainty; dropping the mind which seems to be our only capacity. And then trusting the no-mind - call it God; trusting existence, not trusting oneself. Hasidism is a great surrender.

The third question:

Question 3

I can understand and appreciate your difficulty. I am talking about too many Masters and too many paths and too many doors - and it is natural that you may start getting confused.

But you can get confused only if you cling to my words. If you don't cling to my words I am saying the same thing again and again and again even though the words may be different and I may be using different approaches. And when I use any approach, any path, I am totally with it. Then I don't care about anything else. Even things that I have said before, I don't care about.

When I am talking about Hasids, I am a Hasid.And then I am totally involved in it. That's the only way to reveal its secret to you. If I remain uninvolved, if I remain without any passion, if I am just a spectator, a professor, just explaining things to you, it won't give you the insight that is Intended, it won't give you the vision. Then you will collect information and you will go home - you will become more knowledgeable, but not wise.

So whenever I am speaking about any Master or any path or any scripture, I am totally in it, my involvement is absolute. In those moments nothing else exists for me because I am in a passion, I am passionately in love with that teaching.

Of course, I can understand your difficulty, because when I say passionately that Hasidism is the way, you become disturbed because one day I was saying Tantra is the way, another day I was saying Zen is the way, and another day I was saying Tao is the way. So now what is the way?

When I am talking about one way, I am that way. Don't cling to my words, listen to the wordless message. And if it hits your heart, if it sings in your heart, then you have found your way. Then forget everything I have said before or whatsoever I am going to say in future. Then you need not worry. You have found your key. Now you can open the lock.

I will go on talking because I am talking for millions. When you have found your key, enjoy whatsoever I say but don't again and again get disturbed by it. You have found your key, now I must talk for somebody else who has not yet found his key. When you have found your peace, your silence, your bliss, you have got what you were needing, but there are many others who have not got it. I will be talking for them and I will be using all the possibilities.

For example, when I am talking on Hasidism it may hit your heart deeply and your love may arise for this path. My passion may inflame you. That's why I speak with passion. If I speak with indifference as professors do.... I am not a professor. When I am speaking on Hasidism I am a Hasid rabbi. It is my path then that I am talking about. It is not somebody else's path that I am describing to you, it is my path that I have travelled, that J have loved, that I have known, that I have tasted. I am talking about my own experience, and if it hits and something clicks in your heart and prayer becomes your path, then forget whatsoever I am saying, then you need not reconsider again and again.

If it has not happened then you have to consider. If it has not happened then don't worry about it, forget all about it, I will be talking about something else, I will be opening another door. Maybe that is the door for you. But when you have found the door then don't be worried about other doors that I will be opening because all the doors lead to the same. Don't you be worried that you should enter THIS door - maybe Osho is going to open another bigger and golden door. But they are all the same.

And the door that you have fallen in love with is the golden door for you. Now there is no other door if you have fallen in love with this door. And you will find others entering from other doors but when you reach to the very centre of existence, you will all be meeting there in tremendous love and brotherhood. Somebody will be a Hasid and somebody will be a Zen monk and somebody will be a Tibetan lama and somebody will be a Sufi and somebody has come through sitting silently and somebody has come dancing - but in deep brotherhood at the centre all seekers meet.

I know it is very difficult. If you start choosing two Masters you will be in conflict. Never choose two Masters - one is enough, more than enough.

When Mulla Nasrudin was dying he called his son, told him to come close and said to him, 'My son, I have one thing to say to you - even though I know you will not listen, because I didn't listen to my own father when he was dying. He told me, "Nasrudin, don't chase women too much." But I could not resist; the temptation was too much. And I got involved with one woman, another woman....' He married nine women - the maximum that the Koran permits.

And he said, 'I have created a hell. I suffered much. I know you don't listen but still I am saying it, because now I am departing and there will be no chance to say it to you. I know you will fall in love with women but at least remember one thing from your old man: My son, one at a time, one at a time. At least do that much.'

One at a time. If you fall in love with two women at a time, what does it show? It shows you have a split personality. You are schizophrenic, you are not one, you are two. If you fall in love with three women at a time then you are three. And there are people who fall in love with any woman they see. Whosoever is passing, suddenly they are in love. Every woman is their love object. They are a crowd. You can count how many persons live in you by counting how many women you fall in love with simultaneously. That's a very beautiful way to measure how many persons live in you, a very easy criterion.

But to fall in love with one woman makes you a unity, gives you a unison, you become total. You become sane because then there is no conflict.

I have heard.

The bride and bridegroom stepped into the hotel elevator and the pretty girl operator said, 'Hello, darling' to the bridegroom. Not another word was spoken until the couple alighted at their floor, when the bride exclaimed, 'Who was that hussy?' 'Now, don't you begin anything,' said the bridegroom quite worriedly. 'I'm going to have enough trouble on my hands explaining you to her tomorrow.'

Even to fall in love with two women is dangerous - but to fall in love with two Masters is a million-fold more dangerous. Because the love of the woman may be only of the body, so the spirit goes only that far. Or at the most, the love of the woman may be of the mind, and the spirit goes only that far. But the love of the Master is of the soul and if you fall in love with two Masters your soul will be dividing, you will be totally disintegrated you will start falling in parts, you will not be able to remain together. You will simply lose all shape and all form, all integrity. And the whole point in being with a Master is to attain to integration.

Once you fall in love with a Master, remain. I am not saying that even when you are disillusioned remain with him. When you are disillusioned, he is no more your Master.

Then there is no point in remaining with him. Then seek another.

But never be with two Masters in your mind simultaneously. Be decisive about it - because this decision is no ordinary decision, it is very momentous. It will decide your whole being: its quality, its future.

The third question:

Question 4

That's true. My whole effort is to trick you in; to trick you in for something you have never desired.

A disciple and the Master are in a great conflict; a great struggle goes on. And the disciple can win only if he is unfortunate. If the Master wins it the disciple is blessed, very fortunate. The struggle is because the disciple has come to the Master for wrong reasons - maybe he has come to seek some sort of spiritual ego. He has failed in life; money, power, prestige, respectability, success in the marketplace, ambitions in the political world - he has failed there. He could not attain to the very peak of his egoistic journey; he could not become a president or a prime minister - now life is running out of his hands and he wants to be somebody. It is very, very uncomfortable to remain a nobody.

Finally people start seeking and searching into the dimension of religion. There it seems easier. There it seems easier to attain to a certain ego, a certain crystallisation of the ego.

At least you can become a Rajneesh sannyasin - so simple. And you can feel great. You can feel that you have become special.

The so-called religious people are trying to attain something which they have not been able to attain in the world - sometimes they try by austerities, asceticism. Somebody fasts for days together, he becomes special - nobody can fast that much. He may be a masochist, he may be a self torturer - he has to be. Or he may be suicidal. He has to be.

But he starts getting respect from people - he is a great mahatma. He fasts so much; he is against the body, he is against comfort. He can lie down on a bed of thorns, or he can stand for years.

Or he can sit on a pillar in the desert for years - just sitting there on a pillar. Very uncomfortable. He cannot sleep, he cannot rest - but then he attracts people. Suddenly he has become very important. Even those prime ministers and presidents that he wanted to become and failed to, start coming to him because they think that if such a great ascetic can bless them, they can rise more in the world of power. He feels very gratified, contented. Now the ego is at the supermost. Even kings and prime ministers and presidents are coming to him.

The disciple comes for wrong reasons. Or a disciple comes to attain a certain sort of peace because he is in much turmoil. Why does he want to attain to peace? He wants to attain to peace so that he can work out his ambitions in a better way.

Just the other day I was looking at an advertisement of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation. It promises everything: a good job, proficiency in your work, health, mental health, physical health, longevity; everything that a man can desire, it promises. It is a long list. Economic, spiritual, social, physical, psychological - all these benefits - just for sitting for twenty minutes and repeating something stupid. Coca-cola, coca-cola - or something like that.

So simple! That's why it is said that you should not tell your mantra to anybody - otherwise they will laugh! It has to be kept private. If you say to somebody that I repeat coca-cola, coca-cola, they will think you have gone mad. So a mantra has to be kept absolutely private. You will keep it private anyway because it will look so absurd to tell it to anybody.

Just twenty minutes repeating any nonsense word and you get so many benefits? It appeals to the mediocre mind immediately. This Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's meditation is neither meditation nor transcendental; it is simply an effort to exploit the gullible, to exploit the people who are searching and seeking for everything, searching for a panacea, searching for a remedy.

When you come to a real Master he says there is no remedy, he says there is no panacea.

And he does not say that he will make you peaceful and healthy and this and that and then you can go into the world and rush after your ambition in a more efficient way. No, he will say you are disturbed, you are in a turmoil BECAUSE of the ambition. Drop the ambition. A real Master can only promise you that he will take away your ambition, he will take away your ego. He can only promise that he will kill you. You have come to be protected, you have come to attain to some security, you have come to find some props - but a real Master is one who takes your props, prop by prop, away from you. One day you simply collapse. And in that very collapse, out of the ashes, arises a new being. That new being has nothing to do with you. That new being is so new it is discontinuous with you. It has no past, it has no future, it has only a pure presence, herenow.

The question is from Krishna Radha. She is right. YOU ARE REALLY MISCHIEVOUS. I am. So beware of me. And if you can escape in time, good. Otherwise how long can you cling in the porch? If you have entered the porch it is not very far from the house.

And the porch is also imaginary because the house has no floor, no roof, no wall - how can such a house have a porch? Just think about it. The porch is just imaginary.

I help you to see the porch so you can at least enter the porch - then the journey becomes easier. I sometimes promise you things which you ask for, simply to help you to be here a little longer. Your very understanding will tell you by and by that you were asking for foolish things. And then one day suddenly you will find that the porch has disappeared and, of course, that the house had never existed.

But the house that has no walls to it and no roof and no floor is the house of God - because the very sky is its roof and the very earth is its floor and the no-boundaries are its boundaries.

Yes, I am not taking you into any house which has boundaries because then that house will prove again another imprisonment, it will be another prison. Maybe a little more comfortable, a little more decorated, maybe furnished in a little more modern way and a modern style, but still a prison.

My house is a house of freedom. It is exactly what Radha says - YOUR HOUSE HAS NO FLOOR, NO WALLS, NO CEILING, SO L AM LOOKING FROM THE PORCH GRABBING A PILLAR. Look again. The pillar exists not. Because you want to grab, you believe in the pillar. Look again. Open your eyes. There is no pillar and there is no point in grabbing. Relax. Let go. And suddenly you disappear and you become the infinity, you become the space. That is what God is - space, no boundaries.

My house is the house of God, it is not a man-made temple.

I have heard an anecdote.

Two office workers had a drink or two at a midtown bar after the labours of the day. One offered a third round, but his friend refused, saying he'd better get home and explain to his wife. 'Explain what?' asked the friend. 'How do I know? I'm not home yet.'

Don't go on standing in the porch. You will not know by standing in the porch. Come home. disappear in this infinity that I am making available to you. Only then will you know. And there is no need for any explanation then, no need for any theory then, no need for any rationalisation then - because the experience itself is self-evident proof.

You have lived in small houses and small dark cells up to now and you cannot believe that one can live in such absolute freedom. You have lost the capacity to be free.

That capacity has to be relearned, that capacity has to be reclaimed. I am not here to discipline you, I am not here to give you principles - my whole effort is to give you an unprincipled Life, a spontaneous, undisciplined life. The only gift that I can present to you is freedom. And freedom has no walls to it, it is as infinite as the sky. Claim the whole sky - it is yours.

The fifth question:

Question 5

I don't see any intelligentsia here - except blessed fools.

Maybe the questioner can be excluded - Pundit Swami Yoga Chinmaya. He can be excluded. But otherwise I don't see any intelligentsia here.

There is a very strange saying of Mohammed - that heaven is mostly occupied by fools.

When J came across it even I was surprised. I had never expected Mohammed to be so revolutionary. A tremendous saying! What does he mean by it - that heaven is mostly occupied by fools'? But by and by, looking at you, I felt that he was right! Here also it is mostly occupied by fools.

Let me explain to you how many types of fools there are. The first: one who knows not, and knows not that he knows not. The simple fool. Then the second: one who knows not but knows that he knows. The complex fool, the learned fool. And the third: one who knows that he knows not - the blessed fool.

Everybody is born as a simple fool - that is the meaning of 'simpleton'. Every child is a simple fool. He knows not that he knows not. He has not yet become aware of the possibility of knowing - that is the Christian parable of Adam and Eve.

God said to them, 'Don't eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge.' Before that accident of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, they were simple fools. They knew nothing. Of course, they were tremendously happy, because when you know not, it is difficult to be unhappy. Unhappiness needs a little training; unhappiness needs a little efficiency to create it; unhappiness needs a little technology. You can not create hell without knowledge. How can you create hell without knowledge?

Adam and Eve were like small children. Every time a child is born an Adam is born. And he lives for a few years - at the most four years, that time is becoming less and less every day. He lives in paradise because he knows not how to create misery. He trusts life; he enjoys small things - pebbles on the shore, or seashells. He gathers them as if he has found a treasure. Ordinary coloured stones look like KOHINOORS. Everything fascinates him - the dew-drops in the morning sun, the stars in the night, the moon, the flowers, the butterflies - everything is a sheer fascination.

But then by and by he starts knowing: a butterfly is just a butterfly. a flower is just a flower. There is nothing much in it. He starts knowing the names: this is a rose, and that is a champa and that is a chameli and this is a lotus. And by and by those names become barriers. The more he knows, the more he is cut off from life as such. He becomes 'heady'. Now he lives through the head, not through his totality. That is the meaning of the fall. He has eaten of the tree of knowledge. Every child has to eat of the tree of knowledge.

Every child is so simple that he has to become complex - that is part of the growth. So every child moves from simple foolishness towards complex foolishness. There are different degrees of complex foolishness - a few people only matriculate, a few people become graduates, a few become post-graduates, a few become doctors and Ph.D's - there are degrees. But every child has to taste something of knowledge because the temptation to know is great. Anything that is standing there unknown becomes dangerous, a danger. It has to be known because with knowledge we will be able to cope with it. Without knowledge how are we going to cope with it? So every child is bound to become knowledgeable.

So the first type of fool necessarily, out of necessity, has to become the second type of fool. But from the second the third may happen or may not happen, there is no necessity.

The third is possible only when the second type of foolishness has become a great burden - one has carried knowledge too much, to the extreme; one has become lust the head and has lost all sensitivity, all awareness. all living; one has become just theories and scriptures and dogmas and words and words whirling around in the mind. One day, if the person is aware, he has to drop all that. Then he becomes the third type of fool - the blessed fool.

Then he attains to a second childhood; again he is a child. Remember Jesus saying, 'In my kingdom of God only those who are like small children will be welcomed.' But remember, he says LIKE small children, he does not say small children. Small children cannot enter; they have to enter the ways of the world, they have to be poisoned in the world and then they have to clean themselves. That experience is a must.

So he does not say 'small children' he says those who are like small children. That word 'like' is very significant. It means those who are not children and yet are like children.

Children are saints but their sainthood is only because they have not yet experienced the temptations of sin. Their saintliness is very simple. It has not much worth in it because they have not earned it, they have not worked for it, they have not yet been tempted against it. The temptations are coming sooner or later. A thousand and one temptations will be there and the child will be pulled in many directions. I am not saying that he should not go in those directions. If he inhibits himself, represses himself from going he will remain always the first type of fool. He will not become part of Jesus' kingdom, he will not be able to fill Mohammed's paradise - no. He will simply remain ignorant. His ignorance will be nothing but a repression, it will not be an unburdening.

First he has to attain to knowledge, first he has to sin, and only after sin and knowledge and disobeying God and going into the wildness of the world, going astray, living his own life of the ego, will he become capable one day to drop it all.

Not everybody will drop it all. All children move from the first foolishness to the second, but from the second only a few blessed ones move to the third - hence they are called blessed fools.

The blessed fool is the greatest possibility of understanding because he has come to know that knowledge is futile, he has come to know that all knowledge is a barrier to knowing.

Knowledge is a barrier to knowing so he drops knowledge and becomes a pure knower.

He simply attains to clarity of vision. His eyes are empty of theories and thoughts. His mind is no Longer a mind; his mind is just intelligence, pure intelligence. His mind is no longer cluttered with junk, his mind is no longer cluttered with borrowed knowledge. He is simply aware. He is a flame of awareness.

Tertullian has divided knowledge into two categories: one he calls ignorant knowledge - that is the second fool, the ignorant knowledge. The pundit knows and yet does not know, because he has not known it as his own experience. He has listened, memorised; he is a parrot, a computer at the most.

Just yesterday I received a letter from a sannyasin, Ninad, from America. He says, 'Osho, I am very happy. And in the office where I work the computer every morning welcomes me. The computer says, 'Swamaji, Namaste."' Now he is very happy. And he knows well it is a computer which is saying, 'Swamaji, Namaste.' There is nobody. But even the word makes him happy. He knows it is just a machine - there is nobody, there is no heart in it.

Nobody is saying it.

When a pundit says something he is a computer. He says, 'Swamaji, Namaste.' It is parrot-like. Tertullian says this is the knowledge which is really not knowledge, but ignorance in the garb of knowledge, ignorance in the disguise of knowledge. It is a fall, a fall from the childhood innocence. It is a corruption. It is a corrupt state of mind.

Cunning, clever, but corrupt.

Then, Tertullian says, there is another type of knowledge WhiCh he calls 'knowing ignorance'. This is when a person drops all knowledge, theories, looks directly, looks into life as it is, has no ideas about it, allows reality as it is, encounters reality immediately, directly, with no knowledge about it, faces and encounters reality, allows that which is to have its flowering. He simply listens to reality, looks into reality - and he says, 'I don't know.' He is the child Jesus talks about - he is not really a child, he is like a child.

And I say, 'Yes, blessed are the fools because they shall inherit all the blessings of God.'

From the first, the second is automatic; from the second, the third is not automatic. From the second to the third the leap has to be a decision - that's what sannyas is. You decide that you have had enough of knowledge; now you would like to be ignorant again, you would like to be a child again, reborn. I am a midwife here. I can help you to become fools.

And remember, unless you have attained to the third, your whole life is a sheer wastage.

Adam disobeyed God. Every Adam has to disobey. Adam fell from grace. Every Adam has to fall. Adam ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Every Adam has to become knowledgeable, it is a natural process. I have come across thousands of parables but nothing to compare with this parable of Adam's fall. It is the most pregnant parable ever.

That's why I come to it again and again with new meanings, it goes on revealing new meanings.

And when Adam turned into Christ he became the third type of fool. Christ is the third type of fool - the blessed fool. What Adam did, Christ undid. Christ returns back in tremendous obedience, innocence.

The rabbis, the Jewish religious people, the priests of the temple of Jerusalem, they were learned fools. They could not tolerate Jesus. The learned fools are always disturbed by the blessed fools. They had to murder him because his very presence was uncomfortable; his very presence was such a pinnacle of peace, love, compassion and light, that all the learned fools became aware that their whole being was at stake. If this man lived then they were fools, and the only way to get rid of this man was to destroy him so they could.

again become the learned people of the race.

Socrates was killed by knowledgeable people; Mansoor was killed by other knowledgeable people. There has always been a great conflict whenever the third type of fool arises in the world. All the pundits gather together; their whole business is at stake.

All that they know, this man says is foolish. And they also know deep in their hearts that it is foolish because it has done nothing for them. No bliss. no benediction has come out of it. They are as they always have been - their knowledge has not touched their hearts, has not become a transformation at all. They know it deep in their hearts, that's why they become even more uncomfortable. They want to destroy such men because with the very possibility of such a man they are nobodies. Without Jesus they were the great priests of the temple; with Jesus suddenly they were nobodies. In the presence of Jesus there was God himself and all the priests felt their glory had been taken away.

From the second to the third only very courageous people take the jump. It is a quantum leap. Religion is only for the very courageous, in fact, for dare-devils. It is not for cowards.

A few anecdotes....

The elderly man who liked his drink, but was also learned and bookish, was hauled before the bar of justice in a country town. 'You're charged with being drunk and disorderly,' snapped the judge. 'Have you any reason why sentence should not be pronounced?' 'Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn,' began the prisoner in a flight of oratory. 'I am not so debased as Poe, so profligate as Byron, so ungrateful as Keats, so intemperate as Burns, so timid as Tennyson, so vulgar as Shakespeare, so....' 'That'll do,' interrupted the judge. 'Ninety days - and, officer, take down those names he mentioned and round up those guys also. They're as bad as he is.'

Now the judge is the first type of fool and the judged is the second type of fool. And the earth is mostly inhabited by these two types of fools. The third type - a Jesus, a Buddha - - rarely happens.

The Indian term for fool IS BUDDHU - it comes from Buddha. When Buddha renounced his kingdom and many, many people started following him, the whole country was in a turmoil. People started saying to others, 'Don't be a BUDDHU, don't be a fool, don't follow this man.' People started calling those who followed Buddha, BUDDHUS.

He is a BUDDHU, he is a fool, because he renounced the kingdom. Who else would renounce a kingdom? People hanker, desire, dream for the kingdom, and he has renounced it - he must be a fool.

The third type is a very rare phenomenon. But it happens. And if you are courageous enough you can take the jump.

The second anecdote.

When somebody tells me that he did the best he could and I figure that it was not good enough, I put this fellow in the same class as the motorcycle cop who stopped a motorist and started to write a ticket. 'Officer,' this motorist protested with great indignation, 'I was not speeding! You are permitted to go fifty miles an hour, and I was only going forty.' 'I know that,' the motorcycle cop answered defensively, 'but I can't catch up with the really fast ones.'

The third fool is very fast. Where angels fear to tread, there too he goes unheeded. The third fool is very fast, that's why I call h is leap the quantum leap. The third fool rushes out of sheer courage and energy. The second fool is not so courageous. He goes on collecting pieces from here and there. He does not have that much courage or that great a speed. He borrows knowledge - rather than knowing it himself, he borrows knowledge.

That way it is cheaper and he can purchase it wholesale.

If you want to know reality directly, it is very arduous. It asks for total sacrifice. The second fool only tries up to a certain limit. The limit is: if he can get knowledge cheaply he is ready, but if there is anything to be put at stake then he recoils back.

Be courageous. Unless you have infinite courage you will not be able to become the third type, the blessed fool.

And the last anecdote.

Ordinarily nobody remains in the first state, that is only a theoretical state. Everybody has to pass out of it, more or less - the difference is of degrees, of quantity but not quality.

So people are almost always found in the second category. From the second to the third, wherever you are, remember this rule....

Don't have a closed mind. Be like the old maid who caught a burglar in her room. He pleaded with her, 'Please, lady, let me go. I ain't never did anything wrong.'

The old maid answered him, 'Well, it is never too late to learn.'

And that's what I would like to say to you. If you are in the second category' if you think you are the intelligentsia, then it is never too late to learn. Knowledge you have enough, now learn knowing. Knowledge clutters the mind as dust gathers on the mirror.

Knowledge is not knowing - knowing has a totally different quality and flavour to it. It has the flavour of learning.

Let me tell you the distinction. Knowledge means that you go on gathering information, experience, categorising, memorising, learning means you don't gather anything, you simply remain available to what is happening or is going to happen. Learning is a state of open mind. The more you know, the more you become closed because then you cannot avoid the knowledge that you have, it always comes in-between.

If you are listening to me and you are a knowledgeable man, a pundit, then you cannot listen to me directly simply. You cannot listen to me. While I am speaking, deep inside you are judging, evaluating, criticising - there is no dialogue, there is a debate. You may look silent but you are not silent, your knowledge goes on revolving. It destroys everything that I am saying. It distorts. And whatsoever reaches you is not the real thing, whatsoever reaches you is only that which your knowledge allows to reach to you.

A learning mind is one which listens attentively with no interference from the past, which is just an opening, a mirror-like phenomenon, which simply reflects whatsoever is. If you start learning, you will attain knowing. And knowing will help you to see that you don't know at all. A person who has come to know reality becomes aware of his ignorance - he knows that he knows not. In this knowing, ignorance is the mutation, the transfiguration, the revolution.

So take a jump from the second state of foolishness to the third state of being a blessed fool. All my blessings are for those who are blessed fools.