Every desire creates conflict

Question 1:

Raso, peace is, for the rebellious man, his very light. It is his very aroma, his fragrance, the harmony of his heart, his at-oneness with existence. All conflicts of the mind are just memories of the past.

The mind is no longer divided, split or schizophrenic. The mind has become an organic unity.

The ordinary man who has not tasted rebellion or religion - which to me are equivalent - is a house divided against himself. He is continuously fighting within and without. He is fighting for money, for power, for prestige, for respectability. His outside life is nothing but power politics. It is a continuous, ongoing warfare that ceases only when he stops breathing.

The inner scene is not much different either, because the outer and the inner cannot be much different. They are part of one individual - the outside and the inside. Inside he is struggling against nature - his own nature, his own instincts, which some so-called wise men have condemned. He is blindly following their condemnation without any understanding of his own. Fighting with his own nature, he becomes crippled.

The man who is fighting against his instincts - that is his body - is bound to fight against his intuition, which is his very soul. The man who cannot find peace with his body cannot hope to find peace with his soul, because to find peace with the body is simple; to find peace with the soul is more subtle, more invisible.

Man is fighting with his full force against every inclination that existence has given to him - against his love, against his longing for truth - because the traditions go on teaching him, "You need not search for truth; it has already been found. You simply believe in it."

From your side, any search is a sign of revolt. You simply have faith - faith in Jesus Christ, faith in Mahavira, faith in Gautam Buddha - but never faith in yourself.

All the religions are agreed on one point: that you should not trust yourself. You should be constantly conscious and alert against yourself. They have made you an enemy of yourself; hence, every moment a subtle underground struggle and conflict goes on within you. There is neither peace inside, nor is there peace outside.

Yes, sometimes you say, "I am living peacefully," and sometimes you say, "I am feeling very upset."

But the difference between your peace and your being upset is not of quality but only of quantity, of degrees. What you call peace is a cold war. You are tired, exhausted; there is a limit to everything.

You need a little rest to be ready to start the old game again. So sometimes you are in a state of cold war within and without, and sometimes you are in a hot war within and without. But the war continues; whether it is cold or hot makes no difference.

You are never at peace, you cannot be. You have not prepared the ground for the flowers of peace to blossom. You don't deserve it. Although you have the potential, although you could be worthy, you are not worthy - and remember the difference. It is within your hands, it is within your reach, but you have not even looked at it. You are looking away from it, at everything that disturbs it.

Diogenes, one of the most peaceful men the world has known, had asked Alexander the Great, who had come to see him, "Where are you going? What is your goal? What do you really want? For months I have seen all these armies passing by, and I go on wondering what could be the purpose of it all." And Alexander said, "I want to conquer the world."

Diogenes said, "Agreed, so then you have conquered the world, it is accepted - then what?"

Alexander felt a little embarrassed. Nobody has asked such a question in such a manner. But still he said politely, "Then I will relax."

Diogenes laughed a belly laugh; the whole valley resounded with his laughter in the early morning.

He looked at his dog - he had only one companion, a dog; they used to live together, they lived their whole life together. He looked at the dog and said, "Have you listened? Do you understand?" And Alexander could not believe that the dog nodded his head showing, "Yes, I understand."

Alexander said, "I am amazed. What does he mean by nodding his head that he understands?"

Diogenes said, "The whole existence understands that if you really want to relax, who is preventing you? Why waste time in conquering the world? You are talking as if to relax - to be peaceful, to be meditative, to be silent, to enjoy the morning sun and the cool breeze - one first needs to conquer the whole world. Then peace will be very difficult. What about us poor people who have not conquered a single thing, who do not possess a single thing? But I am already relaxed, I am at peace; I am enjoying this moment to its fullest. And we have enough space" - there was the whole bank of a river, a wild river.

He said, "You can take any place... you choose. Here there is no question of conquering or invading.

If you want this place where I am lying down, I can move a little, you can take it. If you want my dog's place he can move, he is very understanding; he is no ordinary dog, he is a dog who has come to experience peace. That's our bondage, our friendship, our love, our brotherliness. I don't like to be in crowds of men because they don't understand a thing. I like my dog, he is so understanding." And the dog really moved away, wagging his tail and welcoming Alexander, "You can take this place."

Alexander was never in such a difficult position. How to get out from there? - because the logic of Diogenes was absolutely clear. If you want peace, relaxation, serenity, start now! Conquering the whole world is not a necessary condition for it... not even an unnecessary condition.

We are doing everything to disturb ourselves by our greed, our lust, our desire for more and more, our non-ending ambition to be at the top. Then what will you do at the top?

What did Edmund Hillary do on Everest? He just looked stupid and embarrassed, standing alone on that peak for no reason at all. He had risked his life, knowing well hundreds of people had died before in the same effort; and all knew perfectly well there was nothing to be found - it is just eternal snow. But strange are the ways of man, strange is his craziness.

Just watch your desires, your longings, your ambitions and you will be able to see who is creating disturbances; otherwise peace is your nature... for nine months in the mother's womb you were in eternal peace.

Peace is the stuff the whole existence is made of. It is only the stupidity of man that has disturbed everything around him, within him. And now he is looking for peace.

You are asking me, Raso, "What is peace for the rebellious man?"

Peace has only one taste, utterly delicious - the ultimate taste of existence itself. You just have to drop all that is disturbing, all that creates turmoil, all that creates tension, anxiety, anguish; you don't have to achieve peace - remember.

Peace is already there deep inside you. Peace is what you are made of. It is your very consciousness, your very being.

But such is the utter insanity of men that they even start making peace their ambition, they start desiring peace. And this is the greatest dilemma for every man who is in search of himself. He has to understand the contradiction.

You cannot desire peace, because desire is the disturbance. What you desire does not matter. You may desire peace or you may desire power, you may desire money or you may desire meditation, it doesn't matter - because the nature of desire is always the same. It is a tension, its goal is in the future, and peace is in the present.

Peace is not a tension. Peace is a non-tense, relaxed state of let go. There is not even the ambition of peace. There is no desire, no ambition, because one has understood the simple arithmetic - that every desire creates conflict, every ambition takes you away from yourself.

The moment you drop all your desires and all your ambitions, you suddenly find you are sitting in peace within the temple of your being.

To describe our situation I will tell you a few stories:

No matter which girl he brings home, Tom finds disapproval from his mother. He asks his friend for advice. "Find a girl just like your mother, then she is bound to like her," advises his friend.

So, after much searching, Tom finally finds the girl. "Just like you said," he tells his friend. "She talks, dresses, and even looks like my mother, and just like you said, my mother liked her."

"So," asks his friend, "what's happening?"

"Nothing," says Tom, "my father hates her!"

How to find peace? If you find a woman just like your mother, it is absolutely certain your father will hate her, and he will veto your marriage.

"Will my husband be permitted to stay with me during the delivery?" Mary asked the doctor in the maternity ward.

"Ah, yes," replied the doctor, "I also believe the father of the child should be present at its birth."

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Mary, "he and my husband don't get along too well together."

Life is such a ridiculous drama. It will be simply a miracle if you can find anywhere something even resembling a faraway echo of peace.

Several members of the Golden Age Club were being asked, "Why do you think God has permitted you to reach the age of ninety-five?"

Without hesitation one wealthy old lady said, "To test the patience of my relatives."

All old people are doing that everywhere in every family, just testing the peace of their relatives.

Hymie Goldberg looked very sad; his wife was sick, so he called the doctor. After examining Mrs.

Goldberg, the doctor said to Hymie, "I am afraid it is bad news: your wife has only a few hours to live. I hope you understand there is nothing more to be done. Don't let yourself suffer."

"It is all right, doc," said Goldberg, "I have suffered for forty years, I can suffer a few more hours. It is not a big problem."

People who are living together are suffering together. People are in love with each other or in hate with each other.

The findings of psychologists are that couples are nothing but intimate enemies. They both are sabotaging each other's lives, pulling at each other's legs, not allowing a single moment of peace.

They are bringing up a thousand and one questions, and each question finally becomes a fight.

The woman has a totally different kind of argumentation. She does not follow Aristotle; nobody knows whom she follows, what kind of logic she has, at what point she will suddenly start crying and weeping and tears will be coming. The man thinks, "My God, who would have thought?... I have simply given a rational answer, now what to do?"

He has been reading books and consulting libraries about how to have a good married life, and he knows every argument. But one knows not what kind of logic this woman follows. Suddenly she starts shouting, throwing things - which is not at all logical. No book of logic suggests that you break plates and cups and saucers. But logic or not, seeing that the whole house is in an earthquake, it is better to accept defeat.

It is not a question of logical victory; victory is always for the woman. You can have logic, she will have victory. This is a simple division.

So the poor husband has the logic. Every morning with his umbrella by his side, keeping his logic, he goes to the office... just wondering if perhaps poets are right, that nobody understands the nature of women. In fact, there is nothing to understand. It is so simple: she does not know logic - nothing else! So she creates a nuisance. If you cannot bring a sensible argument, the best way is to shout and create a nuisance - as much as you can.

One of my professors... he was a professor of law and a very famous professor. I had nothing to do with his classes, but once in a while he used to invite me. He loved to argue, and I used to say to him, "Listen, I don't know law at all. I can argue because I know logic, but my logic will not be in legal jargon. I don't know legal jargon."

He said, "Still, you come. Without you I don't enjoy."

Once a week he used to have a discussion class, and one day he said, "I shall tell you the secret of the great legal experts of the world. If you have the law in your favor, be very polite to the judge, be very polite to the court, just put your case in simple legal form. The law is in your favor - there is no need to do anything else.

"But if you are suspicious, you don't know whether the law is in your favor or not and you are sitting on the fence - the camel can sit on either side - then don't go alone. Let your secretary and your assistant carry big books of law - as big as possible.

"Make a great impression in the court, 'Here comes a great expert;' and quote so fast that even the judge cannot catch what you are talking about. Talking fast and not giving a chance to anybody else, and quoting... and don't be worried whether you are quoting from right books or wrong books, or whether you are just quoting from the page you are opening before you. Nothing matters! You simply create the impression of a great expert, on the tip of whose tongue all the books are just ready.

"You need not even look at the book to find the page. Quote pages, quote paragraphs; say 'on the seventeenth line, on the ninety-seventh page,' but don't give anybody a chance to see - you go on ahead. Before they can see the ninety-seventh page, you have moved so fast that they have to look at other pages. By the time they are looking at other pages, you have gone far ahead. Create such a cyclone of words that the judge is overwhelmed and completely forgets what the case is.

"And if you are certain that you are going to be defeated, that the law is absolutely and clearly against you, don't be worried! Go with dignity, and shout as loudly as you can. And as you are shouting, and the whole court is resounding with your shouts, go on hitting the table, throwing the books. You are going to be defeated anyway, so create as much nuisance as possible, because sense is not in your favor - only nonsense can be in your favor!

"Make the judge afraid; throw books in such a way that they simply pass by the side of the judge.

Don't be worried about contempt of the court or anything, don't listen. Victory is going to be yours - victory at all costs.

"Just watch the situation. If the law is favorable, then be logical. If the law is fifty-fifty, then create as much jargon and scholarship as possible. If the law is one hundred percent against you and defeat is absolutely certain, you have nothing to lose; then jump and shout and make the court almost a wrestling ground. Make the judge feel that somehow the case has to be finished. No more hearings, no postponement, today it has to be fixed because this man can hit, he is throwing books this way and that way... at the most, contempt of court - who cares?

"In contempt of court, if you are taken out of the court - go shouting! And when you are brought in, come in shouting. Even if you are taken out by the armed guards three times in a single day for contempt of court, go out shouting, come in shouting. But make the judge feel that you are not the person to accept defeat. Murder may happen, but defeat is not possible. You may commit suicide then and there, but defeat cannot be accepted."

The poets who have been saying that nobody understands the nature of women are just idiots, nothing else. Women don't know logic, but they know one thing - that the essential thing is not logic, the essential thing is victory.

So the man goes on insisting on logical argument, and the woman goes on insisting on being victorious. She does not care about your logical arguments. But a man who is trying to be logical and sensible is bound to be afraid of many things - what will the neighbors think, what if the children wake up? So he is trying to calm the woman down, but she will calm down only if victory is hers; otherwise she will put everything at stake. But the man has to think about his prestige in the neighborhood, about his job.

(A WOMAN WHO IS PRESENT AT THE DISCOURSE STARTS LAUGHING - A VERY GUTSY LAUGHTER.)

Now listen to this woman... why does she laugh? She must have remembered similar incidents.

Every woman knows, more or less, but she must have seen a great drama!

A rebellious man first tries to understand the causes that are not allowing his natural flowering.

This basic thing has to be remembered: peace is not a goal, peace is your intrinsic nature. So whatever is preventing your natural growth, that has to be dropped. If it is anger, jealousy, greed, ambition, desiring, then they are not worth anything. You are wasting a tremendous opportunity of finding an inexhaustible treasure of blessings, for stupid things which don't have any significance.

Drop them! It is not renunciation, it is simply understanding. It is not becoming a monk or an ascetic.

It is simply becoming a more conscious man.

The more conscious you are, the more peace will arise within the silences of your own heart.

It has always been there, there was just no bridge between you and it. And you were running all around, all over the world, searching for it everywhere - except in your own house.

Question 2:

Maneesha, enlightenment beautifies everyone. Enlightenment is the greatest alchemy in existence.

It gives you a new grace which seems to be not of this world. It gives you a new presence, so fresh that even flowers cannot compete with it. It gives you a silence that overflows and floods even the hearts of other people who come close to the man of enlightenment. It gives you a new heart, a new heartbeat. It makes you the most mysterious phenomenon, in the sense that other people love each other, but you become love itself. You don't love anybody, you are simply love. Your very being is a pure sharing of love. Just as from the stars the light goes on showering, from the man of enlightenment an invisible love goes on showering.

And if you start loving a man of enlightenment, if a trust arises in your heart, if your being feels in tune with him, if you have fallen headlong into his being, then of course whatever he is seems to be a thousandfold more.

A strange story which Christians have not allowed the world to know... but I have nothing to lose.

The story is that Jesus was an ugly man; not only ugly, but hunchbacked. That description is found in ancient Hebrew literature. But he is described by his disciples as the most beautiful man they had ever seen. When you come across both statements, you are bound to think that only one can be true - obviously both cannot be true. But I say unto you, both can be true.

The ugliness of Jesus, and his being a hunchback, may be a factuality; and to those who were absolutely blind to this man's greatness, to this man's inner light, inner love, inner peace, he appeared as he was, just a factual reality. But there were people who could see him not as a skeleton but as a luminous body of tremendous rejoicing, of great promises fulfilled, of beautiful dreams become real. Those who had fallen in love with the man forgot the factuality, the factuality receded. They saw the man as he was spiritually.

Their description of his beauty, his grace, his silence, is the description not of a fact but of a truth; not of a material body but of a spiritual being. Awakened, showering light and love, showering flowers of joy, creating in the hearts of those who love him a new experience of peace, silence, serenity... their description is far more true than the description of those who could see only the body. Because the body is not your reality.

Hence, Maneesha, it is not only with you. There have been thousands of people who have fallen in love with enlightened masters, they have all felt the same. It does not matter whether the master was physically beautiful or not. To those who had eyes to see deeply enough and ears to hear even the silences of the heart of the master, he was the most beautiful individual ever. And they will feel with great certainty in their hearts that such a man has never been before and will never be again.

And I would like to say that their certainty is not wrong, although there have been many, many people before, and there will be many, many people again. Existence is vast, life is eternal. But your certainty is not really the certainty of the master, his beauty and his grace; it is the certainty of your trust, of your totality. You cannot accept that anything can be more than that, because you have poured your whole heart and your whole being at the feet of the master. You have not left anything more behind.

And this is not only the case when you feel love and trust. The same is the case when you feel hate, anger, jealousy. When you feel love and trust, your experience is of your eyes open. When you feel hate your experience is that of a blind man who is figuring out what light looks like, of a deaf man who is figuring out how music sounds.

"Why are you giving me a dirty look, Mrs. Behan?"

"I did not give you a dirty look, you had it when you came."

Tom and Dick meet on a street corner. "Where have you been for the past eight weeks?" asks Tom.

"In jail," Dick replies.

"You? In jail?" says Tom. "How come?"

"Well," says Dick, "I was standing on a street corner and this beautiful girl rushes up with a policeman and says, 'He is the man, officer, he is the man who attacked me.' I tell you," continued Tom, "I felt so flattered, I admitted to it."

He has not attacked anybody, but a beautiful girl... and to lose such a chance. He will be the talk of the town. He may go to jail for a few months - that does not matter - but he felt so flattered that he admitted to it.

In ordinary love also, the same kind of flattering is happening. Every lover says to every beloved that, "I have never loved the way I love you. I have never come across a woman whom I can compare with you. You are simply unique. I will love you forever."

Others have also loved... there is a famous song of an Urdu poet, Ahmed Faiz:

"Others have also loved but they loved only when they were alive; but my beloved, I will love you even when I'm dead."

If even ordinary love gives you different eyes, a different poetry to your words, a different expression to your face, then to be in love with one who has come home is bound to be experienced as something so unique that it has never happened before and will never happen again in the whole eternity that will follow. And I say that this feeling, in the moment, has absolute validity and truth. It is not that one is lying, one is simply expressing; and howsoever beautifully it is expressed, one is still feeling that what he wanted to say has remained unsaid.

And the love between a master and a disciple comes to its purest heights, where it becomes almost immaterial, where it takes a new quantum leap from the ordinary, material, mundane world and enters into a sacred and spiritual existence.

I would not have talked about it, Maneesha, if I had felt that it is simply a great feeling of love and trust in your heart. I am talking about it because this is the case in many hearts; they may never say anything about it, they are even ashamed to say it - ashamed that their words will fall short. You have given words to many other people's hearts, that's why I have taken your question; otherwise it is not a question, it is a statement. But many will feel grateful to you that you became their medium, their vehicle, their communication for what they were not able to ask, what they were not able to express.

On a track through the jungle, a missionary meets a lion. Realizing his escape is hopeless, the missionary falls on his knees and starts to pray. He is greatly comforted when he sees that the lion is on his knees beside him.

"Dear brother," says the relieved missionary, "how nice it is of you to join me in prayer when a moment ago I feared for my life."

"Don't interrupt," growled the lion, "I am saying grace."

Everybody looks at existence, at others, according to his own state of being. You cannot see anything beyond yourself. Remember it as a basic principle. If you can see a certain grace in me, that means you have become capable of understanding the language of grace; perhaps as a novice, just a beginner, perhaps only the ABC of grace, but the journey has started. And the real thing is the start of the journey. Once it starts it will reach to its destiny, there is no way to go astray.

Life immediately takes every precaution and every care of all those who trust in it.

My whole teaching is: don't believe in doctrines, trust in existence. Don't believe in churches, trust in the stars. Don't believe in priests, trust in the sun, in the moon, in the wind, in the mountains, in the deserts. Why make your being so small that your whole religion is confined in a book, that your whole religion is confined in a church, in a statue?

Existence is so infinite, so vast, so immense that unless you spread your heart and being into this infinity with absolute trust, you are not an authentic, religious person. You are not a rebel.

Here we can only begin your journey and encourage you to go on and on to the ultimate destiny. We cannot confine you. My whole effort is to withdraw all limitations from you, all boundaries from you.

With a heart without limits, your love will flow to the whole existence; and it will not only beautify your master, it will beautify the whole reality that surrounds you. It will make every tree and every star enlightened to you. You will live in an enlightened world. That's what it means to be in the temple, to be in a sacred world.

But if you can learn your ABC from me, that's enough; XYZ will be coming in their own right time, when the spring comes; and it necessarily comes, it has always been coming, it has never deceived.

It can be trusted, without any doubt, and the moment it comes you will blossom, you will flare up.

And to be awake in a universe which is enlightened, beautiful, graceful, showering blessings over you, is the path of the authentic rebel and the authentic, religious seeker.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.