Just Working for Peanuts

THE MAGNIFICENT TEMPLE THAT BUDDHA BUILT consists of three floors; his teaching has three dimensions to it, or three layers. And you will have to be very patient to understand those three layers. I say so because they have been misunderstood down the centuries.

The first floor of Buddha's teaching is known as HINAYANA; the second floor is known as MAHAYANA, and the third floor is known as VAJRAYANA.

HINAYANA means 'the small vehicle', 'the narrow way'. MAHAYANA means 'the great vehicle', 'the wide way'. And VAJRAYANA means 'the supreme vehicle', 'the ultimate way', 'the transcendental way'. HINAYANA is the beginning and VAJRAYANA is the climax, the crescendo.

HINAYANA starts from where you are. HINAYANA tries to help you to change your mechanical habits; it is just like Hatha Yoga - very body-oriented, believes in great discipline; strict, almost repressive - at least it looks repressive. It is not repressive, but the whole work of HINAYANA consists in changing your centuries old habits.

Just as a tightrope-walker starts leaning to the left if he feels that he is going to fall towards the right, to balance one has to move to the opposite. By moving to the opposite, a balance arises - but that balance is temporary, momentary. Again you will start falling into the new direction, then again you will need balance and you will have to move to the opposite.

Sex is the very basic problem. And all the habits that man has created are basically sex-oriented. That's why no society allows sex total freedom. All the cultures that have existed - sophisticated, un-sophisticated, Eastern, Western, primitive, civilized - all cultures have tried in some way to control the sexual energy of man. It seems to be the greatest power over man. It seems that if man is allowed total freedom about sex, he will simply destroy himself.

Skinner reports about a few experiments he was doing with rats. He has invented a new theory, that electrodes can be put into the human or animal brain, attached to particular centres in the brain and you just push a button and that centre will be stimulated inside you.

There is a sex centre in the brain. In fact, you are more controlled by the sex centre in the brain than the actual sex centre of your body. That's why fantasy works so much. That's why pornography has so much appeal. The pornography cannot appeal to the sex centre itself; it stimulates the brain centre attached to the sex centre. Immediately the sex centre, the physiological sex centre, starts being active once the mind is active.

He fixed electrodes into rats' brains and taught them how to push the button whenever they wanted sexual stimulation and an inner orgasm. He was surprised, he was not expecting that this was going to happen: those rats completely forgot everything - food, sleep, play - everything they forgot. They continuously pushed the button! One rat did it six thousand times and died - he died pushing the button. Six thousand times! He forgot everything... then nothing else matters.

Sooner or later, some Skinner or somebody else is going to give you also a small box to keep in your pocket, and whenever you feel sexual just push a button and your brain centre will become active and will give you beautiful orgasms, and nobody will ever know what is happening inside you. But you will almost follow the rat - then what is the point of doing anything else? You will kill yourself.

Sex is such a great attraction that if there were not limitations on it.... First there is a limitation that body puts on it. A man cannot have too many orgasms in a day; if you are young, three, four; if you become older, then one; when you become a little older still, then even that becomes difficult - once a week, once a month. And, by and by, your body puts so many limitations on it.

Women are more free that way. The body has no limitation. That's why, all over the world, women have been completely repressed. She has not been allowed freedom; she has not been allowed even freedom to have orgasms in the past - because she can have multiple orgasms. Within seconds she can have many orgasms - six, twelve. Then no man will be able to satisfy a woman; then no man will be able to satisfy any woman. Then only group sex will be able to satisfy. A woman will need at least twelve husbands - that will create tremendous complexities.

That's why, down the centuries, for thousands of years, women were brought up in such a way that they have completely forgotten that they can have orgasm.

Just within these fifty years women have again started learning what orgasm is.

And with their learning, problems have arisen all over the world. Marriage is on the rocks. Marriage cannot exist with women having the capacity of multiple orgasm. And man only has capacity for one orgasm. There can be no compatibility between the two. Then monogamy cannot exist. It will become difficult.

This society and the pattern that it has evolved up to now is doomed. Man has released some energy that has always been kept under a certain rigid control. But the attraction has always been there - whether you repress, whether you control, discipline, that doesn't make any difference. The attraction is there - twenty-four hours, deep down like a substratum, sexuality goes on like a river flowing. It is a continuum. You may eat, you may earn money, you may work, but you are doing everything for sex.

Somewhere, sex remains the goal... and this pattern has to be changed, otherwise your energy will go on being drained, your energy will go on being dissipated, your energy will go on moving into the earth. It will not rise towards heaven. It will not have an upward surge.

HINAYANA works just exactly where you are. You are continuously obsessed with sex? - Hinayana tries to remove this obsession. It gives you a certain discipline, a very rigid discipline, how to drop out of it.

HINAYANA SAYS THERE ARE FOUR STEPS TO DROP OUT OF SEX. The first is called purifying. The second is called enriching. The third is called crystallizing. The fourth is called destroying.

First you have to move your total energy against sex, so that sexual habits developed in many lives no longer interfere - that is called purifying. You change your consciousness, you shift. From sexual obsession you move to anti- sexuality.

The second step is called enriching. When you have moved to non-sexuality, then you have to enjoy non-sexuality; you have to celebrate your celibacy.

Because if you don't celebrate your celibacy, again sex will start pulling you backwards. Once you start celebrating your celibacy, then the pull of sex will be completely gone, and gone for ever.

You are obsessed with sex because you don't know any other sort of celebration.

So the problem is not sex really; the problem is that you don't know any other celebration. Nature allows you only one joy, and that is of sex. Nature allows you only one enjoyment, that is of sex. Nature allows you only one thrill, and that is of sex.

HINAYANA says there is a greater thrill waiting for you - if you move towards celibacy. But the celibacy should not be violently forced. If you violently enforce it you will not be able to enjoy it. One has to be just aware of the sexual habits, and through awareness one has to shift by and by towards celibacy.

Celibacy should be brought very slowly. All that brings you again and again to sexuality has to be dropped slowly, in steps. And once you start enjoying the energy that becomes available, when you are not obsessed with sex, just that pure energy becomes a dance in you - that is called enriching. Now, your energy is not wasted. Your energy goes on showering on yourself.

Remember, there are two types of celibates. One: who has simply forced celibacy upon himself - he is a wrong type, he is doing violence to himself. The other:

who has tried to understand sexuality, what it is, why it is; who has watched, observed, lived through it, and, by and by, has become aware of its futility; by and by, has become aware of a deep frustration that comes after EACH sexual act.

In the sexual act you have a certain thrill, a moment of forgetfulness, a moment of oblivion. You feel good - for a few seconds, only for a few seconds, you drop out of this routine world. Sex gives you a door to escape into some other world - which is non-tense; there is no worry; you are simply relaxed and melting. But have you observed? After each sexual act you feel frustrated.

Sex has promised too much, but it has not been supplied. It is difficult to find a man or a woman who does not feel a little frustrated after the sexual act, who does not feel a little guilty. I am not talking about the guilt that priests have imposed upon you. Even if nobody has imposed any guilt upon you, you will feel a little guilt - that is part, a shadow of the sexual act. You have lost energy, you feel depleted, and nothing has been gained. The gain is not very substantial.

You have been befooled, you have been tricked, by a natural hypnosis - you have been tricked by the body, you have been deceived. Hence comes a frustration.

HINAYANA says: Watch this frustration more deeply. Watch the sexual act and the way your energy moves into the sexual act; become aware of it - and you will see there is nothing in it. And frustration. The more you become aware, the less will be the enjoyment and the more will be the frustration. Then the shift has started taking place: your consciousness is moving away, AND naturally, AND spontaneously. You are not forcing it.

The second step becomes available: enriching. Your OWN energy goes on feeding your being. You no more throw it into the other's body, you no more throw it out. It becomes a deep accumulation inside you. You become a pool.

And out of that feeling of energy you feel very cool. Sex is very hot. The enriching stage is very cool, calm, collected. There IS a celebration, but it is very silent. There IS a dance to it, but it is very graceful; there is elegance to it.

Then comes the third step: crystallizing. When this energy inside you has started an inner dance, by and by, slowly, enjoying it more and more, becoming more and more aware of it, a certain chemical crystallization happens in you. Exactly the same word was used by Gurdjieff in his work: crystallization. Your fragments fall together, you become one. A unity arises in you. In fact, for the first time you can say "I have an I." Otherwise there were many I's; now you have one I, a big I which controls everything. You have become your master.

And the fourth step is destroying. When you have one I, then it can be destroyed; when you have many I's, they cannot be destroyed. When your energy has become one and is centred, it can be killed, it can be completely destroyed. When it is a crowd it is difficult to destroy it. You destroy one fragment, there are a thousand other fragments. When you rush after those other fragments, the first one grows again. It is just like the way trees grow branches: you cut one, three branches sprout out of it.

You can destroy sexuality totally only when it has become a crystallized phenomenon; When a person has accumulated too much energy and has become one, is no more fragmentary, no more split no more schizophrenic, then Buddhists have a special term for it they call it 'Manjusri's sword'.

It is said that when Manjusri reached to this third stage - he was a disciple of Buddha, a great disciple of Buddha - when he reached to this stage of crystallization, in one single moment he took his sword and destroyed it completely, utterly, in a single moment. It is not a gradual process then. That has become known down the centuries as 'the sword of Manjusri'.

When a person reaches to the third state, he can just raise a sword and destroy it completely - in one single attack. Because now the enemy is there, now the enemy is no longer elusive, now there are no longer many enemies - just one enemy confronting you. And the sword is just the sword of perfect awareness, mindfulness, self-remembering. It is a very sharp sword.

When Buddha destroyed his own sexuality, it is said he roared like a lion - because for the first time the whole absurdity of it became clear. And so many lives wasted! so many lives of sheer stupidity - gone for ever. He was so happy he roared like a lion.

These are the four steps, and today's sutras are concerned with these four steps.

Before we enter into the sutras, a few more things have to be understood.

THE SECOND VEHICLE IS MAHAYANA. When your sexual energy is no longer obsessed with the other's body, when you are completely free of the other's body, when your energy has a freedom to it, then MAHAYANA becomes possible - the second floor of Buddha's temple.

MAHAYANA makes it possible for you to be loving. Ordinarily we think sex makes people loving - sex can never make people loving. In fact, it is sexuality that prevents love from growing - because it is the same energy that has to become love. It is being destroyed in sex. To become love, the same energy has to move to the heart centre. MAHAYANA belongs to the heart centre.

HINAYANA works at the sex centre - MULADHAR. MAHAYANA works at the heart centre - it says love, prayer, have to be developed now. Energy is there, now you can love. Energy is there, now you can pray.

MAHAYANA is loving-effort. One has to love unconditionally - the trees and the rocks and the sun and the moon and the people - but now love has no sexuality in it. It is very cool, it is very tranquil.

If you come near a person whose energy is moving in his heart centre, you will suddenly feel you are moving under a deep cool shade, no hot energy. You will feel suddenly a breeze surrounding you. The person of love, the person who lives at the heart centre, is to a traveller like a shady tree, or cool running water, or a breeze fragrant with many blossoms.

MAHAYANA is not afraid of sex. HINAYANA is afraid of sex. HINAYANA is afraid of sex because you are too much obsessed with sex. You have to move to the opposite. MAHAYANA is not afraid of sex - it has attained to the balance; there is no fear of the opposites. MAHAYANA is when the tightrope-walker is balanced; he neither leans to the left nor to the right.

Then the third and the final stage, the third floor of Buddha's temple, is VAJRAYANA. 'Vajra' means diamond - it is the most precious teaching; certainly very difficult to understand. VAJRAYANA is Buddhist Tantra.

VAJRAYANA is called 'vajra', the diamond, because the diamond cuts everything. The diamond vehicle, the way of the diamond, VAJRAYANA, cuts everything completely, through and through - all materiality, all desire, all attachment. Even the desire to be born in heaven, the desire to be in a peaceful state, the desire to become a Buddha, the desire to have Nirvana, enlightenment - - even these beautiful desires are cut completely.

VAJRAYANA knows no difference between the world and Nirvana, knows no difference between ignorance and knowledge, knows no difference, no distinctions - all distinctions are dropped - knows no distinction between man and woman.

Now let me explain it to you.

On the stage of HINAYANA, man is man, woman is woman. And man is attracted towards woman, and the woman is attracted towards man - they are out-going; their attraction is somewhere outside them. Of course, they will be slaves. When your attraction is somewhere outside you, you cannot be independent of it.

That's why lovers never forgive each other, they cannot. They are annoyed. You love a person and you are irritated by the person at the same time. There is a reason for it. There is constant fight between lovers. The reason is: you cannot forgive the lover, because you know you are dependent on him or on her. How can you forgive your slavery? You know your woman makes you happy, but if she decides not to make you happy, then?... then suddenly you are unhappy.

Your happiness is in her hands. Her happiness is in your hands. Whenever somebody else controls your happiness, you cannot forgive the other.

Jean-Paul Sartre says: "The other is hell" - and he is right. He has a great insight into it. The other is hell because you have to depend on the other. Sex canNOT make you free; somehow it takes you away from yourself; it takes you farther and farther away from yourself. The goal is the other.

Gurdjieff used to say sex is one-arrowed - the arrow is moving towards the other. Exactly the same metaphor has been used by Vajrayana: sex is one- arrowed - it goes towards the other. Love is double-arrowed - it goes to the other and to you also. In love there is balance.

One arrow going towards the other, then you have to work with Hinayana. Two- arrowed: one arrow going towards the other, one arrow coming towards you - you have attained to balance; that lopsidedness is no more there.

A man of love is never angry with the other, because he is not really dependent on the other. He can be happy alone too; his arrow is double-arrowed - he can be happy alone too. Of course, he still shares his happiness with the other, but he is no longer dependent on the other. Now it is no longer a relationship of dependence: it is a relationship of interdependence. It is a mutual friendship.

They share energies, but nobody is anybody's slave.

In VAJRAYANA the arrow completely disappears. There is no you and no other; I and thou, both are dropped. The mechanism has to be understood.

When you are looking for a woman or for a man, you don't know one very important factor: that your woman is within you and your man too. Each man is both man and woman, and each woman is both woman and man. It has to be so!... because you are born out of two parents. One was man, one was woman; they have contributed to your being fifty percent each. You have something of your father and you have something of your mother. Half of you belongs to the male energy; half of you belongs to the female energy - you are both.

In HINAYANA you have to work hard to bring your energy to the inner woman or the inner man; that is its whole work.

Just recently, in this century, Carl Gustav Jung became aware of this fact - of this fact of bisexuality, that no man is pure man and no woman is pure woman. In each man a woman exists, and in fact every man is searching for that woman somewhere outside.

That's why suddenly one day you come across a woman and you feel, "Yes, this is the right woman for me." How do you feel it? What is the criterion? How do you judge? - it is not rational, you don't reason it out. It happens so suddenly, like a flash. You were not thinking about it, you have not reasoned it out.

Suddenly if somebody asks you, "Why have you fallen in love with this woman?"

you will shrug your shoulders. You will say, "I don't know - but I have fallen in love. Something has happened."

What has happened? Jung says you have an image of woman inside you; that image somehow fits with this woman. This woman seems to be similar to that image in some way or other. Of course, no woman can be absolutely similar to the inner woman - that's why no lover can ever be absolutely satisfied. A little similar, maybe: the way she walks; maybe her sound, her voice; maybe the way she looks, maybe her blue eyes; maybe her nose, maybe the colour of her hair.

You have an image inside you that has come from your mother, from your mother's mother, from your mother's mother's mother - ALL the women that have preceded you, they have contributed to that image. It is not exactly like your mother, otherwise things would have been simple. Your mother is involved in it, your mother's mother is also involved - and so on and so forth. They all have contributed little bits.

And it is the same with your man: your father has contributed, your father's father, and so on and so forth. From your father to Adam, and from your mother to Eve, the whole continuum has contributed to it. Nobody exactly knows, there is no way really to know, whom you are seeking. A man is searching for a woman, a woman is searching for a man - the search is very vague. There is no clear-cut image, but somewhere in your heart you carry it; in the DARK corner of your soul you keep it, it is there.

So many times many women and many men will appear to fulfil something of it, but only something. So each lover will give you a little satisfaction and much dissatisfaction. A part that fits will satisfy, and all other parts which don't fit will never satisfy.

Have you watched it? Whenever you fall in love with a man or a woman, you immediately start changing the man and the woman according to something that you also don't know what.... Wives go on changing their husbands their whole lives: "Don't do this! Be like this, behave like this!"

Just the other day, Mulla Nasrudin's wife was saying to me, "Finally, Osho, I succeeded."

I asked, "About what?"

She said, "I have stopped Mulla Nasrudin biting his nails."

I said, "Biting his nails? Fifty years you have been married together - Mulla is seventy - now you have been able after fifty years?"

She said, "Yes!"

I asked, "But how did you succeed, tell me?"

She said, "Now I simply hide his teeth so he cannot bite."

People go on trying to change. Nobody ever changes - I have never seen, I have never come across it. People even pretend that "Yes, we have changed," but nobody can change. Everybody remains himself. The whole effort is futile, but the urge to change is there. Why is the urge to change there?

The urge to change is for a real necessity: the woman is trying to make her husband fit with some vague image inside her. Then she will be happy - that he does not drink, that he does not smoke, that he does not go after other women...

and a thousand and one things... that he always goes to the temple, that he listens to the saints. She has a certain image: she wants her husband to be a hero, a saint, a great man. The ordinary human being does not satisfy her.

And the husband is also trying in a thousand and one ways: brings beautiful clothes, diamonds, rubies and pearls, and goes on decorating his wife. He is trying to find a Cleopatra. Somewhere he has some image of a beautiful woman, the most beautiful woman. Now he tries - even from his very childhood.

I have heard:

The old man asked his precocious six-year-old how he liked the new little girl next door.

"W-e-l-l," said the kid, "she's no Elizabeth Taylor, but she's nice."

Now even small children think about Hema Malini and think about Elizabeth Taylor. And he says, "She's no Elizabeth Taylor, but she's nice." And this conflict continues. The reason is that we are always looking for someone - who is not outside.

HINAYANA turns you from looking outside. It says: Close your eyes to the outside. MAHAYANA makes you more alert and aware, fills your inner chamber with more light, so that you can see the inner woman. And VAJRAYANA makes it possible for you so that you can have an inner orgasm with your man inside or your woman inside. That INNER orgasm will satisfy you, nothing else. These three steps are of tremendous meaning.

SO DON'T BE WORRIED ABOUT THESE SUTRAS that we will be discussing today.

Just two days before, one woman sannyasin wrote to me, "Osho, what is happening to me? When you were talking about Hassids I was so flowering, so floating with it - each talk - and I would go happy and dancing and joyous.

And now you are talking about Buddha, since then I am very depressed. I love my man and he is a very beautiful man, and the Buddha says: Nothing is there in the body - it is just a bag full of filth. I don't want to hear things like that."

I know nobody wants to hear, but they are true. And unless you pass through the Buddha you will never reach to the Hassids. Hassidism is VAJRAYANA, it is the ultimate flowering. Listening to Hassidism you feel very happy; when I talk about Tantra you feel very happy - you think you are all tantricas. It is not so simple, it is not so cheap. To be a tantrica is the ultimate flowering of religion - don't deceive yourselves. It is hard, arduous, to reach to that point.

VAJRAYANA is Tantra, Buddhist Tantra, pure Tantra. But just look at the arrangement of things! HINAYANA is the first step, and HINAYANA seems to be absolutely repressive. But Buddha says: Unless you change your old patterns, you can go on rationalizing and you can go on living in your unconscious, robotlike life, and you can go on repeating it again and again. You have done it many times.

How many times have you fallen in love with a beautiful man or a beautiful woman, and how long does it last? One day Buddha proves to be right: your beautiful woman, your Elizabeth Taylor, one day suddenly you find is a bag full of filth - and he is saying it from the very beginning. But, of course, when you are on your honeymoon these sutras will not appeal to you.

Never take Buddhist sutras when you are going on a honeymoon. But when you are approaching the divorce court these sutras will be very relevant! You will immediately see what he is saying. One day comes the ultimate divorce. The ultimate divorce is the day when you simply understand the whole absurdity of searching for the other.

Divorces have happened many times to you, but you again and again forget. One divorce is finished - even if it is not finished, the court proceedings may still be on - you are again falling into another love affair. It may be in fact that because you have fallen in another love affair, that's why you are asking for the divorce.

Before you are out of the first prison, you have already entered the other.

You have become so accustomed to living in chains that freedom tastes bitter.

To that woman sannyasin who is feeling very depressed I would like to say this, that that depression shows something is hitting deep in the heart: Buddha has some truth - you cannot avoid it. You would like to avoid it. Who wants truth?

People like lies. Lies are very comfortable; truth is always destructive, shattering.

But don't make any judgement too soon - this is Buddha's first layer of teaching.

The second layer is more relaxed. The first layer is of great struggle. HINAYANA is struggle, sheer force of will - because that is the only way you can get out of the mess you have been for so long - a sheer struggle to get out of it. The second step is perfectly relaxed, MAHAYANA is very relaxed and graceful. The third step is of tremendous celebration. On the third step you transcend all discipline.

This is the beauty of the Buddha's path; it is very scientific. Each step is a must. If you lose one step, the whole building will collapse, the whole temple will disappear.

HINAYANA is very great discipline. MAHAYANA is relaxed discipline. And VAJRAYANA is no discipline - one has come to such a point where he can have total freedom. But you have to earn that total freedom.

HINAYANA IS BASED IN THE BODY, the material part of your being. When you are in your body, you can enjoy life only in drops. In fact, in the East, semen is called BINDU - BINDU means a drop. You can enjoy sex only drop by drop.

And you are so vast that this enjoyment drop by drop is MORE frustrating than fulfilling.

I have heard:

The oversized elephants were picketing the zoo. A lion happened to be strolling by and asked, "Why are you picketing?" and one of the elephants answered, "We're tired of working for peanuts."

This is what sex is - just working for peanuts.

In Tibet they have a metaphor for it; they call it PRETA. PRETA means a hungry ghost. A hungry ghost they depict in a certain way: he has a belly like an elephant, and a neck so thin like thread, and a mouth so small like the eye of a needle. Of course, he has to remain hungry for ever and ever, because of that small mouth like an eye of a needle. He goes on eating twenty-four hours, but he has a belly like an elephant - so he goes on eating and eating and eating and always is hungry.

That's how sexuality is. You are VAST; you have no boundaries, no limits. Unless your bliss also is as vast as your being it is not going to give you any contentment. And sex is just drip, drip, drop, drop.... You can just entertain yourself; you can go on hoping against hope - but it is not going to fulfil you.

Sex creates neurosis, it is neurotic, because it can never satisfy you. Now, go to the madhouses of the world and just watch the mad people, and you will always find that somewhere or other there is a sexual problem. That's what Freud says, that ALL pathology is somehow connected with sex. Too much sex obsession becomes neurotic.

If you live in the body, you are bound to become neurotic. You have to go a little deeper and higher than the body.

The second layer Buddhists call the heart; you can call it mind but the heart is a better word. The heart includes the mind; it is bigger, more satisfying, more space is available. You feel more free. Love is more free than sex. In love there is less conflict than there is in sex. Then there is a still higher... the vast open sky of VAJRAYANA. Buddha gives it the name of compassion. You live in passion and you have to reach to compassion.

Passion is obsession, neurosis. Compassion is when your energy has flowered.

You are so contented within yourself, you are so enough unto yourself, now you can share, you can shower your bliss. Now you HAVE to give. Neurosis is when you go on demanding and nobody is ready to give to you, and you are a hungry ghost. Your demands are great, and all that the world provides is just peanuts.

When, at the stage of VAJRAYANA, you are vast, full of energy, a great reservoir of energy, a pool, a tremendous pool, then you can give. In sex you ask. Passion means demand, passion means begging.

Have you not watched it? Whenever you are sexually attracted to a woman, you go around her and wag your tail - you are a beggar. In compassion you are an emperor, you share, you give; you give because you have. In sex you ask because you don't have.

And this sex continues from the childhood to the very end. Children are getting ready for it, for this absurd journey. Old people are tired, sitting by the roadside - - very jealous of those who are still not tired and are young; feeling very jealous.

Out of their jealousy they start preaching; out of their jealousy they start condemning.

Remember, a saint never condemns; if he condemns then he is not a saint - he is still interested in the same things. It is just that now he is jealous. Have you not watched this jealousy? A young boy climbing up a tree, and you immediately say, "Get down! You may get hurt or you may fall down." Have you watched? - in your voice there is something of jealousy. You cannot climb the tree now; you are old, your limbs are more rigid; they have lost their flexibility. You are jealous but you cannot say you are jealous. You hide your jealousy.

Whenever a person starts condemning sex, somewhere he must be carrying a jealousy. Buddha is not condemning. He is simply factual. He simply says whatsoever is the case. And he wants you to come out of it because your destiny is bigger, higher is the potentiality.

A woman, an old woman, reached the insurance company's office. "But lady, you can't collect the life insurance on your husband - he isn't dead yet," said the insurance man.

"I know that - but there's no life left in him."

She has come to collect the insurance....

When no life is left in you, you start hiding the fact; you start becoming religious.

Your religion may be just a garb. Buddha is not saying that you have to become religious when you are old. Buddha is saying you have to become religious when the passion is alive, when the fire is alive - because only when the fire is alive can it be transformed, you can ride on the energy.

Buddha introduced something absolutely new into the Indian consciousness. In India, sannyas was for old people - old, dead; almost dead, one foot in the grave, then people used to take sannyas. The Hindu sannyas was like that: only for old people. When you have nothing left in you, then try sannyas - that was the last item. Buddha introduced a new element: he said that is foolish - only a young person can be really religious, because when the energy is there you can ride on it. He introduced sannyas to young people.

And, of course, when you introduce sannyas to young people you have to make sure that they don't go on moving towards sex. For old people you need not bother too much. So in Hindu SHASTRAS, in Hindu scriptures, there exists nothing like Hinayana - because there is no need! Old people become sannyasins; what is the point? There is no need to be worried about them. They can live as they want. But when a young person becomes a sannyasin, then much care has to be taken. He has energy, he has fire, and that fire can misfire too; it can lead him into wrong directions. And he is very fresh, unexperienced. For him these sutras are very helpful.

Mulla Nasrudin tells this:

My mother-in-law is a widow; she is eighty-two years old. One night, just to get her out of the house, I arranged a date for her with a man who is eighty-five years old. She returned home from the date very late that evening, and more than a little upset.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Are you kidding?" she snapped. "I had to slap his face three times."

"You mean," I answered, "he got fresh?"

"No," she replied, "I thought he was dead!"

Now if you initiate such dead people into sannyas, then there is no need for these sutras.

Buddha had to make it certain, because he took a great danger. He was very courageous: he introduced thousands of young people into sannyas. He had to make it absolutely certain that their energy moves from body to heart, from heart to soul. And every care has to be taken.

The first sutra:

THE BUDDHA SAID:

"O MONKS, YOU SHOULD NOT SEE WOMEN. (IF YOU SHOULD HAVE TO SEE THEM), REFRAIN FROM TALKING TO THEM. (IF YOU SHOULD HAVE TO TALK), YOU SHOULD REFLECT IN A RIGHT SPIRIT: 'I AM NOW A HOMELESS MENDICANT. IN THE WORLD OF SIN I MUST BEHAVE MYSELF LIKE UNTO THE LOTUS-FLOWER WHOSE PURITY IS NOT DEFILED BY THE MUD. OLD ONES I WILL TREAT AS MY MOTHER; ELDERLY ONES AS ELDER SISTERS; YOUNGER ONES AS YOUNGER SISTERS; AND LITTLE ONES AS DAUGHTERS.' AND IN ALL THIS YOU SHOULD HARBOUR NO EVIL THOUGHTS, BUT THINK OF SALVATION."

THE BUDDHA SAID:

"THOSE WHO WALK IN THE WAY SHOULD AVOID SENSUALISM AS THOSE WHO CARRY HAY WOULD AVOID COMING NEAR THE FIRE."

TO INITIATE A YOUNG MAN is to initiate somebody who is carry-ing hay - he should avoid fire.

Now, try to understand. These simple words are not so simple - they have many depths and layers.

First: they are addressed to monks, not to ordinary people. "O monks," Buddha says. The word 'monk' is very beautiful; it means one who has decided to live alone. Monk, the very word, means solitary. Words like 'monopoly', 'monogamy', come from the same root. 'Monogamy' means one husband; 'monopoly' means one man's power; 'monastery' means where monks live, those who have decided to live alone.

Ordinarily, you are seeking the other. The monk is one who has decided that the search for the other is futile, one who has decided to be alone. Enough he has searched into relationship, but that which he was searching he could not find there. Frustration was the only gain. He has failed - he has tried, but in vain.

Now he decides, "Let me try alone. If I cannot be happy with others, let me try to be happy alone. If I cannot be happy in relationship, then let me be out of relationship, let me drop out of the social structure. I will try now to be alone. I have tried outside, now let me try inside. Maybe that which I am desiring is there."

To be a monk means a decision that "Love has failed, relationship has failed, society has failed, now I will try meditation, now I will try my innermost core.

Now I am going to be my only world, the only world there is. I will close my eyes and remain into myself." To be a monk is a great decision. The path of the monk is the path of the lonely, the solitary.

One day or other, everybody comes to feel that - that relationship has failed.

You may not be courageous enough to drop out of it - that is another thing. Or you may be not intelligent enough - that's another matter. Great courage is needed; even a little CHUTZPAH, what Jews call CHUTZPAH, even that is needed. Not only a little courage, but a little dare-devilishness - otherwise one cannot get out of the old pattern; the familiar is so familiar. And the familiar, maybe it is uncomfortable, but still it is familiar; one has become accustomed to it.

People go on smoking knowing well that T.B. is there, knowing well that cancer is approaching close - they go on coughing, go on suffering, and go on asking how to drop it. Now there is no pleasure in it, but still they cannot drop it - just an old habit, just a mechanical habit. They are not intelligent people. When you ask how to stop smoking, you are declaring you are stupid. You don't have any intelligence, and you don't have any courage to move into some new pattern of life. Yes, a little CHUTZPAH will be good. Let me explain it to you, what CHUTZPAH is.

A man entered into a bank with a gun. He forced the cashier to give him $50,000.

Of course, there was no choice for the cashier because the man was standing there and he was saying, "Give me it immediately, otherwise get ready to die!"

He delivered him $50,000. He went to the next window and tried to open an account with the money.

This is CHUTZPAH!

Or there is an even better story.

A man killed his mother and father, was caught red-handed, and appealed for mercy. And when the magistrate said, "Mercy, for you? What are your reasons?"

he said, "Now I am an orphan."

This is CHUTZPAH!

Courage is needed, great courage is needed. And to be religious is almost to be madly courageous. Otherwise, there are MILLIONS of habits; one is entangled completely. It is not that you have one chain on your body - millions of chains.

And things become more complicated because you have decorated the chains and you think they are ornamental. In fact, you have made them golden and they seem valuable. You don't THINK they are chains. The prison you have decorated so long and so beautifully that you have forgotten that it is a prison, you think it is your home.

A day is bound to come in everybody's life when a person realises that "All that I have tried has failed." Courage is needed to recognize that "I have failed utterly."

Let me repeat it: only a courageous person can accept that "I have failed completely." Cowards always go on rationalizing. They say, "Maybe we have failed in this, but we will try another. Once more," they say, "then we are finished. One marriage more, then we are finished."

That's what psychologists call the gambler's psychology. He goes on losing, but he thinks, "One time more... maybe this time I am going to win." If he starts winning, then too he cannot leave, because he thinks, "Now I am winning. Now I am fortunate, now God is with me, fate is with me - I should not lose this opportunity. One stake more...."

If he is losing, he goes on playing. If he is winning, he goes on playing. And the final result is always failure. Whether you win or lose in the middle makes no sense: ultimately failure comes into your hands.

Courage is needed to recognize that "I have failed." The monk is one who has recognized the fact that "all my life-ways have failed," that "all my ideas have failed," that "my mind has proved impotent. Now I am going to make a DRASTIC change in my life. I am going to bring a RADICAL transformation. I will turn inwards." This turning inwards makes a man a monk.

A monk is a rebellious person. He completely drops out of the society, out of relationship.

Buddha says: You can come back to the society at the third stage, when you are a VAJRAYANIST, when you have come to the third stage of flowering - but not before it.

So remember, these words are not uttered for householders. These words are not uttered for those who are still in the world and still dreaming. These words are uttered to a specific group of people who have dropped out of the world, and who have decided to search within, to explore their own souls. They have explored others' bodies - because as far as others are concerned you can explore only the body; you cannot get deeper than that. These people have turned away from that. Now they are trying to explore their heart, they are trying to explore their transcendental witnessing self.

"O MONKS, YOU SHOULD NOT SEE WOMEN."

DON'T SEE WOMEN! You will be surprised: Buddha used to say to his monks that even in dream this sutra has to be followed - even in dream you have to remain so alert!

This sutra is a sutra of awareness. The actual thing happened in this way: one of Buddha's great disciples, Ananda, was going to another town to preach. He asked Buddha, "Bhagwan, if I meet a woman on the way, how am I supposed to behave?" This is the story of this sutra being born.

Buddha said, "You should not see women. You close your eyes. You avoid" - because the eye is the first contact with the other. When you see a woman or when you see a man, you touch the other's body with your eyes. The eye has its own touch.

That's why you are not expected to stare at somebody. If you stare, that shows you are uncivilized, unmannerly. There is a certain time-limit: three seconds you can look; that is allowed. But more than that means you are uncivil, unmannerly, ungentlemanly. If you look at a woman for three seconds it's okay; beyond that the woman will start feeling uncomfortable. And if you go on staring, she will report to the police, or she will start screaming or shouting or she will do something. Because seeing is not just seeing - eyes touch; not only touch, there are ways to penetrate the other's body with the eye. The eyes can function like knives. And the eyes can be lustful, then the other feels you have reduced her or him to an object of lust - and who are you to reduce somebody? This is offensive.

In Hindi we have a very beautiful word for such a person, we call him LUCHCHA. LUCHCHA means one who goes on looking at you - exactly this; literally LUCHCHA means one who goes on staring. LUCHCHA comes from a Sanskrit root lochan. Lochan means the eye. LUCHCHA means one who goes on eyeing you, staring at you, and whose stare becomes like a knife, whose stare becomes lustful, whose stare becomes violent; who uses his eyes as if eyes are sexual organs - that man is a LUCHCHA.

"... YOU SHOULD NOT SEE WOMEN." When Buddha is saying this, he is saying you should not stare. Of course, when you are walking on a road in a town, sometimes you may have to see a woman - but that is not the point. You should not see: you should not try to look; there should not be any deliberate effort to look at a woman; it should not be deliberate. You simply pass on.

Buddha used to say to his disciples: You should not look, really, more than four feet ahead. The eyes should remain just four feet ahead - more is useless, more is unnecessary, a wastage of energy. Just walk silently, looking four feet ahead; that's enough.

And don't stare, because the stare simply shows that deep down lust is boiling.

And once you see something, immediately desire arises. If you don't see, desire does not arise. You are walking on the road; you were not thinking of diamonds, for years you may not have thought, and suddenly you find a diamond there by the side just waiting for you. Suddenly it catches your eyes - desire arises. You look all around: Is anybody seeing or not? You have become a thief. And you had not been thinking about a diamond; there was no desire at all. Just the eye contact and the desire has arisen from the unconscious. It must have been in the unconscious, otherwise it cannot arise.

Buddha says: You know well, your unconscious is full of sexuality, so better not to stare; otherwise that which is in the unconscious will be stirred again and again. And that which is stirred again and again is strengthened. That which is stirred again and again and never allowed to rest and disappear becomes stronger. And a monk is one who has decided to drop out of relationship.

"... YOU SHOULD NOT SEE WOMEN." It is said Ananda asked, "But if a situation arises in which one has to see a woman, then what?" So Buddha said:

"(IF YOU SHOULD HAVE TO SEE THEM), REFRAIN FROM TALKING TO THEM."

Because if you don't talk to a woman, you cannot relate to her. Relationship arises with talking. Communication arises with talking. You can sit by the side of a woman for hours, and if you have not talked there is no bridge; you are as distant as stars. You can sit by the side, even your bodies touching, but if you have not talked there exists no bridge, your personalities remain far away.

You can see in a commuter train so many people crowding the compartment, everybody touching everybody's body, but nobody talking. They are far away from each other. Once you talk, distance disappears; words bring you together.

The shy character noticed a low-cut blonde sitting next to him alone at the bar.

He gathered all his courage and sent a drink to her. She silently nodded her thanks. He repeated the same gesture six times. Finally, the drinks in him spoke up and he got up all the courage he could muster and mumbled, "Do you ever make love to strange men?"

"Well," she smiled, "I never have before - but I think you've talked me into it - you clever, silver-tongued devil, you."

Now, he has not talked much - just one sentence.... Even a single gesture of communication can create relationship. If you don't talk you remain separate.

That's why with people, if you are sitting silently, that shows something has gone wrong. If the husband is silent and the wife is silent, then it seems that something has gone wrong. That means communication has broken, the bridge is broken. When they are laughing and talking, then there is a bridge, there is communication.

Animals have sex but no sexuality. Man has sex plus sexuality. Sex is physical, sexuality is mental - and when you talk, your talk can be sexual. Animals have sex; that's a physiological act. They don't talk, they don't have any language; but man has language, and language is one of the most powerful instruments in the hands of man. You communicate through it, you relate through it. You seduce through words, you insult through words; you show your love through words, you show your hate through words. You repel or attract through your words.

Buddha knows that the word is very potential.

In the Bible they say: "In the beginning was the Word" - maybe it is so or not - but in the very beginning of every relationship there is a word. Maybe in the beginning of the world it was so, maybe not, but in every relationship - relationship starts with a word. Can you start any relationship without a word?

It will be difficult, very, very difficult. Silence will surround you like a citadel.

So Buddha says: "IF YOU SHOULD HAVE TO SEE THEM..." If some situation is there, for example, a monk is passing and there is an accident and a bullock-cart has fallen by the side in a ditch and a woman is there, hurt, broken, what is the monk supposed to do? Should he go without helping? No. compassion is needed. Buddha says: Help but don't talk, see but don't talk.

Ananda asked, "But there can be certain situations in which one has to speak."

"(IF YOU SHOULD HAVE TO TALK), SAYS BUDDHA THEN YOU SHOULD REFLECT IN A RIGHT SPIRIT: 'I AM NOW A HOMELESS MENDICANT....'" Never forget this, that you have fallen out of relationship. The old habits are strong. The pull of the past is strong. So remember that you are a mendicant, that you are a monk, that you are a BHIKKHU.

"'IN THE WORLD OF SIN I MUST BEHAVE MYSELF LIKE UNTO THE LOTUS- FLOWER WHOSE PURITY IS NOT DEFILED BY THE MUD.'" So Buddha says: If you have to see, if you have to talk, if you have to touch, okay, but remember one thing, that you should remain like a lotus-flower, transcendental to the mud - you should remain aware. Your awareness is your only shelter.

HAVE YOU WATCHED? Whenever you are aware, you are alone. WHENEVER you are aware you are cut away from the whole world. You may be in the marketplace, but the marketplace disappears. You may be in the shop, in the factory, in the office - if you are aware, suddenly you are alone.

When I entered into my high-school, I had a very eccentric teacher, a Mohammedan teacher - I loved him. I loved him because he was very eccentric; he had a few whimsical ideas. For example he would not allow any student to say, "Yes sir," when the attendance was to be taken. He would insist: "Say, 'Present sir.'" We used to annoy him by saying "Yes sir," but he would not allow it. Unless you said "Present sir," he would not allow you inside the class. He would force you to stand outside.

Now, this was just whimsical. It doesn't matter whether you say "Yes sir," or you say "Present sir." But I started feeling that he had some point in it, and I started meditating on it. And whenever he would call my name, I would say "Present sir," and I would not only say it - I would FEEL that "I am simply present, aware, alert." And I had beautiful moments; just for a half minute. I would become so present that the class would disappear, that the teacher would disappear. He also became aware of it.

One day he called me; he said, "What do you do? What are you doing? Because when you say 'Present sir' I see a sudden change on your face, your eyes go blank. Are you playing some trick upon me?" Because it was known in the school that before I entered the school, if some boy was to be called to the principal's office then the boy was in trouble. When I entered the school, the dictum had to be changed. Whenever I was called to the principal's office, the whole school would know: "The principal is in trouble!"

So he said, "What! You are creating some trouble? And I feel very awkward when you say 'Present sir.' And you change so tremendously, as if you are transported into another world. What exactly do you do? You embarrass me. If you continue doing this, then I will allow you to say 'Yes sir.'" I said, "Now it will not make much difference - I have learnt it. And I am going to use it my whole life. And I am thankful to you that you insisted. The word 'present' opened a door."

You try it! Walking on the road, suddenly become present. Just say to some unknown god "Present sir," and be present really; just become aflame of awareness. And suddenly you will see you are not in the world: you have become a lotus-flower. The mud cannot touch you. You become untouchable, you become something of the beyond, incorruptible.

Buddha said: If you have to see, if you have to talk, even if you have to touch, then be present, remember, be mindful, that you are a mendicant, that you are pure awareness.

And he says:

"'OLD ONES I WILL TREAT AS MY MOTHER...'" Have you looked at the psychology of man? Can you ever think of making love to your mother? Even thinking is impossible. Something suddenly cuts the whole idea. The whole thing seems ugly - making love to your mother? or making love to your sister? The whole thing seems to be impossible, inconceivable. But your sister is as much a woman as anybody else's sister. Somebody else will fall in love with your sister - bound to - but you never fall in love with your sister.

Who loves his own sister? The moment you say 'sister', some distance arises.

Then sexual approach becomes impossible. The very word functions like a conditioning - you have been conditioned. From the very childhood you have been conditioned; it has been repeated so often and so much, that the relationship between a sister and a brother is a holy relationship, that to think of sex is unthinkable.

Buddha says: One who has become a monk has to create, at least in the beginning, these barriers, so he does not slip into old habits. And he must have been a great psychologist, he must have known the laws of conditioning. He must have known whatsoever is known by Pavlov in the modern times; he must have known everything about conditioned reflex. It is a conditioned reflex: the moment you say 'sister' something simply disappears. Sex becomes irrelevant.

You call somebody 'mother' and sex becomes non-existential.

Buddha says:

"'OLD ONES I WILL TREAT AS MY MOTHER; ELDERLY ONES AS ELDER SISTERS; YOUNGER ONES AS YOUNGER SISTERS; AND LITTLE ONES AS DAUGHTERS.' AND IN ALL THIS YOU SHOULD HARBOUR NO EVIL THOUGHTS. BUT THINK OF SALVATION."

And take each situation as a challenge for your awareness, as a challenge you have to work through towards your salvation.

THE BUDDHA SAID:

"THOSE WHO WALK IN THE WAY SHOULD AVOID SENSUALISM AS THOSE WHO CARRY HAY WOULD AVOID COMING NEAR THE FIRE."

THIS IS THE FIRST STEP. THE SECOND STEP: you are allowed to be loving - because old habits are broken, now there is no fear. In the third step you are allowed to be completely free of all discipline, because now your awareness has become a permanent phenomenon in you; now there is no need to think that "this woman is my mother, or this woman is my sister."

In the third step, of VAJRAYANA, you have come in contact with your inner woman; your attraction for the outer woman has disappeared. The very moment you have come in contact with your INNER woman, you have met the perfect woman you have been always seeking and seeking and never finding. You have met your inner man - you have found the perfect man. Yin and yang, they have become a circle, they have joined together.

That is the theory of ARDHANARISHWAR in Hindu mythology. In Shiva, half is man and half is woman. And Shiva is said to be the greatest god - MAHADEVA. All other gods are small gods; Shiva is the great god. Why is he called the great god? Because he has come to meet the inner woman, he has become ultimate unity; the woman and the man have disappeared.

The same phenomenon has happened in a Buddha. You see!... what grace surrounds a Buddha, what feminine beauty - and what strength, what power!

Power comes from the man and the grace comes from the woman. Buddha is both: tremendously powerful and yet tremendously fragile, like a flower; can face the storm, is ready to face the whole world, and yet so open, so vulnerable, so soft, so delicate - almost feminine.

Look at Buddha's face - so feminine. In India we have not even put a moustache and beard on him - mm? - just to show that the face has become absolutely feminine. Not that he was not growing a beard, not that he was lacking in some hormones, but we have not put one. We have not put a beard on Mahavir, on the twenty-four teerthankaras, on Ram, on Krishna - we have not put that. Not that they all were lacking in hormones; even if one or two were lacking, maybe, but all cannot lack - they must have grown beards, and they must have grown beautiful beards, but it is a symbol that the man has come to meet the woman inside, the man and the woman have mingled and merged and become one.

This is the meaning of the name that I have given to these talks on these Forty- Two Chapters - THE DISCIPLINE OF TRANSCENDENCE. It starts with the discipline of HINAYANA, then with the relaxation of MAHAYANA, then the no-discipline of VAJRAYANA. But one has to begin from the beginning, one has to start by sowing the seeds, then comes the tree, and then the flowering.