The festive dimension

The first question:

Question 1:

My dear Karanjia, the way I teach is the way of life-affirmation. I teach life in its totality. In the past, religions have been life negative They have denied life, destroyed life; they have been antagonistic to life, their God was against life. To me, life and God are synonymous; there is no other God than life itself I worship life.

And if life is God, then love is His temple. These three l's are the fundamentals of my teaching: Life as God, Love as the temple, Light as the experience. If you have learned these three l's, you have learned all.

But because the religions have remained antagonistic to life and love, it is natural that a great controversy will arise around me. I cherish it. It is natural. I am not worried by the controversy. I would be worried if it didn't arise. It is absolutely expected; it is absolutely according to my plan of work.

Why have the religions been life-negative in the past? In the name of religion man has been exploited - exploited by the priest and by the politician. And the priest and the politician have been in deep conspiracy against man. The only way to exploit man is to make him afraid. Once a man is full of fear he is ready to submit. Once a man is trembling inside, he loses trust in himself. Then he is ready to believe in any stupid nonsense. You cannot make a man believe in nonsense if he has self trust.

Remember, that's how man has been exploited down the ages. This is the very trade secret of the so-called religions: make man afraid, make man feel unworthy, make man feel guilty, make man feel that he is just on the verge of hell.

How to make man so afraid? The only way is: condemn life, condemn whatsoever is natural.

Condemn sex because it is the fundamental of life; condemn food because that is the second fundamental of life; condemn relationship, family, friendship, because that is the third fundamental of life - and go on condemning. Whatsoever is natural to man, condemn it, say it is wrong: "If you do it you will suffer for it. If you don't do it you will be rewarded. Hell is going to descend on you if you go on living naturally" - that is the message of the whole past - "and heaven will be given to you if you go against life."

That means if you are suicidal, only then will God accept you. If you slowly, slowly commit suicide in the senses, in the body, in the mind, in the heart, and you go on destroying yourself, the more you succeed in destroying yourself, the more you will become beloved to God. This has been the whole teaching of the religions in the past. This has contaminated man's being, poisoned man.

These poisoners have exploited man tremendously out of it. These religions of the past were death- oriented, not life-oriented.

What I am heralding is a life-oriented vision: love life in its multidimensionality because that is the only way to reach closer and closer to the ultimate truth. The ultimate truth is not far away; it is hidden in the immediate. The immediate is the ultimate, the immanent is the transcendent. God is not there but here. God is not that but this. And you are not unworthy, and you are not a sinner.

I am here to help you unburden all your guilt feelings. I am here to help you to start trusting yourself again. Once you start trusting your own being, no politician, no priest can exploit you. Man is always exploited through fear.

I have heard...

Once Mulla Nasruddin got lost in a jungle. The whole day he tried to find a way out, but he could not - tired, hungry, exhausted, bleeding, his clothes torn apart because the jungle was really thick and thorny. And it was getting darker, the sun was setting and the night was just about to come.

He's an atheist, a confirmed atheist who had never prayed. But with the situation - the fear of the night and the wild animals - for the first time in his life he thought of God. He forgot all his arguments that he used to give against God. He knelt down on the ground and he said, "Dear Lord...." although he looked around, a little embarrassed, knowing perfectly well that there was nobody, but still embarrassed - the whole life's philosophy of atheism! But when fear knocks on the doors and when death is so close by, who bothers about logic, philosophies, isms? Who bothers about reason, argument? "Dear Lord," he said, "please help me get out of these woods, and I will always worship you. I will even start going to the mosque. I will follow all the rituals of Islam. I promise you! Just save me. Forgive me. I apologize for all the things that I have been saying against you. I was a fool, an utter fool. Now I know you are."

Just at that moment a bird passed overhead and dropped something right on his outspread hands.

"Please Lord, don't give me any of that shit. I'm really lost!"

When a man is in fear, even though he has been a lifelong atheist, he starts turning into a theist.

Priests came to know about it, and then they used it down the ages. The whole past of humanity is fear ridden.

And the greatest way to create fear is to make man feel guilty about natural things. He CANNOT drop them, and he cannot enjoy them because of the fear of hell, so he is in a double bind. That double bind is the base of man's exploitation. You cannot just drop your sexuality because some stupid priest is saying that it is wrong. It has nothing to do with your idea of right and wrong; it is something natural, something in the very being. You have come out of it, each of your cells is a sexual cell. Just by saying, you cannot drop it. Yes, you can start repressing it, and by repressing you can go on accumulating it in the unconscious, and that becomes a wound. And the more you repress, the more obsessed you become with it. And the more obsessed you become, the more guilty you feel. It is a vicious circle. Now you are caught in the trap of the priest.

And the priest himself has never believed in it, neither has the politician ever believed in it. These things were for the people, for the masses; the masses have been befooled.

The stories say that kings used to have hundreds of wives, and so was the case with priests. And it is a miracle: the people continued to believe in these charlatans.

Just in this century, just fifty years ago, the Nizam of Hyderabad had five hundred wives and was still thought to be a very religious man because he followed all the rituals. The priest and the politician have both been doing all that they have been telling the people not to do, sometimes openly, sometimes from the back door.

I have heard...

There is an old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

But the priests have been fooling you down the ages, and they have fooled you so long that it is now almost an accepted phenomenon. It has been so ancient that we take it for granted; nobody thinks that they are being fooled.

It reminds me of a church a friend of mine went to which runs raffles. Once a year they get three automobiles, and they put them up in front of the church, and they sell the chances. Last year they raffled off a Cadillac, a Mercury, and a Plymouth. Three days after the raffle the pastor was walking down the street, and he bumped into my friend coming out of a thirst parlor.

My friend looked at him and said, "Can you tell me who won the automobiles? Who won the Cadillac?"

And the priest said, "Why, the Cardinal did. Wasn't he lucky?" And my friend said, "Who won the Mercury?"

"Why, the Monsignor did. Wasn't he lucky?"

And my friend said, "Well, tell me, who won the Plymouth?" And the priest said, "Why, Father Murphy.

Wasn't he lucky?"

At that moment my friend started to go back in and get another drink. The priest grabbed him and said, "By the way, how many tickets did you buy?"

And my friend said, "I didn't buy a damned one! Wasn't I lucky?"

The priests have tremendously harmed the human heart, human consciousness. They have put this poisonous idea in man that life is something ugly. They have been teaching people how to get rid of life. I teach my people how to get deeper into it. They have been teaching how to be free of life. I teach how to make your life free. They have been teaching how to end this life, and I am teaching you how to move into it for eternity, on and on, how to live life abundantly. Hence the controversy; it is bound to be there. My vision is just the opposite to what has been taught in the name of religion.

I am bringing a new vision of religion to the world. This is the boldest attempt ever made: to accept life in its multidimensions, to enjoy it, to celebrate it, to rejoice in it. Renunciation is not my way, but rejoicing. Fasting is not my way, but feasting. And to be festive is to be religious. My definition of religion is the festive dimension.

No other animal can be festive; no other animal knows anything about festivals. Porpoises can play, chimpanzees can play; only man celebrates. Celebration is the highest growth of consciousness, expression, manifestation, flowering of the Golden Flower.

I teach you celebration. Celebration is my key.

And I teach you: celebrate your sex, it is a God-given gift. Celebrate your body, it is God's grace.

Celebrate each moment that has been given to you, each breath, each heartbeat. It is such a benediction.

Live God right now! I don't give you God as a goal; I make God available to you right now, this very moment. Celebrate, and you are in God.

The old religions were sad. The old religions were serious. My religion is that of playfulness:

everything has to be taken into the mood of playfulness. Don't take life seriously; it is fun.

And to take it as fun is to be prayerful. Then there is no complaint, then there is only gratefulness.

The question is important. A few things would be helpful.

There are people who are pathological, and the pathological mind has dominated in the past. Those people cannot enjoy; they don't know how to enjoy. Because they are incapable of enjoying, they make a great virtue out of it. Non-enjoyment becomes virtue.

Everybody is born with the capacity to enjoy, but not with the art. People think just because they are alive and they breathe and they exist, they know how to enjoy. That is sheer stupidity. Enjoyment is a great art, it is a great discipline. It is as subtle a discipline as music or poetry or painting. It is the greatest creativity.

People are born and they start thinking that they are ready to enjoy life, and they cannot enjoy because they don't know how to enjoy it. They make a mess out of their lives, and sooner or later, when-you are making a mess, there are only two possibilities. One is: think that you are being stupid with life; that hurts the ego. The other is: that life is worthless, that life is misery, that there is no joy in life - "That's why I am not enjoying it. Nothing is wrong with me; if there is something wrong, it is in the very structure of life itself." This has been the approach in the past: "If I cannot see light, then there is no light" - not that I am blind. "If I cannot hear sound, then there is no sound" - not that I am deaf.

This has been very, very helpful to the egoist. He tries, and then he finds he cannot enjoy; finding that he cannot enjoy, he starts condemning. He starts condemning those who can enjoy too. He feels jealous, he feels disturbed. Out of his jealousy, out of his disturbance, he poisons people's minds. If you are enjoying he says, "Look, you will suffer in hell. You are doing a crime!" Celebrating, dancing, singing, loving? Life is a punishment for him, and you are taking it as a reward? And these pathological people have dominated in the past.

Once, a friend of mine was alone on a dreary night in a lounge of an intercontinental hotel. Hoping to strike up a conversation with a distinguished-looking man sitting nearby, he said, "May I buy you a drink?" "No," said the man coolly. "Don't drink Tried it once and did not like it."

Nothing daunted my friend, so he offered him a cigar, saying he had just picked up a good one. "No, don't smoke. Tried it once and did not like it."

"Then how about a little game of rummy?"

"No. Don't play cards. Tried it once, but did not like it. But my son will be dropping by after a bit. He might want to play."

My friend settled back in his chair and said, "Your only child, I presume."

These are the potential priests. They tried once and they didn't enjoy - as if enjoyment is their birthright.

It has to be earned, it is an art. One has to imbibe it. It takes years of preparation, it takes years of cleansing. To hear classical music just for the first time, and think that you don't enjoy it so forget all about it, would be stupid. Your ears need a certain discipline, only then can they understand the subtle. The gross is available. It is easy to be with the gross because it is animal. But to move into the deeper realms of life one needs great discipline, great meditativeness, great prayerfulness, great gratitude.

And the basic thing to remember is: if life is not becoming a celebration, then something is wrong with you, not with life itself The old religions said life is wrong. I make you responsible, not life.

Life is God. And from there the whole process changes; then something has to be cleaned in you.

Something that is hanging around you has to be cut. Chunks of conditioning have to be dropped.

You have to go through a surgery.

That's what this Ashram is all about: it is a surgical place. It is no ordinary Ashram like the thousands there are in India. It is a great existential experiment: we are creating a future here, a new kind of man with a new responsibility. We are laying the foundation stones of a new day, of a new sunrise.

We are opening new doors to possibilities which have remained closed in the past. And because of this, humanity has suffered in the past, suffered a lot, and unnecessarily suffered.

And the more people suffered, the more they thought, "The priests are right: life is wrong!" And the priests were creating more and more negative attitudes in people.

Moe went to a department store to buy himself a suit. He found the style he wanted, so he took the jacket off the hanger and tried it on.

A salesman came up to him. "Yes, sir. It looks wonderful on you."

"It may look wonderful," said Moe irritably, "But it fits terrible. The shoulders pinch."

The salesman did not bat an eye. "Put on the pants," he suggested. "They will be so tight, you will forget all about the shoulders."

That has been the common practice of the priest: if something hurts, he gives you an even more tight structure, more tight and dead and dull a character. If something hurts, he makes you hurt more so you forget all about the old hurt.

It always happens. If you have a headache and your house catches fire, you will forget about the headache. Who can afford to think about a headache when the house is on fire?

The priest goes on inventing more and more tortures for you. He has not allowed you to enjoy anything. Taste is wrong; you should eat food without tasting. If you taste you are committing a crime. Dance is wrong; why? - because it is bodily. The body is the enemy. Music is wrong because it is sensuous. ALL is wrong!

You have to go on cutting yourself. Rather than expanding, the priest has been trying to shrink you.

In the modern age the psychoanalyst is called the 'shrink', but the priests have been doing that down the ages - they have been shrinking people. And when you have shrunk so much that it hurts all over, that you are almost in a prison cell, so small that you cannot move, that has been called character. Then naturally, one wants to get rid of life. One prays to God for only one thing: relieve me, redeem me.

Your priests have been against God! Let me say it that way, because God creates existence and your priests create only such structures around you so that you cannot live existence. Your MAHATMAS are against God.

I am all for God - and God means life.

You have asked, "One of the controversial issues about the Rajneesh Ashram concerns indulgence in sex.... "

This is the only place where there is no indulgence in sex, but it will surprise you.

Indulgence needs repression; the more repressed a person is, the more he wants to indulge. It is like, if you have been fasting for a few days and then you relax; you start eating too much, you indulge. Indulgence is a by-product of repression. For thirty days you fasted, you repressed, you fought with yourself, you lived in a kind of hell. Then after thirty days you start moving to the opposite direction, to the opposite extreme: you start indulging. Indulgence is the opposite extreme of repression.

Because I am against repression, how is indulgence possible in my place? I cut the very root of it. If a man is healthily eating, he does not indulge in eating. If he is enjoying his food he does not indulge, he does not eat too much. In fact because he loves his body, he loves his food, he remains very careful. To stuff the body too much is not the sign of a lover of the body, it is a sign of the enemy. The body can be killed in two ways: either by starvation or by over-stuffing it - but both are the ways of enmity. The lover of the body, one who respects his body as God's gift, cannot do either.

He will neither fast nor will he indulge in food.

And the same is true about sex and about everything.

Indulgence is created by the priests because they create repression. Once you create repression people start indulging. The more a desire is repressed, the more it wants to assert. It becomes mad, it becomes aggressive!

When it is allowed its natural flow, when it is accepted, when there is no fight with it, there comes a balance.

So let me tell you, sir, that this is the only place - maybe the ONLY place in the whole of the world - where indulgence is impossible.

Yes, when people come, in the beginning, for a few days they indulge - but I am not responsible for it. The priests, the politicians, the puritans, the moralists - Morarji Desai, etcetera - they are responsible for it. I have not been teaching people to repress; the people who have been teaching repression are responsible for it. And when people come to me they come with all those conditionings, so when I say relax, naturally they start indulging a little bit.

But how long can one indulge? When you really relax, sooner or later the balance is achieved. The moment balance is achieved there is no repression, no indulgence.

But I understand the question: for the so-called religious, my balanced, normal, natural people will look as if they are indulging. Just think of a man who is fasting, and you are taking your breakfast, and he passes by - and the aroma of the coffee and the smell of the bread and the butter, and the joy on your face - what do you think he thinks about you? He thinks you are indulging; you will suffer in hell: "You can go on indulging a few days more, then I will see. When you will suffer in hell, then you will know. You will have to pay very badly for what you are doing." These are the thoughts in his mind. These are the ways he protects himself, these are the ways he represses himself It is out of his unnaturalness that he starts thinking you are unnatural. Now, enjoying one's breakfast is not unnatural at all!

And the man who enjoys his food never eats too much; he CANNOT, it is impossible. Have you ever come across wild animals who are fat? Now, nobody is teaching them naturopathy and nobody is teaching them dieting and nobody is teaching them fasting. You never come across a fat wild animal.

I am deliberately saying WILD animal; I am not talking about the zoos, because it is different in zoos.

Animals start imitating man. In zoos you can find fat animals, ugly, but not in the wild state. Why? - because an animal simply loves, enjoys his body, eats to the point where the body is satisfied, not a bit more.

And yes, sometimes it happens that the animal fasts too, but not according to Jainism. If he feels that the body is in such a state that it cannot take food, he is ill, and it is harmful to load the body - these are NATURAL instincts - he does not eat. Sometimes even the animal may try to vomit, to unburden. A dog will go and eat grass; that helps him to vomit. And you cannot persuade him to eat till he becomes healthy again. These are natural instincts.

Priests have contaminated man so much that he has forgotten all his natural instincts. Now he lives by ideas. He has to fast because he follows a certain philosophy of fasting. He does not listen to the body; the body is hungry and he fasts. And then sometimes the body is not hungry at all and he eats. He goes on losing contact with his body.

I want you to come down from your mind to your senses. Enter back into your senses.

I teach you the body: the body is beautiful, divine. Come back to the body. Let the body become alive again, and it will take care; you need not worry about it. The body has a built-in program to keep you healthy, to keep you alive, to keep you vibrant, to keep you young, fresh. The body has a built-in program: you need not learn anything about it from books and teachings.

So when people come to me in the beginning, sometimes they may indulge - but I am not responsible for their indulgence. The priests, the people who have conditioned them, they are responsible. If these people can be here with me for a few days, sooner or later the balance is restored. And with balance comes tranquility, calmness, a subtle joy and a subtle naturalness.

Sex has four stages; those stages have to be understood. Only at the fourth stage does sex become the Golden Flower. Not to understand those four stages is dangerous, and the whole tradition has been keeping you unaware of those four stages.

The first stage IS AUTOSEXUAL.

When the child is born he is a narcissist. He loves his body tremendously, and it is beautiful; he knows only HIS body. Just sucking his own thumb, and he is in such euphoria. You see the child sucking his own thumb - what euphoria is on his face, just playing with his own body, trying to take his toe into his mouth, making a circle of the energy. When the child takes his toe into the mouth a circle is created and the energy starts moving in a circle. The light circulates naturally in the child and he enjoys, because when the light circulates there is great joy inside.

The child plays with his own sexual organs not knowing they are sexual organs. He has not yet been conditioned; he knows his body as one whole. And certainly, the sexual organs are the most sensitive part of his body. He utterly enjoys touching them, playing with them.

And here is where the society, the poisonous society, enters into the psyche of the child: "Don't touch!" 'Don't' is the first dirty, four-letter word. And out of this one four-letter word, then many more come: can't, won't - these are all four-letter words. Once the child is told "Don't!" and the angry parent, mother or father, and those eyes... And the child's hand is taken away from his genital organs, which are naturally very enjoyable. He really enjoys it, and he is not being sexual or anything.

It is just the most sensitive part of his body, the most alive part of his body, that's all.

But our conditioned minds.... He is touching a sexual organ; that is bad, we take his hand away. We create guilt in the child.

Now we have started destroying his natural sexuality. Now we have started poisoning the original source of his joy, of his being. Now we are creating hypocrisy in him; he will become a diplomat.

When the parents are there he will not play with his sexual organs. Now the first lie has entered; he cannot be true. Now he knows that if he is true to himself, if he respects himself, if he respects his own joy, if he respects his own instinct, then the parents are angry. And he is helpless against them, he is dependent on them, his survival is with them. If they renounce him, he will be dead; so the question is of choosing whether you want to live. The condition is that if you want to live you have to be against yourself, and the child has to yield.

The child is the most exploited phenomenon in the world. No other class has been so exploited as the child. He cannot do anything: he cannot make unions to fight with the parents, he cannot go to the court, he cannot go to the government. He has no way to protect himself against the parental attack.

And when the parents stop him, they are stopping him because of their own conditioning; their parents had done the same to them. They are very much embarrassed by the child's touch ing his own genital organs and playing with them, and so unashamedly.

Now the child knows nothing of shame, he is innocent. The 'don't' has entered; the energy recoils.

The first trauma has happened. Now the child will never be able to accept his sexuality naturally, joyously. Repression has happened and the child is divided in two; his body is no more whole. Some part of the body is not acceptable, some part of the body is ugly, some part of the body is unworthy to be part of his body; he rejects it. Deep down in his psychology he starts castrating himself, and the energy recoils. Energy will not be flowing as naturally as it used to flow before this 'don't' happened.

And the natural outcome of this stupidity that has been perpetually practiced on humanity is that first the child is no more a natural being, hypocrisy has entered. He has to hide something from the parents or he has to feel guilty.

This is the autosexual state: many people remain stuck there. That's why so much masturbation continues all over the world. It is a natural state. It would have passed on its own, it was a growing phase, but the parents disturbed the energy's growing phase.

The child becomes stuck: he wants to play with his genital organs and he cannot. Repressing, repressing, one day it is too much and he is POSSESSED by the sexual energy. And once he has started masturbating, it may become a habit, a mechanical habit, and then he will never move to the second stage.

And the people who are responsible are the parents, the priest, the politicians - the whole social mind that has existed up to now.

Now this man may remain stuck at this stage, which is very childish. He will never attain to full grown- up sexuality. He will never come to know the blissfulness that can come only to a grown-up sexual being. And the irony is that these are the same people who condemn masturbation and make much fuss about it. And they make such statements which are very dangerous: they have been telling people that if you masturbate you will go blind, if you masturbate you will become a zombie, if you masturbate you will never be intelligent, you will remain stupid. Now all the scientific findings are agreed upon one point: that masturbation never harms anybody. But these suggestions harm. Now this is an absolute agreement; there are no two opinions about it. All the psychological researches agree that masturbation never harms anybody, it is a natural outlet of energy. But these ideas - that you will go blind - may make it dangerous to your eyes, because again and again you will think that you will go blind, that you will go blind, that you will go blind.... So many people are using glasses, and the reason may not be in the eyes; the reason may be just somewhere else. So many millions of people are stupid, and the reason may not be that they are stupid - because no child is born stupid, all children are born intelligent. The reason may be somewhere else: in these techniques. You will remain ill, you will lose self-confidence. And so many people are afraid, trembling continuously, have no trust, no self-confidence, are continuously afraid, because they know what they have been doing.

Now thousands of letters come to me: "We are caught up in this trap; how can we come out of it?"

And let me repeat: masturbation has never harmed anybody. But the moment when a person masturbates is a very sensitive and delicate moment; his whole being is open and flowing. In that moment if some suggestion is dropped in his mind - and he himself will drop the suggestion, "Now what if I go mad? if I go blind? if I remain always stupid?" - these constant autohypnotic suggestions are the cause of a thousand and one illnesses, of a thousand and one psychological problems, perversions.

Who is responsible for this?

And people who come to me come with all these perversions. And I try to help them, and MANY are helped and many grow beyond it. But the society thinks I am teaching people some perversions.

This is just unbelievable. I am helping you to grow beyond your perversions; the society has given you perversions. You live in a perverted society!

If the child is allowed the natural phase of autosexuality, he moves on his own to the second phase, the homosexual - but very few people move to the second phase. The majority remain with the first phase. Even while making love to a woman or a man you may not be doing anything else but just a mutual masturbation. Because very few people attain to orgasmic states, very few people come to the glimpses that are bound to be there if your sexuality is mature. Very few people come to know about God through their lovemaking, which is a natural phenomenon. In lovemaking, meditation happens naturally.

But it doesn't happen, and the reason is that millions, the majority, are stuck at the first stage.

Even if they have got married and they have children, their lovemaking is not more than mutual masturbation. It is not real lovemaking.

Lovemaking is an art, a great art; it needs great sensitivity, needs great awareness, meditativeness, it needs maturity.

The second phase is homosexual. Few people move to the second phase; it is a natural phase. The child loves his body. If the child is a boy, he loves a boy's body, HIS body. To jump to a woman's body, to a girl's body, would be too much of a big gap. Naturally, first he moves in love with other boys; or if the child is a girl, the first natural instinct is to love other girls because they have the same kind of body, the same kind of being. She can understand the girls better than the boys; boys are a world apart.

The homosexual phase is a natural phase. There society helps people to remain stuck again, because it creates barriers between man and woman, girls and boys. If those barriers are not there, then soon the homosexual phase fades away; the interest starts happening in the heterosex, the other sex. But for that, society does not give chances - a great China Wall exists between the boy and the girl. In the schools they have to sit apart or they have to be educated separately. In the colleges they have to live in separate hostels. Their meeting, their being together, is not accepted.

That is one of the problems that is happening to me and to my people in this so-called educated city.

If this city is educated, then I wonder what city can be called uneducated. The only problem to the Poonaites is that my people are moving together, man, woman. It should be a natural phenomenon; people should be happy that men and women are moving together, creating a love-vibe around. But they have never moved together; they start feeling disturbed. They start feeling jealous, they start feeling angry, because who are these people to enjoy what has not been given to them? If it has not been their joy they will not allow anybody else to have it either. But they will not say it that way. They will talk great philosophy. They will hide their jealousies behind great words of morality, of religion, of culture - and they don't know anything of morality or religion or culture, because all culture, all religion, all morality has to be based on love. If it is not based on love it is not there at all. It is just a game, a pseudo-game that you go on playing on the surface. Deep down you remain just the opposite of it.

Homosexuality is perpetuated by the society and condemned by the same society. These strategies have to be understood. The same society condemns the homosexual, calls him perverted, criminal.

There are still countries where homosexuality is punished, you can be sent to jail for ten years.

There have been countries where a homosexual could have been sentenced to death! And it is the same society that creates it!

You divide man and woman apart so much, you create watertight compartments. And when the man wants to love he cannot find the woman, and the woman wants to love and she cannot find a man. Then, whatsoever is available... she starts falling in love with a woman, he starts falling in love with a man. And it is not satisfying either, but it is better than nothing. Nature has to find its way. If you don't allow the natural course, it will find some roundabout way. Otherwise homosexuality is a natural phase; it passes by itself.

And the third phase is heterosexual.

When a man is really out of autosex, homosex, then he is capable and mature to fall in love with a woman - which is a totally different world, a different chemistry, a different psychology, a different spirituality. Then he is able to play with this different world, this different organism. They are poles apart, but when they come close - and there are moments when they are really close and overlapping - first glimpses, lightning glimpses of SAMADHI are attained.

Because it does not happen, many people think that I am just talking something like poetry. It is not poetry! I am not talking fiction, I am talking reality. What I am saying is an existential phenomenon, but the need is that the man and the woman must be mature. They must have gone beyond the first two stages; only then can this happen. And very rarely, VERY rarely, are there people who are mature men and mature women. So nothing happens; they make love, but that love is only superficial. Deep down they are autosexual, or, at the most, homosexual.

To love a woman or to love a man, a new kind of being is needed which can accept the polar opposite. And only with the polar opposite - just as with negative and positive electricity meeting, electricity is born, just like that - when life electricities meet, man and woman, yin and yang, Shiva and Shakti, when that meeting happens, that merger, that tOUt oblivion, that drunkenness, they have disappeared as separate entities, separate egos. They are no longer separately there, therefore they are throbbing as one, two bodies in one soul. That is the first experience of no-mind, no-ego, no-time, and that is the first experience of SAMADHI.

Once this has been experienced, then a desire arises: how to attain this SAMADHI so that it can become a natural state of affairs and you need not depend on a woman, you need not depend on a man? - because dependence brings slavery. Only out of the experience of heterosexual orgasm does a person start searching for ways, means, and methods - Yoga, Tantra, Tao - so that he can attain the same state on his own or on her own.

And yes, it can be attained, because deep inside each man is a man and a woman - half comes from his father, half comes from his mother - and each woman is half woman, half man. So once you have known it happening through the outside woman, you will have the first glimpse that it can happen within too. The outer woman simply triggered it, the outer man simply acted as a catalytic agent; now you start meditating.

Then the fourth phase, the ultimate phase comes, which is BRAHMACHARYA, which is REAL celibacy; not the celibacy of the monks - that is not celibacy at all - but the celibacy of the Buddhas.

It is BRAHMACHARYA. Sex has disappeared; you don't need the outer woman, you don't need the outer man. Now your inner man and woman have fallen in a togetherness, and this togetherness is not momentary. This is real marriage; you are welded together. Now to be orgasmic is your natural state. A Buddha lives in orgasm continuously; he breathes in and out in orgasm.

These are the four stages of sex.

My effort here is to take you to the fourth, but people who come to me come to me corrupted, crippled by the society, poisoned by the society. I have to take much poison out of them. I have to take much pus out of their beings. And only if they are courageous enough to be with me long enough, ready to risk, does this transformation become possible.

And the people who live on the outside and just hear rumors about what is happening here are bound to have stupid notions - that indulgence is happening, that orgies are happening, that violence is happening. It is as if in a surgery you come to know that that surgeon is very dangerous because he cuts people's parts, he opens their stomachs, much blood comes out - "That doctor is very dangerous; never go to him!"

I am a physician; or better, I am a surgeon. And this place is a place for spiritual surgery. It is an alchemical experiment in transforming your energies.

The ordinary masses CANNOT UNDERSTAND IT, hence so much misunderstanding is bound to remain about me. It will go slowly, slowly; it may take centuries.

And the people who have so much repressed sexuality in their beings can't have understanding of what is happening here. Their repression makes their eyes blind; they start projecting their ideas.

For example, a man who has repressed all his sexuality for his whole life will go mad seeing a naked woman, because it will be like an explosion in his being. But a man who has not repressed any sexuality will not even take any note of seeing a naked woman; or he may simply think, "What a beautiful body!" - and that is that. He does not want to grab it, he does not want to possess it. Just as you look at a roseflower: the rose flower is naked, you don't put clothes on the rose flower. You don't put clothes on the animals.

There are a few ladies in England who try to put clothes on their dogs, because of 'naked' dogs.

Now these old ladies must be dirty! What kind of mind is this?

So if in some of my groups nudity happens - which is a natural part of the group process - and some people, sly people, can sometimes take photographs with small, automatic cameras, and then those pictures are published all over the world and it is thought that orgies are happening here...

Something totally different is happening here.

Twenty nuns were on a pilgrimage to Lourdes when their plane crashed. They all, of course, went to heaven where they were met by Saint Peter and the recording angel.

"Welcome ladies," he said. "Just a pure formality: will all those who are virgins take one step forward."

There was an embarrassed silence as only nineteen stepped forward.

The recording angel put down his pen, turned to Peter and said, "Excuse me, but what shall we do with the deaf one?"

Whom do you think you are deceiving with your repressions? Your repressions are bound to take revenge on you from the back door.

The whole hypocrisy can disappear from the world if sex is accepted naturally. Ninety-nine percent of hypocrisy is dependent on sex-repression.

Now, religions go on giving you double-binds. They first say, "Be authentic, be true," and all that they teach makes you inauthentic, untrue, hypocrites. This is a double-bind. They say, "Believe in truth, believe in God"; now this is a double-bind. Belief simply means you don't know and still you are believing; it is untrue. If one has to be true, one has to seek and search and only then believe. But they say, "First believe in God, and then you will be able to find Him." To begin with belief is to begin with a lie.

And God is truth, and you begin in lies. Life is truth, and you begin in hypocrisy. If you go on missing, it is no wonder. You are bound to miss all joy.

In the past, this antagonism towards sex has been exploited for one more reason. First, the priest exploited it to make you afraid, to make you tremble. Then he became very high, holier than you; he dominated you. And the politician exploited it in another way, for some other reason: if sex is repressed, man becomes violent. Now, again this is a scientific finding. If sex is repressed man becomes violent; violence is a perversion of sexual energy. Now, the politicians needed armies, violent people, murderers. The only way to get so many murderers was to repress sex.

If you don't repress sex, who wants to kill? For what? The sword, the dagger, the bayonet are nothing but phallic deep down. The man wanted to penetrate the woman's body and it would have been a beautiful phenomenon if it had happened in love; but it could not happen, it was not allowed.

Now he is mad, he wants to enter anybody's body, in any way - with a dagger, with a sword, with a bayonet.

Sex has been repressed; the politician exploited it in his own way. He needed armies, he needed slaves ready to die or to kill. The person who has not lived his life in celebration is ready to die for anything. He is ready to become a martyr for any stupid idea, ideology, scripture, religion.

The man who has lived the joy and the blessings of a life will not be so easily ready to die. He will say, "Why? Life is so precious. I cannot sacrifice my life just for a piece of cloth called the national flag." "I cannot sacrifice my life," he will say, "just because somebody has burned the Koran. So what? Print another." "I cannot sacrifice my life because somebody has burned a temple. So what?

My life is more precious than your temple, because it is the alive temple of God." But a man who has not loved and who has not lived is always ready.

I have heard: A great British politician went to see Adolf Hitler. They were standing on the fourth storey and talking to each other, and Adolf Hitler was bragging about his power and he was saying, "It is better that you yield without fighting. Otherwise we will destroy your whole country. You don't know what kind of men I have got." And to show, he just ordered a soldier who was standing on guard, "Jump!" And the soldier didn't say a thing, he simply jumped. He did not even hesitate for a single moment. The English politician was really impressed. And to impress him still more, he ordered the second soldier to jump, and he also jumped. By the time he ordered the third, the Englishman could not contain himself; he rushed and caught hold of the third. He said, "Are you mad? Why are you jumping like that?" The man said, "Leave me alone. Let me jump! It is better to die than to live with this man."

When life is misery it is better to die; any excuse is enough.

The politician needed violence; he exploited. The priest needed power; he exploited.

I am neither a priest nor a politician. I am just a human being. as you are. And I can see humanity - how MUCH it has suffered. I feel for it because it is me, it is you, and I want to have a totally different future for humanity, for the children to come, for the people who will come on the earth. If we can create a different future for them, that will be the only revolution.

Up to now no revolution has happened, because ninety-nine percent of hypocrisy, untruth, exploitation, violence depends on sexual repression, and no sexual revolution has yet happened.

I am trying to create that situation. It is going to be against the society. It is going to be very controversial, but it is natural. I want the controversy to spread all over the world, because only through that controversy the people who have intelligence, the people who have any kind of understanding, are bound to come to me.

These repressed people cannot understand; their minds are full of holy cow dung.

I have heard about a Boston priest who had volunteered to work part-time in a peace group protesting the war in Vietnam. Doing some writing as well as organizing, he would scurry in and out of the storefront headquarters among the motley assembly of bearded students, jean-clad coeds, and young mothers with babies in papoose sacks or strollers. Once when he had to make an important phone call, he found all the phones taken. Knowing there was a pay-phone in the basement, he rushed downstairs. There at a table was a barebreasted mother who had just finished giving lunch to her baby. In great embarrassment, the girl crossed her arms over her chest and said, "I beg your pardon, Father." The priest smiled, "Don't be embarrassed, young lady. We priests may be celibate, but in our work we grow accustomed to a great many things. I assure you your condition does not trouble me in the least. In fact, you can perhaps do me a favor: Could you give me a dime for two nipples?"

A repressed mind is an obsessed mind. He cannot see reality as it is; it is impossible. Before he can see reality as it is, he will have to drop all kinds of repressions. A clean mind is needed, an innocent mind is needed.

The actor Charles Coburn told how his father warned him about the evils of certain types of theaters....

His father was a very, very religious man.

"What kind of theaters, Father?" he asked.

"Burlesque theaters, son. Don't ever go in one."

Immediately Coburn asked, "Why not?" And his father answered, "Because you will see things in a burlesque theater that you should not see."

That, of course, aroused his curiosity. Not many days passed before he took in his first burlesque.

Coburn remarked, "And I found out my father was right. I did see something I should not have - I saw my father there."

Man has lived with hypocrisy.

I want you to be authentic human beings, true to nature, true to your being, respectful. Have some dignity. You have been chosen by God; it is a great gift, just this life. Make it a festival, celebrate it. Love deeply, and deep love will give you first glimpses of meditation and will release your prayer.

Drop all the taboos.

You will have to risk much. That's what sannyas is all about: the art of risking - because you will be moving into the unknown. You will be moving into the unfamiliar, the unacquainted, the uncharted.

The society gives you a map, a clear-cut style of life to live; I give you only freedom. The society gives you character, I give you only consciousness. The society teaches you to live a conformist life.

Of course, if you live a conformist, conventional life you will be more secure, but more dead too. I give you an invitation to go on an adventure.

Live in insecurity! Live in revolution! Be a rebel, risk, because nothing is ever attained in life without risk. The more you risk, the closer you are to God. When you can risk all, all is yours.

And don't be a hypocrite, and don't compromise.

The situation recalls an incident around the turn of the century in a Baptist church. A young soprano in the choir loft got so carried away with her solo that she fell out. Breaking her fall, the singer caught herself in the chandelier - and there she was suspended upside-down. The fiery Baptist minister was equal to the occasion. He said, "Speaking on my very sermon subject of 'Hell and Damnation', I tell you that he who looks with lust in his heart shall be blinded."

An old codger in the front pew said, "Reverend, with such a great opportunity, is it all right to risk one eye?"

That's what people have been doing - risking one eye. I tell you, risk both! Don't compromise! Risk all! Let life be a play, a risk, a gamble, and when you can risk all you will attain to a sharpness in your being. Your soul will be born.

The Golden Flower can bloom in you only if you are courageous, daring. It blooms only in courage.

And remember, sex may look like mud, but it contains the lotus flower in it. This is one of my fundamentals: the lowest contains the highest, and the highest is nothing but the manifestation of the lowest. The seed contains the flowers and the flowers are nothing but expressions Of the seed.

Sex contains SAMADHI, because life contains God.

Move from sex to SAMADHI, from sex to superconsciousness; this is the only natural and rightful way. Don't get stuck anywhere in sex. I teach you sex and transcendence both, because the transcendence is possible only THROUGH it. And the people who are teaching repression are not teaching transcendence. In fact, they go on pouring more mud on you. They go on forcing you deeper in the mud because there is no possibility of transcendence if you have not moved through these sexual stages of autoeroticism, of homoeroticism, of heteroeroticism, and then to transcendence. And the lotus blooms, the one-thousand-petalled lotus. You are containing it in yourself. Avoid the priests and the politicians and you can achieve it. They are standing in the way.

But they always wanted it this way. It is good for them; it is not good for anybody else. They have diverted your love. They have taken its natural object from you; then love can be diverted. Now there are people who are in love with the motherland - what foolishness! What do you mean by 'motherland'? There are people who are in love with the fatherland - still more foolish. There are people who are in love with countries, ideologies - communism, fascism, Hinduism, Christianity.

Your natural object of love has been taken away; now your love is frantically searching for anything to become tethered to.

A great scientist was working on animals; he calls it 'imprinting'. He says when the animal comes out of the egg, whatsoever he comes across, he immediately becomes attached to it. He becomes attached to the mother because the mother is almost always there. Giving warmth, taking care of the egg, the mother is there. The moment the child opens his eyes, comes out of the egg, looks around at the world, the first thing he comes across is the mother. He becomes attached to the mother.

One scientist was trying to change the subject, and he succeeded. He removed the mother. When the child was coming out of the egg, he removed the mother; he sat there himself. Then he was in trouble, because the child would continuously follow him. And not only that, when the child became a grown-up, became sexually mature, he liked to make love to his feet. He would come to his feet and would try to make love to the feet - because that was the first thing he had seen.

Mother is your first love. It is because of the mother that you will fall in love with a woman some day.

And, almost always, you will fall in love with a woman who looks in some way like your mother.

"Psychiatry is a lot of junk," said one man to another. "Oh?" said his companion. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, today my psychiatrist told me that I am in love with my umbrella. Have you ever heard of anything so silly?" "It does sound rather daft."

"I mean, me and my umbrella certainly have a sincere affection for each other. But LOVE? That is just ridiculous!"

If your natural object of love is taken away, you will love money... you may even love your umbrella.

You may start falling in love with things: you may start falling in love with flags, countries. All kinds of nonsense is possible once your natural love is distracted.

Bring your love to its natural object. Let it have a spontaneity of its own, allow it to take possession of you, and you will be transformed through it.

Love is the key, love is the secret.

The last question:

Question 2:

Samarpan...

The old pond,

Samarpan jumps in,