Freedom From Suppression

Date Unknown

Question:

You would be absolutely right. But only negatively. To be freed from suppressions is the negative part, and lo express the hidden, the potential, that which you are meant to be, is the positive part.

But you are right, because the negative comes first. Unless you are free from suppression, you will not be able to express yourself; you will not be able to achieve your potential.

Society exists at the cost of the individual. It has existed that way up until now. The individual is not allowed total freedom to express himself. Through this suppression, society creates an image by which you can be exploited.

For example, if individuals become totally expressive, there will not be any war in the world. It is impossible. But if you suppress the individual, then the suppressed energy is there and it can be used for violence. The whole of politics, and the whole history of man, depends on war. The whole society has been based on war, but war is possible only if the individual is not allowed to express himself.

This suppressed energy has been used for many reasons, for many causes, for many purposes: for war, for politics, for exploitation. I am against all suppression. I am for natural growth.

I am not against discipline; I am against suppression. Discipline is a creative thing. It is never against something; it is always for something. For example, I am for the discipline of sexual energy not for the suppression of it. The energy must be allowed to move in a creative direction. It should not be suppressed. If it is suppressed, it becomes perverted. You become less than natural.

Expression means that you must become more than natural. If you cannot become more than natural, then it is better to be natural than to be perverted. The whole culture that has existed all over the world is a perverted culture.

That's why it rarely happens that a Buddha or a Jesus is born. Otherwise, Buddha and Jesus would be the normal case. They would not be so exceptional. If the whole society was creative rather than suppressive, then not to be a Buddha would be the exception. To be a Buddha would be a natural, normal thing.

So you are right. Freedom from suppression and freedom for expression. These two cover the whole thing. Then religion becomes a creative psychology. Then it is not a dogma, not a creed, but a creative instrument.

Question:

Even to move into an undisciplined life you have to follow some discipline. But you must remain the master; it must not become a slavery. The real thing, the end, is always to be spontaneous As we are, we are really conditioned not to be free. Our whole upbringing, our culture, our civilization, our religion, our parents - they have all conditioned our minds not to be flee, because a free mind is a dangerous mind. Your freedom is really a deception. You are tethered to a pole It allows you a little freedom - you can move and say that you are free - but you are still tethered to the pole, so you can only move in a circle.

This is man's state of mind. To jump from this state directly into the spontaneous is very difficult.

Sometimes it happens, but you need much courage. You require the mind of a gambler, of one who can stake everything for the unknown. Then only you can take a jump.

You can jump immediately from rules to no rules, from your deadened life to the electricity of living, but then you need very deep courage, the courage to lose yourself. But that is rare. When it exists, no discipline is needed, but since it is not ordinarily possible, you have to do something before you are able to take a jump.

You can jump in stages. Then the jump is not so big and you are not afraid of it.

At a certain point, one has to take a jump into the unknown, but before that, certain preliminary steps are helpful. Once you reach a certain point the jump can happen, but before that there are degrees.

It is just like when you are heating water. At a certain point, at a certain degree, it evaporates. But whether that hundred degree point has come or not, heating is helpful. Of course, you can come back even from ninety-nine degrees. You have to reach a certain point before the jump can happen.

That point differs with each individual. It is not like water: that at a hundred degrees it just evaporates.

It is going to be different for each person. It is uncertain. If you could be certain that one particular point was going to be the point from which every individual could take the jump, then mind would be just a machine. But it is not, so the jumping point differs with individuals. For one person it may come on the first step, and for someone else it may come on the hundredth. And for someone else, even the first step may not be needed. Each individual has to grope in the dark, but a certain direction can be given. I cannot tell you how many steps you have to take, but I can show you the direction.

Discipline should not be the end, effort should not be the end. The effortless, the undisciplined, the totally free, must be the end. You should never be a slave to any discipline or you will never come to that certain point from which a jump can happen.

Even in a disciplined way of life you can be free. Really, the discipline should be your choice, not something imposed on you. Then you remain the master. Any moment you can drop the discipline.

And with me, there is no condemnation when you drop it. If you drop it, it is okay. You are free to do it or not to do it; you remain the master. Then discipline is not a discipline. It is just a question of your choice.

Question:

When you are not there, when you have completely disappeared, the other becomes an open book to you. The more other-oriented you are, the less you can know what is happening to the other. The more you become self-oriented, the more possibility there is of knowing what is happening within someone else. A moment comes when you are completely dissolved. Then you know the other totally. Then the other is not the other; he is not something separate from you. You don't react him; there is no need. There is a response, not a reaction. Only in this way can one become a guru and help others, otherwise not.

To me, a spiritual master needs this capacity of being totally uninvolved, of being totally unrelated - just being an absence: with nothing to impose, nothing to project, no need to react. Then he can help you. He cannot come to any conclusions about you; he just responds to you.

That is what being with a guru means: being with a person who doesn't react. Just by being near him, you become more and more aware of yourself. If you are really a disciple... And by being a disciple, I mean being open to the presence of the master. You may be sitting before a mirror with closed eyes. Then the mirror cannot show you anything. The mirror is a mirror because it does not do anything on its own. It is a non-doer; it is only a presence. It cannot do anything positive.

The moment you begin to do something positive with someone, you become disturbed. You begin to change your form, you become violent. Even to do good is a violence, a subtle violence. If I don't accept you as you are, I have to cut you somewhere: destroy something, change you like a sculpture, break you. Some pieces have to be thrown, something has to be rejected. I will hammer you. It is a violence, a very subtle violence. The violence of good man, the moralist, the religious man.

A real master will not even try to make you good. Only then is he a master. He is mirror-like, just a deep absence. But you cannot be helped by the mirror, by the no one, by the nothingness, if you are closed. You can sit with closed eyes, but then for you there is no mirror at all.

By being a disciple I don't mean being a follower. No. follower, again, is someone violent - violent against himself. He is in need of someone who can be violent with him. He is a masochist. He wants someone to cut him, to change him, destroy him, transform him. He is a follower. He says, "Give me a discipline, give me the way. Tell me, order me, and I will obey." He's really in search of some slavery.

Question:

No one needs slavery. One may want it, but wants are not always needs. One wants slavery because the moment you become a slave, you are completely without responsibility. You are free in a way, a slave is free in a way. Now he is not responsible.

Even if he does something wrong, the master will be responsible. "I am following you. If I have not reached, you are responsible. I have obeyed you." Now the master is going to be guilty, not him. He says, "I surrender completely." This is not surrender! Really, it is something criminal. He is trying to say, "Now, from this time on, I will never be guilty again. You are going to be guilty. If I do not reach the divine, you are responsible; you will have to answer for it. I have surrendered myself to you."

That's why he wants to be a slave.

But it is not a need. You can never be free from responsibility. The more you are freed from it, the less conscious you become. You can become freed from responsibilities only when you become an automate, a machine, a mechanical device. So followers become machine-like. The more they follow, the more machine-like they become.

This is not really the need. It is not a growth. But this is what many people want. You want to throw the responsibility, the burden, on someone else. And really, a person who is throwing away his responsibility can never be free.

Question:

You are not going to leave your responsibilities. Rather you are going to add some new responsibilities. Doing this meditation is going to make you more responsible. You are going to become more free, and a free individual is responsible. You take the whole burden for your growth on yourself; you are not throwing the burden on me. You are not becoming my follower; you are not following me.

I am not promising you anything. But by following my suggestions, you may achieve something.

I am saying that by doing such and such a thing, you will grow. That is not following me. By doing something you may gain much, but the whole responsibility remains with you. I am not going to feel responsible for you or anyone else. If you fall, you fall. If you rise, you rise. When you achieve something, you need not even be thankful to me. You can just forget me. That is the only thankfulness that can be given. If you have to be thankful to me when something is achieved then 'the other' will be there. Then if you don't achieve anything, I am responsible.

You are not to follow me really. The very word 'follow' is not good. To be a disciple is not to be a follower. To be a disciple only means to learn. To learn, to be a learner, to be a receiver. Not to be a follower, because a follower can never learn. Before he learns, he begins to follow. A follower means that you have decided that the other person is right "... and I have to follow him." The decision to follow has come first.

A disciple is something quite different. He is not a follower, he is a learner. He has come to learn.

He has come to no conclusions. With a conclusion, you become closed. Then you just close your eyes and follow me.

To follow someone you have to close your eyes, otherwise every moment there will be doubts, every moment there will be something that you can t follow. So a follower has to be really blind. A blind follower is the only follower, the only bonafide follower. If your eyes are open, you cannot be a follower.

By 'disciple' I mean a learner and by learner' I mean one who's open, one who is without enclosures, one who is ready to inquire. This opening creates receptivity and makes you a disciple. With this open consciousness, if you are near a mirror, many things will begin to happen without imposing any discipline. Neither the master is trying to change you nor are you trying to change yourself.

Just by having an open mind and being with a mirror-like man, things will begin to happen. They go on happening and much is transformed. Much is changed without any effort to change it. This is what the Indian term satsang means. The word means 'in communion with truth' - in communion with someone who has become the truth.

Question:

That is a very difficult question. Difficult because, as I see it, the moment you begin to organize a thing, it begins to die. The moment you begin to propagate a thing, it becomes a dead dogma. The moment you say that everyone should try to live according to this principle or that, you become an enemy, despite your good intentions.

So as far as I am concerned, I just go on living the way I feel is right. I go on saying what I feel is right without any intention of turning the whole world on to my way. I have no plans to try to influence the whole world. In that respect, I am an anarchist. No religious person can be otherwise.

The moment a religious person is followed by a group to whom he can tell what to do and how to live, the whole thing becomes not only nonreligious but, ultimately, antireligious. This has always happened. Every religion has done this, but no religious person has ever intended it to happen. It is a necessary evil. Whenever there is someone who has something to say, something to show, this comes to our minds very easily: how people can be benefitted by it. And this is good; it is done with compassion. But the very nature of things is such that the moment you begin to organize, it becomes a mission. The thing that you were trying to do dies in the process. But this is the very nature of things. You cannot do anything about it.

As I see it, religious people will be needed in the future, not religious organizations. Unless we discard organizations altogether, the spiritual explosion that you are talking about will never come. It cannot be brought, it can only come by itself. But we can help it to come by not organizing according to ideologies. Every ideology is good when it begins, but by and by it has to compromise. To compromise for the sake of the organization.

Sooner or later, the means always become the end. You begin to organize for the sake of the ideology, but ultimately the ideology begins to exist just for the sake of the organization. The organization becomes more important. You have to compromise for the good of the organization.

Ultimately, he idea dies and only a church remains.

There are so many churches that no new church is needed. I am against churches. Really, I am against the very spirit of a missionary. As I see it, if I begin to be too concerned with you changing, I have begun to be violent. If I am too concerned with making someone else good then I have begun to be violent. And the violence that happens with good intentions is more dangerous than ordinary violence. All your so-called mahatmas are very violent people. They will not allow you to be yourself.

So what am I to do? It is a problem. I feel that something can be done, I feel that much is needed to be done, but it must be done in such a way that, in doing it, the quality of the thins is not going to change. If the quality changes, then I am for the quality not for the doing.

So I will go on talking. My talking is more or less directed to the individual. If something has to be done, the organization to do it will just be functional, utilitarian. I have to behave not like a missionary but like a poet. A missionary is more concerned with you, with your changes. A poet is more concerned with himself, with his own expression. If something happens to you through it, that is not the point. I can only say what is right as I see it. If something happens to you through my words, it is okay. If nothing happens, it is also okay. I have said what I had to say as best as it was possible for me to say it. It is enough; I should not be concerned with the result.

To be too concerned with the result is what is known as a worldly mind. Why should I be concerned with the result? I have said what I felt, I have lived what I felt. If you feel I am saying is worth trying, you can choose to do it. the choice must be yours. It must not be enforced in any way; it must not be manipulated in any way. Even you yourself should not be convinced about it. No conviction is good.

You can choose. This choice will remain alive because, in choosing it, you remain yourself. It becomes part of your greater unity. It is bound to undergo a deep change in you, it will be a different flowering. If I force it upon you then it will just be an imitation. Then you will be a follower, not an authentic being. And followers are not good, not good at all. They are dangerous people!

So what can I do? I can do only one thing: I can communicate my knowing to you. If I am not concerned at all with converting you to my way, communication is easy communication is heart to heart. But if at any moment you feel that I am concerned with changing you, you will become defensive. Then I will have to fight. It is a fight, not a communion.

So I will not organize. The only spiritual explosion that can happen in the world will be through individuals, not through organizations. All organizations have failed: political religious, social. The world is the most ill it has ever been because of these organizations. Every organization was created around a very good idea, a very good, alive thing. It may have been around a Buddha or a Zarathustra or a Jesus - a very alive person with something revolutionary, something essential to give.

But then... You must have read Dostoevski's BROTHERS KARAMAZOV. In that, he creates the parable of Jesus coming back after fourteen hundred years to see how the world has progressed under Christianity. "This is the time for me to be welcomed," Jesus thinks. "When I came to earth before, there was not a single Christian. That is why I was crucified. The crucifixion was because there were no Christians. Now I will be as welcome as anything - half the world is Christian!"

So he comes. He comes to Bethlehem on a Sunday. People are coming out of church. He stands under a tree, feeling that everyone will recognize him - they are coming from his church! But people begin to laugh at him and make jokes. They say, "Your acting is very good. You are just like Jesus."

Jesus says, "I am not acting. I am the real Jesus!" They begin to laugh even more.

Then somebody says, "Whether you are the real Jesus or not, you had better escape from this place.

The High Priest is going to come out soon. You will be in real trouble."

Jesus says, "But he is one of my priests. Even if you do not recognize me, he will recognize me." So Jesus waits.

The High Priest comes. He looks at Jesus and says to the crowd, "Bring this man into the church.

He is trying to create a nuisance. Either he is mad, or he is just trying to create trouble!"

He locks Jesus in a room. Jesus feels very disturbed. Again, the whole thing seems to be assuming the same shape. It looks as though the world has not changed at all. The Christians are going on in the same way as the non Christians have done. But he waits.

At midnight, the priest returns, unlocks the door and falls down at Jesus' feet saying. "I have recognized you. I know you are Jesus. But I could not recognize you in the market, in the crowd.

I could not recognize you because you are a disturber. You will destroy everything and we have put everything right; we have organized the whole thing. If you are back again, you will destroy everything. So please, we are working things out very well. You are not needed at all. Remain with your father in heaven. We are your representatives here; we will take care of everything. You are not needed.

"I am saying this to you privately. Please don't quote it anywhere or I will be in trouble. You cannot be otherwise; you are an anarchist. It is not that you were against the Jews, it is not that you were against the Jewish church - you are against all churches, you are against all organizations. You are against everything we stand for."

And this is authentic in a way; the priest is right. Whenever we organize, the whole mechanism of organization is such that a church results, not a religion. And once a church is there, it is always against religion. Any church is against religion, it cannot be otherwise, because religion means rebellion; religion means individuality; religion means freedom. The church cannot mean these things. The church means something else: a deep slavery, a spiritual slavery, a following; a dead dogma, a creed, a routine of ritual. The church can never mean freedom because it cannot survive freedom. But this has always been so.

Now I think, the human mind, human consciousness, has come to a point where we can begin to be individually religious. There is no need to be a Jew, no need to be a Hindu or a Christian. Being religious must be enough. That means, religion must be freed from all social phenomenon. It must become an individual existence.

If this is what I think, then what can I do? I can only go on communicating - not waiting for any results, not waiting for any continuity of my thoughts, not hoping, that what I'm saying will be preserved for centuries. It should not be; this is a very wrong conception.

A flower has flowered. By the evening, it must die. Just like this, any idea that has flowered must die. It must not try to be permanent. It must allow other flowers to flower; it must die so that the next day something else can flower. If I create an organization, then I am creating a hindrance of my own that will prevent something new from arising.

So I am not intending to create an organization at all. I have no plans for the future. This moment is enough. If I am able to communicate something to even one single individual, it will be worth everything, in the world. A mass movement may happen around me, but it will have to happen as a chain reaction. We will have to be patient. A missionary is never patient, he can't be. Otherwise, he would never be a missionary.

Question:

Neo-sannyas is an effort to introduce the concept of 'sannyas without any renunciation of the world'.

To me, India has given only one thing to the world, to human consciousness, and that is the concept of sannyas the concept of renunciation. But this renouncing can be one of two things. It can be of the world. Then it becomes negative: it becomes life-denying; it goes against life. To me that negative, life-denying aspect of sannyas is a disease. And because of that life-denying aspect, sannyas, religion, has suffered much. It couldn't become a major part of life, it couldn't become a part of human consciousness. The main current of it is life-denying.

Neo-sannyas is a total yes to everything in life - including everything that gives you higher consciousness, including everything that gives you a nearness to the divine, including everything that has been denied only because it was life-affirming. For example, love.

Neo-sannyas accepts life in its totality. And also, sex in its totality. But not drugs, because drugs are an effort to be more and more unconscious, to be chemically seduced into a deep lethargy. Anything that helps consciousness, anything that makes you more alert toward the reality is included.

Question:

It is not a mingling. Rather, it is the essential foundation of all religions. It is not a compromise of all the religions. Rather, on the contrary, it is the essence of all religion.

When a Jesus achieves something, the outward behaviour, the outward ritual that evolves around him, becomes Christianity. But the innermost core is lost. When a Buddha achieves something the same thing happens. The unknown is achieved again, but the nonessential begins to be more important and Buddhism is created.

So neo-sannyas is not a mingling of Buddhism and Christianity and other religions. Rather, it is a reassertion of the essentials that make a Buddha a Buddha and a Jesus a Jesus. And that essential is one. So I say yes to all religions as religions and no to all religions as sects.

Question:

Sex is very important because sex is the root of life. You are born out of sex, your every cell in the body is a sex cell. Sex cannot be denied and any society that denies sex becomes suicidal. Then it is denying life itself.

So sex is very significant, very meaningful. But you can do two wrong thinks with sex. One is, you can be suppressive. Then you create perversions. In the West, Christianity has created a very perverted mind through too much of a 'no' attitude toward sex, too much fear about sex. Too much suppression has created a reaction. That suppression will lead to perverted mind.

So I am not for suppression. Nor am I for indulgence. Indulgence is again a reaction. Indulgence is the opposite extreme to suppression. That, too, is not good.

I am for healthy sex that is neither indulgence nor suppression. Sex must be accepted in its totality.

Then the question of inside or outside of marriage is irrelevant because marriage is just a part of the social system; there is nothing natural about it. To me, to be really authentic in your sex life you have to go beyond the structure of marriage.

You become inauthentic in two ways. If someone is in a sexual relationship with someone that he or she doesn't love, to me it is immoral. Even if he or she is one's husband or one's wife, if one is not in love then it is immoral. If love is the base, only then can you be honest, sincere and authentic. If love is the base then marriage becomes, by and by, a superficial structure.

Question:

I will not condemn. I appreciate it. Sexually free societies are not degraded. Rather, they have come to face the facts of life honestly. They are more honest than so called moral societies, which are basically dishonest. If sex is a fact then you must take it as a fact. No beating around the bush And pornography is an art, unless your mind is perverted. If your mind is perverted, pornography becomes a disease. Otherwise it is a simple art. If I paint a beautiful flower you appreciate it so why not appreciate it if I paint a nude woman? It is just as beautiful. And if a naked flower is beautiful, a naked woman or a naked man is also beautiful.

But a naked flower will not create any attitude in you of condemnation, when a picture of a naked woman will. Not because it is pornography, but because the whole culture bas been anti-sexual.

Sweden is really the vanguard of the new morality that is developing. It is not a degraded society.

Question:

Yes. It is a country now of hypocrites.

Whenever a country reaches to the peak, to the flowering - when it is healthy and young, fearless of everything - then truth can be taken as truth. In India's golden days we created Khajuraho, Konark, Puri. It was rare daring. There is no comparison to it - not only in India but in the whole world.

A temple of God that has sculptures of maithun, of sexual intercourse There is no pornographic attitude toward the sexual intercourses. It is so meditative, so celestial.

But those were the days when the country was healthy. Young - taking life as it was, celebrating life in its totality.

Today it is a dying country, an old country just struggling to be alive somehow. The India that exists today must die dn a way in order to be reborn. Only then will hypocrisy go.

I;very old man becomes a hypocrite.

For the first time in the world, eros (sex and love) is becoming more significant. It is the antidote to war. If sex is suppressed then you become violent. Really, wars are nothing but a by-product of suppressed sexuality, suppressed sex energy. Your politicians, your so-called moralists - regardless of how much they talk about peace, they are creators of wars.

Now - and it is really for the first time in the world - the younger generation is for love, for sex, for life. This is a very optimistic possibility. With these young people, a different world is going to be born.

If we emphasise love and life more, no one will be ready to fight. It is really a question of choosing between eros and death. Make love not war - it is very symbolic. Make love and then you cannot make war. But if you cannot make love, you cannot make anything except war because the very energy that can love and create becomes perverted. Love is creative. If there is no love, then the same energy becomes destructive.

Question:

It is practically love, but not just that.

I call the name of the basic energy, the energy that we are, life. If life becomes love, inner growth is happening. Then love can become light - that is another growth.

If life becomes love you are on the path, and if love becomes light you have reached. These three words are very meaningful to me: life, the basic energy; love, the transformation of this energy into a celebration; and light, the transformation of love, through meditation, into divine existence.

Question:

Do not plan anything. Just go on digging within yourself. Things will take their own course.

Planning always presupposes frustration. When you plan, you create the seeds of frustration. Do not plan, just go on working. Let it come. It is always beautiful when it comes by itself. It is always fulfilling, never frustrating, because there has been no expectation. And when there is no expectation, you are never disappointed. The less you are disheartened, the more you can do. The more you are disheartened, the less you do.

So I say again: do not plan. Just go on. Let it come by itself. When we plan, we hinder the way of its coming. Because of the plans we make, life cannot work. Our plans come in the way.

I lead my life with no plans and I have never been frustrated. There is no question of frustration so I am always successful. I cannot be a failure because there is no plan against which I calculate.

No failure, no success is a success - only our conceptions and predetermined plans make them so. If you fail in your plan, you feel disappointed; the ego is hurt. If you succeed, the ego is strengthened and it will plan more, ceaselessly, causing perpetual strain and burden on the mind.

The ego is always afraid of life. In life we never know what is going to happen so we make plans for our security. But life continually disturbs our plans because we are not the whole and sole of life.

We are only a negligibly small part of the infinite existence.

The moment you start planning, you begin to compare and contrast. Doubts and fears catch hold of you: will I succeed? Is it possible? What will happen, what will people say? The moment you plan, the seeds of frustration take root. Now anxiety will follow. We make plans in order to be free from anxiety, but the plan itself creates anxiety. We become anxious because of our plans, our expectations So do not plan. Just go on. You do not plan your breathing, you just go on breathing. Let it come to you easily. All that comes easily becomes divine and nothing that comes with effort can be divine.

The divine comes effortless! It is, in fact, coming all the time. Let it come! Just let go of yourself and see. Things will begin to move. You will find yourself in the midst of movement, but there will be no anxiety. Then there will not be any trouble created for the mind. If something happens, it is all right.

If nothing happens, then too it is all right. Everything is all right when a mind that does not plan, that accepts life as it is.

Only then can meditation happen, otherwise not. Meditation is not a business, it should not be made a business. If it is, you will not be able to help others toward meditation much less yourself Rather, you will be suicidal to your own meditation because it will be a burden to you.

If meditation has come to you, if something has flowered in you, the perfume will spread. It will work in its own way. Something has happened to you. You are calm and at ease, tranquility has been achieved. That will do the work; you will not have to work. What has happened to you will draw people to you. They will come by themselves; they will ask about what has happened to you.

Let others plan, and you just go and meditate. Things will begin to happen, they must happen. Only then do they have a beauty of their own, otherwise not.

Business is always tiring. It has no beauty, no joy. Meditation is not a business, but it has been converted into a business in India, a flourishing business. There are shops and there are factories.

Do not take meditation in this way. You have experienced meditation, you have come to the door.

You have seen something, you have felt something. Let it go on - let God work.

When you leave here, go completely without planning. Do not even plan not to plan or it will be the same thing. Don't think at all about what you are going to do when you return home. Just be there.

Your very presence will begin to work. Only then will it be my work. If you plan, then it will not be my work at all. You will merely be distracting yourself and others. You cannot help others to meditate if you yourself are tense. You cannot help! You will be helpful only if you proceed without plans.

Just go. Sit there, meditate and see what happens. Things are bound to take their own course.