Enlightenment is none of your business

Question 1:

Dhyan Jashan, enlightenment is as far away as you are from yourself; hence the distance differs from individual to individual.

You are certainly in a difficult position: first, you are a German, and nobody has ever heard of any German becoming enlightened. Only one of my German sannyasins used to become once in a while enlightened, and again he understood, "What am I doing? It is not for me," and he dropped the idea. That happened many times. Just now I have heard that he is washing dishes in a Zorba the Buddha restaurant. The person who told me about him had asked him, "What happened? You had become enlightened...."

He said, "Forget all about it. Five times I became enlightened, and then I dropped the whole idea. I am feeling far happier washing dishes in the restaurant." What was happening was that whenever he would come here he would become unenlightened, and whenever he would go to Germany he would become enlightened. In Germany there was no question, no objection; nobody has even heard what it means, so in Germany it would be easier. Here it is a little difficult.

Secondly, you are really in a big dilemma: you are a liar! First a German, and then a liar makes things very complex -- otherwise enlightenment is as easy as nothing else in the world. Everything needs some effort, except enlightenment. Everything needs you to go somewhere, everything needs you to do some climbing the ladder -- except enlightenment.

Enlightenment is the easiest, because it is not an achievement. Don't make a goal of it...

that's what is making it difficult for you. If you are feeling good and grounded in meditation, you are perfectly in the right direction. Just get all your ocean of thoughts settled. Let it become a lake without any ripples.

You drop the idea of enlightenment -- it is none of your business. Meditation is going well; that means the tree is growing well, the flowers will be coming in their own time, in their own season. No tree is worried, no tree is concerned about why the flowers have not come yet; they always come in their own time.

All that you have to take care of is that the tree should not die, that it should be nourished, that it should have a good soil, that it should be watered, that it should have your love, your friendship. All you can do is nourish your meditation, become more and more grounded and centered. One day suddenly, from nowhere... the explosion.

You don't have to go to enlightenment; it comes to you. In fact, even that is not right to say. It does not come either; it happens -- and it happens from your innermost core. It is an explosion, just like the explosion of an atom. Atomic explosion comes from the innermost core of the atom. Enlightenment is the explosion of your innermost life center.

Suddenly all darkness is gone! A light has descended upon you from every side, and a light that needs no fuel... a light that remains, that has come forever.

Nobody can become unenlightened; that is an impossibility, that's a difficult task -- even a German cannot do that. But enlightenment becomes a problem because you go on hearing me. I am the problem. I cannot stop talking about enlightenment, and that creates the desire in you and the longing in you. Just don't listen to me! The moment I say "Enlightenment..." simply say, "It is not for us." If you can avoid...

You cannot make me feel responsible for it, because I am helpless, I will continue to talk, I cannot talk about anything else. Whatever I say suddenly turns out to be something about enlightenment. Just watch...

A priest went to a ranch in order to buy a horse, and saw a beautiful one that he liked and asked if he could try it. "Sure," said the rancher, "but I have to tell you something. That horse used to be owned by the bishop, and if you want the horse to move, you have to say, 'Good Lord,' and if you want him to stop, you have to say, 'Amen.'" "That's okay," said the priest and jumped up and said, "Good Lord." The horse promptly moved off and then was seen galloping in the mountains. The priest was yelling, "Good Lord, good Lord." and the horse was really moving.

But suddenly they were coming to the edge of the cliff and, in panic, stricken with fear, he yelled, "Stop, stop!" That did not work and then he remembered and shouted, "Amen."

The horse stopped right on the edge of the cliff and, wiping his brow with his relief, the priest said, "Good Lord!"

Do you think Gautam Buddha could have made this story in any way connected with enlightenment? But I am just incurable. I see every element in it exactly leading to enlightenment. All that you need is the last "Good Lord"... finished!

There is no hurry. You are moving slowly, gradually, you are getting grounded, becoming centered, but listening to me your desire catches fire. It starts thinking, "If meditation is so beautiful, so silent, what will enlightenment be like?" And then it becomes a constant worry and a tension. It will not help you; it will even disturb your meditation.

But you should look at my trouble also. If I don't talk about enlightenment, you are not going even to do meditation; if I talk about enlightenment, that disturbs meditation. Now you tell me the way...! So just be sane. Enlightenment comes -- I can guarantee you it comes. It is not as though it is something that has not happened to many people. You have the potential for it, but you have to understand the whole process.

In the beginning the master goes on telling you all the beauties and all the blissfulness and all the ecstasies of enlightenment. He has to -- otherwise who has time to meditate?

Television is there, football matches are going on.... The world all around is so full of idiots doing all kinds of gymnastics: boxers are boxing, actors are acting -- who has time for meditation, and for what?

If I don't talk about enlightenment, then naturally you will ask me, "Why should I meditate?" And the moment I say "Enlightenment..." trouble arises. Then your mind is habitually making everything a goal, far away. Mind enjoys challenge, and enlightenment is not a challenge.

People even want to go to Everest. When Edmund Hillary, the first man who reached on top of Everest, was asked by the news media, "Why did you take such a risky step of going to the highest peak of the Himalayas?" His answer was really beautiful, an answer with great understanding.

He said, "It is not a question of my going. It is just because Everest is there, unclimbed, and I cannot tolerate it. It is not troubling me, it has nothing to do with me, but simply the idea that it remains unclimbed... hundreds of people have died trying to climb it, and it has become a challenge. I will risk my whole life." You will not gain anything....

He reached to the top, looked all around, and felt embarrassed, because there was not even somebody to say "Hello, hi, Edmund Hillary, how are you?" -- not even a single tree, not even a single bird, not even a single animal, nothing. Just miles and miles of eternal snow which has never melted... He did not remain there for more than two minutes; what is the point? Man may go to the moon, man may go to Mars, man may go some day to some star. They are challenging to the mind. Mind is very interested in any challenge: provoke it, and it will go.

But enlightenment is not a goal, it is not Everest, it is not the moon. It is you. You don't have to go anywhere, not even out of your room. You don't have to take a single step.

You have just to be silent, unmoving, and it is there. It has always been there.

So you should understand: the problem of the master is that he has first to talk about enlightenment to create a little interest, a little longing in you, and then he has immediately to make it clear to you that you should not make your longing attached to a goal. You have to find it just within yourself. No effort, no doing, no action... nothing is needed.

Dhyan Jashan, if you can simply remain meditating and enjoying the silence and the peace of it, you have done whatever is needed on your part. Now leave enlightenment to existence. Existence is not miserly; it is not exhausted because a few people have become enlightened. There is no quota, that only so many people can become enlightened. The whole world can become enlightened, everybody has the intrinsic potential; you just have to disconnect your meditation from any goal-orientation, from any motivation. It is not difficult if you understand: just a little intelligence...

But we live in a world where intelligence is not valued, where the mediocres rule, where the mediocres are the leaders... where the intelligent people simply get out of the crowd, they don't want to be unnecessarily hassled and hustled in the crowd; they stand by the road and let the crowd pass. Once you become aware of the strangeness of the people around you, you will be surprised: how have you been missing it up to now?

Just today Neelam has brought a news which has been published by all the newspapers of India. The statement is from a man called Devahar Baba, who is worshiped by thousands of Hindus, thought to be a great saint. All his qualities for being a great saint are very peculiar. One is that for twelve years he was standing in the water day in, day out. He will eat standing up to his chest in the water, he will do everything there: that made him known nationwide, a great man. Somehow people persuaded him that "it is enough, twelve years..." Just out of compassion he came out of the river, and since then he has been sitting in a small hut made for him on a tree. These are his two qualifications for being one of the representatives of Hinduism.

His statement was just according to his qualifications. The statement was that the world can be saved, all problems can be solved, if only cow slaughter is stopped. Now his statement is being published by every newspaper without a single criticism -- but my statement will not be published by anyone. Now this is sheer stupidity, not intelligence.

How can the world's problems be solved by stopping cow slaughter? But in India it is a very common way of thinking....

Mahatma Gandhi used to think that if everybody starts spinning his own clothes, all problems will be solved. India is great in finding simple solutions! Now Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is saying that if people start learning yogic hopping, which he calls yogic flying, all problems will be solved. There will be peace, serenity, no war, no hunger.

And I am amazed that nobody criticizes them, nobody holds them by the neck and tells them, "You idiot!..." The world is suffering with so many complex problems, and you are suggesting that somebody sitting in the lotus posture, hopping, will solve all the problems. Nuclear weapons will disappear, communism will not be against capitalism, the Soviet Union will become a democracy, America will distribute all its wealth to the poor, the West will distribute all its products to the poor countries -- just because a few idiots are sitting in the lotus posture and hopping. I cannot even conceive in my dream...

Perhaps that's why I have stopped dreaming for thirty years. I have not dreamt for thirty years -- what to dream? And if you call these people idiots, immediately somebody's religious feeling is hurt. Immediately an arrest warrant... I have been summoned thousands of times -- I have even forgotten the number -- and how many times have they issued arrest warrants for the single reason that I have made some reasonable statement?

It is a very unreasonable, almost insane world in which you are living. If you can manage just to meditate, you have done more than is expected of the contemporary man. And your meditation is going good. Just go on saying, "Good Lord!" In meditation there never comes any cliff. You don't have to remember "Amen" -- there is no need.

Meditation slowly, slowly turns into your enlightenment. You suddenly become aware one day, Where is that darkness? where is that continuous rush of thoughts? where has the mind gone? Suddenly you are absolutely as hollow as a bamboo; but your hollowness is not empty -- it is full of joy and full of rejoicing. You will dance for no reason at all, you will sing for no reason at all, songs that you have not composed, dances that you have not learned. They are just bubbling spontaneously in your consciousness.

That is enlightenment, but don't make it a goal.

Meditation is enough.

Everything else follows on its own.

Question 2:

Dhyan Smita, when I said, "Let sex be your meditation," did you do it? When I was talking about TANTRA VISION, what did you do about it?

It seems my work is talking and your work is listening, and then finding out contradictions -- what I said yesterday, what I said the day before yesterday...

You get puzzled because you don't do anything. If you had done sex as your meditation, the question about sex and meditation as two interests would not have arisen. Now the question has arisen that you have two interests. That means my first statement has not been heard. And I am not a person to remember what I have said yesterday; I don't know even what I have said today -- otherwise I will be in the same boat as you are, puzzled!

I go on making as many contradictions as possible without any puzzlement. It doesn't matter. I must have said to somebody, "Let sex be your meditation." His question must have been different, the person must have been different. It would have been possible for him to make sex his meditation.

But the person who has asked, "I have only two interests in life -- sex and meditation," cannot deceive me, whoever he is. I may not know him, but his question gives me absolute perception of his innermost being. His only interest is sex. Meditation he is putting in just to make the question look religious.

I cannot say to this person, "Let sex be your meditation." I can say to this person, "Let meditation be your sex" -- and that's what I have said. First get finished with sex, have it as much as you want -- because meditation can be done even when you will not be able to go into sex.

You can always go into meditation to the very last moment of your life -- it can be postponed. But you cannot rely on whether tomorrow sex will be possible or not. It is not within your hands; it comes on its own at a certain age, and at a certain age it disappears.

Then people are talking about it and thinking about it -- which is perfectly good, but there is no sex at all. It is all cerebral, in the mind. And sex in the mind is the problem, not sex as a generative force.

I want to tell you that in the mind these two things, sex and meditation, cannot exist together. Sex is pulling you downwards, and meditation is pulling you upwards.

A thief was caught and brought to the court. He had not stolen anything, but some drama was going on in the house, and he forgot completely for what he had come there. And he enjoyed the drama so much that he was caught. The court asked him, "Why did you remain the whole night, and not steal anything? For what have you entered? You are a well-known thief."

He had been to jail many times, and it was the same judge. He said, "I know you perfectly well, but this is strange, something new. You have not stolen anything, and still you remained inside the house the whole night."

The thief said, "These things we can discuss later on. First I want Your Honor to make it absolutely clear to me that one punishment you will not give me. You can send me to the gallows... but don't tell me to be married to two women."

The magistrate said, "What nonsense are you talking? There is no punishment like that."

He said, "Then it is perfectly okay. That is the problem. I had gone into the house to steal.... But the man has two wives, and one lives on the first floor, one lives on the ground floor. The man was being pulled by one upwards and by the other downwards.

And it was such a funny scene -- one was pulling him by his hairs, the other was pulling by his legs -- that I forgot completely for what I had come there.

"I enjoyed it so much that I started giggling, and that's how I got caught. If I had remained silent there was no problem, I would have escaped very easily. But the poor man... that's why I said to you from the very beginning, 'Just don't give me that punishment!' One woman is enough, two women are too much."

The man who is saying, "Sex and meditation are my two interests..." if I say to him, "Yes, go ahead," he will be torn apart. Sex will give him continuous downward gravitation and meditation will try to pull him out of the hands, the chains and the forces of gravitation that pull you down.

Meditation is a way to open your wings and fly into the sky. It does not believe in gravitation. You cannot have both.

So always remember: if I am saying something, do it. You are not here as my examiners so that you have to find out what contradictions I have been telling you. But people take such self-appointed positions....

Now Sarjano has written a letter to me. He goes on writing stupid letters almost every day. Just because last night, when I went out, Avirbhava was on the outside door to open the car... And I have my own way of relating to people; I scare her, and she is so innocent, she gets scared -- at least she pretends. She never disappoints me, "No..." Who is Sarjano to write to me, "I cannot forgive you that you scare simple Avirbhava." Now, who is he?

I used to think that Swabhav is in charge of the ashram... has there been some change?

Sarjano is neither in charge of the ashram, nor is Sarjano a guardian to Avirbhava, nor is Sarjano my boss. So who gives him all these appointments? He cannot forgive me! -- and who has asked him that he should forgive me? I will not ask even God himself to forgive me. Even if I can manage to forgive God, that will be enough. For this whole stupid idea that is going on all around, God is responsible -- if he is still alive. And the day I am going to encounter him is going to be really the last judgment day!

But who are you to judge me, in my own place, amongst my own people? First he was a disciple; it seems now he has become my master.

Dhyan Smita, I will read your question again to make it clear so that you never repeat such stupid ideas again. You have not done anything, whatever I have said; you are just listening and waiting to find contradictions. What will you get out of it? It is a well- known thing that only idiots are not contradictory; they are absolutely consistent.

It needs a little intelligence to be inconsistent, and it needs immense intelligence to be contradictory. Why does it need immense intelligence? -- because unless you can prove your contradictions are complementaries of an organic unity, you don't have the right to make any contradictions. I have never made any contradiction, because I can prove to you each contradiction has its own function in the organic whole where opposites meet and merge and mingle into one unity.

You are not supposed to be here to bother about these things. But this is how people are.

Somebody is worried....

Just today there was an article by Vijayanand. Eight years before he left me; in these eight years so much water has gone down the Ganges, and so many idiots have come and gone here that I cannot remember the names of all of them. Now he goes on writing articles against me, and today's article I was amazed at. What are his objections? He left me because a man who has ninety-three Rolls Royces, dozens of watches, cannot be enlightened.

But he left me in '78, when I had not yet gone to America -- and the reason why he left me was still to happen five years afterwards! He seems to be an astrologer or a palmist or a prophet. And he should know that those cars did not belong to me: I have never looked back at what happened to those cars, I have never bothered to enquire of anybody what happened to those cars.

Here I am a guest, I don't possess anything; whatever my people provide me I use. If they stop providing me even clothes, I will still be delivering lectures, naked! It does not matter.

All those ninety-three cars were not mine. I had never had -- or for almost thirty-five years, even touched -- money. I don't have any pockets to keep it; I dropped having pockets thirty-five years ago. I don't have any bank account. Perhaps I may be the only man in the world who can be called the richest poor man -- richest because I am loved by my people so much that what more do you need. People accumulate money because they are afraid no one is going to take care of them. I'm not worried; I know there are millions of people who would like to take care of me.

Why should I bother having a bank account and paying income tax? I have not paid any income tax to anybody, I have never purchased a ticket in thirty-five years. Somebody purchases it... somebody keeps it... I don't know. I don't know who has my passport, or even whether it exists or not!

I depend on my love, and I trust that love will manage things. And if it does not manage, that too is okay.

Vijayanand does not know that the commune we had managed in America was no ordinary commune -- perhaps the greatest commune that has ever existed in the whole history. Sannyasins from all over the world had put at least three hundred million dollars into the commune. They were not my property... I am giving him the whole list, so for his next article he will be able to prove that "this type of man cannot be enlightened."

The commune had one hundred and twenty-six square miles of land -- that should be mentioned as my property. The commune had one hundred more cars as well as ninety- three Rolls Royces; they should also be included -- make it one hundred and ninety-three.

The commune had also one hundred buses, twenty of them were fully air-conditioned -- that should also be included in my property. The commune had five airplanes -- that should be also included. The commune had its own cranes, its own tractors, all kinds of construction instruments, road-making mechanisms -- it should all be included. Why only ninety-three Rolls Royces? -- why make me poor? It had houses for five thousand people to live in, and it had temporary houses for twenty thousand people, ready any time to be erected. But do you think all that was my property? Do you think anything here is my property?

But these hungry, starving, greedy, sexually repressed Indians, but pretending to be spiritual, are worried unnecessarily. If I am not worried -- and I have never gone to see the garage where those ninety-three Rolls Royces were. The director of that garage is here, and I have been telling him, "I will be coming some day" -- but I knew and he knew that I would be the last person to come there.

He made a beautiful place and he kept those cars with care, with such care that the president of Rolls Royce himself had come to see and was amazed. He said, "The cars, the way you are keeping them -- even we are not keeping our new cars with such care."

Now all those cars are being exhibited in the great cities of America, on television, because one of the sannyasins had painted almost thirty cars in psychedelic colors. All those thirty cars have been purchased by some oil king in the Middle East.

... But nothing belonged to me. I have never looked backwards.

Why should these idiots be interested that I had ninety-three Rolls Royces? They want to prove that if a man has ninety-three Rolls Royces he cannot be enlightened -- that is the rationale of the whole article. If that is true, then Vijayanand has to answer that if Krishna can be a perfect incarnation of God with sixteen thousand wives, what is the problem with ninety-three Rolls Royces? -- at least they are not sex objects. If Krishna and Rama and Parusram, Hindu gods, could have golden chariots, solid gold, and still be gods, what is wrong in having ninety-three Rolls Royces?

And they were not mine at all. It is a strange thing that the whole news media goes on insisting that those cars were owned by me. If those cars were owned by me, then those cars should be here. The government of America has no right to my cars.

Those watches were not mine. Now they are going to... They have exhibited first those watches all over America. One cannot think governments and politicians can be so ugly:

in the first place not returning those watches to the commune -- because it was commune property. If it was my property I could have claimed it; but it was not my property, so naturally I cannot claim anything. And now they are auctioning those watches on the sixteenth in Christie's in New York.

Vijayanand is trying to prove that I am not enlightened. But that should not trouble him....

Even if I am not enlightened, I am not a problem to him: I don't harass him, I don't haunt him. But for eight years continuously he has not been here, and he has been haunted by me. He seems to be something of a nutcase. He should just look into the Hindu scriptures, full of pornography; he should look at the highest Hindu trinity of gods: all have wives, and all are so infatuated with women that even to call them gods is simply nonsense.

When Shiva's wife died -- he was one of the trinity -- he proved himself almost to be an insane man. I will not call him a god; I will not call him even a sane man, because for twelve years he carried the dead body of his wife all around the country in search of some physician who may be able to cure her of death. Now, any idiot knows nobody is cured of death; death is not a disease, it has no medicine. This man must have been insane. Even ordinary people have more sanity. But these people are gods, they are enlightened by their very birth!

One should always remember: people who live in glass houses should not throw stones at anybody else. I can destroy their whole Hindu mythology without any effort. It just needs exposure -- it is so full of bullshit.

And as far as I am concerned, I have declared myself to have gone beyond enlightenment just to get rid of all these idiots. So now there is no problem for them -- I have already gone beyond. They don't have to be worried about me. I have left enlightenment also far behind. I am just an ordinary man.

But something goes on hurting their egos. What hurts these people? -- my silence? my love? my blissfulness? Everything hurts them, because everything shows that they are living in gutters, and they don't know the flight of an eagle in the sky across the sun.

But when I find people here too behaving that way, then certainly I start thinking that I committed a mistake by becoming enlightened. I could have lived at ease without any idiot telling me that he cannot forgive me... and I have not done anything to him.

I will tell Avirbhava to find this Sarjano; he needs to apologize to Avirbhava. It is just out of my love, and everybody knows it: whenever I see her, I like to scare her a little -- and she enjoys it. Many times I wanted to pass without scaring her, and I felt, "No, it is not good, because she will be expecting it and I am going without doing it. It is inhuman...."

But what Sarjano has the right to say any such thing to me?

You should be completely aware here.

If you are here, you are here to learn something, not to teach. First become capable of teaching something, then people will come to you. But don't try to impose yourself and appoint yourself as a judge.

This man Vijayanand had come to the ashram just to hide, and out of my compassion I allowed him. Otherwise I would have told him, "Just get lost. There is no place for you here"... because of what he had done. He was in love with his sister's daughter, which is absolutely against Hindu culture, Hindu religion, Indian mind -- and it is also wrong hygienically, scientifically, medically.

I support the Hindu idea because not only is it morally wrong, it is scientifically wrong to be married with such a close relationship. Your sister's daughter is your daughter: to be married to your daughter... That's why he had left Bombay -- because he was harassed and tortured by his family and by others: "What are you doing...?"

I gave him shelter -- that was my fault -- I told him he could remain here, nobody would bother here. Perhaps he has not been able to forgive me because I know the secret, and I know the real reason was not any spirituality, not any meditation, nothing but a shelter.

He has not been able to forgive me; otherwise, for eight years continuously he goes on writing for no reason. This is for the first time... I thought it is better to say something, because this idiot is not going to stop without hammering his skull as hard as possible.

And what did he do here? Out of fear he sent his sister's daughter to England, because the whole family was against, and the whole community where he lived and the whole industry -- he is a director in the film industry -- was against. All his brothers are famous actors, directors -- they were all against. So he sent the girl away, and here he married another girl just to cool things down, so the Bombay people start thinking, "Now the problem is finished, he has married a girl." And that was a pure deception, an ugly, inhuman behavior.

He married the girl just to cool down the heat that was against him; and once the heat was cooled down he dropped the girl. He called the girl whom he really wanted to marry, his own sister's daughter, and he married her -- he committed bigamy too. The girl he married belonged to a very high-class family in Delhi. She had come here to meditate, but got infatuated with the idea.... He bribed her, he blackmailed her by telling her that he was a director -- and he is a director, and a good director -- that he will make her a heroine in his films.

This idea was the bribe, so she was immediately ready to marry him. He got married to her, and after the marriage he sent her back to her home in Delhi saying, "I will come and take you back...." He never went there. On the contrary, the mother of the girl came to me saying, "We don't want this third-rate man to be married to our daughter." They were very rich people; the daughter's father was ambassador in Russia. She said, "If her father comes to know, he will kill me. She is my one and only child."

I said, "I will try." But there was no need to try. Vijayanand escaped from here. He married the other girl, and because the first marriage was not registered, he simply went to the priest who had married them, bribed him, and burnt the marriage certificate. So without a divorce he has married his own sister's daughter.

Now all this only I know. That is the wound that he is carrying against me. I have never told anybody.... But he has been insisting for eight years continuously; now comes the limit. Now I expose him. The family of the girl that he has deceived remains silent, because they do not want to create any stir. The father was a politician and an ambassador, and even to bring it to the court would have condemned the girl and would have created trouble for the family, for her marriage. It was already silent... because Vijayanand got married again, and he denied that he had married the first girl -- because he had burnt the certificate.

Knowing that I am the only person who can expose him hurts, he goes on and on writing against me, for no reason, just to create a defense around himself. I was not going to attack him: I know human stupidity, I know human insanity, I know human frailty and weakness and I have every compassion for it.

But I will not tolerate anybody here in the commune behaving as if he owns the space. If ever again I get any letter like this, you will be turned out of the door. Whoever he is -- because he seems to be very tricky -- one letter he writes which is absolutely ugly, then another letter he writes praising me, and great poetry and great gratefulness... this Italian spaghetti cunningness will not do here!

Dhyan Smita, you are saying, "When you were talking about sex and meditation the other evening I got mixed up." The statement looks as if you were trying to do what I had said before; otherwise, why should you get mixed up? What got mixed up? -- sex and meditation?

What got mixed up? Just one thought that you had heard before and another thought that you have heard now -- only two thoughts. But this place is not for thinking; this place is for going beyond thinking. And if you had meditated, there would have been no mix-up.

You are saying, "So often before I have heard you say..." So often! -- you are saying exactly the same as the German sannyasin was doing: so often he became enlightened!

"So often before I have heard you say: 'Let your sex be your meditation.'" What have you done about it? Today I want to say to you, Let your meditation be your sex -- no other sex, just meditation.

"Also, how do your latest suggestions fit into the Tantra Visions?" Who bothers? -- when I was talking on Tantra you did not listen. Now I'm talking on other things, you are not listening. Tomorrow I may not be talking about the same things: are you going just to listen?

As far as I am concerned I have never contradicted myself. Certainly when I speak on Tantra, I speak not as a scholar on Tantra or about Tantra; I speak as an insider who knows what Tantra is. When I speak on meditation, I don't speak about meditation; I speak about my experience of meditation.

Whatever I speak, I never speak without the support of my own experience, and in my experience there is no problem: the Tantra vision, meditation, sex, enlightenment -- all come into one single organic unity.

But that does not mean... According to you, do you want me to say everything every day the same? Then what is the need for me to be here? Just a tape recorder will do.

I am not a tape recorder. I am a living human being, growing continuously, and according to my growth my answers will grow, will become different, have different colors, will have more depth, will have new angles, new dimensions. I am not a system maker; I am simply an explorer of the whole field of consciousness.

So I will make all kinds of statements. Whichever suits you, do it. Don't be worried about my being contradictory, because that is my problem. If I am contradictory you are not going to be responsible for it. I will arrange on the last judgment day with God, who is contradictory: am I contradictory or is he contradictory? But that is my problem. God will not ask you about my contradictions, he will ask about your life, how you have lived it -- have you lived it at all?

Always remember it as a criterion: if there is a God and on the final judgment day he asks you, What is in your hands? -- they will be just empty. You will not have even a few flowers to offer him, because your concerns are all absolutely unnecessary, irrelevant.

Your concerns should be absolutely just you, and nobody else.

First solve your own Gordian knot, first cut yourself asunder, first explode your own potentiality; and then you have the right to advise, you have the right to say something about these great things -- meditation or Tantra or enlightenment. Right now you don't have in any way, any right at all, to say anything.

Do something! Be something! Then your very being will resolve many problems that right now you feel are great problems. You think this is a great problem, and you say, "I am puzzled." Why should you be puzzled? I should be puzzled, it is my contradiction, not yours. But I am not puzzled... nothing puzzles me.

A man was on safari in Africa, but he lost his guide and wandered deep into the jungle.

Suddenly he was surrounded by hostile natives. He was at a loss what to do. But then he remembered a trick he had seen in an old movie.

He dug into his pocket, pulled out his cigarette lighter, flicked it once and a big flame popped up.

"It is a miracle," shouted the chief, collapsing to his knees. "I have never seen a lighter that worked first time."

If you can enjoy me, that is enough. If you can celebrate me, that is enough.

A traveling salesman, staying overnight in a hotel, found a BIBLE by his bed. On the front page was this inscription: "If you are sick, read page forty-two. If you are worried about your family, read page sixty-eight. If you are lonely, read page ninety-two."

He was lonely, so he opened to page ninety-two and read it. When he had finished he noticed on the bottom of the page the hand-written words: "If you are still lonely, call

I call this kind of BIBLE really holy: this is the service of the poor, of the lonely, of the lost.

Here, you are to rejoice. This is not an academical institute; it is just a divinely mad communion of people who know how to love, how to laugh, how to sing, how to dance.

And you bring academic questions, that I said something and now I am saying something else....

If you go on looking that way you will simply waste your life, because I will go on saying anything every day. But whatever I say is relevant to somebody. If you watch carefully, you should choose whatever is relevant to you, and not only keep it in your memory, but materialize into a realization.

Just a joke to make this silence deeper.... First experience this silence, so that after the laughter you can experience the deepness of it... how laughter can make silence deeper, how laughter can make love deeper, how laughter can make meditation deeper. But first, feel it....

A traveling salesman was passing through a small town in Virginia when he saw a little old man sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of his house. The little man looked so contented that the salesman could not resist going over and talking to him.

"You look as if you don't have a care in the world," the salesman said, "what is your formula for a long and happy life?"

"Well," replied the little old man, "I smoke six packs of cigars a day, I drink, I enjoy a large bottle of whiskey every four hours, and six cases of beer a week. I play the guitar and I go out chasing women every night."

"My goodness," exclaimed the salesman. "That's just great! And how old are you?"

The little man took the cigarette out of his mouth and said, "Twenty-five."

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here