Forth from your Caves

The first question:

Question 1:

PREM Samma, life is happening, God is happening. This is what life is all about. The moment you accept yourself you become open, you become vulnerable, you become receptive. The moment you accept yourself then there is no need for any future, because there is no need to improve upon anything. Then all is good, then all is good as it is. In that very experience life starts taking a new color, a new music arises.

If you accept yourself, that is the beginning of accepting all. If you reject yourself you are basically rejecting the universe; if you reject yourself you are rejecting God. If you accept yourself you have accepted God. Then there is nothing else to do but to enjoy, to celebrate. There is no complaint left, there is no grudge; you feel grateful. Then life is good and death is good, then joy is good and sadness is good, then to be with your beloved is good and to be alone is good. Then whatsoever happens is good, because it happens out of God.

But you have been conditioned for centuries not to accept yourself. All the cultures of the world have been poisoning the human mind, because they all depend on one thing: Improve upon yourself.

They all create anxiety in you - anxiety is the tense state between that which you are and that which you should be. People are bound to remain anxious if there is a 'should' in life. If there is an ideal which has to be fulfilled how can you be at ease? how can you be at home? It is impossible to live anything totally, because the mind is hankering for the future. And that future never comes - it cannot come; by the very nature of your desire it is impossible. When it comes you will start imagining other things, you will start desiring other things.

You can always imagine a better state of affairs. And you can always remain in anxiety, tense, worried - that's how humanity has been living for centuries. Only rarely, once in a while, has a man escaped out of the trap. That man is called a Buddha, a Christ.

The awakened man is one who has slipped out of the trap of the society, who has seen it - that this is just absurdity. You cannot improve upon yourself. And I am not saying that improvement does not happen, remember - but you cannot improve upon yourself. When you stop improving upon yourself, life improves you. In that relaxation, in that acceptance, life starts caressing you, life starts flowing through you. And when you don't have any grudge, any complaint, you bloom, you flower.

So I would like to say to you: Don't lose this thread that has fallen into your hands. This is the most valuable thing that you can learn here, that you can see with me - this is what I would like to impart to you all: Accept yourself as you are. And that is the most difficult thing in the world, because it goes against your training, your education, your culture. From the very beginning you have been told how you should be. Nobody has ever told you that you are good as you are; they have all put programs in your mind. You have been programmed by the parents, by the priests, politicians, teachers - you have been programmed for only one thing: just go on improving upon yourself. Wherever you are, go on rushing for something else. Never rest. Work unto death. My teaching is simple: Don't postpone life. Don't wait for tomorrow, it never comes. Live it today!

Jesus says to his disciples 'Look at the lilies in the field. They toil not, they weave not, they spin not - yet even Solomon was not so beautiful as these poor lily flowers.' What is the beauty of the poor flower? It is in utter acceptance. It has no program in its being to improve. It is here now - dancing in the wind, taking a sunbath, talking to the clouds, falling asleep in the afternoon warmth, flirting with the butterflies... enjoying, being, loving, being loved.

And the whole existence starts pouring its energy into you when you are open. Then the trees are greener than they look to you, then the sun is sunnier than it looks to you; then everything becomes psychedelic, becomes colorful. Otherwise everything is drab and dull and Grey.

Accept yourself: that is prayer. Accept yourself: that is gratitude. Relax into your being - this is the way God wanted you to be. In no other way did He want you to be, otherwise He would have made you somebody else. He has made you you and nobody else. Trying to improve upon yourself is basically trying to improve upon God - which is just stupid, and you will get madder and madder in trying that. You will not arrive anywhere, you will have simply missed a great opportunity.

I accept you as you are. That is just to impart to you to do the same to others.

Jesus is reported to have said to his disciples 'I give you the eleventh commandment: love. Love others as I have loved you.' Note that emphasis - 'Love others as I have loved you.' And this he calls the eleventh commandment. 'The new commandment I give to you: accept others as I accept you.'

- Let this be the color of my sannyasins: acceptance. Let this be the characteristic of my sannyasins:

acceptance, utter acceptance. And then you will be surprised - life is always ready to shower its gifts on you. Life is not a miser, God always gives abundantly - but we cannot receive it, because we don't feel that we are worthy to receive it.

That's why people cling to miseries - they suit their programming. People go on punishing themselves in a thousand and one subtle ways. Why? Because that fits with the program. If you are not as you should be, you have to punish yourself, you have to create misery for yourself.

That's why people feel good when they are miserable.

Let me say it: People feel happy when they are miserable, they become very very uneasy when they are happy. This is my observation of thousands and thousands of people: when they are miserable everything is as it should be. They accept it - it fits with their conditioning, with their mind. They know how horrible they are, they know that they are sinners. You have been told that you are born in sin. What stupidity! What nonsense!

Man is not born in sin, man is born in innocence. There has never been any original sin, there has only been original innocence. Each child is born in innocence. We make him feel guilty - we start saying 'This should not be. You should be like this.' And the child is natural and innocent. We punish him for being natural and innocent and we reward him for being artificial and cunning. We reward him for being phony - all our rewards are for phony people. If somebody is innocent we don't give any reward; we don't have any regard for him, we don't have any respect for him. The innocent is condemned, the innocent is thought to be almost synonymous with the criminal. The innocent is thought to be foolish, the cunning is thought to be intelligent. The phony is accepted - the phony fits with the phony society.

Then your whole life will be nothing but an effort to create more and more punishments for yourself.

And whatsoever you do is wrong, so you have to punish yourself for every joy. And even when joy comes - in spite of yourself, mind you, when joy comes in spite of yourself, when sometimes God simply bumps into you and you cannot avoid Him - immediately you start punishing yourself.

Something has gone wrong - how can this happen to a horrible person like you?

Just the other night, Ashoka was asking me 'You talk, Osho, about love, you talk of offering your love. But what have I got to give to anybody?' He asked 'What have I got to offer to my beloved?'

This is the secret idea of everybody: 'I have got nothing.' What have you not got? But nobody has told you that you have all the beauties of all the flowers - because man is the greatest flower on this earth, the highest evolved being. No bird can sing the song that you can sing - the birds' songs are just noises, although they are still beautiful because they come out of innocence. You can sing far better songs, of greater significance, of much more meaning. But Ashoka says 'What have I got?'

The trees are green, beautiful, the stars are beautiful and the rivers are beautiful. But have you ever seen anything more beautiful than a human face? Have you ever come across anything more beautiful than human eyes? On the whole earth there is nothing more delicate than the human eyes - no rose can compete, no lotus can compete. And what depth! But Ashoka asks me 'What have I got to offer in love?' He must have lived a self-condemning life; he must have been putting himself down, burdening himself with guilt.

In fact, when somebody loves you, you are a little bit surprised. 'What - me? The person loves me?'

The idea arises in your mind: 'Because he does not know me - that's why. If he comes to know about me, if he comes to see through me, he will never love me.' So lovers start hiding themselves from each other. They keep many things private, they don't open their secrets, because they are afraid that the moment they open their heart the love is bound to disappear - because they cannot love themselves; how can they conceive of anybody else loving them?

Love starts with self-love. Don't be selfish but be self-full - and they are two different things. Don't be a Narcissus, don't be obsessed with yourself - but a natural self-love is a must, a basic phenomenon.

Only then out of it can you love somebody else.

Accept yourself, love yourself, you are God's creation. God's signature is on you and you are special, unique. Nobody else has ever been like you and nobody else will ever be like you; you are simply unique, incomparable. Accept this, love this, celebrate this - and in that very celebration you will start seeing the uniqueness of the others, the incomparable beauty of the others. Love is possible only when there is a deep acceptance of oneself, the other, the world. Acceptance creates the milieu in which love grows, the soil in which love blooms.

You ask me, WHAT IS HAPPENING? I WEEP AS I WRITE.

That's beautiful - because there are things which can only be said by tears; no word is more adequate. There are things which can only be sung in tears - they are too deep for words; only tears can relate them, convey them. Good - weep in joy, celebrate your tears. Life is happening to you.

And life happens only when there is no desire for any future, when you are ready to die this very moment. If death comes, your acceptance is so total that you will embrace death. You will not ask for even one more day's time - for what? You have been living your life so totally, you are so fulfilled, that death can be accepted. Then there is no need to seek God, God will seek you. You just live in joy, and see - miracles start happening.

In fact, the desire for God is the denial of Him. The real religious person has no desire as such for God, there is no need. He lives intensely, he lives totally - out of that totality God arrives. God is a by-product, a consequence, of a life lived totally. And you will be surprised to know, the godly know nothing of God - because God is not separate. The godly know nothing of God, they don't think about God, they simply live God. They are gods.

And the wise know nothing of wisdom. It is only the fools who think about wisdom, it is only the ignorant who think about knowledge. It is only the ungodly who pray to God. The really godly simply live God in their life - drinking water they drink God, eating food they eat God, swimming in the ocean they swim in God. Dancing, it is God dancing. Loving, it is God loving. The word 'god' becomes irrelevant, because their whole life becomes godly. And acceptance is the door to it.

Learn more and more acceptance and unlearn your rejections. And if you understand this, you will understand something very significant: you will understand laughter. Otherwise the ordinarily so- called religious know nothing of laughter. The churches are empty of laughter, they have become cemeteries; they no more belong to life, they are graveyards. And the moment you enter into a church you are entering a graveyard - serious, somber, unlaughing, unloving, undancing. Look at God's life. Can you see anything church like? Look at the trees and the moon and the sun - can you see anything church like? The church is such a human creation - and not only human but pathological, sickening. It is just not part of the flow of life. It is like a rock in the river, it hinders.

God is always the God of love and laughter and light.

I have heard:

In ages past, there was a time when the world was very somber. And God sent an angel down to His people with greetings. The people were curious about God and they asked the angel many questions. They asked 'What does God most love?' And the angel replied 'Laughter.' But no one believed him. None laughed, and the world was somber and it remained somber.

Then the angel returned to heaven and told God what ha;l happened. So God devised a plan. He wrote a long list of severe rules, regulations, ethics and morals, and bade the angel return to the world and deliver them. The people listened carefully as the angel read: 'It is forbidden to do all of these things. And you may never listen to those, may never say this, nor think that!'

And this time the people believed. But when the angel had gone, they began doing all of the forbidden things. And God was pleased, for the plan had worked, and all the people began to laugh.

The real God is always a God of laughter. Whenever you think of God think of Him laughing, think of Him rolling on the floor with great laughter, and you will be closer to God. When you really laugh, for that moment you are no more on the earth, for that moment all weight disappears. For that moment the window opens, you are divine. Whenever you laugh you are closest to the divine, whenever you love you are closest to the divine. Whenever you sing and dance and make music, that is what real religion consists of.

The second question:

Question 2:

The question is from Pradip J Shah.

IT has to be understood very deeply, because many are the reasons for it. The wife is afraid because our so-called relationship is a relationship of possessiveness. It happens every day - the wife wants to take sannyas, the husband is opposed; the husband wants to take sannyas, the wife is opposed.

It is very rarely that a couple jumps together. And whenever a couple jumps together, that shows that they are really in love.

Something is missing, hence the fear. The wife is afraid because sannyas will be a new interest in your life. Who knows? You may not remain interested in her. At least you will not be interested as much, because there will be a conflict between two interests. But the wife is suspicious because deep down she is jealous, she is afraid. Her love is not a certainty, her love is not sure, it is shaky.

If she really loves you she will give you freedom. Love always gives freedom - freedom to be yourself, whatsoever you decide. You decide to be a poet, you decide to be a painter, you decide to be a vagabond, you decide to be a sannyasin - whatsoever. Love gives freedom, love trusts. Your wife's trust is missing in you, she is afraid. Fear arises only when love is not total. When love is total the fear is impossible. And seeing here... your wife must have eyes, she can see that my people are the most loving people you can find anywhere. You can see my sannyasins - they are not anti-love, anti-life. I am all for love.

Your wife's fear would have been right if you were becoming an old traditional kind of sannyasin - if you were going to become a Buddhist monk or a Catholic monk or a Hindu sannyasin or a Jaina mini, if you were going to become like that, your wife's fear would be right. But with me, with my sannyasins, the fear is at surf.

But my feeling is she is really afraid of you becoming more loving. Maybe you will start feeling love for other people - because I give freedom to you. She wants to keep you in her hands; she is afraid of so much love energy here. It is not really the fear of sannyas, it is the fear of the love energy that is released here, it is the fear of the love climate that you find here. It is freedom that is making her afraid.

But rather than preventing you from sannyas she should try to understand more about love. That will be enriching for her. This fear should make her meditate on ally she is afraid, why she can't trust.

Love always trusts. It is only unloving domination, possessiveness. that is doubtful.

From my side I can say that you will become more loving than you have ever been. Maybe that too is a fear. People can take only so much love and so much joy; they are afraid to go the whole way.

People are so afraid to live, they live crippled lives. And of course, you are an Indian. India has forgotten how to live; for centuries India has not known how to live. It has forgotten the ways of love - it knows only marriage, it does not know anything about love.

Marriage is a device to prevent love happening. Marriage is a trick, a legal trick, so that love never happens. You live together, you live in comfort and convenience, but the danger is avoided. Love is dangerous - one never knows where it will land you. And love is very fleeting. It is like a rose flower - in the morning it was there, by the evening it may be gone. It may not be gone, but nobody can be certain beforehand. Marriage is a plastic flower. You can depend on it, it is reliable, it will be there.

Of course it has no fragrance in it, no life in it - but people are more interested in permanence than in life. And remember, only death is permanent. Life is fleeting. Life is always a wave - one moment it is there, another moment it is gone. So is love. Marriage is man-made, it is synthetic.

Now, Pradip, you are an Indian. You may be living in the West - that doesn't change much, it only changes you on the surface. That change is skin-deep, or not even that - maybe that change is only as deep as the cosmetics go; it is superficial. Deep down you are an Indian - deep down you are as afraid as any Indian is afraid of love, deep down you are as condemnatory of love as any Indian is.

Deep down you know sex is sin, your wife knows sex is sin. Deep down, love is a bondage - that's what you are conditioned to believe.

And now trying to become a sannyasin is taking a risk. In fact this is your love affair - hence the wife i. afraid. You are falling in love with me: now she will feel jealous. And in a way she is right - because once you are in love with me then nothing will be more important. Yes, not even your wife.

Then the only way for the wife to remain in your heart will be to become a sannyasin - otherwise you will start drifting from her. So intuitively she is right. And I always suggest to couples to take the jump together. If it is possible, take the jump together, become meditators together, so you grow together.

Otherwise the gap is bound to arise. One becomes a meditator, another remains a non-meditator:

the non meditator soon will find that the meditator has become a different person - it is hound to be so. And the meditator will soon find that he is not interested in the non-meditating person - because meditative energies meet easily; a non-meditative person and a meditative person are bound to fall apart.

If you become a sannyasin and the wife remains a non-sannyasin then there IS danger, and the wife is intuitively right. But to prevent you from taking sannyas will also be dangerous - the very prevention will become a rift. You will start feeling angry, you will start feeling that your freedom has been paralyzed, crippled, that you have been interfered with. You will never be able to forgive your wife, you will never be able to forget the wound; you will take all kinds of revenge on her.

So I cannot say don't take sannyas, because that will destroy your marriage more certainly than sannyas. All that I can say is: Let your wife also become a sannyasin. Grow together, grow hand in hand.

And one thing is certain - because I am not anti-life, anti-love - if you love each other it will grow. It will take new depth, it will take new plenitude, it will have new qualities arising in it. And it is always good to take jumps, because you become new and everything becomes new with it. Otherwise, by and by, one gets bored. The routine is always boring, you cannot avoid it - the same wife, the same house, the same job, the same you, the same children - there is a limit to tolerating it, then it becomes intolerable. It is like going to see the same movie again and again and again - you will go mad. Or you will have to devise ways so that you can sit in the movie house without seeing it - that will be your only protection.

That's what happens in marriage, the husband stops seeing the wife - not that he does not look at her; he looks but he doesn't see. The wife stops seeing the husband. Do you remember for how long you have not seen your wife? And you live with her, day in, day out - but can you remember how long it is since you have really looked at her? Husbands and wives go on avoiding each other's eyes - they look and yet they don't look; their look is just a pretension. Even when they look at each other they are thinking of a thousand and one things. That is the only way to avoid getting too bored:

become closed, don't see what is happening. Don't taste what you are eating, then you can go on eating the same thing again and again.

But if you taste it then sooner or later you will start feeling that this is too much. Even if you like a certain thing, if you eat it every day, soon the time will come when you will say 'Now I am fed-up with it.' You like the woman, you like the man, you love - but sooner or later the moment comes...

There are two ways Roy avoid that moment. One is, become dull. That's what people have chosen - because to become dull is easy, it needs no intelligence. To become dull is easy because it is a kind of fall; it is down-going. The other is, become so sensitive that you can find something new in your wife every day, and he come so alert that your very alertness keeps everything new, goes on making everything fresh. And go on moving. There is no need to remain the same person for ever - go on moving.

Now if the desire for sannyas has arisen in you, take the jump, take the risk. That will help you It will he a kind of renewal, a resurrection - the old will he gone and the new will be born. And if your wife loves you she will come, she will understand. If she is not coming right now, don't be worried.

Just for that, don't stop yourself taking sannyas - because then your marriage will be on the rocks, more certainly on the rocks. By becoming a sannyasin there will be a little trouble hut that trouble will soon settle - because I am not anti-life. Your wife will understand that her fear was not true.

Through your meditations you will become a better person - more loving, more affectionate, more caring. She will not lose anything. And sooner or later the understanding will help her to also take the jump. If she is sensitive and loving she will take the jump with you.

Remember, love knows how to go into the unknown. Love knows how to throw all securities, Love knows how to move into the unfamiliar and the uncharted. Love is courage. Trust love.

And you ask me, CAN YOU PLEASE HELP US? I CANNOT DENY HER DOUBTS AS I HAVE NO EXPERIENCE OF SANNYAS.

There are two ways to know about sannyas. One is - the best - by becoming one. The next best is by seeing my sannyasins, by watching my sannyasins. That is next best, because that is from the outside; you will not have the inside experience. Watch my sannyasins: they are laughing, they are loving, they are dancing, they are celebrating. What more do you desire? They have thrown all kinds of burdens Ann all kinds of inhibitions and all kinds of taboos. They have fallen utterly in love with life, they have taken away all barriers.

Live with my sannyasins, watch them, experience them, feel them. Empathize with them, so you call have a certain feeling of what it is. It is difficult to define because it is a subjective change. The change on the outside is just a gesture - the change is inner. It is being in personal contact with me, it is being linked with my consciousness, it is being committed. It is getting involved in some journey which leads you from one unknown to another unknown.

It is very difficult to define sannyas. One cannot paint light or love or life - only the things upon which it lights. The ten thousand lighted things, they can be painted. You cannot paint light directly - you can paint a green leaf upon which the light is falling and have a dance, you can paint a rock upon which the light is falling, or you can paint an eye which has got the light in it - but you cannot paint light directly; there is no way. You can only paint lighted things.

If you want to know what sannyas is, there is no way to know directly. You can just see the people to whom sannyas has happened - you will have to see the lighted things. One cannot speak of Tao or Go ;l but only of the things that reveal it. Look at me. Look into my eyes. And if the depth calls you forth from your caves then plunge in! By becoming a sannyasin, by and bye you will come to feel what it is. Even then you will not be able to define it, but you will be able to know it. Sannyas is an experience - just like love.

The third question:

Question 3:

BECAUSE they are beggars. They cannot afford to be frustrated. Frustration first needs a few requirements to be fulfilled: it needs affluence. Only a rich society can be tense; a poor society cannot be tense. It has nothing to do with religion, remember - because you have been told this again and again by the Indian so-called-spiritual peddlers who go to the West. They go on talking to you and saying that India is contented because it is religious. That is utter bulls hit. It has nothing to do with religion. India is simply poor, that's why India is contented. It will be difficult for you to understand why a poor man seems to be more contented. There are basic reasons. First, a poor man has much to hope for - that hope brings contentment. A rich man has nothing to hope for - all that he could have hoped for is available and it has failed. He has the best kind of house, the best kind of car, the best kind of woman, the best kind of children, money in the bank - now what?

Now he knows there is nothing to hope for. The future is dark, the future is nothing but despair; there is no light that he can live for. He knows he will go on increasing his money, but that will only be the same thing in more quantity. You have ten million dollars, you will have fifty million dollars - but how is it going to make any difference? Ten million dollars are not making you happy - how can fifty million dollars make you happy' You are disillusioned.

America is disillusioned - because America, for the first time in human history, has succeeded in becoming rich. Because of this disillusionment there is tension. Life seems to be meaningless; there is no point - why go on living? It is not accidental that Americans commit suicide more than any ode else, go mad more to. In anybody else, need psychiatrists more than anybody else - it is just the consequence because they have succeeded.

They have fulfilled all the desires of humanity. For centuries man has been thinking how to become affluent - as they have become affluent. You have heard the proverb: Nothing succeeds like success. I would like to change it: Nothing fails like success. When you succeed then you know what failure is: you have arrived and all is empty. You have reached the mirage. When you were in the wilderness. in the desert, the mirage was a reality - it was an oasis, a green patch of land, and you were thirsty and you were moving, moving towards the oasis.

America has arrived. And there is no oasis at all; it was just illusory, a mirage. You are frustrated.

Those who have not yet arrived, they still have hope. The beggar seems to be contented, because he can hope for tomorrow - he still has illusions, he has still to succeed. It has nothing to do with religion; that contentment has always been there with poor people.

But the religious peddlers, they exploit the situation very much. They say 'Look at India. We don't have anything; still there is spiritual contentment.' It is not spiritual, it is not contentment, it is just that illusions are still alive. If you want a society to remain happy, make certain that it remains poor.

When a society becomes rich it becomes unhappy. To me, only after that unhappiness has been felt in the guts can a man become religious - never t fore it.

To me, America is the country where religion is possible. Not India. India has still to succeed and fail in its success - then. Yes, Buddha could I come religious - he was affluent, he had all.

There are many other reasons also. The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving, than in one where opportunities are abundant. The untalented never comes to know about his untalentedness unless opportunities are given. He goes on believing that he is talented, only opportunities are not available. If he was educated he would have shown to the world who he is - but he is not educated, because education was not possible for him. But when all are educated then you suddenly see that all are educated but all are not talented. Then suddenly the difference is felt that there are geniuses and there are dull stupid people. And the stupid people are in the majority. And it is very difficult to accept that you are stupid - it hurts.

The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid all is for not achieving, than in one where opportunities are abundant. There, the untalented t cannot escape the confrontation with an ineffectual self - in America you cannot avoid it. In India there are a thousand and one alibis available: opportunities are not there, occasions are not there, education is not there - you can go on believing that you are a great genius; there is nobody to destroy your belief. But when all opportunities are given and suddenly you find that you are impotent, you cannot find any alibi, great despair settles in.

That despair can become a revolution in your life if you try to understand. Otherwise you will be drowned by it: you will commit suicide. Whenever a man has all the opportunities possible, two alternatives open before him. Either he has to commit suicide - slow or fast, that is another matter - or he has to transform his being. Suicide and religion are the alternatives.

Religion is transforming your being: a revolution. Suicide is seeing the point that you are useless, meaningless. Why go on living? - destroy yourself. Religion also destroys you but it creates out of destruction. Suicide only destroys you and there is no creation out of it.

America is in a suicidal grip. In India, people don't commit suicide so easily - there is so much to hope for, opportunities are just on the way; one has to prove oneself, one has to go into life, become famous, this and that. In America all opportunities have happened - you are suddenly stuck: either you have to transform your being, or life cannot have any meaning any more.

The less we have, the more there is to be hoped for. Hence a condition of perpetual scarcity has become the very foundation of the Indian mind. India is very afraid of becoming rich and creates all kinds of hindrances to becoming rich. India propounds philosophies which keep it poor - Gandhism is the latest trend. If India follows Gandhism it will remain poor for ever. India goes on cherishing poverty - it praises poverty, as if poverty is a value, a great value. The poor man is far superior to the rich man, the people who live in dirty villages are far greater than the people who live in good nice houses. The man who lives in a nice house feels guilty in India - he is committing something very very bad, a sin. In fact he should go and live in a hut and be poor.

If you cherish poverty you will remain poor. And, I say to you, it has become a perpetual condition in the Indian mind. And the politician knows it. He talks about how India can become rich, but whatsoever he does keeps India poor - talking is one thing, doing is completely another - because he also knows that once people become rich they become dangerous, they become rebellious. They demand more, and the 'more' cannot be fulfilled; then they become frustrated. It is better to leave them as they are - poor, and happy in their poverty. Rather than making them rich, make them feel good that they are doing something great by remaining poor.

Remember it always: when the Indian so-called mahatmas go to the West and talk about Indian contentment and satisfaction, it is nothing. All poor societies are contented - it has nothing to do with India; you can go into any poor society and it is contented. The poor man has nothing to lose and much to gain. That is the beauty - that he goes on enjoying.

And remember, it has always happened in history that whenever an advanced culture wants to become religious... and every advanced culture one day or other wants to become religious - because through advancing, through progressing, one fails; end then religion is bound to take possession of your soul. So every progressive culture, every advanced country, one day or other starts looking for religion, for God, for meditation, for prayer. And then something strange happens:

the advanced culture always has to go to look in some backward culture for religion. That has always been happening. It is strange, a strange logic - the advanced culture always has to go to the poor and backward culture for religion.

If you want to learn science you go to the advanced - if India wants to learn more about engineering and physics and chemistry, the Indian goes to the West. If the American wants to know about meditation, prayer, God, he comes to India. This is strange - strange, because the advanced culture has to go further ahead to find real religion, not go back. But there is a psycho-logical reason in it:

it is a kind of regression.

When you are too much in stress you tend to become childish, you go back to childhood. If a young man feels too much stress he starts falling backwards, he becomes a child. He behaves in a childish way, he starts doing childish tantrums - he cries, he weeps, he becomes illogical. Stress gives him the idea, 'Go back. Childhood was golden, it was paradise. Go back.' But that which has been lost has been lost. One can never go back.

I am not teaching you Eastern religion, I am not teaching you Indian religion. I am teaching you a far advanced religion that belongs to the future, not to the past. That's why India is not very happy with me - they would:l like me to teach you THEIR religion, their poverty; they would like you to be taught some kind of Indian-ness by me. They are angry at me. They are happy with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. They are not happy with me, they cannot be - because I don't give YOU THEIR tradition .

I am not here to perpetuate any past. I am here to herald the new, the future. And one cannot go backwards, one can only go ahead. Going backwards is regression, going backwards is just a consolation - it is not going to help, it will not give you growth. Growth is possible: go on, go ahead.

You have become affluent. you are rich; now the problem has arisen. You have achieved what you wanted to achieve and now it is proved to your heart's desire, heart's content, that it is futile.

Now go ahead. Now become more mature - now see the futility of immature desires, now see the futility of the immature games that you have been playing with your life. Now move inwards, now penetrate your innermost core. There is no need to go to any backward culture .

Remember, I only happen to be here in India because I have to be somewhere. I only happen to be here. When you come to me you are not coming to India - because I don't represent India. I represent a global future. I am not confined by Indian ideas, concepts, boundaries. My vision is of the future: you have to go ahead - materially you have become rich, now you have to become rich spiritually .

I respect richness in all its aspects - even the material richness, because that helps you to go towards spiritual richness. I don't praise poverty in any way, neither outer nor inner. I am all for richness - be rich materially, so that one day you are finished with that dream and your energies can move unhindered towards inner richness.

Yes, the inner world is the kingdom of God. It is a kingdom - you have to become kings, emperors.

Unless you have become a god in your innermost kingdom, you will remain unfulfilled. So this has to be understood very clearly. There are two possibilities. When you listen to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi you are listening to the past. He says he is bringing the message, ancient message of the Hindus, taught in the Vedas, and he is coming directly from the Himalayas. I have never been interested in the Himalayas, I am not interested in the Vedas, and I am not interested in any ancient message - that is all childish, juvenile. The old and the told has to be forgotten.

I am giving you a new insight into religion. You need not be poor to be religious - in fact you cannot be religious unless you are rich. A totally different kind of religion will arise for the first time in the world: the religion of the affluent people - those who have all that they need, and because they have all, they know it is futile.

When you go to the Maharishi he gives you consolations, he gives you tranquilizers. You are in stress, you are in anguish, he gives you a mantra - repeat the mantra, it will console you, it will help you to have a good sleep. A mantra is always good for producing sleep. It is one of the ancient methods to have good sleep, it creates sleep - because a mantra is nothing but repetition of a certain word or sound. When you repeat it too much it creates boredom. Go on repeating 'Ram-Ram-Ram' - how long can you remain unbred? And boredom is the basis of sleep. When you are bored you start falling asleep - that seems to be the only escape from this continuous 'Ram-Ram-Ram.'

It has been done down the ages. Mothers know - that's what a lullaby is, a transcendental meditation for the child. Mm? The mother repeats a certain line and now the child is helpless. He cannot escape, he cannot say no, he has been tucked under the blanket and the mother repeats a lullaby.

And the child feels bored and bored and bored and falls asleep.

That's what you are doing when you are doing a transcendental meditation - you are torturing yourself with a repetition. It will give you boredom; boredom will bring you sleep. It will be very consolatory - your pace will be reduced, your speed will be reduced - but you will not grow, not at all.

Remember, the tension has not to be reduced, the tension has to be overcome. The tension has not to be reduced, the tension has to be transcended - you have to go beyond it, not below it. Don't be an escapist; USE all life's opportunities to go beyond them.

And the last question:

Question 4:

WHAT do you want to become? Jimmy Carter? Brezhnev? Morarji Desai? You must have gone off your rockers! I will only tell you one story.

It happened in New Delhi. Jimmy Carter - or let us call him Reverend Jimmy Carter - Comrade Brezhnev and Mahatma Morarji Desai went for a morning walk. This little kid is sitting in front of his house playing, when Reverend Jimmy Carter comes to the child and says 'Hello, Bonny. What are you doing?'

The little boy says 'Mixing shit with sand.'

Somewhat taken aback, he says 'And what are you making?'

The boy says 'Jimmy Carter.'

This upsets Jimmy Carter very much, and he is standing on the side muttering to himself. Comrade Brezhnev, seeing Jimmy Carter so pigged off, asks him 'What's going on?'

'Why' says Carter 'that rotten kid is sitting there mixing shit with sand and making a Jimmy Carter.'

Deep down, Brezhnev feels very happy and thinks 'The kid must be a communist!' But to Jimmy Carter he says 'Wait. I will go and talk to the kid.' He reaches the kid and says 'Tell me, boy, what are you doing?'

'Mixing shit with sand.'

'And what are you making?'

'Brezhnev.'

Now of course they both are pigged off and are standing on the side talking about how rotten that kid is. Then Mahatma Morarji Desai asks them what the problem is. They explain just what has happened with the rotten kid. Morarji says to them 'Look guys, you gotta understand something about child psychology. I am older than you both - and, by the way, I know more about urine and allied subjects than anybody else in the world. Let me go to the child.'

Deep down he feels very happy that the child seems to be a follower of the Indian policy of non- alignment - neither for America nor for Russia: Neutrality. 'Now watch what happens when I go over to the kid.'

So Mahatma Morarji Desai walks over, he puffs out his chest as he always does and in a haughty way, as only a mahatma can walk, he walks over to the kid and says 'Hello, little boy. And just what are you doing?'

'Mixing shit with sand' comes the reply.

'I'll bet I know what you are making' says Morarji Desai. 'I'll bet you are making Morarji Desai.'

Oh no' says the boy sadly. 'I haven't got enough shit for that.'