The truth beyond magic

LET US FIRST talk a little about the disease called man. Man is a disease because deep down the very being of man is split, it is not one. Hence continuous disease, uneasiness, anxiety, angst, anguish. Schizophrenia is just a normal state of affairs.

It is not that a few people become schizophrenic: man is born schizophrenic. It has to be understood.

Man is born in dis-ease, born as dis-ease. When you entered your mother's womb, the first moment of your life was based on two parents, the mother and the father. Your very beginning was dual divided - male/female, yin/yang, positive/negative. The first unity of your being was already based on division.

Half of you came from one parent, the other half from another parent. From the very beginning you have been two.

So schizophrenia is not something that happens to a few unfortunate people, it is just the normal state of affairs. Man is born split, hence continuously there is a duality, an indecisiveness, a wavering. You cannot decide who you really want to be, you cannot decide where to go, you cannot choose between two alternatives, you remain ambiguous.

Whatsoever you do, a part of you remains against it. Your doing is never total.

And a doing that is not total cannot be fulfilling, and a doing that is chosen only by one part of your being against the other part, will create more and more rift in your being. This has to be understood.

Unity is in the end, not in the beginning. You can become a unitary being, you can become non-dual, you can come to yoga - yoga means unity, unison, integration, individuation - but that is in the end, not in the beginning. In the beginning is the dual, in the beginning is the division, in the beginning is disease.

So unless you understand it and make an effort to transform it.... The merger has not yet happened; it has happened on one level only - on the level of the body.

On the level of the body you have become one, your mother and your father have melted - on the plane of the body. You have become one body. Out of two bodies a new unity has arisen, but it is only on the body, in the body, not deeper than the body. Deep in your mind you are split. And if you are split in your mind there is no way to go beyond the mind. Only a mind that has become a unity, integrated, one, becomes capable of going beyond it.

This sutra of Buddha is tremendously significant. A very simple sutra, but don't take it literally. Of course literally also it is true, but it is the whole progress - how to become one, how to dissolve the twoness on all levels of your being, from the most gross to the most subtle, from the circumference to the center... how to drop all duality and come to a point where suddenly you are one.

That point is the goal of all religions, the goal of all yogas, the goal of all prayers, all meditations, the goal of Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism - the goal of all the seekers. Because once you have become one, your misery disappears.

Misery is because of the conflict. Misery is because your house is divided, misery is because you are not one, you are a crowd - a thousand and one voices inside you pulling you and pushing you in all sorts of ways and all directions.

You are a mess, a chaos. It is a miracle how you manage not to go mad, because you are boiling with madness. It is a miracle how somehow you go on remaining sane, how you are not lost into this crowd. But whether lost or not, you are sitting on a volcano which can erupt any moment.

Remember this: madness is not something that happens to a few unfortunate people, madness is something everybody is prone to. Madness is something which you are carrying within you like a seed - it can sprout any moment; it is only waiting for the right season, the right climate, the right opportunity. Any small thing can trigger it and you - you simply go berserk. You are berserk because your foundation is split. It is possible to become one but then one has to be very aware about this whole situation.

I have heard:

Mulla Nasrudin went to his psychiatrist and asked if the good doctor could not split his personality.

'Split your personality?' asked the doctor. 'Why in heaven's name do you want me to do a thing like that?'

'Because,' said Mulla Nasrudin, 'I am so lonesome. Because I feel so lonely.'

Don't just laugh at it. Maybe that's why you never work hard to become one unity, because this duality gives you a certain company. You can talk with yourself, you can have a dialogue - everybody is having a dialogue, continuously. Sitting in your chair, what are you doing when you close your eyes? The continuous dialogue is there. You question, you answer, from this side, from that side.

Watch this dialogue. If this dialogue stops will you not feel very lonesome? Will you not feel very alone? Will you not feel very empty if this dialogue stops? Will you not suddenly feel that all noise has disappeared? Will you not become frightened that only silence is there?

No, you go on feeding this dialogue. You go on helping this dialogue to be there.

Either you are talking with others, or if it is not possible because others are not always available, then you are talking with yourself. While you are awake you are talking with others, while you are asleep you are talking with yourself.

What is your dream? A drama that you enact inside your being to create a society, because you are so lonesome. In the dream you are the director, you are the story-writer, you are the actor, you are the screen and you are the audience - you alone, but you create a beautiful drama. The whole day and the whole night what are you doing? Talking with yourself? This constant talking, this constant dialogue with yourself - is it not boring?

Yes, you are bored, you are bored with yourself, but still you have chosen the lesser evil - you think that if this dialogue stops you will be even more bored. At least there is something to say, something to do inside. Left alone with no dialogue you will be simply lost. This dialogue keeps you a little alive, throbbing with life. Mulla is right. He says, 'l am feeling so lonesome.'

Remember, the whole effort of sadhana is to help you to become alone, because only when you are ready to become alone, when you are ready to fall into inner silence, when you are no more clinging to this constant talking, inner talk, then only can you become a unity. Because this constant inner talk helps you to remain dual, divided.

Just the other night a sannyasin came to me and he said that in the night sometimes he falls from his bed and only in the morning he becomes alert. And one day it happened that he found himself ten feet away from his bed. So what is happening? Now he must be getting into deep dreams, nightmares, and the dreams must be so deep that even if he falls from his bed... he found himself ten feet away from the bed - that means the slumber must be like a coma.

I asked him one thing: 'Do you talk too much in the day?' He said, 'No.' Then that explains it. There are two types of people: talkers and listeners, T-people and L- people. Talkers talk the whole day, then in the night they have to listen; then they go to listen to a religious discourse or something - they go to the church in the dream, to the priest in the dream. The whole day they have been talking; one has to compensate - they listen in their dream. People who have to listen in their day, and have become listeners, talk much in the night; they shout, they say things that they always wanted to say but they could not manage in the day - nobody was ready to listen to them.

It happens to people that when they go to a psychoanalyst and the psychoanalyst listens to them, patiently, attentively - of course he has to listen because he is paid for it - their dreams start changing. Their talking in their dreams by and by subsides, the quality of the dream changes, because now they have found somebody who listens to them - they have become the talker and they have found a party who listens attentively. Their dreams become more silent, they are not talking and shouting in their night. Their nights are more silent, more at ease.

Remember, whatsoever you miss in the day you will do in your dreams. The dream is complementary, it compensates and completes whatsoever has remained incomplete in the day. If you are a beggar in the day, in the night you will dream that you are an emperor. If you are an emperor during the day, in the night you will dream that you have become a Buddha - a beggar.

That's how it happened. Buddha was born in an emperor's palace but he started dreaming about becoming a beggar. When after twelve years he came back home, enlightened, his father said, 'Stop all this nonsense! You are my only son.

Come back, I'm waiting for you. This whole kingdom is yours. And in our family there has never been a beggar.'

Buddha laughed and he said, 'Maybe, sir, in your family there has never been a beggar, but as far as I am concerned, I have been dreaming for many lives of becoming a beggar.'

When you become very rich you start thinking that poor people must be living in tremendous beauty, relaxedness. When you live in a city, a megalopolis like Bombay or Tokyo or New York, you think villages are beautiful. Ask the villagers. They are hankering to reach to Bombay, to Tokyo, to New York. They dream. When you are poor you dream about the rich, when you are rich you dream about the poor.

Watch your dreams: they will show you that something that is lacking in the day is being fulfilled. In the day you are one part of your polarity, in the night you become another part of your polarity. You are two. So not only does a dialogue continue in you in your dreaming, but in your moments of awakening there is also a dialogue.

If you are a bad man while awake, you will become a saint while you are asleep.

If you are a saint while awake, you will become a sinner while you are asleep.

That's why your so-called saints are so much afraid of sleep, they go on reducing their sleep - because the whole day somehow they managed to remain saints, but what to do about the night? The whole day they have been celibate, they have not looked at any woman's face, they have avoided life - but what to do in the night? All those faces they have avoided but could not avoid, surface in their being.

Beautiful women, more beautiful than they have ever seen in the daytime, erupt.

They think that it is Indra, the god of heaven, who is sending apsaras to destroy them. Nobody is sending any apsaras, nobody is interested in these poor fellows.

Why should Indra be interested? For what?

No, this is compensatory. In the day they control their saintliness. In the night when they relax - and they have to relax, they have to rest - when they rest, everything is relaxed, their control is also relaxed. Suddenly all that they have been repressing comes up.

Your day and your night are in constant dialogue. Psychoanalysts say that watching your day life is not as significant as watching your dream life, because in the day life you are pretenders, hypocrites. You go on showing faces which are not true. In the dream you are more real; you are no more hypocrites, no more pretenders, you don't have any mask. That's why all the psychoanalysts try to analyse your dreams.

This is ironical but it is true - that your dream is truer than your day, that while you are asleep you are more authentic than when you are awake. This is unfortunate but this is so. Man has become so deceptive.

What I'm saying to you is this: unless you become a unity this will continue. In the day you can control, you can become a good man. In the night you will become a bad man, you will become a criminal in your dreams. You will do the same things that you have been controlling the whole day, exactly the same things. If you have fasted in the day, you will feast in your dream. Your denied part will take its revenge. And you cannot go both ways together. That's the disease called man, that's the angst, the anguish of man - you cannot go both ways. You cannot be good and bad together, you cannot be saint and sinner together, that is the difficulty.

You have to choose. And once you choose, you are torn apart, you are in a dilemma, you are on the horns of a dilemma. The moment you choose, difficulty arises. That's why many people choose not to choose; they live a life of drifting - whatsoever happens, happens. They don't choose, because the moment they choose, this creates anxiety.

Have you watched, observed, that whenever you have to make a decision you become very very anxious? Maybe it is a very ordinary decision. You are purchasing a pair of shoes and you cannot decide which pair, and anxiety arises.

Now it is rubbish - but still anxiety arises.

Anxiety has nothing to do with great decisions, anxiety has something to do with decision as such. Because you are two - whenever you decide, both your parts try to dominate. Your mother tries to dominate, your father tries to dominate.

And of course you know well, they never agreed about anything, they don't agree in you also.

Your mother says this pair is good. Your father says don't listen to her, she is foolish; this pair is right. Your male energy says one thing, your female energy says another thing. Your female energy has different attitudes; it looks at the beauty of the pair of shoes, the shape, the form, the colour, aesthetics. The male energy has a different attitude. It looks at the durability of the shoe, the price, the power - whether the shoe has a powerful shape so when you go walking on the streets your male ego is exhibited through it.

Each thing that the male ego chooses has to be somehow a phallic symbol. The male ego chooses a car with great speed - a phallic symbol, forceful. You will always find impotent people sitting in great phallic cars - impotent people. The more impotent they become, the more powerful a car they choose. They have to compensate.

The male ego always chooses that which will fulfill the male ego: I am powerful - - that is the basic consideration. The feminine ego chooses something which gives another sort of power - I am beautiful. Hence they never agree. If your mother purchases something, your father is bound to disagree with it. They are not made to agree, their visions are different.

It happened:

Mulla Nasrudin tried many girls, but his mother would reject. So he came to me.

He said, 'Sir,.help me. Whomsoever I choose, my mother is so dominating and so aggressive and she immediately rejects. I am tired. Am I going to remain a bachelor my whole life?'

I told him, 'You do one thing. You choose a woman considering your mother's likes and dislikes. Only then will she approve.'

Finally he found one woman. He was very happy, he said, 'She walks like my mother, she wears clothes like my mother, chooses the same colours, cooks the food the same way. I hope she will like.'

I said, 'You go.' And the mother liked, she liked tremendously and Mulla came but he was very sad. I said, 'Why are you sad?'

He said, 'It seems I am going to remain a bachelor for my whole life.'

I said, 'What happened? Your mother didn't like?'

He said, 'She liked, she liked tremendously - but my father? He rejects. Now it is impossible! My father says, "She is just like your mother. One is enough! And I'm fed up. Don't you get into the same trouble! What are you doing? Again the same mistake?"'

These two polarities in you are the basis of your anxiety, and the whole effort of a Buddha, of a master, is to help you to go beyond this duality.

This sutra is very significant. Before I read the sutra I would like to tell you a very symbolic parable. John Fowles has given this parable in his beautiful book, THE MAGUS.

The Prince and the Magician.

Once upon a time there was a young prince who believed in all things but three.

He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, he did not believe in god. His father the king told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father's domains, and no sign of god, the prince believed his father.

But then one day the prince ran away from his palace and came to the next land.

There to his astonishment from every coast he saw islands and on these islands strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.

'Are those real islands?' asked the young prince.

'Of course they are real islands,' said the man in evening dress.

'And those strange and troubling creatures?'

'They are all genuine and authentic princesses.'

'Then god must also exist!' cried the prince.

'I am god,' replied the man in evening dress with a bow.

The young prince returned home as quickly as he could. 'So you are back,' said his father the king.

'I have seen islands, I have seen princesses and I have seen god,' said the prince reproachfully.

The king was unmoved. 'Neither real islands nor real princesses nor a real god exist.'

'I saw them.'

'Tell me how god was dressed.'

'God was in full evening dress.'

'Were the sleeves of his coat rolled back?'

The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled. 'That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived.'

At this the prince returned to the next land and went to the same shore where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.

'My father the king has told me who you are,' said the prince indignantly. 'You deceived me last time but not again! Now I know that those are not real islands and those are not real princesses, because you are a magician.'

The man on the shore smiled. 'It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father's kingdom there are many islands and many princesses, but you are under your father's spell, so you cannot see them.'

The prince pensively returned home. When he saw his father he looked him in the eyes. 'Father, is it true that you are not a real king but only a magician?'

The king smiled and rolled back his sleeves. 'Yes my son, I am only a magician.'

'Then the man on the other shore was god?'

'The man on the other shore was another magician,' said the king.

'I must know the truth, the truth beyond magic,' cried the prince - the truth beyond magic, remember these words.

'There is no truth beyond magic,' said the king.

The prince was full of sadness. He said, 'I will kill myself. If there is no truth beyond magic, then what is the point of going on living? I will kill myself, and I am saying to you, honestly.'

The king, by magic caused death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses and then he said, 'Very well. I can bear it. If everything is magic and nothing is beyond magic, then I can accept death also.'

'You see my son,' said the king. 'You too now begin to be a magician.'

Now this parable is very very significant. It is very easy to change one magic for another. It is very easy to change one ideology for another. It is very easy to become a Christian from a Hindu, or a Hindu from a Christian. It is very easy to change from the world and move to a monastery, or from the monastery come back to the world and get married. It is very easy. But you are moving and changing nothing but magical worlds.

Unless you realize who you are, unless you come to the point... who is this one who is deceived? Who is this consciousness upon which this whole play of illusion goes on working, enchanting, hypnotising? Who is this basic consciousness?

Yes, a dream can be untrue, but the dreamer cannot be untrue. Even for the dream to exist, a real dreamer is needed.

This is the conclusion of the whole eastern search for truth. Let it be clear to you.

In the day you live in a world; you think it is real. Your thinking does not matter much, because in the night when you are asleep you forget this real world completely. Not only do you forget about it, you don't even remember that ever you knew about it. This whole reality simply disappears. In the dream world you start thinking dreams are real. The dream when it happens is as real as this world.

Now, right now you are sitting before me. Is there any way to decide whether you are really listening to me or you are dreaming about me? Is there any criterion to decide? You may be simply asleep and dreaming. Or maybe I am asleep and dreaming about you, or maybe it is true. But how to decide?

Just the feeling that it feels real cannot make it real, because in a dream it feels that the dream is real. So just your feeling cannot be enough guarantee for reality. Because you feel it looks real does not make any sense, because in a dream you feel absolutely that it is real. You have never doubted in your dream.

Of course you doubt when you are out of your dream, but that is not the point.

If someday this dream that you call your waking life is broken - and it is broken one day, that is the meaning of becoming a Buddha - when this waking dream is broken and suddenly one realizes that it all was just magic, illusion, a dream that you were living through, then it becomes unreal. Just as every morning you wake up and the whole night and the dream world disappears, and suddenly you realize - there is nothing.

In the night the dream looks real, in the day whatsoever you call reality looks real, but they are suspicious, because in the night the day reality disappears, in the day the night reality disappears. And you have never been able to compare them because you cannot have them both together. Comparison is possible only when you can have on one side a pile of dreams, on the other side a pile of your so-called reality. Then you can compare. But you cannot have them both together.

When the dream is there reality is not there, your so-called reality I mean. When the reality is there, the dream is not there. How do you compare? There is no way to compare.

So the eastern sages have been saying that there is no need. The only thing which is real, or about which you can be certain, is you; not what you see, but the seer.

One can be certain that for a dream to exist - the dream may be unreal or real, that is irrelevant - but for a dream to exist, even if it is unreal a real seer is needed.

In the night, YOU were real, the dream was unreal. In the morning, the dream is no more there, only YOU are there. Again another dream unfolds.

When one becomes enlightened even that dream disappears, but you are again real, you are still real. There is only one reality and that is your inner consciousness, your witnessing soul. Everything else may be real, unreal, and there is no way to decide it.

It is said about Chuang Tzu that he dreamed one night that he had become a butterfly, moving from one flower to another, rushing in the garden. In the morning when he awoke he was very puzzled. He was a great teacher, a great master, one of the greatest Buddhas ever born on the earth. His disciples gathered and they looked at him, and he was very sad. They said, 'Master, you have never been sad. What has happened?'

He said, 'There is a problem to be solved for you: and the problem is that I, Chuang Tzu, dreamed in the night that I had become a butterfly.'

They laughed, they said, 'Now the dream is gone, you are awake, why bother about it?'

Chuang Tzu said, 'Listen to the whole thing. Now, a problem has arisen: if Chuang Tzu can dream, and in dream can become a butterfly, why can't it happen vice versa? A butterfly can go to sleep and dream that she has become a Chuang Tzu. Now who is who? Whether Chuang Tzu dreamed that he had become a butterfly or the butterfly is dreaming that she has become a Chuang Tzu. This is the problem that is making me very sad.'

It is said that no one from his disciples could solve this conundrum, this koan.

How to solve it? How to decide who is who? But if there was somebody deeply meditative, he would have answered. In fact, Chuang Tzu has posed the question just to know whether somebody has really become meditative among his disciples. Because then neither the butterfly is true, nor Chuang Tzu is true, but the one who is puzzled, the one who watched the butterfly, who is watching Chuang Tzu: the one who watched Chuang Tzu becoming a butterfly and who watched the butterfly becoming Chuang Tzu. That watchfulness, that awareness, that witness, that sakshin, that is the only reality.

This is the meaning of the concept of maya - that all that you see is unreal; only the seer is real. Go on moving towards the seer, otherwise you live in a magical world. You can change from one magic world to another. Man lives in lies; people call their lies their philosophies.

Freud has said somewhere, a very penetrating insight, that man cannot live without lies. As man is, Freud seems to be right. Man cannot live without lies.

Man without lies is difficult, because then you will need much courage. Your lies make life smooth, they function like lubrication, they make you move more easily.

Somebody believes in a god, that makes life a little smooth. You can throw your responsibility on somebody. Somebody believes that there is a world beyond.

Maybe here we are miserable, but there paradise is waiting for us, ready to welcome us. It helps. Marx has said that religion is the opium of the people. Yes, he is also true in a way.

All hopes are lies, all expectations of the future are lies. Yes, religion can be the opium, but so can communism - anything that gives hope for the future, in this world or in another world; anything that helps you to sacrifice your present for something.that may happen, may not happen; anything that gives you a feeling of meaning; anything that gives you a feeling that you are a hero; anything that helps to feed your ego.

Once the Maharani of Gwalior invited me to Gwalior for a series of talks. After the first talk she heard she was very much disturbed; a very hinduistic mind, a very dogmatic mind - orthodox, old-fashioned. She was very much disturbed.

She came to see me in the afternoon and she said, 'Sir, whatsoever you say appeals, but it is dangerous. And I have come with one request: please don't destroy people's faith.'

I told her, 'If a faith can be destroyed, it is not worth. If a faith is a faith that can be destroyed, it is a faith in lies. A faith that is really a faith in truth is never afraid of being destroyed, it cannot be destroyed because truth cannot be destroyed.'

Hindus are afraid, Christians are afraid, Mohammedans are afraid, Jainas are afraid, everybody is afraid - don't destroy our faith! In their faith they are just hiding their lies, their magic worlds, their dreams, their expectations. They are very touchy. If you just poke into their ribs their faith is skin-deep, not even that.

They immediately become irritated because their faith is not anything deep in their heart, it is just a belief in the mind.

The Maharani of Gwalior said to me, 'I wanted to bring my son. He is very interested. Listening to you, he became fascinated - but I prevented him. I have not brought him to you - you are dangerous and he is young, and he can become too much impressed by you. So I have not brought him at all.'

What is this fear? Are you clinging to lies? Only lies are afraid of being broken, only lies need protection. Truth in itself is self-evident. So if you have some faith which is just a lie, it makes you secure, I know; it helps to adjust with the world, I know - but it is not going to help you ultimately. Sooner or later you will be awakened out of your dreaming and you will see your whole life has been a wastage.

There is no need to cling to anything outside, because it is not yet in any way possible for you to decide what is true and what is false outside. Right now it will be better that you just move inwards to it and forget all about the outside.

Don't be bothered about Hinduism, Christianity, Mohammedanism; don't be bothered about Vedas and Gitas and Korans. Just go in and let one be your goal:

to know who is this consciousness, what is this consciousness, who I am.

This sutra is a gradual indication of the inner journey. Listen to it.

THE BUDDHA SAID:

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE GOOD MAN THAN TO FEED ONE HUNDRED BAD MEN.

Who is a bad man and who is a good man? What is the definition? The bad man is one who is inconsiderate of others. The bad man is one who uses others and has no respect for others. The bad man is one who thinks he is the center of the world and everybody is just to be used. Everything exists for him. The bad man is one who thinks that other persons are just means for his gratification.

Keep this definition in mind because you ordinarily think the bad man is the criminal. The bad man may not be the criminal: all bad men are not criminals. All criminals are bad, but all bad men are not criminals. A few of them are judges, a few of them are very respectable people, a few of them are politicians, presidents and prime ministers, a few of them are even parading as saints.

So when we will be talking about this sutra, remember the definition of a bad man - Buddha says a bad man is one who has no consideration for others. He simply thinks about himself only - he thinks he is the center of existence and he feels the whole existence is made for him. He feels authorized to sacrifice everybody for his own self. He may not be bad ordinarily, but if this is the attitude, then he is a bad man.

Who is a good man? Just the opposite of the bad man: one who is considerate of others, who gives as much respect to others as he gives to himself, and who does not pretend in any way that he is the center of the world, and who has come to feel that everybody is the center of the world. The world is one, but millions of centers exist. He is very respectful. He never uses the other as a means. The other is an end in itself. His reverence is tremendous.

Watch, watch your own life. Are you using your wife just for your sexuality?

You may not go to a prostitute. Ordinarily you think that a person who goes to a prostitute is bad - that is a very gross definition. If you are using your wife just as a sexual object, you are as bad as anybody else. The only difference between you and the person who goes to a prostitute is that you have a permanent prostitute, that your marriage is a permanent arrangement and the other man makes arrangements day by day. You have a car in your garage and he uses a taxi.

If you don't respect your wife, then your wife is a prostitute - if you don't respect her as a person in her own right. What does it mean? It means if she is not feeling, if she is not in the mood to make love, you will not enforce her; you will not say, 'I am your husband and I have the right, legal right...' No, you will respect. You will respect her intention. Good if you both agree. If the other is not agreeing, you will not coerce in any way. You will not quote scriptures that a wife has to sacrifice to the husband, you will not say that a wife has to believe in the husband as if he is a god. All this is nonsense, all this is a male-oriented trip.

If a wife is using her husband only as an economical thing, financial security, then it is prostitution. Why do you condemn a prostitute? Because she sells her body for money? But if a wife just thinks to make love to the husband because he has money and with him there is security and the future is not uncertain, and she goes on staying with him with no love, with no love in her heart, and she sleeps with this man, then she is prostituting herself. Then in her idea the husband is nothing but his money, his bank balance.

When Buddha says who a good man is, he defines the good man as one who respects the other as much as he respects himself. Jesus says, 'Love the other as you love yourself - that is the definition of a good man. His respect is tremendous, his reverence is tremendous.

Even if a child is born in your house, you don't enforce your ideology on him.

You may be a Mohammedan, you may be a Hindu. A child is born in your home; you don't enforce the child to become a Hindu or a Mohammedan. Because if you enforce the child, you are not respectful towards the child. You are just using an opportunity because the child is helpless, and the child has to depend on you.

He has to follow you. If you take him to the temple or to the church he has to come, because it is necessary for his survival to say yes to you, whatsoever you say. If you are using this opportunity, then you are exploiting a helpless child.

Maybe it is your child, but you are exploiting him.

If the world consists of good people, children will be totally free, not enforced into any religion. There will not be Christians and Hindus and Mohammedans in the world: there will be only good people, growing people, and they will choose wherever they feel their heart fits. Maybe it is a temple, or it is a church or a mosque or a gurudwara. They will choose their religion, that is their freedom.

They will choose their life, that is their freedom.

You don't enforce. You love your child, but you don't give your knowledge to him. You love your child but you don't poison his being with your ambitions.

You love the child but you don't possess him. You help the child not to grow according to you, but to grow according to his being, to be himself. Then you are a good person.

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE GOOD MAN THAN TO FEED ONE HUNDRED BAD MEN... because if you feed bad men you feed badness; if you feed good men you feed goodness. Help the world to become better. Don't leave the world just the same as you have found it - make it a little better, make it a little more beautiful. Let there be a few more songs, a few more celebrations, let there be a few less wars, a few less politicians, let there be more love, less hatred. That is the meaning when Buddha says FEED ONE GOOD MAN - that is better, far better, than feeding one hundred bad men.

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE WHO OBSERVES THE FIVE PRECEPTS OF BUDDHA THAN TO FEED ONE THOUSAND GOOD MEN.

Now who is this whom Buddha calls one WHO FOLLOWS THE FIVE PRECEPTS OF BUDDHA, the panchashilas?

The panchashilas are, the five precepts are: no possessiveness, no theft, no violence, no untruth, no sexuality. One who follows these five precepts of the Buddha, he is not just good, he is not just good to others, he is not just moral - he is starting to be religious.

That is the difference between the good man and the religious man. The good man lives through intellect: he thinks, contemplates, he tries to find out ways through thinking, and he comes to feel, 'As I exist, as I have the right to exist, others also have the right to exist; as I would like to be free, others also like freedom.' This is his considered opinion. He thinks about it. He is not religious; he is a very very intelligent man.

A Bertrand Russell is a good man, a moral man, but he is not religious.

Whatsoever he comes to think good, he will do. But goodness comes as a logic, as a syllogism - it is a conclusion of thinking.

The religious man is not only good by thinking, he starts being good by being, he starts to grow into meditativeness. The religious man follows these five precepts.

They are all negative: no theft, no untruth, no sexuality, no violence, no possessiveness. The religious man is negative, because he himself has not yet experienced what truth is. He has come to feel the truth through somebody else:

he follows the Buddha, he lives close to a master, he has seen somebody becoming a flame, he has watched it happen somewhere - but it has not happened in himself. He is attracted, he is convinced of the truth of it, but still it is from the outside - he is a follower.

That's why Buddha says:

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE WHO OBSERVES THE FIVE PRECEPTS OF BUDDHA THAN TO FEED ONE THOUSAND GOOD MEN.

His approach is still negative, because the positive truth can be attained only by you. Somebody may have attained. Watching him, being in deep rapport with him, you may feel that yes, there is truth - but that is remaining outside of it, it is not your experience.

You are thirsty and you see somebody who is coming from the river, his thirst gone. You can see from his face, from his eyes the glow, that his thirst is quenched. And you can feel that he must have found a source of water, and you follow him towards the river, but still you have not quenched your thirst.

But better than to be just good. Then you are not moving just by your intellect, now you have started moving by your intuition. Now you are not just a head, you are moving, leaning towards the heart.

To find a master is the only way to become a religious person. Without a master you can be at the most a moral person, a good person, but you cannot be a religious person. Because how to believe something which you have never tasted? How to believe something which you have never experienced? How to believe in something which you have never seen happen even to somebody else?

When a Buddha passes in the world, many people are thrilled, their enthusiasm surges high, they start feeling that yes, the world does not end with the worldly things, there is something more to it. The very presence of a Buddha, his coolness, his silence, his overflowing bliss and compassion, his enlightened luminous being, just his vibe pulsates you towards a new life, opens doors of the unknown. But still, Buddha says, you are following; you are not yet capable of your own light. Your eyes are dazzled, but you have not attained to your own flame.

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE SROTAPANNA THAN TO FEED TEN THOUSAND OF THOSE WHO OBSERVE THE FIVE PRECEPTS OF BUDDHA.

Then, Buddha says, it is better to feed a sannyasin - srotapanna means a sannyasin, one who has entered into the river; one who is not standing on the bank and watching others swimming in the river, thrashing around, enjoying, celebrating in the coolness of the river.

The religious man is standing on the bank. He can see that there are people in the river, tremendously happy, but he has not been yet able to gather courage to take a jump. He has still much involvement with the bank, in the world. He has much involvement in ordinary, mundane things - money, power, prestige, family, body, health - a thousand and one things. He is not yet courageous enough to let go.

Srotapanna means one who has surrendered, who has entered the stream.

Srotapanna exactly means what I mean by sannyas: the courageous person who has taken the jump. It is almost an insane jump, because those who are standing on the bank will laugh, and they will say, 'What are you doing? Where are you going? You don't know swimming. First learn swimming, then enter.' But how can one learn swimming without entering in the river?

Their logic is impeccable: they say first learn, first know, then go. But first learn on the bank, otherwise you are taking a risk. The river may be too deep for you and you may not be able to come back home. And who knows where it is going?

And these people who are in the river, maybe they are all deluded, maybe they are all mad. Just look, the majority is standing on the bank, only a few people are in the river. The majority cannot be wrong.

The people on the bank say, 'The few can be wrong, the mass cannot be wrong.

There are only a few sannyasins in the world, very rare are Buddhas in the world - maybe they are deluded. Don't be in a hurry. Maybe they are deceiving others - - who knows? Maybe they have some other hidden motives. Wait and watch.

Don't do such a thing in a hurry.'

But such things are done only in a hurry. If you wait and watch, waiting and watching becomes your mechanical habit. Then you simply go on waiting and watching. That's what many are doing for many lives.

BUDDHA SAYS:

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE SROTAPANNA THAN TO FEED TEN THOUSAND OF THOSE WHO OBSERVE THE FIVE PRECEPTS OF BUDDHA.

Because the srotapanna will have some experience of the stream. He will have his own experience to depend upon, he will have some taste of the stream, he will have the cool experience of the stream - that it relaxes, that worldly cares and anxieties disappear, that one stops struggling, anguish by and by moves distant and distant and goes far away. Ordinary cares, anxieties disappear. One becomes more collected and calm. But this can be known only by a srotapanna, a sannyasin.

A sannyasin has taken an existential step. He has moved into the abyss. He has risked his life.

Buddha says respect a man, feed a man who has risked his life. Maybe you are not yet courageous, but be close to people who are courageous. Courage is also infectious like everything else. Find people who have entered the stream, be with them, feed them, at least that will give you an idea what is happening to somebody. You may start dreaming, desiring it. Your hidden energies may start surfacing. You may start feeling the challenge of the unknown.

The religious person is negative, the srotapanna is positive. The religious person follows somebody else, the srotapanna has entered into the stream of life, into the stream of consciousneSs. He has dropped his ego. Now he is not any more a follower of a Buddha. This has to be understood.

Ordinarily if you are my sannyasins people will say that you are my followers.

By becoming a sannyasin, in fact you have become part of me, you are no more a follower. Before you became a sannyasin you may have been a follower. Then you decided that following is not enough, that you are ready to go with me headlong, that you are ready to go with me wherever I am going.

Now, once you are a sannyasin you are not a follower, you are part of the energy I am, you are just one with me. People ask me, 'If we don't take sannyas, will you not help me, will you not help us?' I say, 'I will help, that is not the problem, but you will not be able to take it, because you will go on remaining separate, you will go on remaining on the bank.'

The river is ready to take you to the ocean, the invitation is already given to you, it is a standing invitation, but you are standing on the bank. What can the river do? It cannot snatch you away from the bank. And it wouldn't be good, even if it was possible, because you have to drop into the river on your own accord. Only then is it freedom. If you are snatched by the river, if I take you away forcibly, it cannot help you. It can destroy you, it cannot give you freedom. How can it give you ultimate freedom, moksha? From the very beginning it will be a bondage.

So I will not take you like a flooded river takes people, I will have to wait. You will have to come to me, you will have to enter into the stream, you will have to become part of the stream.

The srotapanna, or the sannyasin, is positive. Now, instead of non-truth, truth arises in him. Non-truth was just a preparation so that truth can enter. Instead of non-violence or no-violence, love, compassion arises in him. Non-violence was just a preparation for it. No violence, no untruth and other negatives are just medicinal.

You are ill; the physician gives you a medicine to destroy the illness. When the illness is destroyed then health arises in you. Medicine never brings health, it only destroys the disease. Health cannot be brought by any medicine, there is no health-giving medicine. Health is your inner being - once the hindrances are removed your waters of life start flowing; once rocks are removed your fountain bursts forth.

Health is something natural, no medicine can give it to you. Disease is something unnatural. Disease enters you from the outside; an outside medicine can take it away. Health is your innermost core, it is you. When you are naturally yourself you are healthy.

The religious man is under treatment, he is hospitalised. The srotapanna has come back home - he is no more hospitalised, he is not under treatment, his health has started sprouting. His spring of life is flowing well. He is positive. His goal is not non-violence, his goal is not non-truth, is not untruth. His goal is not to delete something, eliminate something, his goal is not to destroy something; his goal is to help that which is already bubbling, radiating in his being.

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE SKRIDAGAMIN THAN TO FEED ONE MILLION OF SROTAPANNAS.

Buddha goes deeper and deeper. A skridagamin is one who will die and will come once again in life. His samadhi is just coming closer. Srotapanna is one who has jumped into the stream from the bank; a skridagamin is one whose river is coming very close to the ocean. He is getting ready to take the ultimate, the final jump. But he will come once more. Just that much difference.

A srotapanna will be born seven times - that much is the distance from the bank to the ocean. A sannyasin will be born seven times; a skridagamin once more, only once more. Then his accounts will be closed, then he will have passed through the final graduation from life, then this world is no more for him. But once more he will come, maybe for his post-graduation.

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE ANAGAMIN THAN TO FEED TEN MILLIONS OF SKRIDAGAMINS.

The anagamin is one who will not come. Anagamin means one who has passed beyond the point of coming back... crossed the shore of this world. Once died, he will not be coming again to the world. He is just on the verge of the ocean, the river is just there - just there on the threshold, ready to jump. He will not even look back.

The skridagamin is looking back, hesitating a little, would like to come once more. This world is beautiful, it attracts. It has many celebrations, many flowers bloom here. The skridagamin is one for whom subtle desires are still lurking somewhere in the deep unconscious. Yes, he knows that one has to go, but a little more he would like to linger on this shore. Before he takes the final jump and disappears forever, he would like to taste this life once more, just as a farewell, to say good-bye.

The anagamin is one who will not look back, he will not even say good-bye. He is totally finished. The skridagamin is perfectly certain that a better world is waiting, but still a little longing for the past.

You always feel that - a little nostalgia. When you are leaving a house where you have lived for twenty years, have you watched? - you look back. Or you leave a town you have lived in for twenty years, where you were born - you look back. Even when the train leaves you go on looking out of the window, your eyes a little wet with memories, nostalgia, the past, the whole past. You have been here for so long. You loved here, you hated here, you had friends, you had enemies, you had many sorts of experiences here; you owe too much to this life. Yes, you are ready to go, you are already in the train, but still eyes of longing look backwards.

The skridagamin will come once, the anagamin will not come. His departure is total, perfect. He will not look back, he has no nostalgia. The future that is happening, that is going to happen, is far more beautiful; this world simply has disappeared from his consciousness. The golden peaks of god are waiting for him, the oceanic infinity is waiting for him. He does not hanker any more for the bounded existence of a river.

Yes, there were many flowers on the bank and beautiful trees and shadows and many dreams, but that is gone. Gone is gone.

BUDDHA SAYS:

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE ANAGAMIN THAN TO FEED TEN MILLIONS OF SKRIDAGAMINS. IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE ARHAT THAN TO FEED ONE HUNDRED MILLIONS OF ANAGAMINS.

The arhat is one who has dropped into the ocean, disappeared. The anagamin is one who is just on the verge of disappearing, just on the boundary line - one step more and he will become an arhat. Just a little distance and he will become an arhat - one drop more, just the last straw is needed on the back of the camel and the camel will collapse.

The anagamin is boiling at ninety-nine degrees; one degree more... The arhat is one who has crossed one hundred degrees and evaporated. Arhat is one who has evaporated.

BUDDHA SAYS:

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE ARHAT THAN TO FEED ONE HUNDRED MILLIONS OF ANAGAMINS.

The arhat is one whose ego is lost, who has become part of the whole. He no more exists as himself, now he exists as the universe, as the whole. In fact that is the meaning of the word 'holy': one who has become whole. Arhat is holy. Not holy in the sense Christians use the word 'saint' - no, not in that sense.

The christian word 'saint' is very ugly. It comes from a root 'sanctus': sanctioned by the church. That is ugly - how can you sanction? Who is there to sanction?

No government can issue certificates for saints - even the government that exists in the Vatican, even the Pope has no authority. A saint cannot be certified, but the christian word 'saint' means one who is certified by the Pope.

Arhat does not mean saint in that way. Arhat means one who has lost himself in the whole and has become holy.

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE PRATYAK BUDDHA THAN TO FEED ONE BILLION OF ARHATS.

Then who is this pratyak Buddha?

Arhat is one who has followed Buddhas and arrived home. Pratyak Buddha is one who has never been a disciple to anybody, who has come searching alone - his journey has been absolutely alone, his path has been absolutely alone. A pratyak Buddha is a rare phenomenon. There are millions of arhats down the centuries, but very far and few in between are pratyak Buddhas, who have struggled absolutely alone. And of course, they are needed, otherwise arhats will not be possible.

Pratyak Buddhas are needed so that others can follow them; they are the pioneers, they are the breakthroughs, they create the path.

Remember it: pratyak Buddha is one who moves in the jungle of life for the first time and creates a path by his very movement. Then others can follow. Those others will reach to the same point, to the same goal, but they will be arhats.

They have not made the path, they are not the path-finders, they are not the path-builders. More respect is needed to be given to a pratyak Buddha because no path was there: he created the path.

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE OF THE BUDDHAS EITHER OF THE PRESENT OR OF THE PAST OR OF THE FUTURE THAN TO FEED TEN BILLIONS OF PRATYAK BUDDHAS.

Then what is the difference between a pratyak Buddha and a Buddha?

A pratyak Buddha is one who creates the path and never bothers if anyone is following him or not. He has no compassion. He is a lonely traveller and he has found alone, so he thinks everybody can find when he has found. What is the point of going and telling people? He is not a master.

A pratyak Buddha makes the path - not for others, remember. He is just moving and the path is created by his movement... a small footpath in the jungle. Because he has moved, others follow him; that is for them - he never cares. He is a lonely traveller, and he thinks what can happen to him can happen to others.

When Buddha himself became enlightened these two alternatives were before him: whether to become a Buddha or a pratyak Buddha. For seven days he remained quiet: there was every possibility he may have chosen to be a pratyak Buddha. Then the whole humanity would have missed something of tremendous value.

It is said that Brahma came with all his gods from heaven - it is a beautiful parable. They bowed down at the feet of Buddha and they prayed to him: 'Open your eyes and teach us whatsoever you have found.' But Buddha said, 'What is the point? If I can find, others can also find.' He was leaning towards becoming a pratyak Buddha. His logic was perfect: if I can find, then why not others? 'And,'

he said, 'even if I teach, those who want to listen, only they will listen to me.

Those who are ready to go, only they will go with me. They can go without me.

And those who are not ready to go, they won't listen and they will not go even if I shout from the housetops. So why bother?'

The gods discussed between themselves what to do, how to convince this man. A great opportunity has happened in the universe and if he becomes a pratyak Buddha, then again the message will be lost. Of course, a few people will again find the way, but there is a possibility to make a superhighway. And a footpath can disappear very soon; the trees can overrun it again. It has to be prepared in such a way that for centuries to come people can follow, and the trees and the jungle will not destroy it, will not cover it again. They discussed, they argued amongst themselves, then they found an argument.

They came to Buddha again and they said, 'You have to teach, because we watched, we looked all around the world. Yes, you are right, there are a few people who will immediately follow you. And we know that those are the people, even if you don't say, they will find - a little later, maybe a few more steps, but they will find; we are certain about it, they are already on their search.

So maybe your teaching will bring the goal sooner, but nothing much more is going to happen - you are right.

'And there are people - millions we know, we have seen, we have looked into the hearts of humanity - who will not listen, who are deaf to any person like you. So, talking to them is not of any meaning. But we have seen a few people who are just in between the two, just lurking on the boundary. They will not go if you don't speak. And if you speak they will listen and they will gather courage.

So just please, for those few people.'

And Buddha could not argue, he had to concede, and he became a Buddha and dropped the idea of becoming a pratyak Buddha.

Buddha is one who has found his path; not only that - he created that path in such a way that many more can follow it... who has tremendous compassion for others, for all those struggling human beings who are groping in the dark.

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE OF THE BUDDHAS THEN TO FEED TEN BILLIONS OF PRATYAK BUDDHAS.

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE WHO IS ABOVE KNOWLEDGE, ONESIDEDNESS, DISCIPLINE, AND ENLIGHTENMENT THAN TO FEED ONE HUNDRED BILLIONS OF BUDDHAS OF PAST, PRESENT OR FUTURE.

And then he comes to the last point, the zero point - even beyond a Buddha. As far as human intellect can go, Buddha seems to be the last point. That's why we call Gautam Siddhartha 'the Buddha', because that is as far as language can go.

But there is a point beyond language, there is a point which is not expressible - beyond symbols, ineffable: that Buddha calls going beyond even being a Buddha.

Then one is not even in any way thinking that he is enlightened, then one has no discipline, then one has no character. Then one is not - one is simply empty space.

Because in a Buddha at least a little desire to help others exists, a compassion for others. But that too will be a bondage. That means the Buddha still thinks, 'Others are and I am, and I can help others.' Still the last subtle boundary of 'I'

and 'you', of 'me' and 'thou' exists.

The last point, Buddha says, is a zero point where all knowledge disappears, all experience disappears - even the experience of nirvana - because there is nobody to experience it. It is difficult to say anything about it, only negative descriptions are possible.

You can find this point in all the religions. They have different words for it. Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, Hindus, call this point god. That is their way of saying 'the beyond'. But the buddhist way seems to be far superior. Jainas, Sankhyas, Yogins, call this state moksha, absolute freedom. Or others call it kaivalya, absolute aloneness. But still, all these words confine it. Buddha has not used any word, he simply says:

IT IS BETTER TO FEED ONE WHO IS ABOVE KNOWLEDGE, ABOVE ONESIDEDNESS, ABOVE DISCIPLINE, ABOVE ENLIGHTENMENT, THAN TO FEED ONE HUNDRED BILLIONS OF BUDDHAS OF THE PAST, PRESENT, OR FUTURE.

These are the possibilities within you. Ordinarily you exist as a bad man, so you are existing on the minimum, on the lowest rung. Try to become a good man. It is better than to be bad, but don't think it is the goal - it is all comparative, it is all relative.

I have heard:

Mulla Nasrudin was in love with a woman. He went to the girl's father and requested that he should be allowed to have his daughter's hand. The father was completely willing, he said, 'I'm absolutely happy, I have nothing to say against it, but my wife will not agree. She thinks with your long hippie-like hair, with your poetic style of life, with your unisex dress, she thinks you look effeminate.'

Mulla brooded over it and he said, 'She is right - in comparison to her.'

Everything is comparative. The good man is good in comparison to the bad, but in comparison to the religious man, he is just like the bad man. The sannyasin is good in comparison to the religious man, but how to compare him with the skridagamin? - and so on and so forth.

The more you travel on the inner path, the more higher peaks become available to you. Never rest content unless you have reached to the very last, the uttermost. And the uttermost is beyondness - where nothing exists or only pure existence remains.

That purity is the goal and in that purity you become one. Until that purity is achieved, somehow duality goes on - first in a gross way, then in a subtle way, then in a very very subtle way. First in the conscious, then in the unconscious, but it goes on; then even in the superconscious it persists - it goes on making shadows.

So remember it, the goal is to disappear completely. The goal is to transcend all duality, all definition. The goal is to become one with the whole.