The new man: the very salt of the earth

Question 1:

Maneesha, the new man contains my whole philosophy about life and how it should be -- lived in totality, in intensity, in wholeness, so that we are not only dragging ourselves from the cradle to the grave, but we can make each moment a tremendous rejoicing -- a song, a dance, a celebration.

The old man that has existed up to now is on his death bed. He has suffered much; he needs all our compassion. He has been conditioned to live in misery, in suffering, in self- torture. He was given promises: promissory notes for great rewards after death -- the more he suffers, the more he tortures himself, the more he is masochistic, the more he is destructive of his own dignity, the more he will be rewarded.

That was a very convenient concept for all the vested interests because the man who is ready to suffer can easily be enslaved. The man who is ready to sacrifice today for an unknown tomorrow has already declared his inclination to be enslaved. The future becomes his bondage. And for thousands of years, man has lived only in hope, in imagination, in dreams, in utopias, but not in reality. And there is no other life than the life of reality, than the life that exists in this moment.

The new man is a rebellion, a revolt, a revolution against all the conditionings which can enslave him, oppress him, exploit him, just by giving him hopes of a fictitious heaven, frightening him, blackmailing him about another fictitious phenomenon: hell. All the old ways of life were strangely in agreement on one point: that man is a sacrificial animal at the feet of a fictitious God.

There were times when men were actually sacrificed alive, butchered before stone statues. Although nobody dares to do such a thing now, psychologically the situation has not changed. Man is still sacrificed either in the name of communism, or in the name of capitalism, or in the name of an Aryan race, in the name of Islam, in the name of Christianity, in the name of Hinduism. Instead of stone gods, now there are only phony words, meaningless. But man has accepted to live like this for the simple reason that every child finds himself born in a crowd which is already conditioned. The teachers are conditioned, the parents are conditioned, the neighbors are conditioned; and the small child is almost helpless -- he cannot envisage any other alternative than to be part of the crowd.

The old man was a crowd, a cog in the wheel; the old man had no individuality. The vested interests had taken all care to destroy self-respect, dignity, a joy and a gratefulness that you are a human being, that you are the highest creation in the long, long path of evolution... that you are the crowning glory.

These ideas were dangerous. If a man has some respect for himself, some dignity of being human, you cannot reduce him to a slave; you cannot destroy his soul and make him a robot. Up to now, man has only pretended to live -- his life has been only hypothetical.

The new man is a revolt against the whole past.

He is a declaration that we are going to create a new way of life, new values of life; that we are destined for new goals -- faraway stars are our targets. And we are not going to allow anybody to sacrifice us for any beautiful name. We are going to live our lives, not according to ideals, but according to our own longings, our own passionate intuitions.

And we are going to live moment to moment; we are no longer to be befooled by the tomorrow, and the promises for tomorrow.

The new man contains the whole future of humanity. The old man is bound to die. He has prepared his own grave -- he is digging it every moment, deeper and deeper. What do you think Ronald Reagan is doing? -- digging a grave for humanity as deep as possible. These people seem to be afraid even of dead people -- that if the grave is not deep enough, they may come back; they may come back alive.

Nuclear weapons and all destructive measures are a preparation for a global suicide. The old man has decided to die. It is up to the intelligent people in the world to disconnect from the old man before he destroys you too... to disconnect yourself from old traditions, old religions, old nations, old ideologies.

For the first time, the old is no longer gold. The old is the rotten corpse of an ugly past. It is a great responsibility for the new generation, for the young people to renounce the past.

In the past, religions used to renounce the world. I teach you to love the world so that it can be saved, and to renounce the past totally and irrevocably, to be discontinuous.

The new man is not an improvement upon the old; he is not a continuous phenomenon, not a refinement. The new man is the declaration of the death of the old, and the birth of an absolutely fresh man -- unconditioned, without any nation, without any religion, without any discriminations of men and women, of black and white, of East and West, or North and South.

The new man is a manifesto of one humanity. It is the greatest revolution the world has ever seen.

You have heard about the miracle that Moses parted the sea in two parts. That miracle is nothing. I want to part humanity, the whole ocean of humanity divided in two parts: the old and the new.

The new will love this life, this world. The new will learn the art of living and loving and dying.

The new will not be concerned about heaven and hell, sin and virtue. The new man will be concerned about how to increase the joys of life, the pleasures of life -- more flowers, more beauty, more humanity, more compassion. And we have the capacity and the potential to make this planet a paradise, and to make this moment the greatest ecstasy of your life.

Let the old die. Let the old be led by people like Ronald Reagan. Let the blind people follow the blind.

But those who have a younger spirit -- and when I say "a younger spirit," it includes even those old people who are not old in spirit; and it does not include even the young people who are old in spirit. The spiritually young are going to be the new man.

The new man is not a hope: You are already pregnant with it.

My work is just to make you aware that the new man has already arrived. My work is to help you to recognize him and to respect him.

You are asking, Maneesha: "What is our relationship to the new man?" There is no relationship between you and the new man because you are the new man. You just have to drop all the dust that has gathered down the ages on the mirror of your consciousness.

The new man is not someone coming from another planet. The new man is you in your freshness, in your silences of the heart, in your depth of meditation, in your beautiful spaces of love, in your songs of joy, in your dances of ecstasy, in your love of this earth.

No religion teaches you to love this earth -- and this earth is your mother, and these trees are your brothers, and these stars are your friends.

You are not going to have a relationship with the new man because that would be a separation; all relationships separate. You are going to be the new man. In my vision you are already on the path of the new man. You have started the journey, although you are not fully awake; but as you will see the old man moving more and more towards the graveyard, it will become easier for you to renounce him and his ways of life, his churches, his synagogues, his temples, his gods, his holy scriptures.

Your holy scripture is your whole life, and nobody else can write it -- you have to write it. You come with an empty book, and it depends on you what you make of it. Birth is not life; it is only an opportunity given to you to create life... to create a life as beautiful, as glorious, as loving as you can imagine, as you can dream.

The new man's dreams and his reality will be one because his dreams will be rooted here in this earth. They will bring flowers and fruits. They will not be just dreams -- they will make the world a dreamland.

Realize the responsibility... man has never faced a greater responsibility before: a responsibility to renounce the whole past, to erase it from your being.

Be Adam and Eve again, and let this earth be the Garden of Eden; and this time we will see who the God is who has the guts to drive man out of the Garden of Eden! It is going to be our garden, and if God wants to be in our garden, He will have to knock on our doors.

This earth can be a splendor, a magic, a miracle. Our hands have that touch -- it is just that we have never tried it. Man has never given a chance to his own potential to grow, to blossom, to bring fulfillment, contentment, to shower the whole earth with flowers, to fill the whole earth with fragrance. To me, that fragrance is godliness.

The new man will not worship a God as a creator of the world; the new man will create God as a fragrance, as beauty, as love, as truth. Up to now God has been the creator: for the new man, man will be the creator, and God is going to be the created. We can create godliness -- it is within our hands.

That's why I say the new man is the greatest revolution that has ever happened in the world. And there is no way to avoid it because the old man is determined to die, determined, committed to commit suicide. Let him die peacefully. Those who have a rebellious spirit should just disconnect themselves, and they will be the saviors, they will create a Noah's ark, they will be the beginning of a new world. And because we have known the old world and its miseries; we can avoid all those miseries; we can avoid all those jealousies, all those angers, all those wars, all those destructive tendencies....

We can go through a total transformation: we can create innocent people, loving people, people who breathe in freedom, people who help each other to be free. We can create nourishment for everybody to be dignified, to be respected -- not according to some ideals and values, but just as he is.

The new man is going to be the very salt of the earth.

Question 2:

Rafia, there is no way to encounter death, just because death is a fiction. You can think about it, you can be afraid about it; but you cannot encounter it. Nobody ever dies -- people are simply changing houses.

What you have experienced was first the fear that: after I die, how are you going to live without me? Don't be worried about it. First, if I see that you cannot live without me, I can postpone dying -- unless you come with folded hands, and you say, "Now, it is too much -- I cannot tolerate You any more."

Secondly, before meeting me you have lived without me. If I die, it will be a shock -- for a few days, you will feel in a dramatic mood of sadness, and then life will take you over again. Millions of people have died -- every day people go on dying -- and life continues with all its songs, with all its discos, with all its music. People go on dying, but if you think before... it is the thinking that makes it difficult. Death itself is a wound that time heals very quickly. But I will not even leave that wound in you. Before I die, I will make you able to see that there is no death.

What is the purpose of all your meditations? It is a deep search to know that life is eternal, and death as such is only an observation of the outsiders. You have always seen other people die: have you ever seen yourself die? But what do you know when other people die? Only one thing -- that they don't breathe, they don't talk; that their blood circulation stops, that their hearts have no more beats.

I was telling you just a few days ago.... One man in the part of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan, has played a joke on people for the third time. He is one hundred and twenty- five years old: he has died three times. This was the third time, and because he has done the act two times before, people were very, very cautious. Doctors were called, every examination was done, and when everybody agreed that this time the poor guy had really died -- it was no longer a joke -- that man opened one eye, and said, "Who is saying I am dead? At least, this time I'm not!"

The relatives had gathered from faraway villages, and they all went away in sadness: "It seems he will have a few years more, and he will again torture us into coming!" But the old man said, "Listen, this is my last act; next time I'm really going to die."

He has been asked by doctors what his secret is, and he says his secret is very simple:

going deep into meditation, he realized that as you go deeper, your breathing becomes slower. When you are deepest in meditation, your breathing stops. And it is simply a knack.... Once he learned that stopping the breathing is not death, he allowed even the heart to stop -- he just relaxed. And from deep down, he was watching the whole show that was going all around: the doctors, and physicians, and the relatives.

There was one man, Bhrahma Yogi, from South India -- he did the same experiment in almost every university of the world, particularly the medical colleges. For ten minutes, it was possible for him to pretend to die. And he had certificates from the greatest authorities -- from Oxford, from Cambridge -- that he is dead; the doctors signed certificates for his death. And after ten minutes he would start breathing again, smiling, and he would open his eyes. It was very frightening.

He had collected so many certificates -- death certificates from so many authorities -- that he had challenged the whole medical science: "Your idea of death is incorrect. You simply think that these symptoms of life are life; they are only symptoms -- very outward symptoms. They show only one thing: that life is connected with the body. When the connection is no longer there, the symptoms disappear. It does not mean that life disappears."

It is almost like electricity: you can see the electricity, you can put it off, and all symptoms will disappear; but that does not mean that electricity has died. Life is nothing but bio-electricity -- living electricity -- a higher form, a refined form of the same energy as electricity.

I will not leave, Rafia, unless you have experienced that there is no death. I will ask your permission before I leave. You will have to sign your signature that you give me leave, then I can go on a holiday. And once you know that your inner life, your real life, is eternal, you will be able to have some contact with me -- although I will not be in the body.

To be in the body is not equivalent to life. It is a kind of imprisonment. You are imprisoned in the body; you can be free of the body, you can become part of the whole.

And this time I am going to become part of the whole. I am not going to enter another womb, into another imprisonment. I have done my jail terms -- complete!

But one thing important happened that you have not been very conscious about: the moment you allowed the fear -- the darkness surrounding you -- and you relaxed into it, with no resistance, with no fight, with no desire to escape into some activity, slowly, slowly, the fear and the darkness and the death disappeared. You became profoundly silent... a silence that you have never known before.

"Today, I feel," you are saying, "quiet and uncomplicated -- my usual obsessions far away, not ecstatic, not down; just very simple and sober." This is beautiful -- this is a great experience. You have touched something deep in existence itself. Feel blissful, and remember the experience. Next time, anything that happens, allow it to happen and just sit silently in the middle of it -- a center of the cyclone. Slowly, slowly, the cyclone will disappear, and only the center will be left behind. You will feel immensely centered, silent, sober, innocent, simple -- experiences which are tremendously valuable.

We miss these experiences because we always escape. When you feel afraid, you get involved in some activity; you go to meet a friend, you start fighting or loving your girl friend, you go to the restaurant. If nothing else, you start smoking -- but you have to do something to escape from the experience. This way, people go on missing great opportunities of spiritual growth.

Whatever has happened this time should be remembered, and if another opportunity arises -- and it is bound to arise -- use it even more deeply, more joyously, with a welcome, and it will open doors of great riches and great treasures.

But you have not understood the great opportunity because in the end you still ask:

"Beloved Master, was this an encounter with death?"

You have encountered silence, you have encountered a new quality within you of soberness, quietude -- which is unusual to you. You were not ecstatic, and not down, very centered: neither at this extreme nor that extreme, but exactly in the middle. But you have not understood. It is natural -- when for the first time it happens, it is expected that you will not understand it. But I want you to remember, it was not an encounter with death; it was an encounter with your fear of death, with your fear of being left behind, with your fear of being without a master.

Ten years after his arrival in America from Italy, Roselli had saved enough money from his vegetable business to build a huge house.

"I want-a three bedroom-as upstairs," he explained to the builder. "Nice big-a staircase leading up to bedroom-as, and right over here next to a staircase, I want-a hollow statue."

Months later, he returned and found everything to his satisfaction. Then he noticed a statue next to the staircase.

"Hey, what's-a matter with you?" shouted Roselli. "You no understand-a what I tell-a you?"

"Isn't that what you ordered?" asked the builder. "A hollow statue?"

"Are you stupid, or something?" cried the Italian. "I want-a one of those things-a that goes-a ring-a ring. You pick it up and say-a `hallo, 's tat you?'" Just a little misunderstanding... otherwise, Rafia, you had a beautiful experience.

Question 3:

Neelam, there are many things in your question. First, you have a misunderstanding about man's nature. You think, as many people in the world think, that man is polygamous, and the woman is monogamous... that the woman wants to live with one man, to love one man, to devote and dedicate herself totally to one man, but man is different in nature -- he wants to love other women too, at least, once in a while.

The reality is: both are polygamous. The woman has been conditioned by man for thousands of years into thinking that she is monogamous. And man is very cunning; he has exploited the woman in many ways. One of the ways is: he has been telling her that man is, by nature, polygamous. All the psychologists, all the sociologists are agreed upon the fact that man is polygamous; and none of them says the same thing about woman.

My own understanding is that both are polygamous. If a woman does not behave in a polygamous way, it is nurture, not nature. She has been utterly conditioned so long that the conditioning has gone into her very blood, into her bones, into her very marrow. Why do I say so? -- because in the whole of existence, all the animals are polygamous.

It would be really surprising that if the whole existence is polygamous, only woman has an exceptional nature. In existence there are no exceptions. But because a woman had to depend financially on man, man has cut the woman in so many ways: he has cut her wings, he has cut her freedom, he has cut her dependence upon herself. He has taken her responsibilities on his shoulders, showing great love, saying: you need not be worried about yourself, I will take care. But in the name of love, he has taken the freedom of the woman. For centuries he has not allowed a woman to be educated, to be qualified in any way, in any craft, in any skill -- she has to be financially dependent on the man. He has taken away even her freedom of movement -- she cannot move freely the way man moves; she is confined to the house. The house is almost her imprisonment.

And in the past particularly, she was continuously pregnant because out of ten children, nine children used to die. To have two, three children, a woman had to be continually pregnant the whole time she was capable of reproducing. A pregnant woman becomes even more dependent financially -- the man becomes her caretaker. The man is knowledgeable, the woman knows nothing. She has been kept ignorant because knowledge is power -- that's why woman has been deprived of knowledge.

And because it is a man's world, they all agree as far as keeping the woman enslaved is concerned.

But everything has been done with very articulate intelligence. She has been told that it is her nature to be monogamous. Now there is not a single psychoanalyst, not a single woman sociologist to refute this: if man is polygamous, then why should woman be monogamous? Man has made the way for his polygamy: he has created prostitutes. It was an accepted fact in the past that no wife would have objected if her husband, once in a while, visited a prostitute. It was thought that it is just natural for man.

I say unto you that both are polygamous. The whole existence is polygamous. It has to be -- monogamy is boredom. However beautiful a woman may be, however beautiful a man may be, you become tired -- the same geography, the same topography. How long do you have to see the same face? So it happens that years pass, and the husband has not looked attentively at his wife for a single moment.

My own approach is natural and simple. I want no marriages in the world of the new man. Marriage is such an ugly and rotten phenomenon -- so destructive, so inhuman. On the one hand it makes one woman a slave, and on the other hand, it creates the ugliest institution of prostitutes. The prostitutes are needed to save the marriage; otherwise, the man will start fooling around with other people's wives. It is a social device so that he doesn't get entangled with another's wife -- there are beautiful women available.

In India, in the days of Gautam Buddha, it was the tradition that the most beautiful woman in the town was not allowed to be married; she had to become a prostitute. She was called nagabadu: the wife of the whole city -- because she was so beautiful that to be married to one man was going to create jealousies, conflicts, problems. It was better to avoid all those conflicts amongst men, to make her a prostitute -- available for all.

In India, every temple had devadasis. Still in South India, there are devadasis. Every family was required, in the past, to donate their most beautiful girl to the temple, to God.

In the name of God, those beautiful girls in the temples became prostitutes. First, they were used by the priests; second, they were used by the rich customers -- I mean the rich worshipers. And they were so many that they were available in every price range; even the poorest could afford one. Of course, it would not be so beautiful a woman, but any woman is better than no woman.

Even today, just a few days ago, a survey was made in Bombay of all the prostitutes -- thirty percent of them have come from South India, from temples where their parents have dedicated them to God. For the parents, there was an incentive: dedicating her to God was easier than to get a girl married. It is so difficult in India... you have to give so much money, that not all parents can afford it -- just one daughter, and they will have to sell their land, their house, they will become beggars. So it was very easy, and comfortable, convenient, and virtuous, too -- respectable, honorable -- the society honored it.

They offered those girls; they still offer those girls to the temples, and the temples are selling those girls to all great cities because now rich worshipers don't come to the temples. It is better to have those girls sold to agents in Bombay, in Calcutta, in New Delhi because politicians will need them, priests will need them, rich people will need them. People who are living far away from their homes, working in cities -- their families are in the villages -- will need them.

Thirty percent of the prostitutes in Bombay have come from temples where they were dedicated to God. Every temple in the past was nothing but a sacred facade to hide prostitutes under the name of devadasis. The word means: servants of God.

Man has arranged for himself, but he has prohibited the woman.... First, his ego is hurt if his woman falls in love with somebody else. That means he is rejected, that means he is not man enough, that means something is missing in him.

And more than that, there is another problem: private property. He has to keep a perfect guard on his woman because he wants his own blood to inherit his property. And if the women are free to have love affairs, then it is very difficult -- almost impossible -- to be certain that your son is really your son. It may be somebody else's son, and he will inherit your property. To protect private property, the woman has to be conditioned that she is monogamous. But it is not true, it is not natural.

Whether one is man or woman, everybody needs a change, at least once in a while -- for the weekend. Five days you can both be monogamous; for two days, on the weekend, you can both be polygamous. And what is the worry about the property -- who owns it when you are dead -- whether it is your blood or somebody else's blood? It seems to be an unnecessary worry -- somebody will inherit it.

And if you become interested in other women, you should understand that your woman is also human, has the same heart, the same consciousness -- she also likes sometimes to meet a new man. She also gets tired and bored.

In the new world, to which I have dedicated my whole life, there should be no marriage -- only lovers. And as long as they are pleased to be together, they can be together; and the moment they feel that they have been together too long, a little change will be good.

There is no question of sadness, no question of anger -- just a deep acceptance of nature.

And if you have loved a man or a woman, you will love to give the other person as much freedom as possible.

If love cannot give freedom, then it is not love.

Neelam, you say that, "Sadness in me keeps on coming for a short while and leaving. I give a long rope to the man." Now, the very idea is wrong. Is your man a dog that you give him a long rope?

You cannot give freedom -- freedom is everybody's birthright. The very idea, "I'm giving a long rope"... still the rope is in your hand. You are the giver of freedom. You cannot give freedom; you can only accept the freedom of the other person. You cannot keep one end of the rope in your hand, watching the dog pissing on this tree, pissing on that tree....

You think that is freedom? No, the very idea is wrong.

The other person has his freedom; you have your freedom. Neither he needs to have one end of the rope in his hand, nor do you have to have it; otherwise, both are chained. His rope is going to be your chains, your rope is going to be his chains. And you think you give enough rope -- you think you are being very generous.

Freedom is not something that has to be given to another person. Freedom is something that has to be recognized as the property of the other person.

And the freedom of the person you love will not hurt you. It hurts because you don't use your own freedom. It is not his freedom that hurts; what hurts is that you have been incapacitated by centuries of wrong conditioning -- you cannot use your own freedom.

Man has taken your whole freedom. That is the real problem. Your freedom has to be returned to you, and it will not hurt; in fact you will enjoy it.

Freedom is such a joyful experience. Your lover is enjoying freedom, you are enjoying freedom. In freedom, you meet; in freedom, you depart. And perhaps life may bring you together again. And most probably.... All the researches about love relationships indicate a certain phenomenon which has not been accepted by any society up to now. And even today, when I say these things, I'm condemned all over the world. When your man becomes interested in another woman, it does not mean that he no longer loves you; it simply means just a change of taste.

Once in a while, you like to go to Sarjano's pizza place. That does not mean that you have renounced your old food, but once in a while, it is perfectly good. In fact, after visiting Sarjano's place, you go to the canteen more joyously. It takes a few days for you to forget the experience -- then again, one day, the spaghetti. These affairs don't mean much. One cannot live on spaghetti alone.

The psychologists are agreed on one point: couples who love each other should have a few love affairs once in a while. Those love affairs will renew their relationship, will refresh it. You will start seeing beauty again in your wife. You may start fantasies, dreams of having your wife again -- that you misunderstood her before; this time you are not going to misunderstand. And the same is true about your husband.

In my idea of a commune, people will be absolutely free to say to their partner: "I would like two days holiday. And you are also free; you need not sit in the house and boil." If you want to meditate, that is another thing; otherwise you have been interested in the neighbor's wife too long.... The green grass on the other side of the fence -- you wanted to chew it for so long; now your wife is giving you a chance!

You should say, "You are great! Just go for a holiday, and enjoy it. And I'm going to the neighbor's house -- the grass is greener there." But in two days, you will find that the grass is grass, and your own lawn was far better.

But an authentic experience is needed, and when after two days, you meet again, it will be the beginning of a new honeymoon. Why not have honeymoons every month? Why be satisfied with one honeymoon in one life? That is strange, and absolutely unnatural. And love is not something bad or evil so that you have to prevent your wife loving somebody else. It is just fun; there is not much to be bothered about. If she wants to play tennis with somebody, let her play! I don't think that making love has more significance than playing tennis. In fact, tennis is far cleaner.

Neelam, you say, "I don't expect anything from him. You know me better." I do know you better! I know everybody better. Even in your no-expectations, there are hidden expectations -- unspoken... and they are more subtle, and more binding. Simply, one has to accept a simple fact: your partner is a stranger -- it is just an accident that you are together -- and you never expect anything from outsiders, from strangers.

One of the wisest women I have met in my life told me that she makes love only to strangers.

I said, "Why? It will be really a difficult thing to find a stranger to make love to."

She said, "No -- in trains, in airplanes... I don't even ask their name, and I don't say anything about myself -- we remain strangers, I have made love to them, and we meet the next day in the marketplace: neither I recognize him, nor he.... There is no need -- we enjoyed the moment just out of sheer freedom, no bondage, no commitment."

She is a married woman, married to a very rich man in the Philippines, but she rarely goes to the Philippines. She goes on moving around the world, finding strangers. She says, "Once in a while, I go to the Philippines. My husband himself becomes by that time a stranger, and I love him. But the moment I feel that I am falling into the trap of relationship, I rush out -- again, on the road."

I can see something tremendously deep in her insight. Love as much as you can. Never think of the next moment; and if your lover goes somewhere else, you are also free. And don't deceive yourself: can any woman say that while she is in love with one person, she does not get attracted to other people? Maybe it is a very repressed desire, maybe she never allows it to surface; but it is impossible not to, because there are so many beautiful people around. You have chosen only one stranger amongst many strangers.

Keep freedom as a higher value than love itself. And if it is possible -- and it is possible because it is natural -- your life will not be a misery, it will be a continuous excitement, a continuous exploration of new human beings. We are all strangers: nobody is a husband, nobody is a wife. Some idiot registrar cannot -- just by putting his seal -- make you a husband and wife. And once that idiot has put the seal, if you want to separate, you have to go to another idiot -- bigger idiots -- and wait for months or years to be separated.

Strange! -- it is your private affair; no business of any registrar, no business of any judge.

Why do you go on giving your freedom into the hands of others?

Neelam, you say, "My friends say I make myself so available that I let the man take me for granted, and I lose my self-respect." Your friends don't understand a thing -- and they are not your friends either because their advice is that of enemies.

One should make oneself absolutely available. Your friends are telling you that when your man wants to make love to you, one day say you are having a headache; another day, you are too tired; the third day, you are not in the mood... so keep the man hanging around. Don't give that much rope -- just a little rope, and a beautiful bell around his neck with your name written on it, saying, "Beware, personal property." What do you mean by "availability?" You should be available to the person you love, and if once in a while he feels to change -- enjoy. And let him go joyously. That will bring self-respect to you, and dignity.

A divorced woman, frustrated with married life, ran an ad in the local newspaper that read, "Looking for a man who won't beat me, who won't run around on me, and who is a fantastic lover."

After one week, her doorbell rings. She goes to the door, opens it, and sees no one there.

She closes the door, and is about to walk away when the bell rings again.

Opening the door once again, she sees no one there, but happens to look down and notices a man with no arms and no legs sitting on the doorstep.

"I'm here to answer your ad," he says.

The woman does not know quite what to do, what to say.

So the man continues, "As you can see, I can't beat you, and it will be impossible for me to run around on you."

"Yes, I can see that," said the woman, "but the ad also said I wanted a `fantastic lover'."

The man smiles and says, "I rang the doorbell, didn't I?"

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Golden Future