Trust is a touchstone

Question 1:

Nothing sir, nothing in particular. Exactly nothing: that's the commodity I deal in.

Literally, it is much ado about nothing. But the nothing is not just nothing; it is the source of all.

Sannyas means you are tired of being yourself and you are ready to drop that burden.

You are tired of being and you would like to rest in nonbeing. Sannyas is a state of nonbeing. You drop yourself and you enter the realm of nothingness... and suddenly everything is beautiful -- because things were ugly because of you. They were not ugly in the first place, not ugly themselves, it was your interpretation; you were corrupting them.

Now the corrupting agent is no more there, eyes are clear and one can see through and through; one's vision is transparent. YOU disappear in sannyas. And the moment you disappear, immediately, instantly, God appears. When you are not, God is.

So sannyas is not a way to decorate your being. Sannyas is utterly destructive. I annihilate you. In the old Eastern scriptures it is said, "The master is a death." The master is the greatest death -- but only through death, new life becomes possible. The greater the death, the greater the resurrection. Let me be your cross. Die in me so that you can be reborn.

You ask what will happen if you take sannyas. This question arises out of fear, out of greed. You would like to be certain, promised, what will happen. If I promise you anything that very promise will become the barrier; then sannyas will not happen -- because to whom am I promising? To you: to your greed, to your ambition, to your desire -- to all that nonsense I am promising -- and that whole nonsense has to go. Not even a bit can be allowed to remain. If even a bit remains, that's enough. Ego is like cancer: you have to utterly annihilate it. Even if a small part remains somewhere, it will grow again...

and cancer grows fast.

Kamal has sent me a beautiful anecdote; I would like you to meditate over it...

Once Mulla Nasruddin came home, as usual very drunk. His wife was in a rage, more so because he had just promised the other day that he was trying to leave his habit by and by. And the wife said, "Now, what about your leaving the habit?" Mulla said he had tried his best to break the habit, but when he cut 'h' from the word 'habit' still 'a bit' remained.

When he cut 'a' still 'bit' remained, and when he cut 'b' still 'it' remained.

Ego is like that. You go on cutting: 'a bit' remains... 'bit' remains... 'it' remains -- but it REMAINS. And this desire to be certain what is going to happen, is an effort of the ego to survive even sannyas. No, I cannot promise you. You are to go TOTALLY -- then something is going to happen. But you cannot even conceive it, what it is.

It is just like a blind man asking, "What is going to happen when my eyes will be operated on and I will be able to see? What is going to happen? Tell me -- otherwise I am not going to take this operation. Let me first be certain. Let me feel what is going to happen." What can you say to the blind man? Can you say, "You will be able to see colors and the rainbow and the butterflies and the flowers"? "you will be able to see light -- light playing on water, sunrays being reflected by dewdrops"? He will say, "What you are saying is all nonsense. I don't know what you are talking about. Talk sense!" Because to talk to a blind person in the language of those who have eyes is nonsense. I cannot say to you what is going to happen, and whatsoever I say you will not be able to understand, and whatsoever YOU can understand is not going to happen. Hence trust is needed.

Sannyas is not a conversion, it is a quantum leap in trust. Sannyas is a gambling, it is not a bargain. I can say only one thing: you will not be there. Something will be there -- call it "x". Old religions call it God. Buddha calls it nirvana, Jesus calls it the kingdom of God. But all those words are meaningless to you. Kingdom of God? -- talking about a rainbow to a blind man? talking about Beethoven's symphony to a deaf man? No, it does not carry any meaning. I cannot say what is going to happen. The only meaningful word that I can say is: Nothing is going to happen, exactly nothing. But remember, nothing does not mean nothing; it means the source of all. That's what Buddha's word 'nirvana'

means: nirvana means 'nothing'. Nirvana simply means you will cease to be, you will not be there.

The word 'nirvana' means exactly as when you put off a candle. When you blow a candle out, if somebody asks where the light has gone what will you say? You will say it has disappeared into nothingness; it is no more, it is lost into the whole. To put a candle off, to blow a candle out, is the literal meaning of the word 'nirvana'. Sannyas is a readiness to be put off: the candle that is burning in you, the candle of ego, will not longer be there.

Instead of it there will be a tremendous space.... But that space is not known to you, it is not your experience.

You can see it in my eyes if you try. You can feel it in my presence if you allow. But to say anything about it will not carry meaning. It will become philosophy; it will not be truth. Truth uttered becomes false -- not because it is uttered but because those who will hear it are bound to misunderstand it. Either they know it -- then they can understand it, but then there is no need to utter it; or they know not -- then the need is there to utter it but then they cannot understand it, they can only misunderstand.

If you allow me, totally, unconditionally, something is going to happen -- something of tremendous import, immeasurable.... Even the sky is not the limit for it, because it has no limit. It is tremendous, huge; it is oceanic. But if you don't allow me, then too, nothing will happen -- nothing in the sense that you know the word. If you allow me then nothing will happen in the sense I am using the word. If you don't allow me, you can take sannyas, you will be in orange -- but the same old ego will now be hiding behind orange.

Maybe the ego will even become more strengthened.

I have heard...

An organ-grinder appeared beneath Mascagni's window one morning and began to play the famous "Intermezzo". He played at such a fast tempo that the composer could not stand it. Rushing to the street, Mascagni seized the handle of the instrument and turned it at the proper speed, explaining to the bewildered organ-grinder that, since he had composed the piece, he wished it to be played correctly.

The next morning, the organ-grinder appeared outside the composer's house with a huge sign in front of his organ, which read: "Pupil of the Celebrated Mascagni."

So if you don't allow me, this will happen: you will have a huge sign -- "Pupil of so-and- so, Disciple of so-and-so" -- but the sign will only be a new injection of vitality to the dying ego. it depends, because when you take sannyas two persons are involved: I am involved and you are involved. So what will be the outcome depends on us both -- me and you. If you allow me, then nothing will happen -- nothing in the sense of the vastness out of which everything arises, in the sense of God. If you don't allow me, then too, nothing will happen -- in the sense you know the word. Or, something can even go very wrong: you can become a new egoist -- the ego of the sannyasin, the ego of the meditator, the ego of the righteous, the ego of the knower.

So it depends. If you are really going to take sannyas then let it be in my way not in your way, because in your way it only appears that it has happened -- it has not happened. It can happen only in my way. In fact, you cannot take sannyas, you can only allow me to give it to you.

Question 2:

It is from Arup.

First, a parable: meditate over it. It will reveal mysteries to you about how the mechanism of mind functions.

There is a story that when the great library of Alexandria was burned, one book was saved. But it was not a valuable book, and so a poor man, who could read a little, bought it for a few coppers. It was not very interesting, yet there was a most interesting thing in it. It was a thin strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the "touchstone".

The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any common metal into pure gold The writing explained that it was on the shores of the Black Sea lying among thousands and thousands of other pebbles which looked exactly like it. But the secret was this: the real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold. So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing the pebbles.

This was his plan: he knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold, he might pick up the same pebbles hundreds of times. So when he felt one that was cold he threw it into the sea. He spent a whole day doing this, and they were none of them the touchstone. Then he spent a week, a month, a year, three years... but he did not find the touchstone. Yet he went on and on this way: pick up a pebble, it's cold, throw it into the sea... and so on and so on. Just visualize the man doing it for years and years and years -- pick up a pebble, it is cold, throw it into the sea... from morning to evening, for years and years.

But one morning he picked up a pebble and it was WARM -- and he threw it into the sea.

He had formed the habit of throwing them into the sea, you understand, and habit made him do it when at last he found the touchstone, poor fellow.

That's how mind functions. Trust is a touchstone. Very rarely do you find a man in whom you can trust. Very rarely do you find a heart who is warm, loving, in whom you can trust. Ordinarily you find pebbles which look like the touchstone, almost alike, but all are cold. year in, year out, from the very childhood: you pick up a pebble, you feel it, it is cold, you throw it into the ocean.

One day -- it is a very rare phenomenon -- you come across a real touchstone. You pick it up, it is warm, but still you throw it. Then you cry and weep, then you cannot understand how it happened -- but it is a simple mechanism. From the very childhood you are brought up to mistrust. You are brought up in such a way that you cannot trust. Doubt has been put deep into your being. In fact, it is a survival measure: if you don't doubt, you will not be able to survive. You have to look at the world with hostile eyes, as if everybody is your enemy. Nobody is warm, nobody is a touchstone. You cannot even trust your own parents. And the child by and by comes to know that nobody is there who can be trusted. The parents are very contradictory; they say one thing, they do another thing. The child feels confused. It is very difficult for the child to figure it out, what the mother really wants. In fact, the mother herself does not know. And the child again and again feels that it is impossible to trust anybody.

Just the other day, I was reading a memoir. An old woman relates one incident of her youth when her first child was born. The child was very curious, as children are, and one day the child asked, "Mummy, what is marriage?" He was looking into a book, a colored book of pictures, in which he had come across the word 'marriage'. He became very curious; he said, "What is marriage?"

And the mother said, "Marriage is a tremendous experience of love, intimacy, joy, delight into each other's being; living in love with a person with joy and celebration is marriage."

The child became very much puzzled. The mother said, "Why are you so puzzled?" So the child said, "That means you are rarely married -- once in a while only. Months pass, then rarely there is a moment when I see you and Daddy happy, married. Just this morning, you were not married -- you were nagging and he was shouting."

Now, how to convince this child? What the mother has said goes contrary to her own life- pattern. She has explained marriage as an experience of love, delight, sharing, and she may not have even been aware of what she was saying. And now the child is puzzled. No, even your own mother cannot be trusted.

Your father goes on saying to you: "Be truthful" -- and you find a thousand and one times that he is untruthful. He even tells the child to go and tell the beggar who is knocking on the door that Daddy is not at home. And the child is puzzled: the father goes on saying, "Be truthful, never lie" -- and he is lying! How to trust? And the child asks, "Is there God?" and the father says with tremendous confidence, "Yes there is. God created the world" -- and one day or other the child discovers, "My father has not known. He simply deceived, bluffed. He himself is searching. He has not known God; he has not known that God has created the world."

Mistrust is born. Feeling the cold pebbles again and again, you become accustomed to throw them. Then, not only this happens, an even deeper danger arises out of it.

Mistrusting everybody who is around you.... Your teachers, your parents, your friends, neighborhood, society, the priest, the politician -- all are cheating, all are deceiving.

Nobody can be trusted in this world: this conclusion, sooner or later, dawns on the child's mind. Then an even greater damage has been done: he cannot even trust himself. Why? -- because whatsoever he does according to his nature, is never liked by anybody.

Whatsoever he does according to his feeling is always wrong, found to be wrong.

He wants to go out and play with the children and the mother says, "Do the homework."

If he trusts his own feeling he has to go out and play -- but that is dangerous. The mother will be angry, and tomorrow in the school the teacher will be angry... and the punishment of it all. He cannot trust his own feeling so he forces himself to sit there and do the homework. When he wants to sing, he cannot sing. When he wants to play, he cannot play. and whatsoever he wants, everybody seems to be against it. There seems to be a conspiracy. by and by, he comes to know that "If I do MY thing I am punished. If I don't do my thing I am rewarded." How can one trust oneself then? -- dangerous. So first he loses trust in others, then he loses trust in himself.

That's why, Arup, it is difficult to trust. You are now in a situation which goes against your whole life-pattern. When you come to a master you have come to a touchstone, and nothing can happen with a master unless you trust. And unless you trust unconditionally, nothing is possible.

Unconditional trust is a basic condition. Now your whole life is against it. Many times you will miss -- that is natural, nothing to be worried about. Many times you will be lost in your doubt -- remember, come back again; hold the thread of trust again. By and by, as you have learnt mistrust, you will have to unlearn it. As you have learnt mistrust, you will have to learn trust too. And to learn mistrust is easy because it is very ego-fulfilling. To learn trust is more difficult because it is very ego-shattering.

Trust brings into your life a new breeze, a new opening, a new door. You have not travelled that way ever; you have not moved in that direction ever. You are not acquainted, familiar; you are moving into the strange -- fear arises. And you cannot trust yourself either -- otherwise there would not be so much fear. If you had trusted yourself then you could have a try, then you could have a certain confidence in yourself -- even that is not there. Trust as such has simply disappeared from your life; that dimension is closed. So your ind will find a thousand and one arguments against trust.

You cannot trust anybody. How can you trust me? -- I am outside you. I am part of the outer world -- as your parents were, the society, the priest, the politician. You cannot trust Christ if you come across him, because how to trust him? -- he is outside you. You cannot trust Buddha. And you cannot trust yourself -- otherwise you could take a little risk.

I have heard...

Mulla Nasruddin limped into the doctor's office with a badly swollen ankle.

"Goodness, man!" said the doctor, after looking at Nasruddin's ankle. "How long has tit been in this condition?"

"About three months," said the Mulla.

"Why, this ankle is broken!" said the doctor. "Why didn't you come to me right away?"

"Well, I sort of hesitated," said the Mulla, "because every time I say anything is wrong with me my wife insists that I stop smoking."

"Anything wrong with me, and she immediately jumps on me and says: Stop smoking! -- so I hesitated." Now, the ankle has nothing to do with smoking, but wives are wives, and husbands are husbands, and parents are parents, and the society is society.

Have you any remembrance of any time in your life when trust was helpful? Do you remember any time when trust was beneficial? Always, whenever you trusted, you were deceived. By and by, you lost confidence in your own trust, in your own being. In fact, I don't see a problem why you can't trust. The miracle is that you have come across a person where the problem has arisen, why you can't trust. This is a great indication -- that now you have started thinking about trust, that a desire to trust is arising, that the seed is sprouting. I have heard...

The Irish army platoon got lost on manoeuvres in Kerry. The sergeant called out to a passing local, "How much further to Dingle?"

"Two miles," was the reply.

They marched on, and after an hour the sergeant asked another man how far they had to go to Dingle. "Two miles' came the answer again.

After another hour they asked again, and the reply this time was still, "Two miles."

For a moment the sergeant looked depressed. Then, wiping the perspiration from his face, he straightened his back. "Come on, men!" he ordered. "At least we're holding our own."

I am happy, Arup, that at least the question arises. At least you have not lost the inquiry about trust. That's enough; now much is possible. If you insist on this query again and again, if you go on inquiring into situations where you allow trust.... In the beginning it will be difficult, just because of old habits. Once it starts happening, little by little, inch by inch, you will be filled with so much warmth that you will be able to risk more and more. Only by experiencing it will you gather courage. And one day, one can risk ALL for trust -- because through trust is God, through trust is love, through trust is all that is beautiful. Through doubt, nothing but misery; through doubt, nothing but darkness; through doubt, nothing but nightmares; through doubt, nothing but hell.

The choice is yours. The society has one its work, it has corrupted you deeply. Now there is no need to go on weeping on the spilled milk, there is no need to cry over it.

Whatsoever has happened, has happened; but it can be undone -- you have to take a conscious note of it and start working on it. That is the greatest thing in life to work for.

Trust opens the door for the unknown.

Trusting me, you will learn to trust yourself. It looks paradoxical: I say "Trusting me you will be able to trust yourself" because trusting me, for the first time you will start tasting what trust is, and how beautiful, what a benediction.... The master is just a via media. He simply gives you a situation where you can taste what trust is, and by and by he will throw you back to yourself.

I am not here to make you cripples, and I am not here to function as your crutches. I am not going to carry you on my shoulders; I am not interested in that type of work at all.

Trusting me, I simply want to give you a taste of this beautiful nectar. Through it you will be able to walk on your own, through it you will be able to trust others, through it you will be able one day to trust life itself. That day, you become religious.

Not trusting in the Koran, not trusting in the bible, not trusting the Gita, you become religious. You become religious when you trust life. When your trust is such that you are cheated a thousand and one times but still you go on trusting.... Because to be cheated is nothing -- to lose trust is all.

Once can be deceived: I am not saying that when you trust you will not be deceived -- no, never; I am not saying that. You may become more of a victim and many people will deceive you. I am not promising that when you trust, nobody is going to deceive you; that is nonsense -- in fact, people may deceive you more. But now you know that being deceived is better than losing trust. Because trust gives you the eternal; and even if you are not deceived, what are you going to save? A little money, a house, this and that -- and death will take them away anyhow, so what is the fear? Just for these small things you throw trust? you throw prayer? you throw love? You say, "How can I love when people are so deceiving?" Let them be deceiving. What can they deceive about? What can they rob? What have you got that they can rob? They can take away your money, something you used to possess, but if trust is left you will have your soul... and that is the kingdom of God.

Question 3:

The question is from Mallika.

Everybody is both, and you have become aware -- that's very good; that's a great insight into your being. Everybody is both. The difference between a man and a woman is not much; the difference is only of degree, quantity -- not of quality. A woman may be sixty percent woman and forty percent man, or may be just fifty-one percent woman and forty- nine percent man. And so is the case with men. It is only a question of percentage -- but both exist in you.

You come from both -- from your father and from your mother; they both have contributed to you. Men and women are not just men and women: they are bisexual, they are a meeting-place of both the sexes. The polarity is there. So, no woman is just a pure simple woman. If you understand this your life will become more clear to you.

In some moments a woman is more of a man than a woman, and so is the case with a man. In some moments he is very feminine; in some moments he is male, in some moments he is female. There are soft moments and there are hard moments, there are aggressive moments and there are receptive moments.

But up to now, the society has been conditioned in such a way, we have been taught and brought up in such a way, that man is man, woman is woman. This is a very false arrangement, untrue to nature. If a man starts crying and weeping, people start telling him, "Don't weep like a woman, don't cry like a woman; don't be sissy." This is nonsense -- because a man has as many tear-glands in his eye as a woman. If nature had not meant for him to cry and weep then there would have been no tear-glands.

Now this is very repressive. If a girl starts behaving like a man, is ambitious, aggressive - - mm? -- people start thinking that something is wrong: something hormonal is wrong.

They call her a tomboy; she is not a girl. This is nonsense! This division is not natural; this division is political, social. Women have been forced to play the role of women twenty-four hours, and men have been forced to play the role of men twenty-four hours, which is very unnatural and certainly creates much misery in the world.

There are moments when a man is soft and should be feminine. There are moments when the husbands should be the wife and the wife should be the husband, and this should be very natural. And there will be more rhythm and more harmony. If a man is not SUPPOSED to be a man twenty-four hours, he will be more relaxed. And if a woman is not supposed to be twenty-four hours a woman she will be more natural and spontaneous.

Yes, sometimes in a rage a woman becomes more dangerous than a man, and sometimes in soft moments a man is more loving than any woman -- and these moments go on changing. Both these climates are yours; so don't think that you are becoming schizophrenic or something. This duality is part of nature. This duality exists up to the sixth center, the AJNA chakra. Only beyond the sixth the duality disappears -- but the duality disappears in the sense that now it becomes so harmonious, so one, that "man" and "woman" carry no sense.

In India we have depicted God as ARDHANARISHWAR -- half-man, half-woman. That is tremendously beautiful. That seems to be the best image ever invented of God: half- man, half-woman. That's how it should be. When you reach to the seventh, to the ultimate growth in your being, you will neither be a man nor a woman; or, both together -- in such harmony that there will be oneness. But before that, the duality continues. Nothing is wrong in it. Don't be afraid of it, because if you become afraid you wills tart repressing -- and any part repressed is a hindrance, is a block, towards the ultimate growth. No part should be repressed, no part should ever be rejected and denied: all has to be made part of the organic unity. Each part of you has to meet and merge into the other so that the conflict disappears and you become an orchestra.

And this is happening at each center. Look: our divisions are all false divisions. On the tree, on the apple tree, there is one apple. You say it is outer to you, outside of you; it is not inner, certainly not -- it is hanging on the tree. You eat it; you have eaten the outer.

You digest it: it becomes your blood, your bone, your marrow... it will turn into your dreams, into your poetry, into your painting. Now it is no more outer, it has become part of the inner. The outer has dissolved into the inner. Then one day you die, and the earth will use your body as a manure, and again in the apple tree one apple will be born. Now the inner has become the outer.

The inner and the outer are continuously meeting and merging into each other. The demarcation is only utilitarian; it is not real. Where does the inner end and the outer begin? -- can you tell me? can you make an exactly clear line, where? The outer is continuously moving into the inner: you are breathing in. And the inner is continuously moving into the outer: you are breathing out. There is no demarcation between the outer and the inner, they are one.

In the same way, there is no demarcation between the lower and the higher. But people have mad ideas of demarcations, categories. People even think that the lower body is lower and the upper body is higher. Just because the lower body is lower they think it is lower as a value. Nonsense -- because your blood continues to flow around the body: the same blood goes to the feet, the same comes to the head. Your oxygen goes on being divided all over the body; you eat, and the food is digested by the whole body -- not the lower and the higher. The lower and higher are two aspects of the same reality, and so it is about man and woman. And if you look deeply then all duality is just a human categorization to understand things. Arbitrary is the categorization -- otherwise, everything is part of everything else. This whole existence is one.

Mm? -- that is the meaning of Kabir singing again and again: Wherever you find the one, touch the feet. Wherever you find outer and inner meeting, the higher and lower meeting, the material and the God meeting, wherever one is present, bow down, surrender to it.

You are closer to reality when you are closer to the one. That's why I say that the true sage will not be an escapist, because for him there can be no "this world and the other world." For him, this shore is the other shore. He will be in the world and not of the world. He will be a lotus flower -- in the water, and yet untouched by it. For him there is no division. In fact, for him there is no division into good and bad, moral and immoral, God and Devil. All divisions are part of one organic existence.

So Mallika, a good insight has happened to you. Don't lose it, and don't be worried that you are going schizophrenic. Up to the sixth, the division remains and becomes more and more clear cut; and again and again one will feel the changing, shifting. It is a shift: a few hours you are man, a few hours you are woman. If you watch it exactly, you can know exactly how many minutes you are a man and how many minutes you are a woman. It is a periodical change. In yoga they have worked hard on these inner secrets. If you watch your breath, that will exactly give you the time. When one nostril, the left nostril, is breathing you are feminine. When the right nostril is breathing you are male. And after nearabout forty-eight minutes they change.

Continuously -- day, night -- this change happens. When you are breathing by the left nostril your right-brain hemisphere functions: the right is the feminine part. When you are breathing from the right nostril your left brain functions: that is the male part. And sometimes you can play games with it. If you are very angry then do one thing: close your right nostril and start breathing by the left, and within seconds you will see the anger has disappeared -- because to be angry you need to be in the male part of your being. Try it and you will be surprised. Just by changing the breath from one nostril to another, something of tremendous importance changes. If you are feeling very cold towards the world then breathe from the left nostril and let your imagination, fantasy, warmth, flow in -- and you will suddenly feel full of warmth.

In tantra they say: Never make love unless you have checked your nostril -- never make love. If the man is breathing from the feminine nostril then the woman has to breathe from the male nostril. Then there will be real orgasm. Otherwise, love will be just a wastage of energy -- not more than sneezing. You will feel relived after a sneeze -- a good sneeze, one feels relieved -- but nothing much will happen out of it.

If the woman is in the feminine nostril, then the man has to be in the male nostril. And according to this, Vatsayana -- the first REAL sexologist -- worked hard into deeper mysteries. He says: When the woman is in the male climate she should be on top of the man, she should play the role of the man. Man need not be always in the missionary posture.... That is called "the missionary posture" in the East because in the East it was never known that the man has to be always on the top. Only when Christian missionaries came to the East people became aware that this foolishness exists in the West -- so it is known as the missionary posture.... Sometimes the woman is in a male climate: she should be on the top and she should be active; and the man, if he is in the feminine climate, should be passive. He should play wife and she should play husband. And then there will be a great meeting.

And this has to be remembered always, because there are acts which can be done more easily when you are in the male climate. When you are doing something hard -- carrying a rock, pushing a rock -- check your nostril. If it is not in the male climate it is not good.

It may be dangerous for the body: you will be very soft. When you are playing with a child, or just sitting with your dog, feel that you are in the feminine -- more affinity will arise. When you are writing a poem or painting or making music you should be in the feminine... unless you are trying to create a war music! then it is okay, you should be in the male climate -- aggressive.

Watch it, and you will be becoming more and more aware of these two polarities. And this is good that these two polarities exist: that's how nature arranges for rest. When the male part becomes tired you move to the female part; the male part rests. When the female part is tired you rest; you become male. And this is an inner economy -- one goes on changing. But your society has taught you wrong things: that a man is a man, and HAS to be a man twenty-four hours -- this is too much of a duty. And a woman has to be a woman twenty-four hours -- soft, loving, compassionate: this is too much of a duty.

Sometimes she also wants to fight, be angry, throw things -- and this is good, if you understand the inner play.

I have heard... A little boy was overheard by his mother. He was sitting all alone in his room, bored, and he was muttering: "I wish I were two dogs -- then I could play together."

These two polarities are a good inner play -- the play of consciousness. This is how God has become divided in you, to have a play of hide-and-seek with himself. When the play is over, when you have learnt that which is to be learnt from the play, when the lesson has been learnt, then you pass beyond the sixth.

The seventh is neither male nor female: the seventh is neutral. That's why in Indian languages BRAHMA, 'God', is a neutral word, neither masculine nor feminine. It has no gender: it is the merger of both, absolute merger -- and in the merger is transcendence.

Question 4:

In fact, before you have dropped your own problems, you cannot have the right perspective to understand the world problems. Your own home is in such a mess, your own inner being is in such a mess -- how can you have a perspective to understand VAST problems? You have not even understood yourself; start from there, because every other start will be a wrong start.

And people who are in a tremendously confused state of mind start helping others, and start proposing solutions. These people have created more troubles in the world than they have solved. These are the real mischief-mongers: the politicians, the economists, the so- called public servants, missionaries. These are the real mischief-mongers -- they have not solved their own inner consciousness yet, and they are ready to bump into everybody else and to solve everybody else's problem. In fact, in this way they are avoiding their own reality: they don't want to face it. They want to remain engaged somewhere else with somebody else -- this gives them good occupation, good distraction.

Remember: you are the world problem, YOU are the problem, and unless you are solved, whatsoever you do is going to make things more complicated. First bring your home in an order -- create a cosmos there; it is a chaos.

There is one ancient Indian fable, a very old story but of great importance...

A great but foolish king complained that the rough ground hurt his feet, so he ordered the whole kingdom to be carpeted with cowhide to protect his feet. but the court fool laughed at this -- he was a wise man. Said he, "The king's idea is simply ridiculous."

The king was very angry and said to the fool, "You show me a better alternative, otherwise you will be put to death."

The fool said, "Sire, cut out small pads of cowhide to cover your feet." And this is how shoes were born.

There is no need to cover the whole earth with cowhide; just covering your feet covers the whole earth. And this is the beginning of wisdom.

Yes, there are problems, I agree. There are great problems. Life is so much of a hell.

Misery is there, poverty is there, violence is there, all kinds of madnesses are afloat, that's true -- but still I insist the problem arises in the individual soul. The problem is there because individuals are in a chaos. The total chaos is nothing but a combined phenomenon: we have all poured our chaos into it.

The world is nothing but a relationship; we are related with each other. I am neurotic, you are neurotic: then the relationship goes very very neurotic -- multiplied, not only doubled.

And everybody is neurotic, hence the world is neurotic. Adolf Hitler is not born out of the blue -- we create him. Vietnam is not born out of the blue -- we create it. It is our pus that comes out; it is our chaos that takes the toll. The beginning has to be with you: you are the world problem. So don't avoid the reality of your inner world -- that is the first thing.

You ask: "Does attainment to the seventh chakra, samadhi, total dissolution of the ego, mean that one no longer is interested in the problems that face mankind?"

No, in fact only then is one really interested. But his interest will be of a totally different kind: he will look to the root cause of it. When you are interested you are interested in the symptoms. When a Buddha or a Christ is interested he is interested in the root. You may not agree because you cannot see the root, you see only the symptom. He is interested -- but now he knows where the root is, and he tries hard to change that root.

Poverty is not the root, greed is the root. Poverty is the outcome. You go on fighting with poverty -- nothing will happen. Greed is the root; the greed has to be uprooted. War is not the problem, individual aggressiveness is the problem -- war is just the total. You go on doing protest marches, and war is not going to be stopped. That doesn't matter -- your protest marches, everything -- you can enjoy the fun. There are a few people who enjoy the fun; you can find them in any protest march. You can ask Astha -- her mother and her father have both been protesters. Anywhere you will find them protesting; all over the world her mother goes on rotting, protesting against everything. It is fun -- you may have also enjoyed it.

In my childhood, I used to enjoy it very much. I was in every procession, and even the elders of my town started worrying. They said, "You are everywhere -- whether it is a communist procession or a socialist or a congress... anti-communist... you are there." I said, "I enjoy the fun. I'm not worried about the political philosophy -- just shouting is so much fun; I enjoy the exercise."

You can enjoy; it does not make much difference -- war goes on. And if you look at these protesters you will see these are very aggressive people -- you will not see peace on their faces. They are ready to fight. Peace-protest marches any moment turn into riots. These are aggressive people -- in the name of peace they are showing their aggression. They are ready to fight: if they have power, if they have the atom bomb, they will drop th atom bomb to create peace. That's what all politicians say -- they say they are fighting so that peace can prevail.

The problem is not war, and Bertrand Russells are not going to help. The problem is inner aggression in individuals. People are not at ease within themselves, hence war has to exist -- otherwise these people will go mad.

Each decade a great war is needed to unburden humanity of neurosis. You may be surprised to know that in the first world war, psychologists became aware of a very rare, strange phenomenon. When the war continued, suddenly the proportion of people who used to go mad fell almost to nil. Suicides were not committed, murders were not done, and people even stopped going mad. That was strange -- what has that to do with ar?

Maybe murders are not done because murderers have gone to the army, but what happened to people who commit suicide? Maybe they have also joined the army, but then what happened to people who go mad? -- they have even stopped going mad? And then again in the second world war the same thing happened, in a greater proportion; and then the link was known, the association.

Humanity goes on accumulating a certain quantity of neurosis, madness: each decade, it has to throw it out. So when there is war -- war means when humanity has gone mad as a whole -- then there is no need to go mad privately; what is the point? All are mad -- then there is no point in trying to become mad privately. When one nation is murdering another, and there is so much suicide and murder, what is the point of doing these things on your own? You can simply look at the TV and enjoy, you can read it in the papers and have the thrill.

The problem is not war, the problem is individual neurosis.

A man who has become enlightened looks into the deep causes of things. Buddha, Christ, Krishna, they have been looking into the root, and they have been trying to tell you:

Change the root -- a RADICAL transformation is needed; ordinary reformations won't do. But then you may not understand -- because I am here, I go on talking about meditation... no, you can't see the relationship, how meditation is related with war. I see the relationship, you don't see the relationship.

My understanding is this: that if even one percent of humanity becomes meditative, wars will disappear -- and there is no other way. That much quantity of meditative energy has to be released. If one percent of humanity -- that means one in one hundred people -- becomes meditative, things will have a totally different arrangement. Greed will be less; naturally, poverty will be less. Poverty is not there because things are scarce; poverty is there because people are hoarding, because people are greedy. If we live right now, there is enough, the earth has enough to give us. But we plan ahead, we hoard -- then trouble arises.

Just think of birds hoarding... then a few birds will become rich and a few will become poor; then American birds will become the richest, and the whole world will suffer. But they don't hoard, so there is no poverty. Have you ever seen a bird poor? Animals in the forest -- nobody is poor, nobody is rich. In fact you don't even see fat birds and lean and thin birds. All the crows are almost alike; you cannot even recognize which is which.

Why? They enjoy, they don't hoard.

Even to become fat means you are hoarding inside the body -- that is a miserly mind.

Misers become constipated; they cannot even throw out. They hoard: they control even defecation, they go on hoarding even rubbish. Hoarding is a habit.

To live in the moment, to live in the present, to live lovingly, to live in friendship, to care... and then the world will be totally different. The individual has to change, because the world is nothing but a projected phenomenon of the individual soul.

No, he will be interested -- only he WILL be interested -- but his interested will be of different dimensions. You may not even be able to understand it. People come to me and they say, "What are you doing? There is poverty and there is ugliness, and you go on teaching about meditation. Stop this. Do something for poverty." But nothing can be done for poverty directly. Only meditative energy has to be released so people can enjoy the moment. Then there will be no poverty. Communism is not going to destroy poverty; it has not destroyed it anywhere. It has created new sorts of poverty -- and greater, and more dangerous: now the Russian is far MORE poor because he has lost his soul too.

Now he is really not an individual at all -- not even the freedom to pray and to meditate.

This is not going to help, this is destroying. These are the do-gooders -- avoid them.

And you say: "Will there not be a little room to develop one's own abilities, talents?" In fact there will be no need to develop them, they will START developing. When a man meditates he starts flowering. If he is a painter, he will become a GREAT painter. If he is a poet, then suddenly tremendous poetry will arise out of his soul. If he is a singer, for the first time he will sing a song that is close to his heart's desire.

No, there is no need to make any effort. When you are silent, rooted in your being, centered, your talents automatically start functioning. You start functioning the way God always wanted you to function. You start functioning the way you were born to function, you start functioning the way your destiny wants you to function. You become spontaneous. You start doing your thing -- and now you don't bother whether it pays or not, whether it makes you more respectable or not. It makes you happy, and that's enough. It makes you tremendously joyful, and that is more than enough.

Meditation releases your energies -- then there is no other need. And a man who has come to samadhi, the seventh chakra -- what more is possible? He functions as a God. He is a full blown-up existence. He has come to the ultimate flowering -- now nothing is needed. His every moment is creative, his every gesture is creative, his very life is grace.

But there are people who would like to go very roundabout: they would like to change the whole world first, and then they will come to themselves. But let me tell you, you will never be able to come to yourself i you go that far.

I have heard... An old man was sitting near Delhi and a young man was driving past. He came to a halt and asked the old man, "How far is Delhi?" The old man said, "If you go on the way you are going, and in the direction you are going, it is very very far. You will have to travel the whole earth -- because you have left Delhi behind, just two miles back."

If you turn, then it is not very far -- just a question of two minutes. If you go to change the whole world and THEN you think you will change yourself, you will never be able to; you will never be able to come back home. Start where you are. You are part of this ugly world: by changing yourself you are changing the world. What are you? -- a part of this ugly world. why try to change the neighbor? -- he may not like it, he may not want it, he may not be interested. If you have become aware that the world needs a great change, then YOU are the closest world to yourself: start from there.

But there are a few people who are very philosophical. They brood, and they go in roundabout ways.

I have been reading Leo Rosten's beautiful book THE JOYS OF YIDDISH. He tells of a great Jewish philosopher, Mr. Sokoloff, who had been dining regularly at a certain restaurant on Second Avenue, beginning each meal with a dish of chicken soup. One night, Mr. Sokoloff called out to his waiter, "Come back here and taste this soup."

"After twenty years," demurred the waiter, "you question the perfection of our wonderful chicken soup?"

"Come back and taste it," repeated Mr. Sokoloff.

"All right, all right," conceded the waiter, "I'll taste it -- but where's the spoon?"

"Aha!" cried Mr. Sokoloff.

He simply wants to say, "I don't have a spoon." Now he goes in such a roundabout way -- "Taste this soup...."

Don't go so roundabout, don't be so philosophical. If you don't have the spoon, simply say you need a spoon. The spoon will do.

All that one needs is a spoonful of meditation.

Question 5:

They are not always open passages for me, they are sometimes hindrances -- but that's how I want them to be. If they were always open passages to me they would not be needed. They are needed to create a certain situation: they are needed to bring your resistance out. And if you are really surrendered to me you will be surrendered to them -- this is my will. And that will help you tremendously. It is very easy to surrender to me; it is very difficult to surrender to Krishna on the gate. But Krishna is me. When you surrender to him you will have more understanding of surrender.

When it is very easy to surrender, it is meaningless. When it is difficult, it is meaningful.

All these people here around me are doing everything that I want. Sometimes they are rough to you; then remember, I want them sometimes to be rough with you. Sometimes they are indifferent to you; then remember, I want them sometimes to be indifferent to you. Sometimes they seem to be simply hindering you for no reason at all -- right.

Remember, I want them to be that way.

A young girl went to see a big throat specialist. He specialized in big throats! She has a shore throat, and when she saw the nurse she told her about it. The nurse said, "Take all your clothes off."

The girl said, "I beg your pardon, but I've only got a sore throat."

She said, "Nevertheless, the doctor insists on all patients removing their clothes before he will see them."

So the young girl went into the ante-room to change and there was another girl in there, naked -- barefoot up to her neck! The young girl said, "This is ridiculous! I've only come here with a sore throat and I've got to remove all my clothes!"

The other one said, "What are you complaining about? I only came here to pay my bill."

You may find such situations here: surrender! It may be your throat, but if Krishna says undress, undress -- and you will be benefitted.

It is easy to surrender to me, to my love. It is not difficult at all -- you are all for it. But then I have to create a few hindrances. These are devices for you. If you use them you will be tremendously benefitted. If you don't use them you will unnecessarily be worried, in conflict, in anger, in anxiety. It is for you. It is up to you to choose whatsoever you want.

Remember one thing: you are here to disappear -- that remembrance will always help. So whomsoever, in whatsoever ways, helps you to disappear, feel grateful to him.

And many times it may not be the gate-guards, it may not be the group-leaders -- it may be just YOU who feels that way. It may be just your idea of how you have to be received and welcomed that may be creating the trouble.

A tipsy gent dropped a nickel into the telephone coin-box, dialed a number with great deliberation, and cried "Hello!" Hello!"

A voice at the other end of the wire called back, "Hello! Hello!"

The inebriated one banged the receiver down, and bellowed to the world at large, "This phone has an echo!"

Remember, it is more possible that you see your own face. I provide mirrors here: don't start fighting with the mirror.

I have heard that in the twenty-first century they invented a mirror to reflect your mind...

just as the body can be reflected, someday one is going to be discovered so that you can just look in the mirror and your mind is reflected. ... And everybody was purchasing it and millions of mirrors were sold. But within a few days, the mirrors were thrown and broken and the sales simply dropped to zero.

The inventor was very much puzzled, and the company that was producing them, and hoping to earn millions of rupees, was simply at a loss -- what has happened? First they were selling so fast.... Then the inventor looked into the matter and found that nobody likes to see his own mind, so people dropped them -- sometimes accidentally... but knowingly, very deliberately; the accident was false. Sometimes they destroyed it themselves, sometimes they threw it out, sometimes they forgot it in the train... and by and by, they all went to the junkyard.

Then he invented another mirror which showed you as you would like yourself to be -- and that has been selling and selling and selling... and there is no end. Each person has spare mirrors too, in case sometimes one is broken. It shows you the ideal one -- as you would like yourself to be, as you really think, imagine, yourself to be.

These people here on the gates, group-leaders, Maneesha smelling you: all these people are the first type of mirrors. And I am not in favor of the second type of mirrors.

Question 6:

The question is from Chaitanya Hari. Just like you, Chaitanya Hari. Just stupid.

Question 7:

You say FAR OUT? -- then you must have kissed somebody else's frog. If you kiss my frog you will feel far IN -- not far out, far in.

Question 8:

A parable...

He said: I see.

And they said: He's crazy -- crucify him.

He still said: I see.

And they said: He's an extremist. And they tolerated him.

And he continued to say: I see.

And they said: He's eccentric. And they rather liked him, but smiled at him.

And he stubbornly said again: I see.

And they said: There is something in what he says. And they gave him half an ear.

But he said, as if he had never said it before: I see.

And at last they were awake. And they gathered about him and built a temple in his name.

And he only said: I see.

That's what I am saying: I see. I go on saying the same thing again and again -- that I see.

The day you will hear it in deep awareness, you will also be capable to see. There is nothing else to say. I see -- you can also see. And that seeing is the goal.

In the East, we don't call philosophy "philosophy," we call it DARSHANA.

DARSHANA means 'the capacity to see'. When you come to see me, it is called DARSHANA. It means you have come to be with me, to see through me, with me, through my eyes. I am not conveying any message to you. I am simply shouting one thing: that I have seen, and I am seeing, and you are blind.

If you are ready to risk, open your eyes and see... and God is here.

The Divine Melody