Married for eternity

Question 1:

Man lives under a great hypnosis. Man lives under deep conditionings: the society has conditioned you, the state has conditioned you, the priest, the politician, the culture, the religion, the church -- all their investments are there in your deep sleep. They don't want you to be awake. Once humanity is awake, there can be no politician possible. Once humanity is awake, there can be no priest possible. Once humanity is awake, temples, churches, religions, will disappear from the earth. This whole exploitation is possible because man lives in sleep. The exploitation is possible because man is miserable -- only a miserable humanity can be exploited.

It is a vicious circle: only a miserable man can be exploited, and when you exploit him he becomes more miserable. When he is more miserable you can exploit him even more -- and so on and so forth.

A happy man is a rebellious man. Happiness is tremendous rebellion. No society has yet been capable of allowing people to be happy -- it is dangerous, too dangerous. How can you send people to war if they are happy? How can you teach them foolish things like Nazism, communism, fascism, nationalism? If people are happy they will laugh at your foolishness, at all your ideologies -- they will take them as jokes, they won't take them seriously. They will laugh at the very idea that somebody can be a Christian, somebody can be a Hindu and somebody can be a Mohammedan, and that then they can fight for centuries and kill each other.

Gurdjieff used to love a parable. It is of tremendous significance. Meditate over the parable.

There was a rich magician who had a great many sheep. He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the pasture where his sheep were grazing -- he was very miserly and very mean. The sheep consequently often wandered into the forest, fell into ravines, and so on; and above all, they ran away -- for they knew that the magician wanted their flesh and skins, and this they did not like.

At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them first of all that they were immortal, and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned -- that, on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant.

Secondly, he suggested that the magician was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them. And in the third place, he suggested to them that if anything at all was going to happen to them, it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it.

Further, the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all: to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to others that they were eagles, to others that they were men, and to others that they were magicians.

And after this, all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again but quietly awaited the time when the magician would require their flesh and skins.

This tale is a very good illustration of man's position.

You have been hypnotized to remain in misery. You have been taught, conditioned, to remain in misery. And the trick is very subtle. For example -- try to understand it -- first, everybody has been told that happiness exists in the future. This is absurd, this is nonsense. Happiness exists herenow. You need not achieve it, you bring it with yourself - - it is part of your innermost core. But every child has been taught -- suggestion and suggestion and suggestion -- that unless you have a big house and a double-car garage and so many gadgets and much fame and a certain amount of bank balance and success in the market, you will not be happy. As if happiness depends on some commodities! as if happiness depends on anything. Happiness does not depend on anything; every child is born happy.

These ambitions create misery. They never make you happy, they create misery. Once the mind becomes ambitious the seeds of misery are planted deeply in you. Now you will never be happy, because the future never comes, tomorrow never comes -- and your hope hangs in the tomorrow which never comes.

You may have a big house, but you will not be happy because there will always be bigger houses than your house, and that will create misery. You may have a beautiful woman, but there are thousands, many more beautiful women in the world, and that will not make you happy. You will have money, but even that won't make you happy, because more is always possible. This is the trick: "more" has been implanted in you like an electrode -- "Have MORE, then you will be happy." Now how can you have more? Whatsoever you have, you can always imagine more. You have ten thousand rupees, you can imagine twenty thousand. You have twenty thousand, you can imagine forty thousand. How are you going to stop that "more"? You cannot have more; whatsoever you have will always be less than the more -- and that will create misery.

You have been taught from the very beginning to compare. Comparison brings misery.

Each individual is incomparable; nobody else is like you -- how can you compare?

Comparison is relevant when there are two things alike -- you can compare one Ford car with another Ford car, they are alike. But how can you compare two men? Impossible.

Each is so individual that all comparison is going to bring misery.

The moment you compare, you are creating hell around you; and from the very childhood you have been taught, every child is being told: "Be like that. Look at the neighbor's child, how intelligent -- and you are stupid. Look at somebody's daughter, how mature she looks -- and you are immature. Look at somebody else, how clean his living is -- and you are dirty." Now these comparisons make you feel miserable. You are yourself: there is nobody like you, there has never been anybody like you, there is going to be nobody like you ever. God never repeats.

You are unique. And remember, when I am saying "unique" I am not saying it in a comparative sense -- I am not saying you are more unique than others, I am simply saying that each is unique. Uniqueness is very ordinary -- everybody is unique. Once you have started comparison you are going to be neurotic -- sooner or later you will land up on some psychiatrist's couch.

Flowers are not mad and not miserable, because they don't compare. Have you ever thought of a roseflower comparing with other roses? No comparison, no neurosis... alone, happy, unique, offered to God.

Comparison creates tension, anxiety. And these things have been taught to you: you have been taught you are a Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan -- now how can consciousness be confined to ideologies? Ideologies are just mind-products; consciousness is far beyond, far above. Ideologies are just fictions -- nothing to do with the truth. The truth is your consciousness -- but you pay more attention to the ideology, and you have forgotten the truth. You fight, you unnecessarily quarrel, you argue, you prove, you disprove. You have been taught that somebody is an Indian, somebody is a Chinese, somebody is a Japanese; political ideologies -- you are a communist, you are a fascist, this and that -- a thousand and one diseases have been implanted in you... and you want to be happy. You will have to drop all this.

And you can drop it, and you can drop it in a single stroke -- there is no need to drop it by and by. If you drop it by and by, you will never drop it -- because if you drop it by and by, meanwhile you will be carrying it, and you will be watering it, and you will be helping it.

Drop it in a single stroke of a sword: that stroke is what I call understanding. An intelligent person, seeing all this, immediately drops it. IMMEDIATELY, I say. I don't say that he thinks, "Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I will drop it" -- otherwise he has moved into misery again. Tomorrow? -- misery has entered. Or he says, "How can I drop it right now? Preparation has to be made: I will go to a yoga school and do yoga ASANAS and stand on my head -- then I will drop it." You are not going to drop it then.

If you cannot drop it while your head is in the right place, you are not going to drop it when the head will be in the wrong place!

Standing on the head, you will become more stupid. Standing on the head is dangerous:

more blood flows towards your brain. And the brain tissues are very subtle -- when too much blood flows towards the brain, those subtle tissues are broken. You will never find a yogi who is also intelligent -- it is impossible. He will have good health -- that's one thing -- but he will not be intelligent. You will find all sorts of stupidities in his being. He will be healthy like an animal. Animals are more healthy, certainly, and one of the reasons why they have grown intelligence is that their head is still flooded too much with blood -- it is parallel to the earth. Man has evolved consciousness because he stood on two feet, and the head went up, and the head went against gravitation. Now because of gravitation the head cannot get too much blood, so subtle tissues have grown in the head:

those subtle tissues are your basic mechanism for intelligence.

So if you think that tomorrow you will do something, prepare yourself, and then you will drop, then you have not understood. It is as if a snake crosses your path and you say, "First I will prepare, then I will jump out of the way." The snake is not as foolish as you...

and I don't think you will do it -- the moment you see the snake, you will jump. The action is instant, immediate; you will jump out of the way. That's what I mean -- a single stroke of the sword. If you understand me, then you will simply drop your being Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, English, American, Indian -- you will simply drop comparison.

I say "simply" -- you will not prepare for it; you will simply drop the idea of more, because you will see into it. It is bringing misery. You will stop comparing.

When comparison has stopped, the "more" has been dropped, and foolish ideologies have been thrown away, suddenly you sill see a delight arising in your being, a celebration -- it was waiting. The hypnosis has been broken.

The difficulty is not that you cannot drop it right now -- you can. But you don't want to, because you have become too familiar with it. You talk -- you SAY that you would like to be happy, but you are afraid to be happy. In fact you don't dare to be happy. You have lived with this hypnosis for so long, you have become too familiar with it: if you move away from it, you will be moving into the unknown, into the strange -- that creates a trembling. You have become accustomed to it. Now it does not hurt you really; you have become dull and dead. You can carry it. Man has a tremendous capacity to become adjusted to anything -- to any climate, to any situation, to any illness, to any misery; man has infinite capacity for adjustment. You have become adjusted to it.

You are not happy -- that is certain -- but you are not miserable either. The misery has become your companion.

I have heard...

Into a cross-maker's shop one day came a man who wearily took down his cross from his shoulder and set it on e floor.

"And what can I do for you?" the cross-maker asked him.

"I want to exchange my burden," said the man. "This one is too heavy for me to carry. I stagger under the load."

"Very well," replied the cross-maker. "Take your pick of all these crosses and see which suits you best."

So the man gladly set about trying them on. The first was very light for a moment or two, but as he walked about, testing it, he concluded that it wouldn't do, for soon it became heavier than his old one. so he tried another, and another, and another, until at last he found one lighter than all the rest. "I can bear this one easily," he told the cross-maker.

"May I have it?"

"Very well," the cross-maker answered. "But that is the one you brought in with you."

People become accustomed.... If you have been carrying a certain misery load, a certain cross of anguish, anxiety, you have become accustomed to it -- it is almost part of your being. Now anything new will be more disturbing: with the new, you will have to earn new ways of being. And happiness? -- you have forgotten the very language of it. You don't even remember what happiness means; you don't remember that you ever experienced it. It seems to be just a dream -- very fragile, not solid enough to catch hold of; you cannot hold it in your hand and see it.

What do you mean by happiness? When was the last time you were happy? Can you remember any moment in your life when you were really happy -- REALLY really happy? And you will be surprised -- the whole life looks like a desert. You have been hoping... but you have not experienced happiness. Now this whole desert-like life is what you mean when you say, "I am." This is your ego -- all this pus, all this canceric state, all this disease and illness, all this neurosis -- this is what you call "I am." This is your ego.

And if I say to you, "Drop the ego," you say, "How can I drop the ego? Why should I surrender? Why should I surrender to anybody?" This "I" is nothing but your past. Look deep into it, analyze it a little -- you will not find anything in it but just miseries and miseries and miseries... hurts insults, irritations, nightmares.... But you fight for it. You are not ready to drop it, you are really clinging to it.

Surrender simply means an understanding: Enough of this "I" -- now I drop it. The moment you drop "I", you have dropped the whole hypnosis that the society has forced you to go through. The moment you drop the ego, you have dropped the state, the religion, the church, the society, the parents, the school, the university, the civilization, the culture: you have dropped all conditioning. And then suddenly you will see an upsurge of tremendous bliss arising in you. It was there, waiting -- just remove the weight, and the spring can flow again.

Happy you were born -- each child is born in happiness. Each child is born for happiness -- this whole life is a great celebration. But there are people who would not allow you to be happy. Have you observed it? Whenever you start feeling a little happiness you also feel, side by side, a little guilt arising -- as if you are doing something wrong. If you are unhappy, there is no guilt; if you are happy, there is guilt. You must be doing something wrong -- you are feeling happy?

People come to me, and they say that doing meditations, dancing, singing, sometimes happiness comes like a breeze... but then guilt. It feels as if the whole world is so miserable..."and I am feeling happy? Everybody is so miserable, in this ocean of misery, and I am feeling happy? -- no, this is not good. How can I be happy?" People even ask ME: they ask me "How can you be happy when the whole world is miserable?" As if, if I am also miserable, the whole world will be less miserable. It will be MORE -- one plus!

At least one person is happy -- that much burden is removed from the world.

You feel very very afraid to laugh -- as if you are going to commit a sin. When you are miserable, you feel very very at ease -- no problem. The whole world is miserable; you are not going against anybody, you are just like everybody else. To dance and to sing and to celebrate, you become individual; you are no more like everybody else. And people will also feel offended if you are happy. You will feel guilty, people will feel offended.

Nobody forgives a man who is happy: How can you DARE to be happy!

People only allow mad people to be happy. They say: Okay -- he is mad. If a man laughs loudly and dances in the street, they say he is mad. If you are happy they can forgive you only if you allow them to call you mad. If they can label you as mad then nobody is worried; then they can smile at you -- they know that you are mad. Otherwise, how can a man be happy? -- he must have gone mad.

People have forgotten the very language... but you can regain it, because it is your natural thing. It is nothing to be learnt; you have just to unlearn what the society has put on you.

You have to regain your childhood, you have to be reborn. That's what Jesus said to Nicodemus: You will have to be reborn. You have to die as you are, and you have to be reborn. You have to wash yourself clean of society.

Once the society is dropped, God starts singing a song in you. He is still singing in the birds, because they don't have a society and they don't have to go to schools and they don't have to be cultured and conditioned. He is still singing in the trees, because the trees have not yet created priests and politicians. He is still singing in the waves of the ocean....

Except in man, God is happy everywhere. Something has gone wrong with man.

Gurdjieff used to say -- just a fictitious idea -- that when God created man, man was very happy -- so happy that God became afraid. And man was so happy that he wouldn't even listen to God -- who bothers? And man was so happy, and he was so much involved in his happiness, that he would not even worship God -- he would not pray. Then God had to think about it -- this is too much! No parent allows children to go so far. Mm? -- you have to be respectful, obedient. That's the Christian story also -- that Adam disobeyed:

that is the first sin.

Gurdjieff used to say that then God became very much afraid, and he implanted a subtle mechanism at the source of the spine: what Hindus call KUNDALINI, he used to laughingly call "kundabuffer." God placed a small mechanism just under everybody's spine; a small mechanism -- kundabuffer. It does not allow your happiness to reach to your consciousness, it is a buffer.

And maybe he is right -- the story is fictitious, but he is right; there is a certain kundabuffer. God has not implanted it, but society has implanted it. In fact, your gods are creations of the society. All your gods are nothing but creations of the cunning priests -- they have put in a kundabuffer. Maybe that's why all the religions are so much against sex, because being against sex is the way to create the kundabuffer.

Sex energy is just at the source of the spine. If a child is taught from the very beginning to be against sex.... Sex is sin, and sex has to be destroyed, or at least controlled -- never allowed to go too far, never allowed to be spontaneous; has to be put under many controls, laws, regulations. These laws, regulations, suppressions, they become the buffer: the kundabuffer is created. Then sex energy remains repressed at the source of the spine and does not rise in the spine.

That's what they say in the East: Once the sex energy rises in the spine, you start becoming very very happy. When the sex energy reaches to the seventh -- SAHASRAR - - you flower into a lotus bloom. Your life then is a deep ecstasy.

This repressed sexual energy is your repressed happiness. By repressing sexual energy, happiness has been repressed. By repressing sexual energy, you have been cut from your roots.

In Japan they have a four-hundred-year-old tree, just six inches high. The tree was planted in a saucer four hundred years ago, and the man who planted it continued to cut its roots. The roots were never allowed to grow, and the saucer has very little soil in it -- just a little bit. For four hundred years, the tree has remained just six inches in height... if it had been allowed, it would have touched the clouds.

That has happened to man -- your roots are being cut. You are not allowed to touch the clouds, you are not allowed to dance, not allowed to sing. You are allowed a little bit -- but that is controlled so much that it is almost meaningless.

So many laws and regulations are enforced that by the time something is allowed, it is almost insignificant -- just a trickle; it is not a gushing flood. And you can be happy only when your energy gushes in a flood -- when you are overwhelmed, when you are lost into it, when the energy is so much that you don't know any boundaries. William Blake has said: Energy is delight. And energy has been repressed -- society has created the kundabuffer.

The buffer has to be broken. That's what I am doing here -- trying to break the buffer.

That's why people are so much against me. i am trying to help them to be happy, but they protect their misery -- they don't want to be happy. They want to be Hindus, they want to be Mohammedans, they want to be Christians -- they don't want to be happy. They want to belong to this organization or that -- they don't want to belong to God. And they go on doing something that is basically against themselves. Not only others are cutting your roots; you go on pruning your own roots. You have been taught to do it -- your hands are almost doing it unconsciously.

Man exists in deep slumber. Man is hypnotized. That's why you go on living the way you live -- in misery, in unhappiness, in agony. The same energy can become ecstasy -- release it! Be yourself and forget what others have been trying to make of you. Declare your freedom! And be rebellious. I am not saying go and fight with society, because that is foolish -- you will be again wasting your energy.

And this is the difference that I make between a rebellious person and a revolutionary:

the revolutionary is a reactionary -- he reacts against the society, he starts fighting the society. First he was miserable because he was burdened by the society, now he becomes miserable because he has to fight the society. First he was following the society, now he fights the society -- but he remains obsessed with the society. A revolutionary is not a really rebellious person.

Who is a rebellious person? A rebellious person is one who has understood the whole nonsense of the society, and simply slips out of it. He does not fight with it; on the surface he even continues to pretend that he belongs with you. He is a clever person -- Gurdjieff used to call him "the sly person." He is clever enough -- he is neither orthodox nor revolutionary, he is just rebellious. But his rebellion is so intelligent that he knows there is no point -- if the society says "Walk on the left" he walks on the left, because there is no point in fighting in this -- it is meaningless.

On the surface he goes on following the society; deep down he has slipped out of it, deep down he starts living his own life. He does not go into the marketplace to exhibit, because if you exhibit your happiness in the marketplace they are going to kill you; they will crucify you. They did the same to Jesus, they did the same to Socrates, to Mansoor -- they are not going to leave you alone.

There is no need. When you are sitting with miserable people, keep a miserable face -- even more miserable than they have -- because it is just a game you are playing: you are not miserable, you can act it better then them -- they are REALLY miserable. Keep a longer face than them. When alone, have a good laugh. Don't start fighting with the society otherwise you will be in trouble, and happiness will again be far away -- as far away as before. First you were following the society and could not be happy. Now you fight the society, so the society throws you in a jail or in chains, or the society tries to crush you -- and again you are unhappy.

A rebellious person is a very very clever person. He slips out in such silent ways that he does not create any ripple on the surface... and he starts living his private life in his own way. That's what I teach you: I don't teach you to be revolutionaries, I teach you to be rebellious. A religious person is a rebellious person.

Question 2:

The question is from Astha.

The first thing: you don't belong anywhere -- that is reality. All hankering to belong is deceptive. The very idea to belong creates organizations; the very idea to belong creates the church -- because you cannot be alone, so you want to drown yourself somewhere in a crowd.

A sannyasin is one who has accepted his aloneness. It is fundamental; it cannot be drowned. By becoming a sannyasin you are not becoming a part of a certain organization -- this is not an organization at all. By becoming a sannyasin, you are becoming courageous enough to accept a certain fact: that man exists in aloneness. And it is so fundamental, there is no way to escape from it. It is as fundamental as death. In fact, death is nothing but bringing you the news that you were alone, and now you are alone.

What is death? For the whole life you were deceiving yourself that you were with somebody -- you belonged to this family, to this clan, to this society, this culture, to East, to West; you belonged to this organization, to this party... to crowds and crowds you were belonging. And you were feeling very good -- "I am not alone."

Then comes death. Shocks you. You start clinging, you start crying, you feel very helpless. A sannyasin will not feel helpless when death comes. A sannyasin will feel perfectly happy when death comes, because death has nothing to shock him with. The sannyasin knows that he is alone. Death cannot take anything away. Death can take away only those deceptions which you have put in your life.

To become a sannyasin means you have negated death. You have said, "Now you can come, and you won't find anything to destroy -- I have destroyed all that myself."

Sannyas is voluntary death, it is spiritual suicide. It is a declaration that "I am alone, and my aloneness is so fundamental that there is no way to lose it."

For moments you can forget -- you can fall in love with a woman or a man and you can create the idea, the illusion, that you are together. Both are alone. When two persons fall in love and get married and start living in a house, only two alonenesses are living together, that's all. They are not together: nobody can be together. Togetherness cannot happen, and it is good that it cannot happen, otherwise you would have lost your soul -- then you wouldn't have any center.

Two persons in love touch each other's being, but their beings remain crystal-clear, separate. Yes, their boundaries overlap... but their centers remain far away. They don't lose their soul -- otherwise love would not be such a beautiful thing. Lovers are not together in the sense that they are lost into each other; lovers are together in the sense that two alonenesses are together -- holding each other's hand, knowing perfectly well that they are alone; sharing with each other their aloneness, their beauty, their silence, their love -- but knowing well that they are alone. The fact is so fundamental that it cannot be changed.

People try to avoid. Just as they try to avoid death, they try to avoid aloneness. A Sufi parable...

There was a merchant in Baghdad who went his servant to market to buy provisions, and in a little while the servant came back white and trembling and said, "Master, just now in the marketplace I was jostled by a man in the crowd, and when I turned I saw it was Death. He looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Now, lend me your horse and I will go to Samarra, and there Death will not find me."

The merchant lent his horse, and the servant mounted and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and saw Death standing in the crowd, and he came to Death and said, "Why did you make a threatening gesture to my poor servant when you saw him this morning?"

"That was not a threatening gesture, sir," Death said. "It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

You cannot escape. If you are going to die in Samarra, you will reach there somehow.

You cannot escape death and you cannot escape aloneness. Try as you will -- try, but all efforts fail. Nobody has ever succeeded in avoiding aloneness, because aloneness is your being. When you are avoiding aloneness you are avoiding yourself -- how can you avoid yourself? How can you escape from yourself? In trying to escape, you miss -- you miss the beauty of being alone. In fact, you start thinking of yourself as lonely because you have missed the beauty of aloneness.

Aloneness is tremendously beautiful, loneliness is ugly. They don't mean the same, notwithstanding what the dictionaries say. Aloneness is such a beautiful experience. You ARE -- pure, uncontaminated by anybody else's presence; no shadow falling on you -- a clarity, unclouded... your being pure, virgin -- nobody has ever travelled in that territory.

It is virgin territory. It is of tremendous beauty, silence, bliss.

Loneliness is an ugly idea. Loneliness is the idea which comes when you try to escape from yourself and cannot escape. Then you fall into loneliness -- you miss the other. You don't see your presence, you miss the other's presence -- your whole focus is wrong. You don't look into yourself, you look outside. You say, "Some friend should be here... or should I go to the restaurant? or should I go to some club or to the movie-house or watch TV? What should I do?" You don't look in, you look out. You wait for the other, your eyes are searching for the other... and the other is not.

When the other is not, you feel lonely. When you ARE, you feel alone. So Astha, this has to be understood deeply: you cannot belong anywhere, belonging is not possible. You can love, but you cannot belong. You cannot get attached. You can love, but you cannot possess and you cannot be possessed. Your freedom is ultimate: nobody can possess you, nobody can make you a slave. You cannot become anybody's shadow. That is the meaning when I say "your aloneness is ultimate." Once you understand it, you start cleaning the ground -- you start forgetting the idea of loneliness; you don't get confused with the idea of loneliness.

What is meditation, after all? It is going into your aloneness. It is moving into the deepest core of your being, where nobody else has ever entered, will ever enter -- where you, and only you, can enter. That is your privacy, your subjectivity.

You ask: "Sometimes there is such a feeling of not belonging anywhere..." Good, that feeling is not wrong. That feeling simply brings the reality. You can create a fiction, but the reality goes on asserting itself again and again. Your fictions cannot dissolve reality -- they may hide it for a moment or two, and then reality asserts itself again and your fictions are broken.

"Sometimes there is such a feeling of not belonging anywhere..." You don't belong. The WHOLE is yours -- you don't belong anywhere... because to belong anywhere will be very limited. All is yours: the whole God, the whole sky is yours. You don't belong anywhere -- belonging will be a limitation, a finitude: the infinite is yours.

"... that even my orange and my mala are no consolation." I have never meant them to be consolations. I don't give you any consolation, I take all consolations away. I am here to shatter all consolations. I am not here to pat your back and sing a lullaby so that you can sleep well and dream beautiful dreams. No, I have to shock you into awareness so that you see the reality. Sweet dreams won't help. Even if the reality is bitter, it is reality -- and one has to learn the ways of it. If it is bitter, it simply says you have not learned its ways -- hence it appears bitter. Learn the ways and reality becomes sweet.

But you cannot substitute by sweet dreams. That's what people have been doing down the ages: life after life, people are trying to get consolations. Truth has to be sought, not consolation. The orange, the mala, the sannyas, are not consolations -- not at all.

"Are we really so alone?" Yes... more so than you know. You have not yet penetrated it; just the periphery... and you become afraid and you start escaping into the other. Gather courage -- take a plunge into your being. Let us be acquainted with our own center. Let us ask only one question sincerely: Who am I? All else is meaningless. Unless this question is answered, all your love affairs, friendships, all are nonsense. Unless this question is answered, nothing is answered.

Go into your aloneness with only one quest: Who am I? And don't seek consolations -- because cheap consolations are available, and the mind is very clever in supplying them.

When you ask: Who am I? the mind can immediately supply an answer -- mind is very clever. Mind says, "You are God. You are a soul, an immortal soul." These are the ideas put by the magician into the heads of poor sheep. The magician suggested to a few that they were lions, to a few that they were eagles, to a few that they were men, to a few that they were even magicians. The magician hypnotized the sheep and told them, "You are immortal souls: nobody can ever harm you. How can you be harmed?" The magician suggested to them: "I am for you. I am the best master you can ever find, and I exist for you, and I will do whatsoever is needed, and I will always do whatsoever is good for you.

Even if I kill you, I will be killing you just for your sake."

You have been given these ideas by the society; your mind is nothing but a projection of the society. It is society within you -- the penetration of the society inside you; it is a miniature society. You have been told things, and you have believed them -- and when you ask the question "Who am I?" if you are a Hindu the Upanishad will speak from the head: the Upanishad will say, "AHAM BRAHMASMI -- I am the Brahma himself." This is not your answer; this is the answer taught by the magician.

I am not saying the answer is wrong or right, I am simply saying it is not your answer -- and when the answer is not yours it is wrong. I am not saying whether the answer is right or wrong per se, I am simply saying it is not yours -- hence it is wrong. It may be that when you really enter into your innermost core, there you will find AHAM BRAHMASMI -- but that will be a totally different thing. Now it is not from the magician, not from the outside, not from the Upanishad, not from the society, not from the priest; now it is arising in your own being.

Maybe, if you are a Christian and you ask, "Who am I?" the answer comes floating -- a beautiful lullaby: "The Kingdom of God is within you"... and you are very happy. Don't be deceived by the magician of the Vatican -- these things won't help. Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan is not the question. And I am not saying the question is wrong or right; I am simply saying it is not yours, hence wrong.

Only YOUR authentic response will be the true answer. So go deep with only one question; let this be your only key, and unlock all the doors inside... and go on penetrating, go on penetrating. One day, when there is nobody left -- not a shadow of the outside -- when you are tremendously in the inside, when you are just a subjectivity, a pure virgin consciousness -- there is the answer. And it is not an answer which comes in a verbalized form it is an existential experience... and you know that your aloneness is your soul.

Mahavira -- one of the great masters of the world -- has named the ultimate state KAIVALYA. KAIVALYA means absolute aloneness... his word is of tremendous beauty. He says: When you reach to your innermost core you become absolutely free; and that state is of pure aloneness -- KAIVALYA. and out of that is wisdom, and out of that is light, and out of that is compassion: everything is born out of that -- so don't avoid aloneness.

Yes, Astha, everybody is absolutely alone -- and the sooner you recognize it, and the sooner you dare to go in, the better. Because all the days that are wasted in going somewhere else are simply wasted. You never go anywhere, you simply deceive.

Question 3:

Oh, holy smoke!

You are constantly in search of some esoteric significance. My arithmetic is simply not good. It is as bad as Albert Einstein's -- do you know he failed in mathematics in his matriculation examination? I didn't fail in my matriculation examination -- but I must not cheat you, I must make it clear that I had not taken arithmetic in my matriculation examination. Otherwise there was no possibility of my ever passing!

Once I was in a car accident and one of my fingers was damaged very badly, and the doctor said it would have to be cut off. I said, "Okay, but then I will only be able to count up to nine!" So he took pity on me, and they didn't operate.

Don't try to find esoteric things everywhere....

When I was small, one day I came running home, very proud, exhibiting a book which I had got as a reward. My mother asked me, "However did you do that? How did you get it?" I said to her, "The teacher asked how many legs an ostrich had -- I said three."

"But an ostrich only has two legs," my mother said.

I said, "Well, all the rest of the class said four."

Question 4:

Individuality means your uniqueness -- not compared with anybody else. Your incomparable uniqueness: that is individuality. Individuality is beautiful; that's how God has made you -- as an individual. Ego is comparison. Ego is your invention. God has not given you any ego; he has certainly given you an individuality.

Ego is comparison: you think yourself more intelligent than the other, you think yourself more superior than the other -- or inferior. You think yourself more beautiful than the other. Then you are bringing ego in: the moment you compare yourself with somebody, the conclusion that comes out of the comparison is ego. If you stop comparing then you are there -- tremendously beautiful and unique. All superiority or inferiority, all anxiety of where I am, where I stand, who is above me and who is below me, are ego problems.

The superior person suffers, the inferior suffers; both suffer -- because even the superiormost cannot have a state where he can be satisfied.

Abraham Lincoln was not very beautiful, his face was ugly. And that was a torture. In fact, when he stood for the presidentship, eh had no beard. In his campaign, a small girl suggested to him, "If you grow a beard, you will look a little better." Hence, he grew the beard. But he remained constantly aware of his ugliness. He became the president... but whenever he would see a beautiful face he would feel hurt.

Napoleon Bonaparte was not very tall, just five-five -- just exactly my size. He remained disturbed for his whole life. Now, nothing is wrong in being five-five. What is wrong in being five-five? -- I have never felt any problem in it! And what is going to happen if you are five-seven or five-eight? Nothing is going to happen, you will be the same -- five-five or five-seven or five-nine makes no difference. But he was tremendously troubled -- he was so conscious of it. One day he was trying to fix a picture on the wall and the picture was a little higher than him, and his bodyguard said, "Sir, I am higher than you, I will do it." He said, "Stop! Never utter such a word. You are taller, not higher."

He was very conscious about it -- "Higher? Say you are taller; don't say higher!" Now, if even Napoleon is not happy, who can be?

People who compare can never be happy. These trees are happy -- the smaller tree does not bother about the higher tree. They never bother about each other: the smaller is smaller and the higher is higher. In fact, the higher and the taller and the smaller and the lower are human terms -- they don't exist in the world of trees. A rosebush is as happy as a big oak tree; there is no problem about it. Not even a rosebush, but just a small leaf of grass is as happy as any lotus flower. It makes no difference.

God is showering on everybody -- on the rosebush, on the grassleaf, on the lotus flower...

he is showering everywhere. And the whole existence is happy; only man has got into trouble. The ego arises with comparison. Individuality you have, unique individuality you have. With comparison how many problems arise!

Just a few days before, one woman was saying to me that she cannot accept her body. But why? -- because she is a little fatter. Now, why compare? How can you be fatter if you don't compare? Mm? -- you must have some idea of a thinner woman, and you must be comparing. I don't see any problem in the woman directly. I looked at her: she is a beautiful woman, a unique woman, an individual -- but unnecessarily in anxiety, in deep anguish, suffering. She cannot believe that anybody can love her, because she is a little fat.

And who has given the idea? How do you decide what is standard? Nobody has any idea what is standard; all averages are just false. Nobody knows how much fat is needed for a particular body -- only the body itself knows. Listen to your body, love your body, and don't compare.

Now this comparison will create such trouble that she may miss her whole life. Because of comparison she cannot love. And she will create such trouble that she will not allow anybody to love her, because she cannot trust anybody who can love her. That man must be perverted: how can you love an ugly woman? -- your idea of beauty must be perverted, or your must be deceiving.

She cannot trust anybody -- if somebody comes and says to her, "I love you," she will distrust them. She cannot love herself -- how can YOU love her? Impossible. You must have some other design, you must have some other idea behind it: you may be interested only in sex, or you may be interested in something else -- in her money, or something else -- but you cannot love her. Because how can you love her? -- she cannot love her own face in the mirror. And even if you persist, she will try in every way to destroy your love, so she can prove that she was right and you were wrong. Now it is very difficult to find a lover who will take that much trouble to convince you. she will remain loveless.

And when there will be no love coming, her idea will become more and more fixated: I am ugly. And she is not ugly at all.

In fact, I have never seen an ugly person in my life. How can a person be ugly? Have you ever seen any ugly crow? Impossible! Have you ever seen an ugly cow? Impossible.

Have you ever seen an ugly tree? Impossible. All is beautiful as it is... but with human beings you bring comparison, and immediately trouble starts.

Don't compare, there is no need. Comparison is one of the greatest calamities that has fallen on humanity. You are perfect as you are. Love yourself, respect yourself. If you are not going to respect yourself, who is going to respect you/ If you are not going to love yourself, who is going to love you? People don't respect themselves, and expect everybody else to respect them. They don't love themselves, and want the whole world to fall in love with them. Now you are asking impossibles -- these things cannot happen.

Love yourself, respect yourself -- and a person who respects himself never compares.

Comparison is a disrespect.

Now, if you summarize all this, it means: to be an egoist is to be very disrespectful towards yourself. To be an individual is perfectly good, but to be egoistic is disrespectful.

Question 5:

So what! You don't get it! Get it?

One should always be alert: if you get it you get it, if you don't get it you don't get it.

Still, you get it.

Question 6:

Because I am so certain about it, that's why I can play -- that's why I can say, "Look for a living master." I am so certain about you. My trust is absolute about you -- that's why I can say, "When I am gone, don't be bothered with me: look for a living master.

But if you have loved me, I will live for you forever. In your love I will live. If you ave loved me, my body will disappear but I cannot die for you. But I can assert much nonsense because I know your love: I trust it.

When a master says, "Don't go to anybody; cling to me. Even when I am gone, go on continuously with me. don't move anywhere" -- that simply means he does not trust you.

He is afraid, he has doubts -- he knows that once he is gone, you will be gone. In fact, he knows that even while he is alive, you will be gone. He protects; he says, "Don't go to anybody else. I am the only one." He is very monopolistic. He is so doubtful, that his marriage with his disciples is a sort of monogamy. He's afraid. He is afraid because the divorce is possible -- he is afraid of it, and wants to protect in every way so that it is not going to happen. He will say, "Never worship anybody, never love anybody, never revere anybody, never listen to anybody, never go to anybody -- just look at me, and forget the whole world. Exclusively love me."

I don't say that to you. I know: even if I am gone, I know you will search for me. Yes, I can trust you will hunt for me in every stone and flower, in every eye and star....

And I can promise you one thing: if you hunt for me, you will find me... in every star and in every eye... because if you have really loved a master, you have moved into eternity with him. The relationship is not of time, it is timeless.

There is going to be no death. My body will disappear, your body will disappear -- that will not make any change. If the disappearance of the body makes any change, that simply shows that love had not happened.

Love is something beyond the body. Bodies come and go, love remains. Love has eternity in it -- timelessness, deathlessness. That's why, Seeta -- the question is from Seeta -- that's why sometimes I can talk nonsense. I know you will find sense even in my nonsense. I know you will understand, you will not misunderstand -- that's why.

Question 7:

I have none. Look again!

You may not know -- in Zen there is a koan. The koan is: Why didn't Bodhidharma have a beard? Now, Bodhidharma has a big beard -- the founder of Zen. In fact his bears is so big that you can only see his eyes... all beard. And "Why does Bodhidharma have no beard?" -- this is given to the disciples to meditate on... and they have to close their eyes and meditate. Now, it is very difficult: Bodhidharma has a big beard, and the question is why he has none... and the disciple meditates and meditates, and it is very puzzling. And Bodhidharma comes again and again, and laughs... and his beard is there!

And the disciple comes to the master and says, "It is difficult -- he has!" The master says, "You go and look again." After months of meditation, one day the recognition happens -- that the beard belongs to the body; how can it belong to Bodhidharma? Bodhidharma is not the body. The body is just the abode, the temple: Bodhidharma is something beyond that is residing in it.

The day this dawns on the consciousness of the disciple, he has realized something within himself. Then he comes to the master and says, "Yes, you were right. He has no beard."

You ask: "What is the significance of your long beard?" Never heard about it. I don't have any beard. You look again. And Bodhidharma is dead, I am here alive: you can look rightly... I have no beard at all.

If you see the beard, then it must be a projection of yours.