Unhitch the Universe

Maneesha, Zen is for the simple, for the ordinary, for the natural. But the mind of man is for just the opposite; it wants to be extraordinary, it wants to be special, it wants to be known. Respectability, reputation, honor, riches -- they are all desires for making you special.

But to be special is against nature. In nature everything is as it is. Nobody is feeling any inferiority complex, and nobody is suffering from any superiority complex. The roses are beautiful because they don't claim any superiority. There are thousands of flowers but there is no competition, everything is unique in its simplicity. They are not running a marathon race, competing with each other to come first; they are immensely satisfied as they are. In the whole animal kingdom -- and all the trees, all the clouds, all the stars -- nobody wants to be something else. Because even if you try to be something else, it will be only phony.

In this sense all the religions have committed a great crime against humanity, because they all want you to be saints, great saints. They have categories of austerities, they have categories of respectability. The so-called religions of the world are part of the same game that is being played in the marketplace, that is being played by the politicians. Everybody wants to have a position. He is ready to lose himself, to sell himself, for a position. That's what has happened, and everybody has lost his simplicity.

I came first in the whole university in my post-graduate examinations. My grandfather was a very simple man ... knowing nothing of Zen, but he was a man of Zen. When I told him that I got the gold medal for being the first in the whole university, he looked at me and he said, "That simply means you were studying with fools; otherwise how could you manage to be first?" Rather than being happy, he was angry with me, "Don't you feel ashamed?"

I said "My God, I was thinking that you would appreciate ..."

He said, "I would have appreciated it if you had given the chance to somebody else, but you grabbed the gold medal yourself. This is very ungainly, ungraceful."

I said, "You will be happy to know that I have not brought the gold medal home."

I had dropped it in the university well. I had told the vice-chancellor that it did not matter to me, and to prove it I threw it in the big well that supplied the water to the whole university. Everybody thought I was crazy. Even the vice-chancellor said, "This is carrying the argument too far."

I said, "It is not an argument. I'm simply telling you that I don't believe in a system of education which creates categories: first class, second class, third class. Everybody is just himself, this classification is a dangerous phenomenon."

My grandfather said, "That is good, if you have thrown that gold medal. You did well. And never again do such a thing."

I said, "I have done nothing. They simply gave it to me; it was not my fault. I had done everything not to have it."

I was not attending the classes, I was prohibited from attending the classes. I never purchased a single book that was prescribed by the university. I was purchasing strange books which had nothing to do with the examination. Even my professors were worried. They loved me. They said, "You are losing a great opportunity. You have every chance to be the first in the whole university, but we never see you reading anything that is prescribed."

How strange are the ways of life. It was because of this I came first -- because all the other students' answers were repetitive. Only my answers were original -- original in the sense that I was answering them not only for the examination, not for any gain, but just to enjoy the answering ... just as I enjoy answering your questions. I even said, "This question is absolutely wrong, it does not deserve any answer. And if I can find the man who asked it, I will hit him."

Later my professor said, "That examination was prepared by me, and I have read your answer. I understand that you are right, the question was stupid."

The question was, "What is the difference between Indian philosophy and Western philosophy?" And naturally I said, "Philosophy is not geographical. Philosophy is simply philosophy. What does it have to do with East and West? It is a thinking process, you can do it anywhere. It has nothing to do with place, with geography. Your question is absurd, hence I'm not going to answer it. And if I could meet you, I would hit you."

He said, "It is good that that examination was made by me, because anybody else would have become very angry. You answered beautifully and freshly, your answers were simply answers; everybody else was quoting the text books. You had no idea what was written in the text books, you have never seen them. Obviously, you had to be original."

An old professor, who was from Poona, was the head of the philosophy department of Allahabad University, Professor R. D. Ranade. He was a world-famous authority on Indian philosophy, and he was also famous for not passing anybody. It was said that in his whole career he had passed only three persons. My professors were worried: "If Ranade fails you, it will be very difficult. Even if everybody else passes you, it will not make any difference. Because Ranade is such an authority, he carries more weight than the three other examiners."

But he gave me a ninety-nine percent grade, and wrote a note to the vice-chancellor, "Convey to this student my message that I loved his answers. For the first time in my life I wanted to give a one hundred percent score, but that would have been a little too much. Not to look too favorable, I cut one percent. But I'm sorry, he deserved one hundred percent -- I have always wanted answers so direct to the questions, not crammed from text books, and I have always wanted answers as condensed as possible."

I had been warned that this was what he wanted.

I had said, "Don't be worried ... I can answer almost telegraphically -- just one-liners."

They said, "You are mad! We are not saying that you have to answer in one line."

I said, "I will see." And I answered with one-liners. Within fifteen minutes I was finished. The professor who was in charge in the examination hall tried to force me to stay seated.

I said, "This is strange. It is my right to get out now I'm finished giving answers."

He looked at my answers and said, "My God, these are answers? You are giving maxims!"

I said, "I want to test Ranade. For his whole life, he has been wanting short, simple, direct and original answers. Let him enjoy to his heart's content. It does not matter whether I fail or pass, anyway I'm going to be a vagabond. I'm not going to be in any government service, I'm not going to be doing any business. I'm going to remain in the ancient business of the buddhas."

They said, "You are mad. That's not a business."

I said, "Anything that keeps you busy is business."

Ranade was very happy, but his note shocked the vice-chancellor. And because of Ranade's ninety-nine percent mark, I came first in the whole university. Life is very strange, it is a mystery.

Later on I met Ranade. He was retired, very old. I said to him, "Perhaps you will remember a man who deserved one hundred percent, but you gave him only ninety-nine percent."

He said, "Of course I remember, because this happened only once in my life. I had never gone beyond thirty-three percent. Are you the person?"

I said, "Of course I am the person. And I have come to say to you that you did not prove your greatness. You should have given me one hundred and one percent. What was your fear? Were you afraid that people would think you were favoring me? You didn't even know me."

He said, "Nobody talks to me this way. I am an old, retired, respected professor."

I said, "That does not matter. You showed your weakness in cutting me by one percent."

He said, "You are strange. Nobody fights with me, especially after ten years. Now what can I do?"

I said, "You can at least say 'I'm sorry'."

There were at least twenty professors who were sitting with him. He had become almost a holy place, where every kind of professor and intellectual gathered. They were all shocked.

I said, "Don't be worried about these idiots; it's because of them you cut my one percent."

He looked at me and he said, "I am sorry, and I say it publicly. You deserved one hundred and one percent."

I said to him, "Now I can forgive you."

I was speaking in Allahabad University. He had never come to listen to any lecturer visiting the university, but he was sitting just in front of me when I entered the hall. Everybody was surprised that Professor Ranade also had come to listen. I hit hard on the education system and on the professors who were supporting it.

He listened carefully, and as I came down from the podium he came to me and said, "Son" -- he was almost ninety years old -- "you are right. We did not have the courage to fight. We all know that our educational system is producing only clerks, secretaries, postmasters, stationmasters. Our whole education is based on the idea of creating servants. And what you want is to create masters. I absolutely agree with you."

Zen wants everybody to be a glory unto himself. It is not an achievement, it is not competition; it is simply originality. And the originality is already there, you have just to throw away all the rubbish that you have been collecting from others. However valuable it may be, it is destroying your original being, covering it with dust; and you will never be happy unless you find your original being. The very finding of your original being is such a dance, such a joy, that you can bless the whole world yet you will remain overflowing.

In the first place, Rinzai is a great master and cannot commit this mistake. This must be the translator. He must have said, "Disciples of today," not "students." Students go to the universities, to the schools, to the colleges, not to the monasteries. Students have a totally different interest, exactly opposite to the area of Zen. They accumulate knowledge. Zen wants you to drop all knowledge so that you can become utterly pure and innocent, so that you can say with tremendous beauty, "I don't know."

Not knowing, just being, and all the mysteries of existence open their doors to you. To the knowledgeable they are closed, to the innocent they are open. He could not have said, STUDENTS OF TODAY; he cannot use that phrase. I am absolutely certain because I know Rinzai, and whatever else he is saying is absolutely right.

And it is not that in his time disciples FAIL TO ACHIEVE THEIR ENDS. Anybody who has an end to achieve is bound to fail. In the world of Zen there is nothing to achieve.

Whatever has to happen has already happened, you have just to discover it. It is not an achievement. It is not a goal somewhere far away, that you have to travel to that place. It is just in your very being, in your very silence. You don't have to achieve it. It is a miracle that you have forgotten it ... in what ways you have forgotten yourself.

All your religions and all your educational systems -- the whole society is bent upon distracting every small child from his original being, making him something other than what he is. We have not been able to create a world up to now where a person is accepted as he is, without any conditions. Not only that, we have created such conditioning that the person himself does not accept his originality. He is doubtful about it, uncertain about it, hesitant about it. It is better to repeat a sutra from Gautam Buddha, because that cannot be wrong. To be original is dangerous -- you can be wrong. But a person who cannot risk being wrong can never be right.

Rinzai's complaint is:

That faith has been taken away by the parents, by the teachers, by the professors, by the priests -- they all have imposed the idea, "Have faith in Jesus Christ." No Christian is being told to have faith in himself, but is told to have faith in Jesus Christ, to have faith in his representatives.

Just now a research book has been published, explaining that the pope is the world's greatest Mafia leader. More heroin, more opium, more drugs are sold through the Vatican than through any other place. All the money that comes to the Vatican bank -- the pope's bank -- is heroin money. But his is a special situation. That tiny area in the middle of Rome is an independent, sovereign country, and the pope is the head of the state as well as the head of the religion. The police are his, the Vatican armies are his, and they are all involved in transactions which are illegal anywhere.

Just a few months ago, the government of Italy issued an arrest warrant for the manager-in-chief of the bank, but they could not enter into the Vatican. They waited outside, if he came outside he would be arrested. Rather than arresting him or helping the Italian government to catch him -- because they have found that he is turning dirty money into clean money by the millions -- the pope promoted him. And now it has been found that the pope is behind the whole scene.

He makes all those trips around the world for a stupid reason: to kiss the earth. You can kiss the earth anywhere -- as much as you want, to your heart's content; there is no need to waste millions of dollars. Visiting Australia, he wasted eight million dollars. What is the purpose? -- to kiss the ground at the airport. Where is this money coming from?

And these are the people ... all the politicians of the world are corrupt, but just because they are in power nobody can say that they are corrupt. You will be crushed. It is almost impossible to be in power and not be corrupted. Corruption is the force that leads you: whoever is more corrupt reaches the higher posts.

Every child is being destroyed by his own people. They don't know consciously what they are doing. Parents are projecting their own unfulfilled desires onto their children. The father wanted to be a doctor but could not; he ended up being something else. He could not pass the examinations and became just a chemist, but he imposes the desire to become a doctor onto his son. He sends him to school with great hope that his child will achieve what he could not achieve. He is doing it all out of his unconscious love, but unconscious love is not love -- it is blind. With all good intentions, it does harm. The child who is being forced to become a doctor, if he was left alone to grow according to his own nature ... one never knows what kind of beauty or joy, what kind of individuality, he would have contributed to the world.

Zen's whole approach is just to be yourself -- very ordinary, unknown, unnamed, but utterly content. To have faith in yourself you don't need to have faith in Jesus Christ or in Krishna or in Moses. To have faith in yourself is simple -- just to have faith in yourself. Know perfectly well that you are moving into an unknown territory. There may be dangers ahead, you are moving into insecurity, but to take the challenge of being yourself makes you really alive. And when you attain, when you discover yourself, you are on the highest peak of consciousness.

The presidents and the kings and the queens and the prime ministers will never know about it. Knowing it, being it, there comes a tremendous relaxation. You are not going anywhere, you are just here. You have been always here. Your consciousness is unpolluted. Whatever has happened to you has not left any marks on your consciousness. All those marks are just on the mind, and the mind is not you.

... Obviously -- if you don't have faith in yourself you will have to have faith in somebody else.

How can you know that the other is right? How can you know that Jesus Christ is the only begotten son of God?

I have often told of a small incident that happened in Bhagdad. A man declared, "I am the latest prophet after Mohammed. I bring the latest dispensation from God himself."

Now it is impossible for Mohammedans to accept anybody after Mohammed. Before Mohammed you can talk about Buddha, about Jesus -- it doesn't matter. But Mohammed is the last word. The man was caught and brought before the Khalif of Bhagdad. He repeated again, "Nobody is listening to me, but I say unto you that I am the last prophet! Now times have changed, God sends new messengers. I bring the latest message. Mohammed is out of date."

In fact he was right. Mohammed is out of date, everybody is out of date. But his insistence that he is a prophet sent by God himself ... Mohammedans are not very liberal or compassionate people. They don't believe in argument either, they believe in the sword. That is their only argument: whoever can cut off the other's head is right.

Naturally Omar, the Khalif, said, "Take this man and put him in jail, and for seven days give him the real treatment. Unless he confesses that he is not the prophet, that Mohammed is the only and last prophet, torture him. After seven days I will come to visit."

They bound the man to a pillar and for seven days they beat him; blood was oozing out of his every pore. He was given no food or water. After seven days the Khalif came and asked the man, "Have you changed your mind or are you still insistent?"

The man said, "When I came here God's last message was, 'Remember, you will be beaten, you will be stoned, you may be crucified.' So all these seven days you have only been proving that I am the prophet! Only prophets are treated in such a way."

Omar said, "This is a difficult case."

At this moment another man, bound to another pillar, who had been tortured there for one month, shouted, "That man is wrong, Omar. Don't believe him! I have never sent anybody after Mohammed! I have come myself."

He was God himself. He had been jailed one month earlier.

If you don't have faith in yourself, you are going to have faith in some madman who proclaims to be God's messenger or God himself, or proclaims that he is a reincarnation. But deep down there will be doubt -- how can you believe that that man is not mad?

Rinzai is saying:

Patriarchs are equivalent to the master, founders of some school of Zen.

When your mind is silent and all the vibrations of thoughts are no more there, you are one with the buddhas and with the masters. There is nothing to divide. In this position sometimes even the sanest men have declared that they are the buddha, that they are God, but this is a totally different situation. A madman shows every sign of madness, he does not radiate buddhahood. He does not have the fragrance of those heights, nor can you see in his eyes the pacific depths.

There are moments in meditation when you are a buddha. The only distinction between a madman and the man who is a real buddha is that the buddha is compassionate, loving, and is not declaring that he is the only begotten son of God. He is saying, "I am a buddha and you are a buddha, whether you know it or not." The madman declares, "I am the only buddha -- you are just ordinary human beings, made of mud. God breathed in you and you started running hither and thither."

The English word 'Adam' means mud. God made man out of mud. In America we had our commune, Rancho Rajneesh. Before we went there it was called the Big Muddy Ranch. I always wondered, perhaps God took all the mud from this Big Muddy Ranch and created humanity. There wasn't any mud at that Big Muddy Ranch, it was a desert. And certainly it was big, one hundred and twenty-six square miles.

All the words ... for example 'human being' -- 'human' comes from 'humus', and 'humus' means mud. Religions have degraded man into puppets, made of mud. That is the distinction -- the madman who is declaring himself as the prophet or the messiah or the Christ does not say that you are also Christ. He wants to be special, that is a sure sign of madness.

A buddha is absolute sanity. He knows that he is a buddha and he knows you are also a buddha. You are just asleep. Perhaps you have not decided yet to wake up, but it is your freedom to do so.

Do you see the difference? The madman wants to be special; the buddha is not special. He is declaring the buddhahood of every living thing -- not only of human beings, but even of pine trees and rosebushes. They are on the way to buddhahood; sooner or later they will also be human beings. But whether they know it or not, it does not matter. As far as their innermost nature is concerned, it remains the same.

The difference between the buddha and the rest of existence is simply that the buddha has awakened to his reality. So the buddha is continuously trying to wake you up; creating devices, methods, knowing perfectly well that you are asleep, that you only need some cold water thrown into your eyes. But the madman does not believe that you are also a buddha.

Jesus Christ belongs to the category of madmen, because of his statement that he is the only begotten son of God, and you are just sheep. He is your shepherd; he will lead you and, if he is leading you, you are on the right path -- have faith in him! If you go astray you will be lost. In fact he is saying, "Don't have faith in yourself. Give your faith to me, I am the only one who is connected directly with God. Have trust in me." No buddha will say that.

In the eyes of a buddha this is sheer nonsense. This is the difference between Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Mohammedanism -- all the religions of the world on one side -- and Zen, standing alone, in utter sanity. Zen says that you all have the universal consciousness. Nobody is special. A few people are asleep and a few people are awake, there is not much of a difference.

I can accept Rinzai as an authentic master. He knows what he is saying, because he is not putting himself over others. He is just saying that we are all part of one consciousness.

The very idea of becoming a buddha is stupid, because you are a buddha. The question is of waking up, not of becoming.

A footnote: "In China, the heart is believed to be the seat of thought, or intelligence, and its western equivalent is mind. A TRUE MAN OF NO FIXED POSITION is the mind which, according to Huang Po, also known as Obaku, has neither location nor direction because it is as immense as space."

This footnote must be from the translator. The red heart does not mean the mind. In Zen tradition the red heart is simply the one that the physician and the physiologist know, the one that is running the body. That heart is the center of the body. To complete the distinction, behind this heart there is another heart which in China they used to call the "inner heart."

In India just a few years ago, there was a man, Brahmayogi, who had practiced for almost half a century to bring his breathing to a complete stop. His heartbeat disappeared, his pulse disappeared. He was capable of remaining in this position for ten minutes. He had been tested at many medical institutes, and doctors around the world had given him a death certificate. In those ten minutes they could not find any sign of life. It was his agreement that he would go out of the body, and, "If you find no sign of life, you have to write a certificate for me just the way you would for any dead person."

They could not believe that this man could come back. He had gone too far away: no pulse, no heartbeat, no breathing. He was examined with very accurate instruments, but there was no sign of life. Yet after ten minutes he started kicking again. Slowly breathing came back, the heart started functioning again, the blood started running. These doctors could not believe it, but they had to believe. He was given many hundreds of death certificates, no man in the world got so many death certificates, and from very prominent people. Ordinarily one is enough!

Obviously he proved beyond doubt that what you call death is not real. Only his outer heart stopped. The inner heart, which you have not found yet, has the capacity to go out of the body. Sometimes accidentally, in deep hypnosis, it happens that you suddenly find yourself floating above your body. Your body is lying down on the floor, and you can see your hypnotist sitting there by your dead body.

If a certain doubt arises in this moment, then death will happen. But if you are under hypnosis, doubt cannot arise. You have trusted the man to hypnotize you, and because doubt does not arise, when the man calls you to come back, your body -- the astral body, the inner body, the self -- slowly comes down and enters into your physical body.

It is a tremendously beautiful experience, but dangerous too. If somebody tries to wake you up while you are out, he will think that you are dead and start preparing for the funeral. If you become afraid you may forget how you came out; then how to get back? Coming in and out of the body is not part of knowledge, it is not a technique. Yes, if you make it a point to practice it, it can become possible for you to come out of the body and return whenever you want, but not ordinarily. Sometimes in a car accident your inner self is so much shaken that it leaves the body. But because of your desires you are attached to the body, and you will be pulled back into it.

If a meditator who is finished completely with all desires is in such an accident, he may not return to the body at all. Everybody will think it was an accidental death, but it was not accidental, it was very intentional. The person decided not to return. But nobody can catch hold of him to take him to the court.

Here in this Buddha Hall it may happen many times, but don't talk about it to anybody. If you feel sometimes that you are hovering, don't be worried. Just one hit of Nivedano's drum and you will jump back into your body. That's why it's so safe to tell you to die, because I know you cannot go far away in two minutes. You will be just here, hovering. Just a good drumbeat and you will hurry back, "Everybody is coming back, what am I doing out here? My body is there." Be quick, because somebody else may enter.

That is the only problem I have to keep watching for -- that nobody enters into somebody else's body. So if some day you feel like floating, then float, but stay close by. Don't go out for an evening walk, just to see what is happening outside the gate -- that could be dangerous. By the time you come back somebody else may have entered. You can also enter, but it is a very difficult situation when there are two spirits in one body.

Once in a while those cases happen, then you say the person is possessed by a ghost. But the reality is that the ghost lost track of his body after some incident, or does not know how he came out of his body.

My first experience out of the body was falling from a tree. I used to meditate just behind the university, where there was a beautiful hillock and three tall trees, very silent, and nobody used to go there. I used to sit in one of the trees and meditate. One day suddenly I saw that I was sitting in the tree and at the same time my body had fallen down and was lying on the ground. For a moment I could not find how to enter into it again. It was just a coincidence that a woman who used to bring milk to the university from the nearby village saw my body falling down, so she came close. She must have heard that in situations when the inner body becomes separated from the outer body, if you rub between the eyes, the third eye, that is the door. The spirit that has left will be able to enter.

So she rubbed my third eye. I could see her rubbing my forehead, and the next moment I opened my eyes and thanked her and asked her how she knew to do that.

She had simply heard about it. It was a primitive village, but she had heard the traditional idea that the third eye is the place from where one leaves and where one can come back.

IN YOUR RED HEART, THERE IS A TRUE MAN OF NO FIXED POSITION, WHO COMES IN AND GOES OUT THROUGH YOUR FOREHEAD.

That place in the forehead is called in yoga the third eye.

Rinzai is saying it is a tremendously significant experience, because then no argument is needed for you to be convinced that you are not this body -- that you are astral, invisible. Within this body is hiding another body; behind this heart is beating another heart, which medical science may one day discover. The mystics have always insisted it is there. It is in your hands if you want to experiment.

Just meditating, feel your body lying there. Feel that from your forehead your spirit is moving up, hovering in the air; but don't go too far. And always remember the forehead, the third eye, is the door through which you go out and come back in. This experience creates a conviction. Then it is no more faith. Then you know that you are immortal, that this body is just a bag, a cage.

The poet, Juo, wrote:

He is saying that causality is the basis of science, but your being is not within the area of causality. You are not caused by anything, you are here from eternity to eternity. And the experience of this is something even buddhas cannot express. He is saying, "I am a poor poet. Don't expect me to express what I have experienced. Even great buddhas find themselves utterly helpless as far as expressing it is concerned."

Shutaku wrote:

To be in absolute simplicity, to be in such silence ... You are no more mortal human beings. Every day I am reminding you about your immortality, about the fiction of death. It never happens, it has never happened.

You are beyond destruction.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked:

Yes, Maneesha. This kind of society can exist only if it makes you feel inadequate. This kind of society, the structure, needs people who are suffering, or made to suffer, from inferiority, who deep down are carrying a conditioning that they are unworthy, undeserving. This kind of society can exist only if it makes every child inadequate, because this society needs exploitation, this society has invested itself in exploiting human beings. It does not and it cannot allow everybody to be himself, because if everybody is himself there cannot be any religious organization to exploit you -- no Christianity, no pope, no kings or queens, no leaders. Because then an individual is enough unto himself, he does not need any leader.

All these so-called great people -- politicians, priests -- exist because every child has been crippled, has not been allowed to become an individual in his own right. Otherwise he will not follow anybody. He will follow himself, he will move in directions which are of his own choosing. He will not need any guide and will not need any map and will not need any dictators. This kind of society can exist only if the children en masse are forced to feel inadequate.

And my effort here is to give you your forgotten dignity. This is the most revolutionary step, because if you can remember your forgotten dignity, your spirituality, your eternity, you will be freed from all the churches, from all the nations. You will be freed from all kinds of stupid ideologies and superstitions. Your consciousness will be such an explosion of light that everything that is false will disappear.

Then this explosion creates a chain reaction -- and that is my effort. It is possible to make a chain reaction.

I am making every effort to have small groups of sannyasins radiating in every country. The whole world can be transformed if we have just a few people everywhere who can become aflame. Then their flame will move like a wildfire, destroying all kinds of slaveries and all kinds of chains and imprisonments -- creating a new sky, a new freedom for man.

You are right. In Rinzai's time also the same was the case. The whole past of humanity is a past of psychological slavery, physical slavery. Only a few people like Gautam Buddha or Rinzai or Basho, in thousands of years amongst millions of people, have been able to escape from psychological bondage. These people were always thought dangerous by the society.

Now so many parliaments in the world, without ever defining what kind of danger I am, have an unconscious feeling that this man is dangerous and should not be allowed in their country. They don't know exactly what danger they are talking about. I am utterly amazed that in these big parliaments not a single person raises the question, "What danger do you mean? What danger is this man to anyone?" No, it is simply accepted. It is taken for granted that, "This man is dangerous."

But I know they are right. They are calling me dangerous without knowing it. I call myself dangerous because I know I am dangerous. I am preparing a situation far more dangerous to the whole society than the nuclear scientists are creating. Their nuclear weapons most probably will never be used; sooner or later they will be thrown into the ocean. But I am creating a totally different kind of explosion -- not an atomic explosion, but an explosion of cosmic consciousness. If this fire spreads, suddenly you will see that those great leaders are just ordinary people, just like you, but pretenders, imposters. You will see that your kings and queens are all bogus, exploiting the society for thousands of years. You will see that your priests are lying and lying continuously about everything.

This vision, if it spreads, is bound to create a new man and a new society.

A new man can only be an enlightened man.

A new man can only be a buddha.

And if there are just a few buddhas around the world, we can create the wildfire.

It has never been tried, but it is just like ... nobody knew about atomic energy until it was tried at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nobody could imagine that a small atom that you cannot see is carrying so much energy that it can destroy a great city like Nagasaki, with a population of one hundred thousand people, or Hiroshima, an even bigger city. In the whole of history nobody ever dreamt that atoms are carrying so much energy.

Now I am saying to you that if material atoms can explode and destroy so much ... how much more creative a conscious explosion of living beings can be. It can explode millions of people suddenly into a new era of enlightenment.

All their potentialities should become actualities. You will see thousands of poets, you will see thousands of musicians, you will see thousands of sculptors, thousands of scientists who were fast asleep and were just clerks or schoolmasters -- who never knew that their potential is that of a buddha.

We have to create what I call the chain effect, the trigger effect. Now you are all sitting so silently, and I can give just a trigger ...

(THE MASTER MAKES A TICKLING GESTURE TOWARDS AVIRBHAVA WHO SCREAMS. EVERYBODY LAUGHS.)

Before we do our meditation, a few laughs. And this laughter has a beauty, because it has no cause.

(LAUGHTER CONTINUES.)

I have not told the joke yet!

(MORE HILARIOUS LAUGHTER.)

Have you ever heard such laughter before the joke? Today you have surpassed Sardar Gurudayal Singh. Even he is looking puzzled. Now be quiet, so that I can read the jokes!

Mr. Samosa, one of Poona's most successful businessmen, is a rubberware manufacturer.

He invites guests from an International Management Conference for a tour of his factory. Proudly, he introduces his different products, everything from tractor tires to baby-bottle nipples. He is especially proud of his fully automatic condom making machine, with a special electronic leakproof tester.

By the side of the machine, a man is sitting and carefully punching holes in the condoms with a needle.

"What is he doing that for?" asks one of the visitors, "Is it part of the quality test?"

"No," replies Samosa, proudly, "we are trying to promote our Hindu baby products."

Gertie Gusher has been fooling around with other men, and her husband, Gary, the Texas oil millionaire, takes her to court and demands a divorce.

"On what grounds?" asks Judge Grump.

"Breach of contract," replies Gusher.

"Please," says the judge, "you don't own your wife, so you can't treat her like a piece of property."

"Maybe not," growls the oilman, "but I sure have the exclusive drilling rights!"

Two worms, Wilbur and Wallace, share a little hole underneath the Sunnyvale Golf Course.

One day, they plan to go for a wriggle across the course, so Wilbur goes up to see what the weather is like.

Around this time, two women are playing golf just overhead, and one of them urgently has to pee.

"Don't worry," says the partner, "there is no one around, you can pee right here."

So the woman squats down and starts peeing. Just at that moment, Wilbur pops his head out of his hole.

Soaked by the flood of urine, Wilbur quickly wriggles back down into the ground.

"I see it is raining," says Wallace to his dripping friend.

"It certainly is," agrees Wilbur, drying himself on his towel. "In fact, it is raining so hard that the birds are building their nests upside-down!"

Old Mrs. Grumblebum, the wealthy hypochondriac, goes to ask her doctor to cure her latest imaginary illness.

Doctor Spook is completely fed up with the old bag, and tries to tell her she is perfectly well. But Mrs. Grumblebum insists that there is something wrong with her. Despairing, Doctor Spook tells her he will have to make some tests, so he gives her a small plastic cup and tells her to produce a urine sample.

When she comes back five minutes later, he asks her next to produce a feces sample in the same cup.

"Good," says Spook when Mrs. Grumblebum returns. "Now stick your finger in the cup, stir it around and then drink all of it."

Obediently doing as the doctor tells her, Mrs. Grumblebum downs the concoction.

Immediately, she is violently sick.

"Ah-ha!" shouts Doctor Spook. "Just as I suspected. Upset stomach!"

Now, Nivedano ... beat the drum.

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano ...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent.

Close your eyes.

Feel your body completely frozen.

Collect your consciousness, your awareness,

within your heart,

the red heart of Rinzai.

It is there your buddha is hiding.

The discovery is very simple.

Just go on

deeper and deeper.

Don't be afraid

because there is nothing to fear in the world.

And particularly when you are going inward

you are not going to meet anyone

on the way.

You will be meeting only yourself.

Let this meeting be a rejoicing,

a homecoming.

Nivedano ...

(Drumbeat)

Relax.

Let go.

Just be dead. This is simply a way

to concentrate your energy

at the very center of your being.

This moment you are the buddha.

Let this moment stretch

through all your life.

Just go on reminding yourself

who you are.

And this reminding

is going to bring a revolution;

not only to you,

but anybody who comes around you

is going to feel the beauty,

the grace,

the bliss and the fire.

In this fire

everything that is false burns away,

and only the pure gold flowers

in their uttermost beauty remain.

A dance arises in you

for no particular reason.

Nivedano ...

(Drumbeat)

Come back.

Sit down for a few moments

remembering the space you have been in.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas?

Yes, Osho.