Allow him to reach you

The first question:

Question 1:

Prem Puneeta,

LOVE is a small death, and death is great love. They are not two things. Love is a small wave in the ocean of death. Hence people are afraid of love too, as much as they are afraid of death.

People only pretend the game of love, they don't go into it. They keep a distance from any deep commitment, from any total involvement, because if you really go very close in the world of love, the flame of love is going to burn your ego.

People love - at least they pretend, they believe that they love - because life without love is meaningless. If they don't love life is meaningless; if they really love the ego disappears. Hence they make a compromise: they go only so far. They don't go to the deepest core of it, they only touch the surface. They cannot remain without it; without it they are utterly futile. Then life is a desert with no significance, no song. Then life is utterly futile - you only vegetate, you don't really love, you don't really live. Loving and living are synonymous.

So people have to at least play the game of love; that keeps them involved. But they don't really go into it. They keep out of it, because if they really go into it then the ego disappears. Then they are no more, then God is.

The experience of orgasm, of deep orgasmic joy, is the first experience of God. God comes when two lovers meet and merge into each other. When two are no more two, when that union happens, God penetrates you. Then the beyond comes to the earth, the sky meets the earth.

But rarely are you in an orgasmic unity; rarely are you so much in tune with the other that you are ready to sacrifice your ego. In fact, you go on doing the contrary: your love is also an ornament for your ego; your love is also a new treasure to strengthen the ego, to gratify the ego. Rather than destroying it, your games about love go on nourishing But Puneeta, your insight is absolutely right: love can only give you glimpses. If you allow the ego to disappear, love will make you available to something of the unknown. Love will teach you how to die; love is the first lesson of death. Death is the crescendo of love, the highest peak. Those who know how to love know how to die. Their death is not an end; it is a beginning, it is a birth, it is moving into the divine. It is transcending the human and entering the superhuman. It is transcending the mortal and entering into the immortal. Death is a portal, a door.

But death is a door only if you have learned the lesson through love. Love is the school that prepares you for death. Love and life are synonymous: if you love you live. If you love and live you become capable of dying.

Millions of people die, but without being capable of dying. They die in unconsciousness. Then death simply takes them back into another body; then death simply helps them to enter into another womb.

And the whole wheel starts moving again, the same repetitive wheel.

Those who die consciously... And love makes you utterly conscious. Love makes you alert, because love is light. It dispels all darkness, all unconsciousness. It becomes a lamp inside you. And if you have that lamp, death has a totally different quality: it is not death at all; it is life abundant, it is life infinite, it is life divine, it is life eternal.

Yes, Puneeta, you are right: "LOVING THE MASTER - LOVE ONLY GIVES US GLIMPSES OF WHAT DEATH CAN MAKE US SEE. IS THIS NOT SO?"

It is so, but it is only love that will prepare you. The greater the love, the greater is the preparation.

Hence one has to remain grateful forever towards all that love has contributed - and not only the love for the Master. Even loving a tree or a rock or an animal or your woman, your man, your child, even these loves prepare you for the great love that happens between the disciple and the Master.

All your loves are involved in it, implied in it.

Love towards the Master is the whole spectrum of love. The way you have loved your woman will be there, the way you have loved your man will be there, the way you have loved your mother will be there, and the way you have loved your child will be there. The way you have loved music, the way you have loved poetry, painting, dancing, all your loves, the whole multiplicity of loves, all the dimensions of love, will join together. Between the Master and the disciple, love comes to its whole spectrum. It becomes the whole rainbow, all the seven colors. And that love will prepare you for the ultimate quantum leap, death.

In the ancient scriptures, the Master is defined as death. You will be surprised: ancient scriptures say ACHARYO MRITYU, the Master is death. If you have known the Master, you are coming closer and closer to death. Coming very close to the Master is coming closer to the ultimate death. One day the disciple and the Master both disappear.

The Master has already disappeared. The Master is the person who has attained to nothingness.

The Master is one who is already dead, who is no more, who is just an absolute emptiness. If you come close to the Master... And that's what disciplehood means: coming closer and closer to somebody who is no more. And of course, to come closer to somebody who is no more is going to destroy your ego utterly. One day, through the Master, you taste your first experience of death.

Hence people avoid living Masters, because living Masters are nothing but death. People love dead Masters because they cannot do anything to you. It is beautiful to worship Buddha, it is very, very convenient to worship Jesus, it is difficult to come close to me. It was difficult to come close to Buddha too when he was alive. Remember the paradox: when Buddha is alive he is death, hence the fear. When Buddha is dead then there is no problem - you can worship, you can hold the statue of Buddha close to your heart. Now the Buddha is just a toy, he is in your hands. He cannot destroy your ego; in fact, your ego will use him. Even Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, are used by the ego to become stronger.

Only a living Master is fire enough, flame enough, to bum you totally, utterly, absolutely. SATSANG, to be with the Master, is the ultimate in love and the beginning of death.

Puneeta, your insight is beautiful, a gift of your meditativeness, of your love for me, of your love for the commune. Go on moving in the same direction. Don't go astray. Many fears will arise. Many times the mind will say, "Go back! It is too dangerous." Don't listen to the mind, listen to the heart.

The heart knows what is right, the heart feels what is right.

It is a feeling; that's why you don't know: "I don't know for what, towards what." The movement is happening. You cannot know it, but you can feel; the feeling is there. And one day the feeling becomes knowing.

When feeling becomes knowing, one has become enlightened. Knowledge is not real knowing.

When feeling becomes knowing one is enlightened. The moment feeling becomes knowing, there is no distinction between being and knowing, that is called wisdom. Then your heart starts pouring not only your joy, not only your songs, but your wisdom too. That's how all the great scriptures were born.

Mohammed was an ignorant person, illiterate, but when it happened - this knowing, this feeling, this being happened - when he managed to die in the love of God, this illiterate, ignorant person started pouring immensely beautiful verses. The Koran has tremendous beauty, simplicity and beauty both together. It is not complex. It has the beauty of the roses, the stars. It has the music of the birds, and the wind passing through the pine trees, and the sound of running water. And it came out of a man who never knew how to read, how to write, who had no knowledge but who had a heart. In fact, because he had no knowledge it was easy for him to feel, and it was easy for him to dive deep into feeling, so deep that he touched the very rock-bottom of being.

And this is how Jesus speaks. His prose is not prose, it is poetry. There is no comparison. Jesus' statements have such poetry in them, they are incomparable; so are Buddha's. They are all unique in their own ways. They are peaks, different peaks reaching beyond the clouds. But one thing is exactly the same: they are rooted in the same experience. The experience is not of knowledge; the experience first is of feeling and then is of being.

Go on moving in the same direction, unafraid. That's why I am here with you - to help you. That's what sannyas is all about, Puneeta. When dangers arise and when your mind may start thinking of escaping, I have to keep you, I have to hold you. I have to go on pushing you, I have to go on persuading you. And if you can listen, and if you can gather courage, and if you can go through this dark night of the soul, the dawn is not far away. In fact, when the night is the darkest, the dawn is the closest.

The second question:

Question 2:

Zareen,

THERE is a hierarchy of needs, and you cannot bypass any step. If you bypass any step you will have to come back to it again. Life has an intrinsic logic in it. Each step has its own place, and you cannot miss a single step. Otherwise the chain will be broken and your life will become discontinuous, your life will become a chaos.

There is a hierarchy of needs: body, mind, soul, God.

First the bodily needs have to be fulfilled. If they are not fulfilled you will not have higher needs arising - impossible. The hungry person cannot think of music. If you start playing on the guitar before a hungry person, there is every possibility that he may retaliate in anger. He may throw your guitar, he may break your guitar, because it is insulting, it is humiliating.

Once Vivekananda was asked in America, "Why have you to teach here? Why don't you teach in India?"

He said, "Here I can talk about Vedanta, the ultimate truth. But in India, seeing people hungry, I feel ashamed of talking about God, ultimate realization. It is insulting to those poor people. They need bread."

Jesus is right when he says man cannot live by bread alone, but this is only a half-statement. The other half has not to be forgotten: man cannot live without bread either. And in fact, the bread is very fundamental, your body is very fundamental. If your body is ill, hungry, in pain, you cannot compose poetry, you cannot paint, or even if you paint your painting will remain that of suffering. If you compose music your music will be nothing but your cry, your scream. If you write poetry your poetry will be political. Your poetry will not be poetry at all but slogans. The bodily needs have to be fulfilled first. Yes, don't get stuck there.

That has to be remembered, Zareen: the children have to be helped to go beyond the body, but you cannot bypass it. They have to be helped to know the joys of the mind, the beauties of the mind - art, poetry, painting, music; great joys of the mind. When they are fulfilled then the third need arises, the needs of the soul. Then meditation becomes important.

Only a person who has lived deeply in music is capable of meditation, because music prepares the background, creates the space, the context, in which meditation becomes simple. And the person whose soul-needs are fulfilled, whose meditation-needs are fulfilled, will be able to pray.

Prayer is the fragrance of the flower of meditation. That is the ultimate.

Zareen, you say, " WOULD IT NOT MAKE MATTERS MUCH SIMPLER TO SOMEHOW IMPRESS UPON OUR YOUNG ONES TO BEGIN WITH GOD?"

That's what people have been doing, that's what you have been doing, that's what has been done down the ages. Children are being impressed upon to begin with God, and they cannot begin, because all the three steps of the temple are missing and they cannot enter into the temple. Those steps are very much needed. That's why our temples have become false. Our temples are arbitrary, artificial. Our temples are mind creations - with good intentions, of course.

Now Zareen is asking with a good intention - to help the children. But this is not the way to help, this is the way to hinder. That's how people have become irreligious: Christians they are, Mohammedans they are, Parsees they are, Hindus they are, but not religious.

We have created artificial gods. We had to create artificial gods because our own needs are not grown up.

To contact the REAL God these things cannot be done in a hurried way. These things are not like seasonal flowers; these are great trees, cedars of Lebanon - they take hundreds of years to grow.

Lives are nothing; time is not the question at all. And one should go very scientifically.

First, fulfill the needs of the body. And what do we do?we condemn the body. Rather than fulfilling the needs, rather than helping a child to enjoy the joys of the body, we condemn the body. The body has many joys of its own: the joy of running, the joy of surfing, the joy of swimming, the joy of jogging, the joy of climbing a mountain. Those are all physical joys, of tremendous value. When one is climbing a mountain alone, the body has a thrill of its own, its ecstasy.

Teach the child first the bodily ecstasy. Let him dance as totally as possible, so he can have a feel of his own body. There are millions of people who don't have any feel of their own body. They use the body just like a mechanical device around them, but they don't have a feel for it. They live in the body, but they are not bridged with the body. They don't know the joys of the body.

The children first have to be taught the physical joys. Help them to climb the trees, help them to run, help them to swim, help them to dance, help them to do physical yoga, hatha yoga, so they can have a feel of their bodies, so their bodies can be felt as alive phenomena - not something dead around them, not something disconnected, not like a machine to be used - so that they can have a respect for the body, love for the body, so their bodies can become sacred temples.

And then don't be in a hurry. The next step has to be taken very slowly. The movement from the body to the mind has to be very, very delicate, because you are moving from the gross to the subtle.

And the movement cannot be very direct; it has to be very indirect. Slowly, slowly let the child know about music, poetry. Let the child know about great paintings, architecture. Let the child enjoy the exercise of his mind.

And then when the child is ready, when he has fulfilled his mind needs, help him to meditate. And nothing has to be done in haste. Let everything ripen, help everything to become mature. Just remember one thing: that the child should not get stuck anywhere. There are many who have become stuck at the body, the physical pleasure; then sex remains their center of life. There are many who have got stuck in the mind; then thinking, philosophizing, logic, and the joys of thinking and philosophizing and logic, remain for their whole lives. These people are half-grown people.

Before the child gets stuck somewhere, push him to the further level, to the further plane. Help him to meditate.

And only after meditation is prayer possible, because only one who has learned to experience his soul can experience the universal soul. If you cannot know your own soul, how can you know the soul of the whole universe? If you cannot look deep into the drop of water, how can you see into the ocean? Impossible! Prayer is the ultimate fragrance.

But what happens, Zareen, is that we start teaching children prayer; that's where we go wrong. We start teaching them about God. The question has not arisen yet in their hearts and we start stuffing them with answers. They have not asked yet about God - they are not worried about God, that is not their concern - and we go on implanting ideas in their minds. In their immature minds we go on giving them conditions, indoctrination, philosophies, which will remain just a baggage, a burden.

They will be Christians and Hindus and Mohammedans, but they will not be religious, never. In fact, because of your indoctrination they will hate you, and they will hate your gods, and they will hate your temples, and they will hate your priests. Although they will formally go to the church on Sunday and formally they will go to the priest to be married, this will be simply a formal thing because it is the accepted form in the society. But deep down they hate, deep down they have no love for all this.

Parents have been trying to help their children to become religious without becoming aware that they themselves are not religious yet. Zareen, do you really know that God is? You have become concerned about the children: this may be just a way of escaping from your own problem. Do you know God is? Have you felt God yourself?

If you have felt, if you have known God, this question would not arise, because then you would have seen that there is a logical sequence of growth - the body, the mind, the soul, and ultimately God.

You cannot bypass any step. And if you bypass, something will remain missing, and there is EVERY possibility that you will have to come back to the missing part again.

Let every part of your being be saturated, contented, so there is no need to look backwards and one can go ahead and ahead and ahead.

The third question:

Question 3:

Prabhudas,

IT IS not your personal question, it is almost universal. All men are afraid of women, and all women are afraid of men - because all people are afraid of love. The fear is of love. Hence man is afraid of woman because she is the object of love, and women are afraid of men because they are the object of their love.

We are afraid of love because Love is a small death. Love requires that we should surrender, and we don't want to surrender at all. We would like the OTHER to surrender, we would like the other to be a slave. But the same is the desire from the other side: man wants the woman to be a slave; and of course the woman also wants the same, the SAME desire is there. Their methods of enslaving each other may be different, but the desire is the same.

Man's methods are crude, the woman's methods are more subtle. If the man wants to destroy the freedom of the woman, he may beat the woman. If the woman wants to destroy the man's freedom, she may beat herself - and that is far more effective, remember! She may cry and weep... that is far more clever too; that leaves the man absolutely indefensible. If you hit somebody the other can retaliate, react. The other can also hit you, or at least can defend. But if you hit yourself, then the other cannot do anything. The other is simply defenseless, the other is simply defeated.

So men only THINK that they are the masters in the house, the women know far better. But they never declare their mastery. In fact, they need not declare it because it is so certain. Man has to declare because he is uncertain, hesitant. And the woman always agrees with him that, "Yes, you are the master." She can afford to agree; she knows far better.

It is very rare to find a husband who is not henpecked. In fact, to be a husband means to be henpecked, because I have not yet come across a husband who is not henpecked! The word is superfluous,'husband' is enough, because the ways of the feminine mind are so subtle that the cruder ways of man never succeed.

It is said about a king that one day he was talking with ministers, and the conversation moved to the perennial subject, man/woman. And somebody said, "In your court everybody is henpecked."

The king was offended. He said, "This cannot be so!"

But the man insisted. He said, "Not only in your court - in your whole capital you cannot find a single man who is not henpecked."

The king was offended. Immediately he called one of his most wise men, gave him two horses, one black, one white, the most precious ones, and told him, "Take these two horses, and whoever you are convinced is not henpecked, let him choose one. If he wants the black he can choose the black, or the white. Give it to him as a gift."

The wise man went. Days passed, weeks passed and months passed, and he tried in every way but he could not find anyone. Finally he came upon a very strong man in a hilly place; he had never seen such a man. He was just sitting outside, sunning himself. The wise man was impressed. He said, "Here is the man who must be the master of his house."

He asked him, "Who is the master of the house? Be true!"

The man simply showed his fists and his muscles. They were so big that even the wise man became afraid. And the big man said, "Just look at my muscles! What do you think? Who else can be the master of this house?"

And the wise man asked, "Where is your wife?" She was a very lean and thin woman; this man could have killed her at any moment, could have just crushed her with his fists. She was working in a corner, cooking something. He said, "That is my wife."

The wise man was absolutely satisfied that this must be the master. He said, "So you can choose:

the king has said you can choose the white or the black horse, either, whichever you want."

And the man looked at the woman and said, "Lalou's mother, which one should I choose?"

And the wise man said, "You don't get either! If Lalou's mother is going to decide, finished!"

That lean, thin woman was going to decide.

This is the situation. Man tries in his ways, somehow, to possess the woman; the woman tries to possess the man. The woman is afraid because man can be physically violent. The man is afraid because the woman is psychologically very very clever, very very powerful.

You ask me, Prabhudas, "WHY AM I AFRAID OF WOMEN?"

You are afraid of love; you are afraid of losing your ego. You are asking a wrong question. And remember always: the mind tries many times to give you a wrong question. A little twist, a little turn, and the question becomes wrong.

Now you ask, "WHY AM I AFRAID OF WOMEN?"

The question seems to be perfectly right; it is not. You should have asked: why am I afraid of love?

and then it would have been right. It is a wrong question. But many times we ask a wrong question, thinking that it is right.

Before you decide to ask a question, meditate over it. Look from all the aspects. Sleep on it for a few days so that it becomes more and more true - because if you ask a true question my answer will be of immense help to you. But if your question' is wrong in the first place, then my answer cannot be of any help. Be straight, be down to earth! And don't be in a hurry to ask; meditate over the question from all possible sides. First try to find your own answers. Do your homework first, and then you will be able to ask the right question. In fact, to ask the right question is almost half the answer.

The story is told about a Russian who came to a Welsh village to contact a spy named Jones.

Approaching the stationmaster, he inquired where Mr. Jones lived.

"Oh, there's lots of Joneses," the villager replied. "I'm Jones the stationmaster, and there's Jones the postman, and..."

The Russian leaned close to the stationmaster's ear. "It's raining in Birmingham today," he whispered significantly.

"Oh," said the stationmaster, "it must be Jones the spy you're looking for. Why didn't you say so straight off?"

Be straight! Never go zig-zag!

Your question basically is, "Why am I afraid of love?" But you may even be afraid to ask the question, because nobody wants to say that "I am afraid of love." Even to say that feels embarrassing, so we go on asking other questions. We never ask exactly the question that is needed to be pondered over. We ask other questions very close to it, but not exactly it.

And this is not the first time, Prabhudas, that such a question has come to me. Almost every day some woman asks "Why am I afraid of men?" some man asks, "Why am I afraid of women?"

Everybody seems to be afraid of everybody else!

And just see - what can the poor woman do to you? what can the poor man do to you? We are all in the same boat! Afraid we are, certainly, but we are not really afraid of each other.

A defeated politician, after days and days of vainly looking for a job, is walking home in despair when he suddenly sees the tent of a big circus. He decides to try his luck and asks the director of the circus for a job.

"The only person we need is a tightrope walker," replies the director.

The politician feels afraid but still accepts.

That evening, dressed as a monkey, it is announced: "Ladies and gentlemen, you will now admire the flying monkey."

The terrified politician climbs up the ladder until he reaches the rope. Trembling, he starts walking along the rope when, overwhelmed by the lights, the emotion and the crowd, he loses his balance and begins to fall.

Suddenly he sees a number of lions climbing on top of each other trying to reach him. Sure that his last moment has come he starts to pray when he hears, "Don't worry, brother, we are all other defeated politicians."

Don't be afraid of women! They are really afraid of you... and you are afraid of them... and unnecessarily creating much fuss, much noise, for no reason at all. And both are missing the point. That point is: fear of love.

Love frightens, scares, because love demands something which you are not ready to pay. Love asks you to drop the ego: that is the price love asks for. Without paying the price you cannot attain to love, and our whole life is an effort to attain to love without paying the price. Hence fear, jealousy, possessiveness, and all kinds of things arise in life, but not love. We go on hoping against hope that there may be some way that we can save our ego and still be in love. It is impossible, it is not in the nature of things.

So if you want to be in love, this is the first thing to decide: "I am ready to drop the ego." And remember, you are not surrendering to the woman; neither is the woman surrendering to you. That too is a fallacy; a very wrong approach has given you that idea. You both are surrendering to some unknown god of love. You both are surrendering to something invisible. You are not surrendering to each other, not at all; that is a wrong approach. Because of that wrong approach it becomes difficult to surrender: "Why should I surrender to somebody else? That means her ego will be more fulfilled!"

And she also thinks, "Why should I surrender to somebody? His ego will be more fulfilled. Who is he? Why should I surrender to him?"

Remember, those who have looked deeply into the matter have something else to say to you. My own observation is: lovers don't surrender to each other, they surrender to something unknown that exists between them. They surrender to love - call it the 'god of love' - they both surrender to the god of love. Hence nobody's ego is fulfilled by your surrender; both the egos disappear in love.

If you move with this understanding, all fear of women will disappear. There is nothing to be afraid of: on the other side there is the same trembling heart as yours, with the same fears. You will feel compassion rather than fear. Both will help each other rather than frightening each other, because both are in the same boat.

But remember, the surrender is on the altar of love, neither to man nor to woman. Down the ages this has been taught to you: lovers surrender to each other. That is utter nonsense! That must have been said by people who don't know what love is. Lovers NEVER surrender to each other, lovers simply surrender to love. Yes, lovers lose their egos, but they don't give them to each other. Those egos simply evaporate.

Lovers don't become dependent on each other; they are not enslaved by each other. On the contrary, love gives freedom. Lovers are the most free people in the world. They help each other to become more and more free, because freedom brings joy, and meeting out of freedom has immense beauty.

When two lovers meet not out of some bondage but out of freedom, there is benediction.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

Giovanni,

THAT is one of the oldest traps into which man has fallen again and again. Yes, I say the world is a very beautiful world, but it is in wrong hands - immediately your mind starts thinking how to destroy those wrong people, how to take the world from those wrong people and out of their hands. Rather than transforming yourself, rather than transforming your own mind, you immediately start thinking in terms of politics. I talk religion, you immediately interpret it in politics.

And it looks logical, Giovanni, because it seems perfectly right: "HOW CAN WE STOP THOSE GREEDY HANDS WHICH ARE TORTURING NATURE AND ENSLAVING MEN IS WE DON'T FIGHT AND STRUGGLE?"

But if you fight and struggle, do you think you will be able to transform the world and its situation?

By fighting and struggling you will just become like those people against whom you are fighting and struggling; that is one of the fundamental laws of life. Choose your enemies very carefully! Friends you can choose without any care. There is no need to be worried about friends because friends don't have the impact on you, don't impress you so much as the enemy. One has to be very careful with the enemy because you will have to fight the enemy. In fighting, you will have to use the same strategies, the same tactics, and you will use those strategies and tactics for years and years. They will condition you. That's how it has happened down the ages.

Joseph Stalin proved a far more dangerous czar than the czars that had ruled Russia before communism took over. Why? - because he had learned the strategy from the czars. Fighting with the czars, he had to learn the ways and means, the same ways and means that they were using. The whole life spent in fighting, practising violence: by the time Joseph Stalin came to power he was a czar, far more dangerous obviously, because he had succeeded against the czars. He must have been' more cunning, must have been more violent, must have been more ambitious, must have been more Machiavellian. Otherwise it would have been impossible to win against the czars.

And he did the same on a far greater scale: he defeated all the czars! All the czars put together had never done so much violence, so much murder, as Joseph Stalin alone did. He had learned the lesson so well that it is suspected that the leader of the revolution, Lenin, was poisoned by Joseph Stalin, slowly slowly, in the name of medicine. He was ill, and in the name of medicine he was poisoned slowly, slowly and killed. If Lenin were there then Joseph Stalin would be number three man, because there was another man, Leon Trotsky, who was number two. So the first thing was how to destroy Lenin - he killed Lenin - and then the second thing was how to kill Trotsky - he killed Trotsky. Then he was in power, and once he was in power he started killing everybody. All the members of the Politburo, of the highest commanding communist leaders, were killed by Stalin, by and by. Because they all knew the strategies, they had to be removed.

This has happened with all the revolutions in the world.

Now when I say this world is a very beautiful world but it is in the wrong hands, I don't mean that you start fighting those wrong hands. What I mean is: please don't you be those wrong hands, that's all.

I don't teach revolution, I teach rebellion, and the difference is great. Revolution is political, rebellion is religious. Revolution needs you to organize yourself as a party, as an army, and fight against the enemies. Rebellion means you rebel as an individual; you simply get out of this whole rut. At least you should not destroy nature.

And if more and more people become dropouts the world can be saved. That will be true revolution - nonpolitical; it will be spiritual. If more and more people get out of the old mind and its ways, if more and more people become loving, if more and more people are non-ambitious, if more and more people are non-greedy, if more and more people are no more interested in power-politics, in prestige, in respectability...

That's what sannyas is all about! Sannyas is dropping out of the old, rotten game and living your life on your own. It is not a struggle against the old, it is simply getting out of the clutches of the old - and this is the only way to weaken it, this is the only way to destroy it.

If millions of people in the world simply get out of the hands of the politicians, the politicians will die of their own accord. You cannot fight with them. If you fight you become a politician yourself. If you struggle against them you become greedy yourself, ambitious yourself; that is not going to help.

Be a dropout. And you have a small life: for fifty years, sixty years, seventy years you may be here - you can't hope that you will be able to transform the world, but you can hope that you can still enjoy and love the world.

Use the opportunity of this life to celebrate as much as possible. Don't waste it in struggling and fighting.

I am not creating a political force here, no, not at all. All political revolutions have failed so utterly that only blind people can go on believing in them. Those who have eyes are bound to teach you something new.

This is something new! This has been done before too, but not on a large scale. We have to do it on such a large scale - millions of people have to become dropouts! By dropouts I don't mean that you leave the society and go to the mountains. You live in the society, but you leave the ambition, you leave the greed, you leave the hatred. You live in the society and be loving, and live in the society as a nobody.

That is the pure essence of sannyas: living as nobody, with no greed, with no ambition. And then you can enjoy and you can celebrate. And by celebrating and enjoying, you will spread the ripples of ecstasy to other people.

We can change the whole world, but not by struggle - not this time. Enough is enough! We have to change this world by celebrating, by dancing, by singing, by music, by meditation, by love, not by struggle.

The old certainly has to cease for the new to be, but please don't misinterpret me.

Giovanni is an Italian, and modern Italy is really much too political; the whole thinking is political.

The whole Italian mind is obsessed with politics. Maybe one of the reasons is that they are fed-up with the Catholic Vatican and the Pope and all that nonsense. They have seen too much of it and they have moved to the other extreme.

Certainly the old has to cease - but the old is within you, not without. I am not talking about the old structure of the society; I am talking about the old structure of your mind that has to cease for the new to be. And a single man dropping the old structure of the mind creates such a great space for many to transform their lives that it is incredible, unimaginable, unbelievable. A single person transforming himself becomes a trigger; then many more start changing. His presence becomes a catalytic agent.

This is the rebellion I teach: you drop out of the old structure, you drop out of old greed, you drop out of old idealism. You become a silent, meditative, loving person; you be more in a dance, and then see what happens. Somebody, sooner or later, is bound to join the dance with you, and then more and more people. This is how it has happened here.

Lao Tzu says that you need not go outside your room; everything can happen just living inside your room. But Lao Tzu had to go out. He used to go on his buffalo, moving from one village to another.

I have simply followed his advice - I never go outside my room.

Little Hasya lives in Lao Tzu. Other kids ask her, "Do you see Osho sometimes moving in the house?" but she has not seen me yet, so what can she say?

I am just living in my room, and you have all come from different corners of the world. It is a miracle!

Why have you come? And many more are on the way; they will be reaching soon. This place is going to become a tremendous force in the world, a transforming force in the world. It is going to become a spiritual explosion - but we are not to fight with anybody and we are not to struggle with anybody.

I have no political leanings. I am utterly against politics. Yes, the old has to cease for the new to be - but the old has to cease WITHIN YOU, then the new will be there. And once the new is within you the new is infectious, contagious; it starts spreading into other people.

Joy is contagious! Laugh, and you see others start laughing. So is it with sadness: be sad, and somebody looking at your long face suddenly becomes sad. We are not separate, we are joined together, so when somebody's heart starts laughing many other hearts are touched - sometimes even faraway hearts.

You have come from such faraway places; somehow my laughter has reached to you, somehow my love has reached to you. Somehow, in some mysterious way, my being has touched your being and you have come here against all the difficulties. A thousand and one difficulties are being created, and they will be created more and more. Although I am not struggling against anybody, but still, those who are in power ARE afraid because they cannot think that there can be a man who has no political leanings. They cannot believe that there can be a man who can attract thousands of people and will not use the power of these people to attain to some political powers, to some political status. They cannot believe it! How can they believe it? They can only understand the way they can understand.

So the politicians are afraid and they are creating every kind of barrier, but that is not going to hinder anybody. In fact, that is going to help me tremendously! It will become a challenge for all courageous people. It may prevent a few cowards - and it is good if they are prevented because they will not be of any use here. In fact, it will be a kind of screening: only the people who can be benefitted by me will be reaching here. So it is good; whatsoever hindrances are being created are good.

But I am not teaching you to struggle against anything. Whenever you struggle against anything you become a reactionary, because it is a reaction; you become obsessed with something, you are against it. And then there is every possibility that the thing you are against will dominate you - maybe in a negative way, but it will dominate you.

Friedrich Nietzsche was very much against Jesus Christ. But my own analysis of Friedrich Nietzsche is that he was too much impressed by Jesus Christ, just because he was against him. He was obsessed; he was really trying to become a Jesus Christ in his own right. His great book, THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, is an effort to create a new gospel. The language he uses, the metaphors he uses, the poetry he uses, certainly reminds one of Jesus Christ, and he was very much against him. He never missed a single point - if he could condemn Jesus, he would immediately condemn, but one is reminded again and again of Jesus He was obsessed.

When he became mad, in the last phase of his life, he even started signing his letters as 'Anti-Christ Friedrich Nietzsche'. He could not forget Christ even when he became mad. First he would write 'Anti-Christ' and there he would sign. You can see the obsession, the deep jealousy of Jesus that dominated him his whole life. It destroyed his immense creativity. He could have been a rebel, but he reduced himself to a reactionary. He could have brought something new to the world, but he could not. He remained obsessed with Jesus.

I am not against anything or anybody. I don't want you to be free FROM something, I simply want you to be free. See the difference: freedom from is never total; that 'from' keeps it entrapped with the past. Freedom from can never be real freedom. Neither can freedom For ever be real freedom; that is a search for a new slavery. And this freedom from and freedom for almost always go together as two sides of the same coin.

What I teach is simple freedom, neither from nor for, just freedom; neither against the past nor for the future, but just to be in the present.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

Ram Sarandas,

SEVENTY-FIVE is nothing! Morarji Desai is eighty-four and he is not a sannyasin yet. And J.B.

Kaplani is ninety-three and he is not a sannyasin yet. And Ravishankar Maharaj is ninety-five and he is not a sannyasin yet. Compared to these people, you are in the prime of your life. Enjoy it!

Forget all about sannyas! Why be bothered with it? Seventy-five? You are almost young!

"You are heading for a broken marriage," warned a friend of the 75-year-old man who had just taken a 21-year-young luscious blonde as his bride.."I'm warning you, the difference in ages will be the cause of your separation."

"What would you suggest?" asked the old groom.

"As soon as you get back from your honeymoon trip," the friend advised, "fix up a room in your place and take in a boarder."

It sounded like a wise policy to the old man, so he decided to try it out.

After a time, the friend came by to visit and was cordially received by the elderly bridegroom.

"And how's the little bride?" the friend asked cautiously.

"Couldn't be better!" the old man answered. "She is in the family way."

"Looks like my plan worked after all! And how is that boarder of yours?"

"Fine!" explained the old man. "And, by golly, she's also in the family way!"

Seventy-five? This is the time to fool around! And you are thinking of sannyas, Ram Sarandas?

Wait! Wait at least until you are a hundred.

Great-great-grandma studied the newborn baby with obvious satisfaction. "If my memory doesn't fail me," she cackled, "it's a boy!"

At least wait up to that point when you cannot recognize who is a boy and who is a girl - then sannyas!

That has been the ancient way, Ram Sarandas. In India people used to take sannyas only when they were of no worth at all. People used to go to sannyas only when life was really finished, when there was nothing left.

An eagle-eyed mortician noticed an old crone shuffling away from a funeral service at his parlor and asked her how old she was.

"One hundred and one!" cackled the old lady proudly.

"Well, well!" said the mortician suavely. "Hardly worth going home, is it?"

Wait! When it is hardly worth going home, then you can become a sannyasin!

This has been the old way, and because of this, sannyas never became the force it could have become.

But my sannyas is totally different: it has nothing to do with age.It has something to do with youth rather than old age. The younger you are, the more possibility there is of entering into my sannyas.

Even those who are old physically but young spiritually will feel attracted.towards it - ONLY those will feel attracted towards it.

I am not teaching you escape from life. I am not teaching you the other world. I am teaching you how to live this life with great gratitude, with immense joy, with ecstasy. I am not anti-life. I am all for life, because to me life is God. There is no other God.

You ask me, "I AM GETTING ON SEVENTY-FIVE, YET I HESITATE TO TAKE SANNYAS."

Why do you mention your age? The old idea in India is that after seventy-five one should become a sannyasin. Age has nothing to do with sannyas - not at least with MY idea of sannyas. The younger you are the better, because you have more energy and more juice and more aliveness.

And sannyas will need all the juice, all aliveness, because sannyas is not a shrinking but an expansion. It is not getting out of life and life's context, running away from life and its complexities.

My sannyas is living in life, in all its complexities, and yet remaining simple, yet remaining innocent.

I am teaching you something like a great paradox: to be in the world and not be of it, to be in the world but not let the world be in you.

Why should you hesitate? The old sannyas certainly gives hesitation. In fact, no intelligent person would go into the old way, because it.is so against nature, against life; only stupid people can be victims of it. Hesitation is perfectly right if you are thinking to become an old Indian sannyasin. Then hesitation is perfectly right; that simply shows intelligence.

But if you are hesitating to become MY sannyasin, that simply shows indecisiveness, not intelligence, because I am not telling you to leave anything. You will be the same, in the same world; everything will be the same. Just deep down, at the center of your being, a new quality will be added. I don't take anything from you, I give something to you. I make you more, not less. A quality of meditativeness will be added to you, a subtle fragrance of prayer will be added to you. You will become more fragrant, more perfumed, so why hesitate?

You also ask me, "Why?" It must be a confusion, a confusion between the old concept of sannyas and the new. This is troubling many Indians. The very word 'sannyas', and the idea of the old sannyas arises with all its connotations. And it is natural in a way, because at least for ten thousand years the old idea has existed, and my new sannyas is only ten years old. Against ten thousand years, ten years are nothing. Ten thousand years' conditioning has gone very deep into the Indian mind.

So when Western people come, sannyas seems to be easy for them because they don't have the old idea. They simply understand what I am saying. They have nothing to compare. They see the beauty of it, they take a jump into it.

But Ram Sarandas, when Indians come, naturally, the old idea of sannyas somehow lingers.

And I have deliberately chosen the name 'sannyas'; I could have chosen something else. I have deliberately chosen the orange color, the ancient color of sannyas, for a certain reason: I want to destroy the old idea completely, and this is the only way. I want to destroy the old idea absolutely, and the only way is to create so many new sannyasins that the old, few and far between sannyasins are completely lost in the ocean of orange.

Ram Sarandas, it must be the old idea that is creating the hesitation. Just try to separate the old and the new. My sannyas has nothing to do with the old, it is an absolutely new concept. It is very worldly and yet very godly.

The last question:

Question 6:

Mahendra,

YOU are certainly hearing me, but not listening. God is not a goal. God has not to be achieved. The achieving mind is the only barrier to God. It is not a question of your 'leaving no stone unturned'. It is not a question of will-power, it is a question of surrendering. Leave all the stones unturned! Don't turn even a single stone, please! Why disturb the stones?

It is not a question of will, and you are thinking in terms of will. That's what has been told to you again and again: become a great will-power, struggle, search, seek; only then can you find God.

That's all nonsense. God is never found by seeking, but that's how you have been misunderstanding me.

Two men were sitting in the doctor's office and after a while they decided to talk.

"I'm aching from arthritis," said one man.

"Glad to meet you," said the other. "I'm Willy from California."

That's what has happened between me and you. I am saying I am aching from arthritis, and you say that you are Willy from California.

The town band was doing its best when someone in the audience called the piano player a bastard.

The leader's baton beat a tattoo on the music stand and the players became silent.

"Who called my piano player a bastard?" he demanded.

"Who called that bastard a piano player?" a voice in the rear of the theatre yelled back.

Something like that is happening between me and you - I am saying one thing, you are hearing something else.

I am not teaching the way of will, I am teaching the way of utter will-lessness. I am teaching you not to become strong but to be vulnerable. I am teaching you not the way of the male but the way of the female. Be more feminine. Be more delicate, vulnerable.

A man who was driving across the continent put up for the night at a rural hostelry. The view from his second storey window was lovely, he thought: peaceful meadows and a beautifully kept lawn directly below.

During the night however, there was a cloudburst and when the man awoke, the ground had disappeared under water fully five feet high. This was surprising enough, but then the man spotted something even more unusual. A straw hat floated by, reached the boundary fence, turned and floated back. Three times this phenomenon was repeated and the man rushed to the proprietor with a hushed, "Do you see what I see?"

"Sure!" laughed the proprietor. "That's Uncle Henry. Stubborn old coot! He swore he was going to mow that lawn this morning, come hell or high water!"

This is not the way to find God! In fact, you need not go anywhere and you need not do anything to find God. God is already trying to find you. You just stand still or sit still so He can find you.

Wherever He comes you are gone. He never finds you, or even if sometimes He finds you, you are not there; you are somewhere else. You are always somewhere else!

It is not a question of finding God from your side: God is in search of you.

You please be quiet and still. Sometimes, doing nothing, sitting silently, just waiting, and He will find you. He will certainly find you. That's how He found me; that's how He has always found... It is not that you reach Him, it is always He who reaches you.

Allow Him to reach you! And that is possible only when you are open, surrendered, in deep trust...

your heart becomes an open lotus.