Chapter 03

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

(Beginning of tape is scrambled)

BHAGWAN: The mind is a chattering box. You cannot stop it. The very effort to stop it gives it more nourishment to go on.

Millions of people, for centuries have been trying to stop it, and they have all failed, for the simple reason that the desire to stop it is also part of it. It is not beyond it.

One side of the mind is desiring the other side of the mind to become silent. This is not possible. The only way few people have been able to stop it without making an effort to stop it, are the people who have disidentified themselves with the mind. There is not even a desire to stop it or to continue it, because all desires belong to it.

One simply watches it. Let it chatter. You simply become a watcher. Let the traffic of thoughts move. There is nothing to be worried. It is going to harm nobody. These thoughts are only soap bubbles. Don't take them seriously. Don't become tense while watching them. Be relaxed.

I will tell you a story to understand it.

Gautam Buddha told one day, while they were passing into a mountainous region -- it was the midday, hot sun and he was getting old -- he told his disciple, Ananda, that "I am very thirsty. You should go back. Because while we had been we had passed a small current of the mountainous water, few bullock carts have passed through the current, making it muddy. Dead leaves, which may have rested in the bed, are floating over the water, It was not worth drinking. And particularly for Gautam Buddha he could not take that water.

He knew that, if he goes ahead, where he had left Gautam Buddha, then five miles ahead of that place there is a big river and he can find good crystalclear water. He came back empty-handed.

Buddha was very strict. He said, "You go back and you bring that water, because I remember when we had passed, it was so pure and so crystalclear." But Ananda said, "You should understand me. In the meantime some bullock carts have passed." Buddha said, "I understand, but you go sit by the side of the bank -- however long it takes. You just go and sit there. Don't get into the current, because your getting into the current will make it muddy again. You simply wait, watching, doing nothing. All those dead leaves will be taken away. The mud will settle down. Then you fill the begging bowl and come back."

Ananda wanted to go ahead towards the river, but he could not disobey Gautam Buddha. Unwillingly, he went back -- but he was for a great surprise. By the time he reached there, the miracle has already happened. The dead leaves had moved with the current, and the mud has already settled. And the water was as clean and as pure as it could be.

Taking that bottle back, he tried to figure out why Gautam Buddha insisted, because he never does anything without some purpose behind it, some meaning behind it. And then he realized on the way, that it is a message to him, that "Ananda, don't get into the river, into the current of the mind. That's what you have been doing all your life. Just wait on the bank, and simply watch.

It is one of the secrets of inner life, that as your watcher becomes more and more strong, the thoughts become less and less. It is exactly in proportion. When there are hundred percent thoughts in the mind, you have zero watcher. When you have ten percent consciousness involved in watching, ten percent of your thoughts will disappear -- because it is the same energy that creates thoughts, that creates the watcher.

When you are hundred percent a watcher, a pure witness, a mirror, all thoughts disappear. You cannot stop them, but you can manage a situation, a device in which they get stopped. They simply disappear.

And to know such a state, when you are aware and alert, fully conscious and watchful and there are no thoughts there, your whole consciousness for the first time in your life returns back on itself. Becomes aware of awareness. You become conscious of consciousness.

In the silence, when the chattering mind is no more there, one realizes oneself.

Unless the mind is silent, you cannot realize yourself. You will remain involved with the thoughts and those thoughts are almost meaningless -- memories, fragments of memories, imagination, dreams, daydreams, all mixed up. It is a chaos. Even if sometimes you find some beautiful thoughts moving, they are all borrowed. You have heard them, you have read them, but they are not yours.

And that which is not yours is not true.

This has to be remembered. Everything borrowed is untrue. Only your own realization can give you authentic truth. You can recite the whole Bible or the Koran or Dhammapada -- it does not matter. You are simply being a parrot, and sometimes even worse than a parrot.

I have heard about a bishop whose pet parrot has died, and he was missing the parrot very much. It was such a religious parrot. He used to repeat the whole sermon on the mount. And it was such a joy for anybody to come and listen to the parrot, so he went to the biggest petshop and wanted some religious kind, some spiritual parrot. The shopkeeper said, "What are you talking about? Parrots and spiritual?"

He said, "Yes. I had one, and with great effort made him learn the whole sermon on the mount, and he used to repeat it with perfection." The shopkeeper said, "Now I ko understand what you mean by spiritual. You mean the parrot who can repeat scriptures. I have something for you you would love."

He took him inside the shop. He said. "It is a very special parrot and I was keeping it for myself -- but you are in such a desperate need and you are missing your own parrot which is dead, I will be happy to give it to you.

Before you take it, let me introduce you about its qualities. Just watch and you will see one thread hanging by its right leg, another thread hanging by his left leg. The threads are very thin. Nobody can see them unless one comes very close.

You have just to pull the thread of the right leg and he will repeat the sermon on the mount."

"But sometimes you may be having a visitor, who is not a Christian. Then you have to pull the left leg. Then he repeats a beautiful portion, in pure Sanskrit, of Srimad Bhagavat Gita."

The bishop was enchanted to find such a rare parrot. He asked the shopkeeper, "And if I pull both the threads together?" Before the shopkeeper was going to say anything, the parrot said, "You idiot. I will fall on my ass. Never do that!"

Even parrots are more intelligent that your bishops, your pandits, your rabbis.

Even the parrot said, "This is absolute stupidity."

But for centuries people have used their mind almost like a parrot, and have thought that they are spiritual, that they are religious. Now all that can be done by a computer more perfectly, but a computer is not religious, not spiritual.

Neither you are, just by repeating words from scriptures. Don't be a His Master's gramophone record!

It is below humanity. And it good of the company that makes those records, that they have chosen a dog as their symbol! His Master's Voice. But what millions of people are doing in the world, then repeating His Master's Voice? Their masters may be different, but the function of the dog is the same.

The mind can stop, but not by your effort but by your effortless witnessing. That is the whole meaning of meditation. Relax. Don't force, and just watch. Let the mind do its things.

It will take a little patience, but it has always happened. It is almost a scientific law, without exception, that if you can manage a little patience you will come to a point where the watcher is nourished and the mind becomes unnourished, and the thoughts start disappearing. When the whole energy of your consciousness moves into watching, you will find there is no mind at all. And to know a state of no-mind is the greatest experience in life a man is capable of. It is ecstasy. It is superconsciousness. It is self-realization. There is nothing higher than that.

Q: BHAIRAVA, MY SELF, BHAGWAN YOU ARE HERE WITH EVERYONE. YOU ARE HERE WITH EVERYDAY.

WHY CAN I THINK LIKE THIS? WHY CAN I TRUST YOU LIKE THIS? WHY CAN I LOVE YOU LIKE THIS?

A: It is very simple. You can love me, because I am not a prophet. I am not a messiah. I am not a savior. I am not an incarnation of god. You can worship those people. You cannot love them. And worship is not love.

Love needs that you understand one thing clearly, that I am amongst you, that I am not superior, that you are not inferior.

For thousands of years the prophets and the messiahs and the saviors have been telling you they are superior, you are inferior. They are saints, you are sinners -- and the distance is so great, love is impossible. And to prove that they are special, all kinds of inventions, imaginary qualities have been given to those people, either by themselves or by their followers.

For example, you cannot love Mahavira, the most important prophet of Jainism -- for the simple reason because he is so far away. You cannot even touch his feet.

They are beyond your reach. Mahavira does not perspire. This is absolutely stupid, because it is unnatural. Perspiration is as absolutely needed by your body as water is needed, as food is needed, as air is needed. And if Mahavira does not perspire, the only possibility is that he has a plastic body.

But why this insistence upon nonsense? Because perspiration is a defense system of your physiology. It keeps your temperature exactly the same. Outside temperature may go on changing, but your inside temperature has to remain the same to keep you healthy.

Your lifespan as far as temperature is concerned is not very big: between ninety- eight degrees and one hundred and ten degrees. Only twelve degrees is the span of your life. If it falls below ninety-eight there is danger. If it goes above one hundred ten there is danger. Your temperature should be kept constantly the same. Perspiration does a miracle. When it is too hot, you perspire. It is an effort of the body to make an arrangement with the sun, that the sun will get engaged in evaporating the perspiration, and its heat will not reach within you. It will be prevented by perspiration.

You don't perspire when it is cold. When it is cold, you shiver. That keeps your body warm. Shivering is keeping the body warm. Your temperature cannot fall below.

Even you may start chattering your teeth. That too is an effort to keep your body warm, so your temperature remains the same and the cold is prevented outside.

It is absolutely medically, scientifically impossible that Mahavira never perspired.

But it is not the only special thing about him. His disciples for twenty-five centuries have been repeating he does not urinate. He does not defecate. I can understand it looks a little odd to see Mahavira sitting on a toilet, or Krishna or Rama or Jesus Christ. It seems weird, embarrassing.

But nobody has prevented it. Jainas have completely prevented Mahavira. He is the most constipated man in the whole history of the world. The greatest record is done by an Englishman who has remained constipated for eight months continuously. That is nothing compared to Mahavira. He remained for eighty years!

But all these irrational ideas are imposed on all your prophets and saviors, for the simple reason: to create a distance between you and them. It is humiliation of humanity. It is a direct insult of all human beings. If you had the guts, you would have rejected these people long ago before.

Jesus walks on water. He raises dead people back to life. All these things are not possible. Nature never allows any exception.

But the followers would like to make their prophet higher than other prophets.

They will create some imaginary qualities, and will make it absolutely necessary that unless these qualities are there, a man is not a prophet.

I have heard about an American, a very rich man, who had gone to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is very special. It is a sacred place for the Jews. It is a sacred place for Christians. It is a sacred place for mohammedans.

He went to the lake Galilee where Jesus used to walk on water. The boatman asked him, that he can take him to all the places around the lake and show him where "our lord used to walk on water." He said, "First things first. How much it will cost?" The man said, "Not much. Just ten dollars." Seeing that he is an American, ten dollars is nothing -- although that was not the usual rate. He was asking ten times more.

The American was a real miser. He said, "Now I know why our lord Jesus Christ used to walk on water! Ten dollars! I have seen enough of lake Galilee. That's enough. And I don't know how to walk on water, and I don't want to waste ten dollars. But upto now I had never understood why he used to walk on Lake Galilee. You have answered me."

All these people, we have allowed, helped, accepted, recognized that they are special beings. And this has been one of the most harmful things to humanity.

Because once you accept that you are an ordinary human being and they are incarnations of god -- somebody is the only begotten son of god, somebody is a special messenger of god. If they can meditate, if they can realize themselves, it is understandable. But how can we do it?

The distance between the prophets and you has not allowed you to love those people, has not allowed you to respect yourself. It has destroyed your self- respect and it has kept you in misery and anguish, because a natural conclusion, a logical conclusion that we are ordinary human beings and these things are not possible for us. We cannot walk on water and we cannot raise the dead back to life, so we have to accept our misery, our suffering, our anguish.

You may not have thought it in this way, but this is how I look at the whole miserable humanity. This is the creation of your so-called special prophets and saviors. If they had just a little more respect towards ordinary human beings, if they had accepted -- which was the truth -- that they are part of you, and they are exactly like you and whatever they have attained is your potential, you can attain it too -- the world would have been totally different. Then we would not have remembered Gautam Buddha perhaps. We would not have remembered Krishna and Mohammed and Jesus perhaps. Because there would have been so many people of the same quality, of the same awareness, that there would have been no need especially to recognize and remember them. I would like it to happen some day. We remember Gautam Buddha only because for twenty-five centuries we have not been able to produce the same consciousness, the same intensity of life, again. If millions of people can do it, Gautam Buddha will be lost. There is no need to divide history by Christ. He becomes a milestone.

Before Jesus Christ and after Jesus Christ, that's how we divide our history. But there was no need, if there were many, many people who had the same quality of love, of compassion, who had experienced the same beauty and the same immortality.

Jesus Christ would have lost into a big crowd of conscious people. I hope a day will come we will not need to remember Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Jesus Christ -- and all the other prophets, because it will become an ordinary, simple, human experience. That is my basic approach.

You can love me. Don't be surprised by it. I love you too. More than you can love me. Because I am not superhuman. I also perspire when it is hot. And in a cold night, I also cannot sleep without a blanket.

There is no distance between you and me. There is a little bit of difference, but not of distance. I am aware. You have to be aware. The difference may be of time, but not of status. It is within your reach to become aware. It is your responsibility to become aware, so even that difference is dissolved.

Every master in the world should dream of the day, when all the disciples turn into masters and there is no need for any distinction to be made. So don't be surprised. Please accept me as an ordinary human being, exactly like you. I was also groping in darkness. I was also in the same space in which you are.

It was my yesterday. It is your today -- but it can change. Tomorrow you can be in the same space where I am.

It is our birthright. Self-realization is our only birthright -- which no government can prevent, which no imprisonment can prevent, which no communism can prevent, which no fascism can prevent. All our rights can be taken away, but the right for self-realization is indestructible -- because it is not according to any constitution. Constitutions can be changed. It is according to the very nature of existence, which cannot be changed.

BELOVED BHAGWAN, MY QUESTION IS ABOUT MY SISTER. SHE HAD AN ACCIDENT, AND SINCE THAT SHE CAN'T MOVE, SHE CAN'T SEE, SHE CAN'T HEAR, SHE CAN'T SPEAK. HOW CAN SHE KNOW ABOUT TRUTH? HOW CAN HER CONSCIOUSENSS FUNCTION WITHOUT (*)? IS IT BETTER TO LET HER DIE, SO THAT SHE CAN BE BORN WITH (*)?

A: It is one of the most fundamental questions, which is being raised all around the earth in different forms. Because for centuries we have accepted an idea, that death should be avoided. That it is something evil. That life is given by god and death comes through the devil.

Even the medical profession of the world, every medicine graduate has to take the Hypocrites oath, that he will not help anybody in any way to die. He will help in every possible way to protect life.

It was right in the days of Hypocrites, because ten children were born and only one survived to become an adult. Nine were going to die. That was the situation.

The whole world population in the times of Gautam Buddha was so small you cannot imagine. It was only two crore. Now India alone has ninety crore people.

The whole world has now five hundred crore people. From two crore people, in twenty-five centuries, we have reached fo five hundred crore people. And the earth remains the same. And the medical science has grown tremendously.

It used to be said that seventy years is at the most one can hope to live.

For almost five thousand years, scientists have been searching for bones, skeletons, to find out exactly how long man used to live. And they have come to a very strange conclusion, that people were not living more than forty years of age -- because we have not yet found a single skeleton which were more aged when he died than forty years. So it is right that people believe that in the past the days were so beautiful that no father ever saw the death of his own son.

It is natural. If every father is going to die at forty, how he is going to see the death of his own son?

But in this, those nine small children are not included, because they lived no more than two years. Otherwise every father was seeing dozens of his sons and daughters dying. Once a child has survived more than two years, then there was a possibility for him to live at least forty years. Naturally meanwhile his father will be dying.

Now there are people in the west who have passed hundred years of age. There are people in certain parts of Soviet Union, where some thousands of people have passed the age one hundred fifty, and some hundreds of people have passed the age one hundred eighty. And they are still working, they are not old.

In Caucasus in Russia, you can find a one hundred eighty year old man working in the field like any young man. And scientists say that there is a possibility, if right food, right exercise and right atmosphere is available, a man's body is capable to live at least three hundred years.

That is a very dangerous prospect, because even in ninety or hundred years time, you get so fed up with life. What are you going to do for three hundred years?

Your own generations will not recognize you. In three hundred years so many generations of your own children -- they will not think any relationship with you. The gap will be too big.

And what are you going to do? You have lived, you have loved. You have seen all that life contains, the failures, the successes; the pains and the pleasures; the days and the nights. You have seen all the seasons. Now there is nothing more. It is now again repetition. The same wheel is moving.

We have to think about the whole matter of death again. My own opinion is that if a person comes to a stage where he finds that it is absolutely useless for him to live, he has lived enough, then it should not be illegal. It should be absolutely permissible. In fact, every hospital should have a special arrangement, a special department, for those people who come to die there -- so they can die in peace, in silence, with all medical care. This medical care is not to keep them alive, this medical care is to help them to die as beautifully, as silently.

My own suggestion is, every death department in a hospital should have a meditator who can help people before they die, to learn meditation so they can die meditatively. Their death can become an immensely valuable experience.

Perhaps more valuable than their whole life has been. And they are not committing any sin.

You can have time to think. Perhaps they are emotionally upset at the moment.

Perhaps something has happened that has given them the idea, "It is better to finish your life." They should be given a time, that "You enter into the hospital, rest for one month, prepare for your death. We will help. But if in this one month you change your mind, it is up to you. You can get up, and get out! Nobody is forcing you."

And remember, no emotion remains more than for a few minutes. Anybody who commits suicide, if he had waited a single minute more, may not have committed. It is a momentary thing. But if somebody for one month continuously enjoys, is happy, is really looking forward to death, as an adventure, then it is our duty to allow these people to drop the body -- as gracefully as possible.

About the question, I had to give you this much introduction so that you can understand that death is not something evil, that it is something natural. But the question is about, not an old person. The question is about a younger sister, who cannot move, who cannot see, who cannot hear, who cannot speak. All her senses are absent. Now do you call it life? This is simply vegetation.

And she must be in incredible suffering. That we cannot see, because she cannot say. She has no doors to communicate. She is absolutely alone, cut off from all life. What is the point of her vegetating for seventy, eighty or ninety years -- or maybe more? She will be a burden on the family. She will be a sadness on the family. And she herself will be in absolute hell, because she is completely imprisoned.

Just think of yourself. There cannot be a bigger concentration camp: your eyes are taken off, your ears are closed, your nose is closed, you cannot speak. You will be in a coma.

There are many people. I have seen myself one woman, who was in coma for nine months. And doctors are saying that she can never come back to consciousness, because she has been so long unconscious that a small and very delicate nervous system which keeps one conscious, has almost died. They showed me x-rays of her brain, and they said that all the points that make one self-conscious, have died. She will remain unconscious. Perhaps for fifty years, because she was not more than thirty when I saw her. And now she is a constant heaviness on the whole family, on the husband, on the children. They cannot do, they are simply helpless. The doctors cannot do anything, they are helpless. But the law prevents that you should not help anybody to die, otherwise the doctors will be criminals. They will be thought to be murderers.

The law is primitive. The law does not understand compassion. That woman needs a mercy-death. She cannot ask even for her death!

The sister of the sannyasin cannot ask even for death. But those who love her, should ask the government, whichever country you belong, you should take her case to the court -- that to keep her alive is not compassion. It is not love. It is absolute primitive idea, which has no more any contemporary support for it.

And the whole family is ready, that she should be relieved from this prison, so that she can get a new birth, a new body -- with eyes, with ears, she can talk and she can walk. So her death will not be a calamity.

Her death will be a blessing for her.

I am simply telling you my approach. I am not telling you to act accordingly, because that may be illegal in your county. You have to approach through law to the government, and make it a point of national discussion, that it may not be your sister only. There may be many other children, suffering in the same way -- for no other reason except because the law does not permit any medical person to help somebody to drop the body.

It is time that we should understand and our medical profession should understand, and the Hypocrites oath should no longer be the oath for medical students. They should be given an oath that helps a person to live, if he can live abundantly, more beautifully -- but if the person cannot live and you can simply go on helping him just to breathe.... Breathing is not life. Then it is better: help him to die. In both the cases, you are compassionate. Either you serve life or you serve death -- it does not matter. Your compassion should see that the person gets into a better space, into a better life.

And every country has to come to pass a law. Just as many countries are now accepting birth control. That is one end of life. You are preventing children from being born. If you have accepted that, on the other end you should allow old people who want to leave the world, to let them leave ceremoniously. They can call all their friends, their whole family. They can live with the whole family for one month, because now they are going to be here only for one month.

Birth is not in your hands, but at least you can be free to chose your death.

A little more governments in the world are going to accept soon, that on the other end also we should allow people to move faster. Because the world is too much crowded. On one hand we are preventing people to come. On the other hand we should let them move, so a few move fast and the world becomes less crowded and less poor.

And it is not a question only of the world becoming less poor and less crowded, it is also a question of those people. Because I have seen in hospitals and in almost all of the western countries, particularly in America, thousands of people are simply living in hospitals. They are ninety years or hundred years old. They cannot live in the house, because thy cannot even breathe on their own. And still we are keeping them alive. For what?

Artificial breathing is being given to them. I don't think it is going to be a pleasure to those people. They will never be going back home. They will die in the hospital.

And I don't see where is the logic, to keep them breathing artificially. When their bodies are not ready to breathe, please let them not breathe. That is their personal affair. You are interfering too much.

You won't let them die. They are dead. You are forcing them to continue. But you are not aware of any purpose. And when you are keeping thousands of people alive, who should be resting in their graves, unnecessary occupying places in the hospitals, the time of the doctors, of so many machines and so much care -- and what is the purpose? After two or three years they will even stop taking the artificial breath in. They will refuse and reject.

Nothing else is going to happen. But for three years you will be keeping them unnecessarily in torture. And this is thought to be service. This is thought to be compassion. This is thought to be Christianity. This is simply cruelty.

Let those poor people die. And there are thousands of people around the world who are ready to leave the body, because the body is only a pain to them. With so much disease, with so much sickness, they are no more able to do anything.

They are no more able to enjoy anything.

I have heard, in the second world war a man got a bullet into his throat. So his food became difficult. He could not eat. Doctors managed to fix a pipe, but he did not enjoy this because there was no taste. So finally they decided, "First you chew it and then put it into the pipe. Have the taste, then put it in the pipe so it goes into your stomach."

That man is still alive and doing the same thing! He cannot do anything else, because his body is very delicate, very much fragile. He can die any moment, but he has lived really long. And what he is doing seems to be simply ugly, nauseating, that first you chew your food, then you vomit it in the pipe. Then it takes it to the stomach.... Then what is the point?

I have inquired about this man, because now it is forty years since the pipe has been fixed. Has he been able to find a woman to love him? And I have been informed no woman wants to be close to him. Has he got any friends? No.

Because just to see him, with his big pipe throwing all kinds of bad smells out of it.... Who wants to befriend to him? He is not allowed in restaurants, because the restaurant stars suffering from losing customers -- because seeing him doing all that in a restaurant, who would like to eat there?

I have enquired, has the man in these forty years done anything creative? Has he painted? Has he been writing poetry? No. All that he is doing, is -- because he is almost dead, he is just living like a ghost....

It is not compassionate. And everybody feels disgusted by him. And he cannot do anything else, because he has no energy. He is living on such a low energy, that if the man is asked, "Would you like to die?", I don't think he will refuse. But right now it is a very strange world. It goes on continuing old laws, which have lost all reality, which have become just shadows of the past, torturing humanity unnecessarily.

Had the man been asked before this whole nonsense had been done to him? No.

The doctors are doing their duty. They have to fulfil their oath. The government is doing its duty. It has to fulfil the law. It cannot allow people to commit suicide.

It is a very strange government and very strange law. All over the world. If you are going to commit suicide, and you are caught red-handed before you commit, then the government will so the job. They will sentence you to death, because you are trying to commit suicide. Strange! Because that is what the man was doing himself! Now, after two, three years of trial and harassment and all kinds of arguments, many advocates involved, judges involved -- and finally you come to the same decision. The poor fellow was doing it without all this nonsense.

My suggestion is, that your sister should be released from this body, because this body is nothing but a prison to her. If you love her, you have to say goodbye to her. With tears, with sadness, but still you have to say goodbye to her. And you have to meditate and pray that she gets into a better body. But ask the government, make a movement around it, so not only your sister is helped.

There may be many other children. And I think the sannyasin was from Japan, and in Japan there are bound to be many children, because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of which the government of America is responsible.

Those two cities, America destroyed without any reason at all. The war was almost finished. Germany has surrendered. Now there was no possibility for Japan to continue. It was only a question of a week, or at the most two weeks and Japan would have to surrender. What was the need to destroy two civilian cities, which were not fighting? Small children, pregnant women, old people? Each city contained at least ten lakhs people. Twenty lakhs people were destroyed within five minutes. Those who survived are producing this kind of children. Those who have survived are proving to be more dangerous than those who have died, because now they are carrying radioactivity in their very bodies. Women and men, they will produce children which will be retarded, will be deaf, will be dumb, can be blind -- all kinds of perversions. And this will continue for centuries.

But America, and the president of America at the time -- whose name is very strange: Truman! -- did such an un-true-manly act, just because he was worried the war is going to end and before the war ended he wanted to experiment what are going to be the results of atomic explosion on human beings. Poor Japanese were used as guinea-pigs. And just out of fear that the war is going to end. If the war ends, then there is no reason to use those bombs on human beings -- so he was in a hurry.

And it is not only human beings who get affected: the trees have carrying radium. If you eat the fruit of those trees, you will get the radium. And nobody knows which trees are carrying the radium. The fishes, the birds, the animals who have survived in the area, all are full of radium. And they have moved, because you cannot keep the fish in the same place. You cannot imprison them.

They have moved all around. They are giving birth to new generations which will be carrying radium for generations to come. And if you eat that fish, you become a victim. You will carry the radium; your children will become victims.

So it is not only Hiroshima and Nagasaki that have been affected by those two atom bombs. The whole humanity has been risked.

And for no reason at all. There was no question of defeating them. They were ready to surrender -- because they were just following Germany. And when the leader has surrendered, how long the followers can fight? At the most two weeks; that is the estimate of all the military experts of the world.

And Truman was warned, that it is absolutely unnecessary, that Japan is going to surrender. And because of this warning he was in such a hurry, he immediately ordered to destroy those two beautiful cities, just for an experiment.

And that is again the problem. Now America is the greatest nuclear power in the world, and they are the only nation who has a protective system. Nobody can throw a nuclear missile on their land. It will be immediately returned.

Russia is still halfway in creating its protective system. It needs time, at least one year time, to protect itself completely. This one year is more dangerous, because America is in a powerful position. If America misses this one year, then there will be no question of defeating Russia. Right now Russia can be defeated, with all its nuclear weapons -- because those weapons will be returned back and American weapons will fall on Russia and They cannot be returned back.

We are not aware that we are sitting on a volcano.

And the American politicians -- I have been there for five years, I have watched closely -- are the ugliest in the world. Pretending all the time about democracy, but there is no democracy at all. Hidden behind the mask of democracy, is simply a fascist regime. And Ronald Reagan will not hesitate, if he sees that within one year Russia will be equal in power, then this time should not be lost -- because this time may not be available again.

And people like Ronald Reagan are not very intelligent people. Neither they have any compassion. And you cannot expect much from a man like Ronald Reagan who was just a movie star in Hollywood -- that too of third-rate films, cowboy films. And not very successful either. And he has been keeping a pet animal with himself. When he became the president, the animal was with him and went to White House. It was an ape. It is strange, that he finds a friendship in an ape. He cannot find friendship in human beings. And I have heard the story that when he became the first time president, he and his ape had gone for a walk on the beach. One man came across and said, "Mister President, can I ask you a question? Why do you keep this ape with you?" And as Ronald Reagan was going to speak, he said, "I'm not asking you, I'm asking Mister President.!"

He thought this is the ape, and the ape is the president! But politicians all over the world are the same. Charles Darwin in his whole life tried to find the missing link between apes and men, and I wonder how he missed. He should have looked at politicians! There was no need to go anywhere. That is the missing link.

No intelligent person wants to be a politician. And no politician can be expected to be intelligent.

Create a movement in your country for your sister, because in Japan there will be many children in the same position. And make as much uproar about it, only then you will be able to be allowed, that your sister can have a peaceful death.

And don't be worried because your innermost being never dies.

Q: BELOVED BHAGWAN, (THIS QUESTION IS INAUDIBLE) A: It is happening! And it is unbelievable! It is the most miraculous experience.

When it happens, you cannot believe it. You know it is there. You have to believe in it. But it is so unbelievable, you had never expected that it will happen to you.

But the reason that you feel so difficult to believe in it, is that you have been told for centuries that it is the most difficult thing in the world -- and it is not.

You have been told that it takes many lives for it to happen. And that's an absolute lie. It can happen in a single moment. Because you already have it! It is just a question of becoming aware of it.

It is nothing to be achieved. Achievement takes time. It is nothing to be invented.

Invention takes time. It is something that is already there, has always been there, within the innermost core of your being. Just you have forgotten to go there. And you are knocking on other people's doors to find it.

And your religions have been telling you, that it is the most difficult thing -- for the simple reason because your priests don't know anything about it. They are professional people. It is their profession, not their experience. Naturally when you ask them, the only way is to console you, to satisfy you, that "It will happen, but it takes years' effort. You have already been here on the earth for many, many lives. How much more they want to wait?

There is something basically wrong in their whole approach.

They are not turning you towards your own being. That is where they are wrong.

They are turning you towards a god somewhere far away. You are already looking out in things, in money, in power, in people. That is your mistake that you are looking out, not in. And they go on making the same mistake greater.

They tell you it is far away, that is still out of you. It is the god in the heavens, which is simply a lie. All that is needed is to tell you that you are the temple of god, that there is no other temple. That if you want to go anywhere, go inside.

Don't freak out, freak in!

And it is the simplest thing in the world. To find something which you have already got, how it can be difficult?

The last question?

Q: BELOVED BHAGWAN, (THIS QUESTION IS INAUDIBLE...) A: You ask only for one joke? I am not that miserly!

At least I can tell two!

It is said, when Jesus was born he was born in a stable. Because in Jerusalem there was a great annual festival, and Joseph and Mary -- the father and mother of Jesus -- were very poor people. They tried hard, but all the hotels and all the caravanserais and every possible place was overcrowded already. There was no place to stay. They would have stayed on the street, but the problem was that Mary, Jesus' mother, was pregnant. It was her ninth month. She could give birth any moment. And that very night she really gave birth to Jesus.

One kindly person, seeing the situation that the woman is pregnant and coming close, any moment she can give birth to a child -- he had a stable. He said, "You can share my animals if you want. That is the only place, where I keep my horses and donkeys and cows."

In that stable, amongst the animals, Jesus was born. And the story is that three great wise people from the east, who had been waiting for the birth of Jesus, started moving towards the place where Jesus was born. The story is beautiful. It says, a star moved ahead of them to show them the path. Otherwise how they are going to find? And the star stopped on the stable.

Those three wise people reached the stable. Of course the door of the stable was not made for man, so it was a very small door. The first old man, as he entered the door, hit his forehead with the door, and said, "Jesus!"

Mary, hearing this, told Joseph, "Have you listened? This seems to be a good name for the child." That's how Jesus got the name!

And the second story:

In an international school of small children, the Christian teacher was insisting that Jesus Christ is the greatest one in the whole history. And after she had spoken, in the end she asked the students, "Can you tell me who is the greatest man of history?" One American boy stood up and he said, "Abraham Lincoln."

The lady teacher was shocked. For one hour completely she was insisting on Jesus Christ and this boy says, "Abraham Lincoln." But she says, "It is good, but not good enough. You sit down." "Has somebody else the answer?" One Indian boy stood up and said, "Mahatma Gandhi." She said, "That too is good, but not good enough." Then a Jewish boy raised his hand. She said, "Yes."

She was a little hesitant, because he was a Jew. And the Jewish boy said, "There is no question about it: Jesus Christ." The lady could not believe.

When the class was finished she caught hold of the Jewish boy and asked him, that "You are a Jew?" He said, "Yes." "Then why you said Jesus Christ is the greatest man in the world?" He said, "Business is business! In the heart of my hearts I know it is Moses!"

Okay?