So Far, So Good

The first question;

The question is from Veereshwar....

Question 1:

The first and most fundamental thing to be remembered is that enlightenment can never have a technology. By its very nature it is impossible. But the west is obsessed with technology, so whatsoever comes into the hands of the west, it starts reducing it into a technology. Technology is an obsession. For the outside world, science is a valid approach, but partial, not total; not the only approach, but only one of the approaches. Poetry is as valid as science.

Science is knowledge without love, and that is the danger in it. Because it is knowledge without love, it is always in the service of death and never in the service of life. Hence, the whole progress of science is leading man towards a global suicide. One day when man has committed suicide - the Third World War - cockroaches will think, 'We are the most fit to survive.' Some Darwin, some cockroach-Darwin, will prove, 'We are the fittest because we have survived; the survival of the fittest.'

Man has committed suicide; he has destroyed himself. Knowledge without love is dangerous, because in its very root is poison.

Love keeps balance, never allows knowledge to go too far, so it never becomes destructive. Science is knowledge without love; that is its danger. But it is one of the valid approaches: the object, the material, can be known without love - there is no need. But life is not only matter. Life is suffused with something tremendously transcendental. That transcendental is missed. And then science, by and by, automatically turns into a technology. It becomes mechanical. More and more it becomes a means to exploit nature, to manipulate nature. The very beginning of science has been with that idea: how to conquer nature. That's a foolish idea.

We are not separate from nature; how can we conquer it? We ARE nature, so who is going to conquer whom? It is absurd. With that absurdity, science has destroyed much: the whole nature is destroyed, the climate is poisoned, the air, the water, the seas, everything polluted. The whole harmony is dying, the ecology is being continuously destroyed. Please remember - this is enough, more than enough.

Don't turn science inwards. If the application of scientific methodology has been so devastating for outer nature, it is going to be more devastating to the inner nature - because you are moving towards the more subtle. Even for the outside nature, a different kind of knowledge is needed which is rooted in love; but for the innermost core of your being, the subtlest, the transcendental, knowledge is not needed at all. Innocence is needed. Innocence with love - then you will know the inside, then you will know the interior of your being, the subjectivity.

But the west is obsessed with technology. It seems technology has succeeded in nature: we have become more powerful. We have NOT become more powerful! The whole idea is just fallacious; we have not become more powerful. We are becoming weaker every day because the natural resources are being exhausted. Sooner or later the earth will be empty, it will not grow anything. We are not becoming powerful, we are becoming weaker and weaker and weaker every day. We are on the deathbed. humanity cannot survive, the way it has been behaving with nature, for more than fifty years, sixty years, or, at the most, one hundred years - which is nothing. If the Third World War does not happen, then we will be committing a slow suicide. Within a hundred years, we will be gone. Not even a trace will be left.

And man will not be the first to disappear. Many other animals, very strong animals, have disappeared from the earth. They used to roam the earth, they were the kings of the earth, bigger than the elephant. They are no longer anywhere. They were thinking they had become very powerful. They were very huge, with tremendous energy, but then the earth could not supply feed for them. They began to become bigger and bigger and bigger; then a moment came when the earth could not supply food for them. They had to die.

The same is happening with man: man thinks he is becoming more and more powerful, he can reach to the moon; but he is destroying the earth. He is destroying the whole possibility of future life.

Slowly, humanity is disappearing. Please, don't turn your technology towards the inner; you have done enough harm. Enlightenment cannot be reduced to a technology.

So the first thing: the inner journey is of innocence, not of knowledge; certainly not of science, ABSOLUTELY not of technology. It is more of love, innocence, silence. Meditation is not a technique really. Because you cannot understand anything other than technique, I have to talk in terms of technique. Otherwise, meditation is not a technique at all. Meditation is nothing that you do.

Meditation is something that you fall into, just like love. Meditation is something in which you can be, but you cannot do it. Doing ceases.

How can there be a technology for non-doing? Technology is relevant with doing; you have to do something. Meditation is not something that you do. It is only when your doer has gone and you are totally relaxed, not doing anything, in a deep let-go, rest... there is meditation. Then meditation flowers. it is the flowering of your being. It has nothing to do with becoming. It is not an achievement, it is not an improvement; it is just being that which you already are. What technique is needed?

People are foolish; that's why techniques have to be talked about. If you understand, nothing is needed. Just being silent and just being yourself, not moving in any direction, not moving at all, and you will see the benediction, the meditation. When this meditation has become such a spontaneous flow that you need not even sit for it in a certain posture, that you need not find a small corner in the house where nobody disturbs you, when in the marketplace also it is there - talking, walking, doing, eating, it is there - when it is always there, even when you are asleep it is there, you go on feeling it, it goes on like breathing, or the beating of the heart, that's what Kabir calls SAHAJ SAMADHI, spontaneous ecstasy. it needs no technique. it needs only spontaneity, it needs only naturalness, it needs only simplicity.

So I say to you: Blessed are the ignorant, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Become innocent and become ignorant. Don't remain knowledgeable.

But in the west it is happening. Now they are trying to manipulate the mind, they are trying to create mechanisms to manipulate the mind. This is going to be far more dangerous than science. This is going to be far more dangerous, because once you know how to manipulate the mind of man, you will reduce man also to automata: that's what's going to happen. Once you know that man and his mind can be manipulated, totally manipulated, then all freedom will be gone, all individuality will be gone. Then electrodes can be put into your head without your ever knowing, and you can be manipulated from Delhi, from Moscow, from Washington, the Capitol. Just by radio-waves you can be manipulated. The whole country can be ordered, and nobody will see the order coming from anywhere - it will come from within you. An electrode is there; just on radio-waves you can be ordered, and you will follow it automatically. All freedom will be gone. You can be hypnotized at any moment. You can be put into any hallucination and you will believe in it; it will be so real - and it will be coming from within you. Then from Delhi, from Moscow, from Washington, from London, from the capital places.... There is no need to keep police and no need to keep a magistrate: this is too costly and uneconomical. These are like bullock carts - no need. Better technology will be available; no need to keep all these people to enforce, no need even for the priest to go on teaching morality and religion. Just from the capital place the orders can be given: that you are all happy - and you will all feel happy; that you are all contented - and you will feel contented. You may be on your deathbed, suffering, but if the order comes that you are happy and there is no death, you will believe you are happy and there is no death. And this will be coming from within you.

That's what Delgado proposes to do someday, and he says, 'Then man will be happy. Nobody will be unhappy.' But this happiness will not be true happiness.

Then there are mechanisms by which alpha-waves can be created in your mind, just by electrical stimulation. That is dangerous, because that will not allow you to know the reality. And those alpha- waves will be created from the outside; they will not be true, they will not be real. And God will disappear. Then there is no need for God. You are not unhappy, so why seek happiness? And you will believe in dogma - whatsoever dogma happens to be there, followed by your politicians and your priests - you will believe in the dogma, you will ABSOLUTELY believe in the dogma, and there will be no doubt. Skepticism will disappear. This is a dangerous step.

Meditation should not be reduced into technology, and enlightenment CANNOT be reduced.

Enlightenment means awareness, witnessing. Enlightenment is neither of the body nor of the mind.

It is of the beyond. The body can be manipulated by mechanisms, the mind can be manipulated by mechanisms, but your soul is beyond and cannot be manipulated by any mechanism whatsoever.

You ask, 'Many people in the west are engaged in the creation of a science or technology of enlightenment.' Those people are criminals. They are dangerous people; avoid them. Just these same people were engaged in creating technology two hundred years ago. They have destroyed nature, now they are turning towards consciousness. They will destroy that too.

Now there is a movement all over the world to protect the ecology of nature, the 'naturality' of nature.

But it is too late really. Now nothing can be done, nothing much can be done. And these people who propagate in favor of ecology appear to be eco-nuts, another species of Jehovah's witnesses - fanatics, desperately fighting something which seems impossible.

Before the plague of technology turns to human consciousness, stop it. Stop it in the seed.

And you say, 'The need is certainly there.' It is not, certainly not. There is no need. 'But how do you see the possibility?' There is no possibility either. But man is dangerous: the more impossible a thing, the more he becomes attracted and challenged. That's what Edmund Hillary said when he reached to the top of Everest. Somebody asked him, 'Why did you try it at all? What is the point?

Why?' Edmund Hillary said, 'I had to, because Everest is there. Because it is there, I had to. It stands like a challenge.' Anything unconquerable is a challenge to man's ego.

There is no possibility; naturally, it will never happen - but that very impossibility can become a challenge to these mad, obsessed people who want to reduce everything into technique. They cannot create a technology of enlightenment. That is not possible at all, in the very reality. But they can create a technology which can manipulate the mind, and even deceive people, and create an illusion of enlightenment.

That's what is happening with drugs: drugs have become a technology of enlightenment. And the guru of drugs, Ginsberg, goes on talking as if all the mystics of the world were saying the same things, were trying to give you the same vision as LSD can give, or psilocybin, or marijuana. It is nonsense. No drug can lead you to enlightenment, but drugs can create an illusion of enlightenment.

'Is it irresponsible to engage in its creation without having reached the state of enlightenment?'

Only people who have not known enlightenment can try it. Those who have known cannot even think of the possibility. And it is irresponsible.

'Is the Arica method a valid approach?'

The Arica method is technology, techniques, knowledge without love - and hence the danger is there. it will turn people into robots.

Remember always, freedom is the goal; MOKSHA, absolute freedom, is the goal. You can turn human beings into robots; they will be less miserable. In fact, if you become a perfect robot, how can you be miserable? A machine is never miserable; of course, never happy too, but never miserable.

Arica methods, or any methods which exist without love, are dangerous. And in this again it is very difficult to make a distinction - because the same method can be used with love, and then it is meaningful; and the same method can be used without love, and it becomes dangerous. And it is very difficult to see from the outside whether the method is being used with love or without love.

The Arica methods have been chosen from different schools: Sufi, Gurdjieff, Tibetan, Indian, Japanese. It is eclectic. From all over the world, they have chosen techniques. In the first place, they are chosen from different schools; there is not a harmony in them, there is no center in them. It is just like a piled-up thing - a crowd of people, a mob, not a family - because the techniques come from different schools.

A Sufi technique is bound to be different from a Zen technique. Both function, both work, but they work in their own system. They cannot work outside the system. It is as if you take one part of one car, and try to fix that part into another car of a different make. And it doesn't work, and you are puzzled: 'why doesn't it work?' It used to work in the first car; there was a harmony, it was meant for that car. A Zen method works in a Zen philosophy; a Sufi method words in a Sufi philosophy; a Tibetan method works with Tibetan occult esoteric Buddhism; a Yoga method works with Patanjali's system. You cannot just choose those methods from anywhere, otherwise you can make a car with a few parts from the Rolls Royce, a few from Lincoln, a few from Cadillac, and a few from Fiat - and you go on jumbling parts from everywhere. You can is dangerous.... It is not going anywhere in the first place, and you are fortunate if it doesn't move. It moves? - then you are more unfortunate.

Arica has chosen from different schools. Arica is very greedy, eclectic; but there exists no center. It is not an orchestra, it is a market noise.

First thing: if you follow the Arica method too much, you will not arrive to your center. You will come to many experiences on the periphery, but you will never arrive to your center. And all your experiences will not be of a family, but fragmentary. And it is dangerous; you can fall into pieces.

The second thing: there is no love, because there is no center - and love arises only from the center. This collection of so many methods is soul-less, there is no soul in it. So you can become very, very efficient in the methods, and yet you will see that your heart is not flowering. You will become efficient, but you will not become blissful. You may become less miserable, you may be less tense, you may become more capable of controlling yourself, you may have a stronger ego, but you will not have a soul.

The methods are all valid taken in their own context. But Arica has not yet any philosophy, it has no harmony. And this is not a way to create a harmony; the way is just opposite. In fact, Buddhism was born when Buddha became enlightened. The center came first and then he started creating a few methods to help those people who were not yet enlightened, to help them come to the center that he had already achieved. The center came first, then the periphery.

So it is with Jalaluddin Rumi: he became enlightened first, and when he became enlightened he was dancing, he was whirling - not to become enlightened; he had never known about it. He just liked whirling very much, and he felt very peaceful. It was a coincidence. While he was whirling he became enlightened. When he became enlightened, he started thinking of how to help people; the center came first. Then he started the Sufi methods. The same was the case the Patanjali.

With Arica, it is totally different. There is no enlightened being at the center; of course, a very clever person who has collected many methods from many sources and many directions and many traditions - but there is no center. It is only a periphery. So people who go into Arica will, sooner or later, feel stuck. it will take you to a certain extent, and then suddenly you will see: there is going to be no growth. And you will become dry, like a desert... because unless love flows, flowers never come up, trees don't grow, rivers don't flow.

The ultimate blooming is always that of love.

The second question:

Question 2:

Never listen to what I say! Only look at me, listen to me. Don't be too much bothered by the words.

Look directly: can you see any ego in this person sitting here talking to you? Don't be too much concerned with what I say. In fact, only an absolutely egoless person can say, 'I am the biggest egoist in the world.'

Ordinarily, the ego tries to hide itself. You tell somebody, 'You are an egoist'; he will feel offended.

He may be, but he will feel offended. The more he is, the more he will feel offended. The ego wants to function from the unconscious, from the dark corner. It never comes into the light. I can say to you that I am the greatest egoist in the world, because there is no problem.

And I told you that my ego includes all. How can an ego include all? The ego has to exclude, otherwise definition is lost. The ego has to say: You are you and I am I, and I am higher than you, and greater than you. The ego has to depend on definition, demarcation. When I said that I include you all, my ego is so vast that it includes all - it does not exclude anything, not even the devil - then the 'you' disappears. And when the 'you' disappears, how can the 'I' exist?

But the question is from an Englishman. That's natural. Englishmen don't have a sense of humor. He took it seriously; they are serious people. He must have started thinking, 'This man is contradicting.'

I am a non-serious person. I am allowed to contradict.

It is said that whenever a joke is told to an Englishman, he laughs three times. First, when he listens to the joke - and of course, he never understands it. He laughs just to be polite, so the other person does not feel offended - that you have not understood, or his joke was missed. Not to make him embarrassed, he laughs loudly. Then he laughs a second time in the night, in the middle of the night, when he catches hold of the joke. 'Right!' he says, then he laughs. And then he laughs a third time at his own ridiculousness - laughing at the joke in the middle of the night! 'How foolish!' - and how un-English!

The third question:

Question 3:

First: curiosity and strong thirst never exist together. Curiosity is never thirst. Curiosity is childish:

one simply wants to know. It is like an itching - nothing serious is involved, you are not ready to pay anything for it. You are simply curious. You are not serious about it, it is not a deep thirst in you. It is not that knowing it you are going to change your life, your style, your way, your being. Just by the way, you want to know; you are not too concerned.

Many people come to me: they ask one question. Somebody comes and says, 'What do you think?

Does God exist or not?' Now, even to ask such a question needs a very stupid man. The question is so vast, so unutterable, that if you are really thirsty, you will not be able to verbalize it. You may cry, you may weep, but you will not be able to utter it. The question is so vast, so tremendous. How can you say it? Even to say it is to make it profane; it is a sacrilege. The question is so sacred, so holy, that you throb with it, but you cannot formulate it.

I know those people also. They come and they start trembling, and they say, 'We don't know what we have to ask.' Sometimes a person comes to me and says, 'Osho, WHAT SHOULD I ASK?' Now this is a man of a totally different quality. He cannot even formulate his question - because life is so vast and big; how to put it into a question? The moment you put it into a question, it looks childish.

Questions and answers exist only in schools, not in life.

Somebody comes and asks, 'Does God exist?' and he's expecting an answer, yes or no. You have been trained in your schools, colleges, universities, to answer. Everything and anything you have been trained to answer. You have never been trained to question, remember; you have been trained to answer. Your examination papers simply give you a few questions; you have to answer - 'Does God exist?' - and you wait there. And of course there can only be two answers, yes or no. But will it be meaningful to say, 'Yes, God exists'? Will it solve anything at all? You must have heard that answer before. Or, if it is answered, 'No, God does not exist,' is it going to help you at all? You have heard that answer before too; both answers are known. What are you asking?

It is better to be silent, it is better to throb. It is better to cry and weep, it is better to open your heart.

Your intensity, your thirst, will not be curiosity. Curiosity never exists with a strong thirst. And you say, 'Curiosity and a strong thirst to have the eternal goal has brought me to your camp.' I don't think so. Curiosity may have brought you. And this person has been asking foolish questions; he must have asked at least a hundred questions within ten days.

Intense thirst will make one question out of all questions. If your thirst is intense, then all questions are reduced to one question, and that question is 'Who am I?' Now all else is irrelevant.

A thirsty person is not worried about God, he is not worried about whether there is a hell or heaven, he is not worried about past lives, he is not worried about the theory of Karma and reincarnation.

His whole problem is: I don't know who I am. This is the first and last question: 'I have to know this.

If I have known this, then everything else is secondary, can be known; but if I don't know myself, what is the point of knowing anything else?' When there is passion for truth, then you have only one question: Who am I? And in the hundred questions the man has asked, there has not been a single question about 'Who am I?' He has not asked that question. The man is curious; and he says, '... to have the eternal goal' - the man is greedy too.

You don't know yourself and you are hankering for the eternal goal. The greed, the ego: they desire the world, they desire the other world too. They desire money, a bigger bank balance, bigger houses, bigger cars, and then they start desiring heaven and paradise and God. Everything has to be in their fists... greedy people.

You have to know who you are, and by knowing it the eternal is revealed. Not by grabbing the eternal do you know yourself, no. You cannot grab the eternal. You are so tiny. Just think: a man, a very accidental man, thinking to grab the eternal! A small fever will kill you. Ninety-eight point six degrees and you are okay; four or five degrees below ninety-eight, and you are gone. Four, five degrees below ninety-eight, and you are gone. You cannot exist beyond one hundred and ten degrees, and you want to grab the eternal?

You cannot exist without breath for more than a few minutes - for more than eight minutes you cannot exist - and you want to grab the eternal?

A body that is already dying.... From the very moment you were born your body is dying. Seventy years is nothing in this timeless procession, in this eternity. A man who is going to live seventy years wants to grab eternity? Such a small head - where will you put the eternity in it? It is as if somebody is trying to put the whole sea in a spoon.

I have heard about a great philosopher; it must have been Aristotle. I don't know exactly, but I suspect.

He was taking a walk on the beach in the morning sun, and he saw a madman. The man looked mad. And he was carrying water in a teaspoon from the sea, and was pouring it. He had dug a hole, and he would run again to the sea and would come again and again. Aristotle saw him and he said, 'What is he doing?' He came close and he said, 'What are you doing?' The man said, 'I have decided to empty the whole ocean into this hole.' Aristotle said, 'Have you gone mad? With that teaspoon? and in this small hole? and that VAST ocean?' And the madman started laughing, and he said, 'I was thinking that you are mad. I have heard that you want to understand the eternal truth. In this small head? Who is mad!'

The man must have been a great seer. He shocked Aristotle very much, but he was true. Truth always shocks. Don't be greedy about truth, because truth comes only when you are not greedy. And when you are not greedy, you are not small. Greed makes you small. When all greed disappears, your boundaries disappear. Then you are not a small hole by the side of the ocean. Then the ocean is a small hole by the side of you... when the greed is not there. Truth is not something that you have to possess, it is something that has to possess you. You have to allow it.

But the man is very knowledgeable, and knowledge never allows truth entry. In all his hundred questions he has been showing his knowledge: all the scriptures that he knows, and all that he has heard, and all that has been conditioned into his head.

'Can curious, suspicious persons not become good followers?' A curious person, a suspicious person, cannot even become a follower. A good follower is far away, because to follow you need to be in trust. To go with somebody into the unknown, at least you will have to have a little trust. And this man knows no trust. Suspicious he is; but he knows no trust. Doubt cannot lead you into the inner journey. Doubt is good in science; science depends on doubt. Doubt is a method in the world of science. If you trust, you will not move into science at all; you have to distrust. Science is an inimical method; it depends on antagonism.

Religion, mysticism, are totally different, diametrically opposite. Trust is the method there, not doubt.

It you trust me, you can come with me. There is no other way.

And the questioner says, 'Your advice to me, to leave your camp immediately, seems rather harsh.'

Harsh? You say harsh? Then you don't know anything about Masters. It is not harsh! It is very polite.... Have you heard about Zen Masters? If you had asked the same question to a Zen Master, he would have jumped on you. He would have pounded you then and there. He would have thrown you out of the ashram. Some day I will do it; wait. Otherwise, why do I have Sant and Kamal and Gurudayal? They will do the pounding. You wait a little more, you trust me a little more, and you will see.

Harsh, you say? It is not harsh; it is simple compassion for you.

You need it, you deserve it - because a knowledgeable person needs shocks, electro-shocks. I'm not here to make you more knowledgeable, I am here to help you drop all your knowledge. The work is almost as if one is fast asleep and you have to wake him. Of course, it is harsh. Have you not seen it yourself? - when the alarm goes off early in the morning and you are getting ready for the Dynamic Meditation, and you want to say 'hell with it!' and you want to throw the clock. It is harsh.

A Master is an alarm. A Master has to be very shocking: he has to shake you to your very roots, because he has to uproot your mind and transplant you in a totally different world. He has to change your level of being. it is not easy, it is arduous. It is painful too. It needs sacrifice. If you are ready to sacrifice, only then be here. Otherwise, leave me - because you will be wasting your time and mine too. If you are ready to go through all this suffering that is a must, this sacrifice....

This word 'sacrifice' is beautiful It means: to make something holy, to make something sacred. If you are ready to take my shocks in deep trust, in love, they will become sacred. Then my harshness will not look like harshness, it will look like compassion. You will feel that I said so because I loved so much. Otherwise, why should I bother?

The fourth question:

Question 4:

It is from Deva Chandan - of course, a woman who belongs to the lib movement. It is significant.

The question has to be understood.

It has never been so in the past - that a woman was ever a great Master - and it will never be so in the future either. The reason is that the feminine mind, by its very nature, is not aggressive. And to be a Master one has to be aggressive. It has nothing to do with the male-chauvinists. It has nothing to do with the male-oriented society. Your question is almost like this: Why is the man always the father and never the mother? Nothing can be done about it; it is natural. Only once has it happened:

let me tell you the anecdote.

A priest was in a hospital for an exploratory operation to determine the cause of the abdominal pains from which he had been suffering. In the hospital, at the same time, a young unwed girl came and gave birth to a baby boy which, she explained to the doctor, she did not wish to keep.

The quick-thinking physician approached the priests bed as he awoke after the operation and explained to him that a miracle had occurred: God had given him a son. The priest, at first shocked, took the baby boy in his arms and bowed his head in prayer, thanking God for the miracle.

What else to do?

Many years passed. The priest and boy were living together as father and son. The time came for the boy to leave home to go to college. The night before his departure, the priest approached the boy and chokingly said, 'My son, I have a terrible confession to make to you.' The puzzled boy looked up as the priest continued to speak. 'I have always led you to believe that I am your father.

Well, my son, it is not true. I am your mother. The bishop is your father.'

Only the male mind can be a Master. To be a Master means to be aggressive. A woman cannot be aggressive. Woman, by her very nature, is receptive. A woman is a womb, so the woman can become the best disciple possible. It is very difficult for a man to become a disciple, it is very simple for a woman to become a disciple.

The Master-disciple relationship is a man-woman relationship. You may not have looked at it that way, but try to look at it that way. The disciple is receptive, the disciple is a womb. That's why it is very difficult for males to become disciples - some reluctance, some resistance, some fight, some ego continues. it is very difficult for a man to become a disciple. The greatest disciples have always been women: Mary Magdalene was the greatest disciple Jesus had. But she could not become an apostle, she could not become a Master. Yes, Buddha was also surrounded by beautiful, tremendously capable women. Mahavira was surrounded: Mahavira had forty thousand sannyasins - thirty thousand women, ten thousand men. The proportion has always been so. Four disciples come - three are women, one is a man. And that one man is not very reliable: he may have come for the women, he may not have come for the Master. That danger always exists.

But the greatest Masters have always been men. Now this is a paradox, but this is how it is - because a Master has to go out in a thousand and one ways, to work on you. A Master has to move out - to help you, to hold your hand, to protect you, to shock you, to drag you into the unknown, to push you. He has to do a thousand and one things which are aggressive; that's why. It has nothing to do with the male-oriented society. Even in the future, when all equality has been established absolutely, man will be the father, and woman will be the mother. And miracles don't happen.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

'Everything is perfect but also the Third World War is coming' - that is going to be perfect too. It will kill utterly. It will be a total war - the perfect, the most perfect ever. Now, the problem arises: the world war is coming, and what are you doing here? Meditating? You should go into the world and prevent the world war. Can you do that? Is it possible to prevent it? Is it possible to do anything about it? You will be wasting your life. You have a very short life. These few moments are very valuable - and they were never so valuable before, because the Third World War is coming. Before, there was always time. Now it seems, any moment, time will be finished. It can happen tomorrow morning. Anybody can go beserk.

Richard Nixon, when he was in a turmoil after Watergate, had ideas in his mind to create a Third World War. he had the key to trigger the phenomenon, and of course he was in great anxiety and anguish. And I must say this one thing in favor of this man: that he resisted the temptation. It would have been very easy to trigger the war, and he would have become the last President of America...

dearly lost... and he would have had the whole of history. He would have been the most historical person of all. Of course, there would have been nobody to write the history; that is another thing.

And it would have been better, at least for him, not to be in such disgrace. He could have saved his own ego. This much must be said about the man: that he resisted the temptation, which was not very easy. He could have simply started dropping atom-bombs on Moscow. Within fifteen minutes, just within fifteen minutes every single soul on the earth would have been dead.

We have the capacity to kill the whole earth seven times. We have the capacity to super-kill. Each person on this earth can be killed seven times; that many atom and hydrogen-bombs are ready, piled up, waiting. Any day, any politician can go beserk - and politicians are mad people. They are not very sane; otherwise why should they be in politics in the first place? You are sitting on a volcano.

Never before has it been so dangerous. And you think: 'What am I doing here? Meditating?' What else to do?

While the time is still there, meditate. If the volcano erupts and you die meditating, you will know the taste of the deathless. And if many people in the world decide to meditate, the Third World War may never happen. Because this has been observed again and again, down through the centuries; that if in a village of a hundred people only one person starts meditating, the whole quality of the consciousness of the village changes - one percent only - because the one person comes in contact with the hundred persons of the village, a small village. He is related to everybody: somebody is an uncle and somebody is something else; somebody is a brother somebody is related through the wife. he is related, interconnected. he starts vibrating a different energy, the meditative energy.

The whole quality of the village consciousness changes with a single person's meditation. If only one percent of humanity started meditating, there is a possibility that the Third World War can be avoided. There is no other possibility.

Why, in the first place, are people so violent that they have to fight again and again? In three thousand years' time there have been fifteen thousand wars, five wars to each year. The whole of humanity seems to be insane: we have just been fighting and doing nothing. Now, out of these three thousand year's violence, there is coming a crescendo - the final way, the total way. You would like to go into the world and convince the politicians, or arrange a protest march towards Washington and Moscow. That is not going to help. Because have you watched? - the people who join in the protest marches are very violent people. Have you not watched it? Their shouting, their slogans; they are all violent, aggressive people. Maybe they are for peace, but they are ready to fight for it.

And fight is the problem. What will you do? You will start shouting, you will create slogans, and you will get heated-up by it; you will start fighting.

That's what politicians have always been doing. Moscow is not for war, neither is Washington. The communist says: We have to arrange for war because we want peace in the world; and the capitalist says the same. The capitalist and the communist and the fascist are not different; they all prepare for war, and they all say they are preparing for peace. Now you go on a protest march, and you are a violent person.

The only protest march can be: meditate, sit silently, and create a meditative energy.

Once in this ashram there was a competition, an essay competition to describe the meditative person. And of course, as can be expected, Mulla Nasrudin came first. His description is REALLY beautiful. Mulla Nasrudin explained the difference between a person who is meditative and one who is not, in this way: 'A non-meditative person is one who if he jumps of a skyscraper, goes whoosh, splat! - finished. A meditative person is still clicking his fingers halfway down saying, 'So far, so good.'

If it is going to happen, it is going to happen; you click your fingers and say, 'So far, so good.' You are still alive. The Third World Was has not yet happened; don't miss this chance to dance. And by your dancing, I am saying you will create a ripple. Meditate: by your meditation, you will release a different quality of energy into the world.

If you can convert one percent of the whole world into mad orange people, dancing, singing, meditating, not at all political.... Those protest marchers ARE political; politics is the root cause.

We need non-political persons. I have not ever voted in my life, and people would come to me and they would say, 'But you can vote for the person you would like.' I said, 'For whomsoever I vote, it goes to a politician. I cannot vote. I am a non-participant. They are all the same; their names differ.'

Now this pacifist is also a political person. I would like you to create a few people who are non- political. 'Non-political' is what I mean by religious - a person who says, 'Okay, if it is going to happen, it is going to happen. Why should I waste my time? I should meditate, I should enjoy, I should delight. Meanwhile, I am going to dance. If it is going to happen, it will happen, but why should I miss the dance? The time is short.' If you start dancing, if you start loving, if you become friendly, if you enjoy life, you will create energy which will be for peace - without thinking of peace at all. So I don't talk about peace, I talk about love. Peace follows love-energy like a shadow.

I know there is poverty, there are beggars, but what to do? Whatsoever you do is not going to help. Down through the centuries, people have been serving people, donating, giving money, clothes, food; much philanthropy has been there, but nothing has happened. Then there have been communist countries where they saw that religion had failed. In fact, religion has never been tried, but it looks as if religion had failed because these people are thought to be 'religious people':

those who donate, give charity, and do things like that. These are not religious people, these are guilty people. They feel guilt. When a person accumulates too much money he starts feeling guilty.

Now he has to do something to unburden his guilt, so he gives to charities. This is just to console his own conscience.

It happened:

Andrew Carnegie had donated to many libraries, to many colleges, to many universities, medical colleges, and a thousand and one institutions. When he was dying - he was one of those robber- barons - he enquired of his secretary, 'How much have I donated in my whole life?' He had donated millions of dollars. The secretary rushed to the treasurer and enquired; it was a big list. He listened:

the total was millions and millions of dollars. He was surprised. he opened his eyes, he suddenly became very much alive, and he said, 'But from where, I wonder, could I get that much money?

From where? Have I donated that much? But from where could I get that much money?' You have got it from the same people to whom you donate. From one pocket you take, with another hand you give, and of course, you never give the whole, total amount. You just give a part of it. It is a trick.

And this has not helped.

If you need a world without poverty, greed has to disappear. No, charity is not going to help; it has not helped. Greed has to disappear, hoarding has to disappear. That's what I am trying to teach you: if you love life, you never become a hoarder. Life is so beautiful; who bothers about tomorrow?

That's why I go on repeating again and again: live in the moment, then there will be no beggars.

But you live in the future - then there are going to be beggars. You accumulate for the future; then certainly, it cannot be available to all who are alive right now.

The earth is enough for the people who are alive. If nobody gathers for the future, hoards for the future, thinks of the future, everybody will be happy, and everybody will have enough. But you think about the future. You are not happy right now: you think, 'Tomorrow I will be happy.' So you sacrifice your present, and you sacrifice somebody else's present too, to heard for the future. The beggar on the street is not the problem, the beggar on the street is simply a symptom; your greed is the problem. You can give something to the beggar; I am not saying don't give. It will give you a consolation that you have done something - you give to the beggar. And the beggar is in the same boat: he is also hoarding. He may not be so beggarly as he looks, because I know about beggars who have bank balances. it may just be his profession, so he has to be beggarly. He has to show that he is dying, because you have become so hard: unless somebody is dying, you will not melt.

He has to sit there, shivering in the cold. He can afford a blanket, he has enough money; but he cannot afford it - because if he has the blanket you will not feel sorry, you will not feel guilty. His shivering gives you a shivering. He has to pretend.

I used to know one student. he was my student in the university. I enquired of him, 'Where do you live?' He said, 'Don't ask, sir.' I insisted, so he said, 'I have never told it to anyone because my father has told me not to say it to anyone. But I can say it to you. Please don't say it to anybody.' I said, 'what is the matter?' He said, 'My father is a beggar. You must have seen him; he begs at the railway station.' I said, 'He is your father?' 'He's my father. And he has enough money. But I cannot say it to anybody, otherwise his prestige as a beggar will be at stake.' And this boy used to always live like a rich man. And that beggar I knew, because I was continuously travelling, or every day I was coming and going from the station. And I was one of the persons whom he was cheating; he would always take something from me. Coming or going, I had to give something to him. He would not leave me. I said, 'Okay, next time I will see'.

So next time I went, he came running: 'I am dying, and my wife is very ill and in the hospital.' I said, 'And what about your son?' He said, 'What son?' I said, 'He is my student.' He said, 'Sir, please don't say it to anybody, and I will never bug you any more!'

If you want to help, you help. But remember, that is not my cup of tea. It is your trip, and please, don't try to lay your trips on me. If you want to help beggars, help them. You help to the very extreme.

When you become a beggar then others will help you. This is how things have been going on - because charity has not helped; communism came in, and communism has not helped either. It has not made anybody rich. It has simply made the rich poor. The poor remain poor; only the rich have disappeared. But now there is no comparison.

That's why Russians don't allow their citizens to go and see America. That is dangerous, because the American poor are far richer than the Russian rich. It is dangerous. In Russia, the rich man has disappeared; all are poor. Equality has been established because all are poor. Nobody is rich, true, but the poverty has not changed, and the greed has not changed. Now the state has become greedy. Now the state plans for the future: seventy percent of their budget goes to war preparation.

The country remains hungry: people don't have shoes, people don't have clothes - but seventy percent of the budget goes to war preparations for the future, for some third world war. This is communism.

Communism has failed, failed more than the old ways of charity - because it has created a new class. The rich man is not there, but he bureaucrat. The bourgeoisie has disappeared, but the bureaucracy has come in. Now the rich man is not there, but the Communist Party member; now he is the elite. And the same oppression continues in a far stronger way. Never before on the earth has there been such slavery as exists in Russia and China.

'So what to do?' you ask. My suggestion is: don't think that you can prevent the third world war, don't think you can change poverty. You can change only yourself. Drop your greed, drop your future, drop your mind, become more loving, become more heartful, and live from the heart. And if many people start living that way, that is the only way to change the world. The world cannot be changed directly because there is no soul to the world. The soul exists in the individual; only individuals can be changed.

If you remain a hoarder - greedy, violent, repressed - this society will continue. And you can give money to the beggar and he will remain a beggar, because money never changes anything. I have seen millionaires, and still beggars; so miserly that whatsoever they have makes no difference.

I have heard....

Two Jewish refugees passed the home of John D. Rockefeller. 'If I only had that man's millions,' sighed one of them, 'I would be richer than he is.'

'That does not make sense,' the other reminded him. 'If you had Mr. Rockefeller's millions, you would be just as rich as he, not richer.'

'You are wrong,' the first assured him. 'Don't forget that I could give Hebrew lessons on the side.'

Now a beggar remains a beggar: he will give Hebrew lessons on the side, even if he has all the money of a John D. Rockefeller.

People don't change. Money never changes anything. If YOU change, that is an altogether different thing. I am not saying don't have compassion; I am saying have compassion, but don't think that by your compassion the world is going to change. Don't hope for that. Give whatsoever you can give, share whatsoever you can share, but share only out of love. Don't think in terms of politics, of changing the world; otherwise you will be frustrated. Forget all about it. You do whatsoever you feel like doing. If you meet a beggar, and you have a feeling arising in you, do something, whatsoever you feel like doing. I am not saying don't do anything. I am simply saying don't hope that you are changing the world. Nothing is being changed.

The only way to change the world is to change the level of consciousness - and that you can do only in yourself. It cannot be done to anybody else from the outside. Yes, if YOU change your level of consciousness, you create vibes which change people, which change people without their knowledge.

A different milieu is needed in the world - not a different society but a different milieu. A different spiritual vibe is needed. That's why I am not interested directly: I don't want to make you social servants, missionaries, and things like that. I want you to be absolutely selfish.

First try to know who you are: this is the first principle of selfishness. First try to love: this is the second principle of selfishness. Love yourself so that you can love others. And the third principle of selfishness: live the moment delightfully, celebrating - and then something will start happening through you. You will become a triggering-point; a world process starts.

Whenever a Buddha happens, a world process starts. You become a Buddha, awakened. That's all you can do.

The last question:

It is from Swami Yoga Chinmaya.

Question 6:

And he has disappeared; I cannot see him here. Whenever he asks a question, he hides. Just the other day he was sitting in the first row, now he has disappeared.

You are all my girlfriends, boys included.

But this will not satisfy him; he needs something esoteric. So for him especially - please, nobody else should listen to it, you close your ears. It is only especially for Swami Yoga Chinmaya, because an esoteric thing has to be very secret.

I had a girlfriend when I was young. Then she died. But on her deathbed she promised me she would come back. And I was afraid. And she has come back. The name of the girlfriend was Shashi.

She died in '47. She was the daughter of a certain doctor, Dr. Sharma, of my village. He is also dead now. And now she has come as Vivek... to take care of me. Vivek cannot remember it. I used to call Shashi 'Gudiya', and I started calling Vivek 'Gudiya' also, just to give a continuity.

Life is a great drama, a great play - it goes on from one life to another to another.

This is especially for Chinmaya. I hope nobody else has heard it.

And the really, really last one:

Question 7:

That's true. When I walk, my feet don't touch the ground - but there is nothing miraculous about it.

They don't reach the ground because I always wear shoes.

If it does not satisfy you - because you would like your Master to be a great miracle-maker - then just to satisfy you, I would like to say that those shoes are of awareness, and if you also wear the shoes of awareness, your feet will not touch the ground. It is simple, it is not miraculous.

And you have asked, 'Have you something to say about it?' That is dangerous. The time is over. I have nothing to say about it, but if I have to say, it takes ninety minutes... and the time is over... and my bladder is full... and I would like to go to the bathroom. Excuse me.