The Master: making your life an orchestra

Question 1:

Existence consists of both: the inner and the outer.

Unfortunately, for centuries the inner and the outer have been thought to be opposed to each other.

They are not.

The teaching which proposes that the inner and the outer are opposed has caused a tremendous tension in man - because man is a miniature existence, a miniature cosmos. Whatever exists in man also exists on a wider scale in existence, and vice-versa. If man can be understood in his totality, you have understood the whole.

The function of the master is to bring the inner and outer into a harmony.

To create opposition between them is poisoning you. They are not opposed, they are one - two sides of the same coin, you cannot even separate them. Can you separate the inner from the outer?

If they can be separated then what will you call the inner? What will you call the outer? Of what?

Both are part of a coherent whole. But mankind has suffered tremendously because of the division.

My function is to destroy the division completely, and to create a synchronicity in man's outer life and his inner life.

The work is tremendously complicated and great because the outside, up to now, has been considered to be materialism. It has been condemned by the so-called holy people; you have been told to renounce it. If you are not capable of renouncing it, you are a sinner. Life has been made a sin. And for centuries, the whole emphasis of all the religions and all the traditions has been on the inner. This is one side of the story.

The other side of the story is that matter is objective, visible; the inner reality seems to be just beautiful talk. So there have been philosophers and thinkers saying that only the outer is real; the inner is only an invention of the priests, it has no existence. These people have condemned spiritualism as nonsense. And both sides agree on one point: that the inner and the outer are contradictory - you can choose one, you cannot choose both.

My approach is a choiceless acceptance of both. Naturally I am against the materialist, because I know the inner exists - in fact, the outer exists only for the inner, for its protection, for its nourishment.

And I am also against the so-called spiritualists, because I cannot deny the reality of matter. It is so evidently there, all around us, that only people who can close their eyes, their reasoning, their understanding, their intelligence, can believe that this is all illusion, that it does not really exist.

Just try. When you go out, go through the wall, not through the gate - and you will know whether it is illusion or reality. Even a Shankaracharya will go through the gate, not through the wall - and his whole life he will try to prove that the wall is an illusion, that it only appears to be, but it is not there.

There is a beautiful incident. One fine morning Shankaracharya - THE Shankaracharya, the first Shankaracharya - after taking his bath in the Ganges in Varanasi, is coming up the steps and a man is coming down the steps. It is still dark. The sun has not risen yet, and the man touches Shankaracharya. And the moment he touches him he says, "My God, please forgive me. I am a SUDRA."

And Shankaracharya is very much angry. A man who says that everything outer is illusory, even for him the body of a sudra is not illusory. He says, "You wasted my time. Now I have to take another bath."

The sudra said, "Before you take the bath, please answer my few questions. If you don't answer, you can take the bath but I will touch you again - and that will be a real waste of time."

He has put Shankaracharya into such a corner... and there is nobody around, so Shankaracharya agrees to answer his questions: "You seem to be such a stubborn man. First you touch me, then you declare that you are a sudra. And now you are forcing me to answer your questions. What are your questions?"

The sudra said, "My questions are very simple. I want to know whether my body is sudra, untouchable. Is there any difference between my body and your body? Is there any difference between my blood and your blood, my bones and your bones? Would it be possible, if we both died, for anybody to decide which body was a brahmin's body and which body was a sudra's body? Our skeletons will be the same, so please tell me: is my body untouchable?

"If not, then is my soul untouchable? And you are the man who has been teaching that God is in everybody's soul - is he more in you and less in me? Is there some difference of quantity or quality? Or does he exist only in you, and in me there is no God, no satchitanand, no truth, no consciousness, no bliss?

"And remember, you are standing near the Ganges and the sun is rising. Don't lie! And this is not a philosophical discussion; it is a question of my life and death."

Shankarcharaya moved all around the country, winning great debates with great scholars, but he remained silent before this sudra. His question was very simple: Bodies are bodies, made of the same stuff, and consciousness is consciousness, made of the same stuff. Where is the distinction?

Seeing Shankaracharya silent he said, "If you have understood me, then just go back, no need to take another bath. If you take another bath - then answer my question!"

And you will be surprised - in his whole life this was perhaps his only defeat. He had to leave the place and to go back to the temple without taking another bath. Of course he was not courageous enough to say the truth. The question was simple, but he could see that whatever he said was going to be against his own philosophical teachings, against his own religion. It was better to keep silent, not to say anything.

But the untouchable man - nobody knows his name - must have been of tremendous intelligence.

He managed to get the answer because he made it clear that, "If you take the bath I am going to touch you again. If you accept my standpoint that there is no difference, then simply go back to your temple - it is time for your morning prayer."

Seeing the situation, Shankarcharya went back to the temple. But that destroys his whole philosophy; within five minutes his whole life's effort is destroyed. And the reason is that his philosophy is against existence; this unknown man was simply stating a fact - that the outer is material, the inner is spiritual, and there is no conflict.

Have you seen any conflict between your soul and your body - fighting, wrestling, beating each other? There is tremendous harmony.

In fact, whenever the harmony is not there, you are sick. The healthier you are, the more harmonious. Disease can be defined as a conflict between the outer and the inner; they have fallen apart, they are not moving together. The harmony is broken. The function of the physician is to bring the harmony back, to bring the music back, to make your life an orchestra.

The master is a physician - not of your ordinary diseases but of your existential conflicts.

That's why I have been fighting on two fronts. I have to fight the old traditions, old religions, old orthodoxies, because they will not allow you ever to be healthy and whole. They will cripple you.

The more crippled you are the greater saint you become. So on one hand, I have to fight with any kind of thinking or theology which divides you.

Secondly, I have to work on the growth of your inner being.

Both are part of the same process: how to make you a whole man, how to destroy all the rubbish that is preventing you from becoming whole - that is the negative part; and the positive part is how to make you aflame with meditation, with silence, with love, with joy, with peace. That is the positive part of my teaching.

With my positive part there is no problem; I could have gone around the world teaching people meditation, peace, love, silence - and nobody would have opposed me.

But I would not have been of any help to anybody, because who is going to destroy all that rubbish?

And the rubbish has to be destroyed first, it is blocking the way. It is your whole conditioning. You have been programmed from your very childhood with absolute lies, but they have been repeated so often that you have forgotten that they are lies.

That's the whole secret of advertisement: just go on repeating. On the radio, on the television, in the films, in the newspapers, on the walls, everywhere, go on repeating.

In the old days it was thought that wherever there is a demand the supply happens on its own accord. Now, that is not the rule. The rule is, if you have something to supply, create the demand.

Go on hammering in people's minds certain words so that they forget completely that they have been listening to it on the radio, on the television, in the films, in the newspaper, and they start believing it. Listening continually to something, they start purchasing it - any soap, any toothpaste, any cigarette. You can sell anything.

I have heard about a man who was thought to be a great salesman. His company was very proud of him. The company was dealing in real estate, and there was a big plot of land that had been with them for years and they had not been able to find anybody even interested in it. Finally the owner called the great salesman and asked him. He said, "Don't be worried," and he sold the plot.

After just fifteen days, the rains started and the plot was at least fifteen feet under water, fifteen feet deep. That was the reason nobody was interested in purchasing it - anybody could see from the road what would happen in the rains. All around, the land was so deep....

The man who had purchased it came, really angry - rushed into the owner's office and said, "Is this business or robbery? Where is your salesman?"

The owner said, "What is the matter? What happened?"

He said, "What happened? He sold me a plot that is now under fifteen feet of water! It has become a big lake. What am I going to do with it? I will kill that man. Otherwise, return my money."

The owner said, "Don't be worried; you just sit down."

He called his salesman. And the salesman said, "This is not a problem, you just come with me. I will solve it. You need your money? You take your money with fifteen days' interest because I have better buyers ready."

The man said, "What?"

The salesman said, "Don't change your mind - you take your money with interest, and forget all about that land. It is such a beauty.... You can make a beautiful house on it after the rains, and when the rains come again you can make arrangements so that the water does not flow out. You will have the only place of its kind in the whole city, a lake palace. And as far as the situation right now is concerned, I will give you two boats. We have been saving them for this situation."

And he sold two boats to the man! The owner was just standing there, seeing the whole scene.

Those boats were absolutely useless - for years they had been lying down there, rotten. They would drown the moment they were put into the water. He said to his dealer, "You are creating more trouble."

The salesman said, "You don't be worried. If I can manage that big a trouble, I can manage just two boats."

You have just to create a desire in people - 'lake palace'. He was thinking only of making a house.

You have changed the desire and the ambition into a lake palace. The salesman said, "Just think, if you want to make a lake palace, first you will have to make a lake. And we are giving you a ready-made lake and not charging anything!"

For centuries man has been sold beliefs, dogmas, creeds which are absolutely untrue, which have no evidence except in your ambition, except in your laziness. You don't want to do anything, and you want to reach to heaven.

And there are people who are ready to give you maps, shortcuts - as much a shortcut as you want.

Just get up in the morning with the name of God, remembering it for two, three minutes while you are getting ready to get out of the bed - and that's enough. Once in a while go to the Ganges, take a bath so all your sins are finished, you are purified. And all religions have created the same kinds of things - go to Kaaba and everything is forgiven.

Mohammedans are poor people, and they are poor because of their belief. They are against taking money on interest or giving money with interest. Now, the whole business depends on interest; they are bound to remain poor. And it is told to them that at least once in life you should go to Kaaba, and that's enough - going seven times around that stone of Kaaba, all sins are finished, all virtues shower on you. Such shortcuts.

One man reached Ramakrishna. He was going to Varanasi to take a holy dip - but he was interested in Ramakrishna, so before going, he went to touch his feet. And Ramakrishna said, "But what is the need to go to Varanasi, because the Ganges is coming here" - just behind his temple where they were sitting, the Ganges was flowing. "The Ganges is coming to Calcutta itself. Where are you going?"

But the man said, "In the scriptures the Ganges in Varanasi has a specialty. It is the same Ganges, but in Varanasi if you take a bath then all your sins are washed away."

Ramakrishna was a very simple man. He said, "With my blessings you can go, but remember one thing. Have you seen? On the bank of the Ganges there are big trees."

The man said, "Yes. I have been there once when I was very young with my father. But why are you mentioning those trees?"

He said, "I am mentioning those trees because people don't know their purpose. The Ganges is great - you take a dip and all your sins leave you immediately. But they sit on the trees and they wait for you! They say, 'Son, sometime you will come back on the same road. Where you are going to go? How long can you remain in the Ganges? You can manage as long as you want - one hour, two hours, one day, two days - but finally you will have to come out.'"

That man said, "Not even two days; I will just take the bath and come out. It will take five minutes at the most, in such cold weather.... But this is strange. Nobody told me that all those sins are sitting on the trees."

Ramakrishna said, "And the moment you put on your clothes... you are putting on clothes and the sins are coming back down on you, settling. And sometimes it happens that somebody else's sins - if they like you... 'This man looks beautiful. That man is already dead, finished; this man is good, young, has some possibilities of committing more sins' - they may drop on you; that is the greatest difficulty. Yours will certainly come back upon you, and others'.... All those trees are full of sins, so try to save yourself somehow."

He said, "How can I save myself? You can't see sins. Neither do I see them when I take the bath nor will I be able to see them when they descend upon me again!"

Ramakrishna said, "That is up to you. That is why I don't go there, because it is absolutely useless.

Those trees are not just uselessly standing there, for centuries they have been doing their job."

The man said, "You have created such a doubt in me... I will go home and think again, whether to go or not. It is an unnecessary wastage if this is going to happen. And you have made me afraid also - others' sins, which I have not committed at all!"

The priests are giving you shortcuts because you are lazy. You really don't want to do anything for your inner search.

The heaven is not somewhere far above in the clouds. It is within you, and for that you don't need to go to the Ganges or to go to Kaaba. You need to go to yourself. But that is something that no priest of any religion wants you to do, because the moment you do it you get out of all the bondage of religions - Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity - all that seems to be stupid and nonsense.

You have found your truth.

So my work begins with negativity - I have to destroy every program that has been given to you. By whom, it does not matter - whether it is Catholic or Protestant does not matter; I have to deprogram you so you are clean and unburdened. Your doors and your windows are opened.

And then the second part, the essential part, is to teach you how to enter within. Because you know very well how to go out; for many lives you have been going out and out and out. You are accustomed to it. You don't think when you go to your office, "Now turn left, now turn right, now turn...." When you come home you don't think in this way. Simply, mechanically, like a robot you go on every day coming home, every day going to the office.

The outer journey is your habit.

But the inner world is a new world where you have not even looked, where you have never taken a single step. So I have to teach you how, slowly, you can step inwards.

Even when I say to people to go inwards, immediately they ask questions which show how focused on the outside things they are.

I say to them, "Sit silently."

And they will ask me, "Can I do GAYATRI MANTRA?"

Whether you do gayatri mantra or you read the newspaper does not matter, both are outside. I am telling you, "Sit silently."

They say, "That is right, but at least I can repeat omkar..." It is pitiable. I feel sad for them, that I am telling them to be silent but they are asking me to fill their silence with something. They don't want to be silent. If nothing else, then omkar will do - anything will do.

I was a teacher in the university. A professor of mathematics became interested, just seeing me day after day... I would pass just by the side of his office. We were not introduced - still, I would put one of my fingers on my lips and look at him. He would just look here and there - "Is anybody seeing or not? Otherwise they will think this is mad, I don't know this man."

In the beginning he used to look away, to the other side. I would have to clap. Then he thought it was better to stand at the window so I would not have to clap, because others would hear. And when I insisted on putting one finger on my lips... he thought, "It looks odd that I don't do anything," so he started putting one finger on his lips. This is how we became great friends.

One day he came to my house. He said, "This is too much. Are you mad or something? Why do you torture me? And every day! I am so afraid of you, that if you come and my class is there, and if they see all this, they will start doing the same thing. And in front of other people I cannot put my finger on my lips because they will ask, 'What are you doing?'"

I said, "There was no other way." And he was an Englishman. I said, "Without an introduction it is very difficult to start talking with an Englishman, so I thought this would be perfectly right. I am not talking, I am not saying anything to you. I am just putting - it is my finger, these are my lips. I have every authority to put them wherever I want."

He said, "That is right, but - just in front of me, always in front of me!"

I said, "You have come. Now things can begin."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "I mean, are you going to destroy your life in mathematics?" He was an old man, just ready to retire. And he was waiting to retire and go back to England and settle back in his own country.

He said, "This is an important question I have asked myself many times - am I going to destroy my whole life in mathematics? What have I gained? Just figures and figures, and unnecessarily I am torturing myself and gaining nothing."

I said, "I know a way. You can sit silently - that is the symbol; this one finger on my lips simply means be silent. Just for half an hour.... You are alone" - his wife was dead and his sons had gone into their own businesses - "you have nothing else to do. You have a beautiful house and a beautiful garden. You can sit anywhere, just in silence."

He said, "The idea is good, but in silence can I go on repeating from one to a hundred? And from a hundred backwards - ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, down to one, and then back? That way will be easy for me, just like a ladder - from one to two to three to four, and then coming back down the ladder. But without engagement, just sitting silently...."

I said, "This won't do because you will still be doing the same stupid thing - the mathematics you have been doing your whole life. But what is the trouble with sitting in silence?"

He said, "It just looks... somebody may see me. Somebody may ask, 'What are you doing?' Just my whole upbringing is such that if somebody asks, 'What are you doing?' you cannot say 'nothing'; otherwise, people will think something is loose. Nothing? The whole world is there to do everything and you are sitting here doing nothing?"

In every language there are proverbs which say "Anything is better than nothing." Anything - without any conditions! Strange - anything is better than nothing? Every language has such proverbs.

"Don't sit there doing nothing; do something."

I have heard, one woman was telling another woman, her neighbor, "Today there is good news. My son, who used to do nothing, has joined a meditation group. Now he is doing meditation."

I was just passing; I said, "You don't know what you are talking about because meditation simply means doing nothing. Your boy has found really the right people, his own kind. Now he is not doing nothing alone, he is doing nothing with many people."

Meditation is not something.

Once the negative part is complete - and it depends on your intelligence, it can be complete within a second. If you can see that all that you have is borrowed, and if you have courage to decide that, "I will not carry anything borrowed; I take the decision to find out something for myself, my own truth"....

What is the point of knowing all that has been written about love and never being in love? You may collect a whole library on love - beautiful poetries, dramas, novels - but it is all pointless; you don't know what love is. You have never loved. A single moment of love is more valuable than your whole library.

The same is true about everything that is valuable. A single insight into yourself is more valuable than all your scriptures. A single glimpse of your consciousness and you have entered the real temple - which is not made of bricks and marble, but which already exists in you; it is made of consciousness itself. It is a flame, an eternal flame which has been burning since eternity. It needs no fuel. It is waiting for you to see it because by seeing it, your eyes for the first time will have something - the joy, the light, the song, the beauty, the ecstasy.

And it is not that when you enter in, your outer will be forgotten. As you enter in, your outer starts radiating the inner - in your gestures, the way you see, the way you talk, the authority behind your words. Even your touch, even your presence, even your silence will be a message.

The inner and the outer are parts of one reality.

First you have to cleanse the outer, which has been distorted by centuries. It is fortunate that nobody can distort your inner reality; nobody can enter there except you. You cannot even invite your lover, your friend. Except you, you cannot take anyone there. It is fortunate; otherwise everything would have been spoiled in you and recovery would have been impossible.

Only the outer side is covered with dust of all kinds; a small understanding can make you free of it.

But that is an essential part - the negative part - to know the false as false, because the moment you know it is false, it drops, it disappears.

And after that the inner journey is very light, very simple.

Question 2:

Yes, the whole package of judging has to go.

Nobody has the right to judge anybody, negatively or positively. These are the ways of dominating people. When you judge someone you are trying to interfere in his life, which is not your business.

A real, authentic man simply allows people to be themselves.

It is not my business to judge anybody as good, as bad. Everybody has to be conscious of his own qualities. If I want to help people, I cannot help by judging; I can help them only by making them more conscious.

If I want to help people - and there is great beauty in helping, great joy - then the first thing is a total acceptance of the person, whoever he is, whatever he is. This is the way existence has brought him.

There must be some need that he is fulfilling; without him existence will be a little less, he will be missed. And nobody can replace him; he is so unique that he is irreplaceable.

But the whole history of man is that we have not been told about the uniqueness of people. We have been told that people have to be in a certain way, have to behave in a certain way, have to live in a certain way - then they are good, then they should be rewarded by respect, by honor here on earth.

And they should be rewarded in the other world also, with all kinds of pleasures. We have been told things which are bad - and those people should be condemned here, dishonored, rejected by the society, made to suffer in every possible way. And finally, after death they will have to suffer in hell.

And the things that decide goodness and badness are shifting, changing - what was good yesterday is no longer good today. What was bad one day becomes good another day. Just look at the long span of history and you will be surprised....

For example, Rama, Krishna, Parasurama, who are incarnations of God, are all non-vegetarians, meat eaters. They are very ancient; you can think of the present time - Ramakrishna used to eat fish. Being a Bengali and not eating fish seems to be impossible. In fact, every Bengali house has a small pond. They grow fish; just as you grow other things, they grow fish. Naturally, their houses smell fishy. And it was because of this situation....

When the British empire took over India, Calcutta was their first capital. All the Bengalis had to be the first clerks, the first bureaucracy, and they were all smelling of fish. That's why the Britishers started calling them babu; babu means one who smells. You can say "Bengali babu" and there is no problem, but you cannot say "Punjabi babu" - that does not suit. With "Punjabi," babu does not suit at all - "Punjabi babu"? It is impossible - "Punjabi" and "babu"? The Bengali is a babu, and in his shadow even the Bihari has become a babu, but there it stopped.

And it is strange; because the powerful British empire was calling Bengalis "babus" - it was a condemnatory word; ba means with, bu means smell. Even a condemnatory word became a very respectable word because the powerful people were using it. So now when you want to show respect to somebody you call him babuji - "Babu Rajendra Prasad." You have not left out even the president of India; you call him "babu".

As time changes.... Today we cannot accept, no sensitive person can accept that a man who was thought to be a reincarnation of God can be a meat eater. It simply looks awkward, embarrassing.

After Mahavira and Gautam Buddha, values changed so dramatically. They had to change, because these two persons lived a vegetarian life and proved that any man who has love in his heart, compassion, cannot be a meat eater. And at the heights of consciousness, you cannot imagine that a man continues to eat meat - something is wrong.

In every age, man has to define what is good, what is bad.

You never think that Rama obeying his father - a dying man, under the influence of a young wife....

In the first place, to have four wives was wrong. Then, even at the point of death the man has not the courage to say no to his young wife. Such a henpecked husband! For no reason at all he orders Rama to go to the forest for fourteen years. And this was a value in those days, obedience. Rama is respected for centuries because he obeyed his father without even asking, "Why? What have I done? For what is this punishment being given to me?" Fourteen years he passes, on foot, in the forest.

Today, nobody who has any intelligence can say that obedience can be of such a high value. He should have disobeyed.

And this is my feeling, that if Rama had disobeyed Dasharatha, his father, this country would have been a totally different country. His obedience made this whole country a country of slaves. It is not a simple phenomenon, it is very complicated. When you respect Rama, you are respecting obedience. Then invaders came and the country obeyed, and invaders went on coming and the country went on obeying.

In five thousand years you have not seen a single revolution because revolution has never been a value for us. We have never thought that revolution is anything good. We have always condemned the rebellious spirit, while the rebellious spirit is the only spirit in the world which helps evolution. If we are lagging behind everybody in the world, it is because of our respect for obedience.

I am not saying be disrespectful, I am not saying be disobedient. I am simply saying be discriminating. And discrimination comes out of awareness - be alert, be aware, see the whole situation. And let the decision come from yourself, not from outside - not from your father, not from your teachers, not from your priests. Listen to what they have to say, listen carefully, respectfully. But the decision has to come from your own innermost being. Then you will have an individuality and you will have an independence. And with you, the whole society will move higher into consciousness, into freedom.

Don't judge people.

Rather, love people.

You are not told to love people but, knowingly or unknowingly, you are being taught to judge people.

Love knows no judgment; it simply loves, as you are. It is your question, it is your life. How to live it?

And if my love is truly great, it may change you without any effort on my part. Without judging you, there is a possibility of changing you.

You can look at me: I have lived with thousands of people; I have never judged anybody. I have simply loved everybody who has been with me, and I have seen tremendous changes happening in them without any effort on my part. Just my love has made them different.

The other day I received a letter from an American jail. One jailer loves me. And without bothering about the government, he gives time to the criminals to meditate. His jail is a special jail where only very severe criminals - either those who are going to live their whole lives in jail or who are going to be crucified, only those kinds of people are there.

After a few years in American jails, if their behavior is good, people are given a vacation - for one week they can go and visit their family, their friends. But not in this jail, because in this jail you cannot expect... it has already been judged that a man who has murdered seven persons - leaving him for seven days outside, he has nothing to lose. He can cut as many people as he wants, you cannot punish him more than you have already punished him. He can escape, there is no risk; even if you catch him again you cannot do anything. You have given him the ultimate punishment that is possible. So in this jail, holidays don't happen.

But my friend the jailer, without asking permission, started giving a few criminals holidays after years of meditation.

About one criminal who had committed seven murders he was a little hesitant, but then he remembered, "Don't judge, just love." And lovingly, he gave him seven days and told him that if he needed anything he was willing to support him: "Go out and live fully, seven days." He was not expecting that the man would be back, and he was expecting that he was going to be in trouble. If the man did not come back then there was bound to be trouble for the jailer.

But the man came back after five days. The jailer asked, "Why are you back after five days?"

He said, "I was worried about you, that you must not be sleeping; you must be afraid that I may not come back. It became such a concern to me, your worry, that I thought it was worth dropping two days; better to go back. You have loved me so much; can't I do only this much for you - coming back to jail two days earlier? It does not matter to me. My whole life I am to live here - two days more.... But I was not able to sleep; I was concerned about you. I knew that you would be continuously worried about what would happen, whether I would come back or not. And I could not enjoy, because I was missing the meditation."

You are not to judge anybody. But you can do something more: you can love.

You can help the person to meditate, to become more aware. And perhaps your love and his meditation may bring the change, may bring the transformation. And it will not be imposed from outside - it will be coming from inside, like a flower, and blossoming in the person. And when anything comes from inside and blossoms, it has tremendous beauty.