The art of living

Question 1:

There are two ways to live, to be, to know: one is of effort, will, ego; the other is of no effort, no struggle, but being in a let-go with existence.

All the religions of the world have been teaching you the first way, to fight - fight against nature, fight against the world, fight against your own body, fight against the mind. Only then can you achieve the truth, the ultimate, the eternal. But it is enough proof that this will to power, this path of the ego, this fighting and war has utterly failed. In millions of years, very few people have achieved the ultimate experience of life, so few that they only prove the exception, they don't prove the rule.

I teach you the second way: don't go against the current of existence, go with it; it is not your enemy.

Just as a person can try to go upstream, fighting with the river, soon he will be tired and he is not going to reach anywhere. The river is vast and he is a small part.

In this vast existence, you are smaller than an atom. How can you fight against the whole? The very idea is unintelligent. And you are produced by the whole - how can it be your enemy? Nature is your mother, it cannot be against you. Your body is your very life, it cannot be antagonistic to you. It serves you in spite of your continuous fight with it. It serves you when you are awake, it serves you even when you are asleep. Who goes on breathing? You are fast asleep and snoring.

The body has its own wisdom. It continues to breathe, the heart continues to beat, the body goes on functioning without you. In fact, it functions better when you are not present. Your presence is always a disturbance, because your mind is conditioned by people who have told you to be against it.

I teach you a friendship with existence. I do not want you to renounce the world, because the world is ours. Nothing that exists is against you. All that you have to learn is the art of living - not the art of renouncing, but the art of rejoicing. It is only a question of learning an art and you can change the poison into nectar.

On so many medicines you will find written, poison, but in the hands of a scientific expert the poison has become a medicine. It does not kill you, it saves you.

If you find that somewhere your body, nature, the world is against you, remember one thing: it must be your ignorance, it must be some wrong attitude. It must be that you don't know the art of living.

You are unaware that existence cannot be against you. You are born out of it, you live in it, it has given everything to you and you are not even grateful. On the contrary, all the religions have been teaching you to condemn it from the very beginning.

Any religion that teaches you condemnation of life is poisonous. It is anti-life, it is in the service of death; it is not in the service of you, it is not in the service of existence. But why does the question arise?

All these religions went against nature. Why did they create a certain logic that unless you are against this world, you will never be able to achieve the other world, the higher one? Why did they make such a division between this world and that world? There is a reason to it.

If this world is not to be renounced but lived in its totality, then the priest is no longer needed. If this world has to be fought, renounced, you have to repress your natural instincts. Then of course, you are going to be in a sick state. Against nature you can never be healthy, you can never be whole. You will always be split and schizophrenic. Naturally, you will need somebody to guide you, somebody to help you - you will need the priest.

Religion up to now has been the profession of the priest. It has nothing to do with God, it has nothing to do with the other world. It has just one purpose: how to exploit you, how to enslave you. And the priests have made the whole world into a vast slave camp.

There are different religions; they are simply different slave camps. When you get fed up with one slave camp, you enter into another thinking that perhaps there will be freedom, but you are only changing jails.

A Christian becomes a Hindu, a Hindu becomes a Christian: perhaps for the time being he may think that there is freedom, because of the newness. But soon he will be surprised that he is again in chains. Although the chains have different colors, are made of different metals, he has again been encaged into a certain theology. His mind is programmed again into lies he is being asked to believe.

When he was a Hindu he was asked to believe that Rama is God, that Krishna is the perfect incarnation of God. Now he is a Christian - Rama and Krishna are no longer relevant, they are no longer gods - now Jesus Christ is the only begotten son of God. Just the language differs, but deep down it is the same bondage.

Just the other day I rejected one question, seeing that it must have come from a Hindu. The question was: "Mohammed has nine wives, eats meat, and his whole life is nothing but a continuous war - killing people; Jesus eats meat, drinks wine. Gautam Buddha is against wine; Mahavira is against wine, against meat. How can we decide who is the right savior?"

But he left out the Hindus - and his name is Hindu. He had not mentioned that Rama is always pictured, sculpted, with a bow and arrows. He is not nonviolent. He fought a war; he must have killed thousands of people. He has the guts to ask why Mohammed had nine wives, but he does not ask why Krishna had sixteen thousand wives.

The very question of how one is to choose who is the right savior is basically wrong. If you understand me, you are the only savior for yourself. There is no question of choice. Whenever you will choose, you will choose something wrong. Choice is wrong, so it doesn't matter whom you are going to choose.

You are always asking which prison to choose. This is painted white, this is painted blue, this is painted green... which prison to choose? But can't you choose freedom? Have you decided to remain a slave forever, a prisoner?

And I can see the cunning mind. You are only asking about other religions, not mentioning your own religion. All the religions are criminals, more or less. There may be a difference of degrees, but they are criminals, for the simple reason that they have been promising you something which they cannot deliver. Otherwise, the whole world would have been saved long ago. So many saviors have been around, and I simply wonder how you escaped from being saved!

Every religion has saviors, prophets, gods, and the followers are in the same misery. Misery is neither Mohammedan nor Christian, nor Hindu nor Buddhist. Misery is simply misery. And everybody in the world is in misery, in suffering, in anguish. They have believed for thousands of years, but their belief has not helped at all.

It is time enough. You have to declare a certain maturity, and you have to say to these saviors and these prophets and their representatives, "Enough is enough. Now close the doors of all your shops.

We are not interested in being saved, we are interested in being totally alive." It is total living that is going to save you, and all these religions have been cutting your life: this is wrong, that is wrong...

making your life more miserable, making your life nothing but a guilt, full of wounds.

Naturally, when you are guilty, you go to the church, you go to the mosque, you go to the synagogue; you ask the priest, you ask the minister, you ask the rabbi to help you, because in your deep darkness - which they are responsible for creating - you are so helpless, you need somebody to protect you, somebody to help you, somebody to show you the light. You are in such a desperate need that you don't ever think whether the priest knows anything more than you, or that he is just a paid servant.

It happened in Ramakrishna's life....

One sudra woman - sudras are the lowest caste of Hindus, reduced almost to inhuman beings.

Cows are more respected, and human beings are not even that much respected. The woman was a queen, but she was a sudra. She had enough money. She could not go to any temple, although she was the queen. And the story is not very old, just one hundred years old.

She made a beautiful temple in Dakshineshwar, near Calcutta, so that she could worship. But then a problem arose: no priest was willing to worship in her temple. The temple also became untouchable.

The god inside the temple also became untouchable because an untouchable woman had made the temple - strange logic. The woman had not even touched the temple - and all the temples are made by untouchables. The bricks are made by them, everything that a temple needs for its construction is made by the lowest untouchable class, but no temple is untouchable. Even the statues of the gods are carved by untouchables - stonecutters - but those gods are not untouchables. And this woman had simply used her money... Now can you say because the money comes from an untouchable, it becomes untouchable?

Money passes through thousands of hands. That's why it's other name is currency - it is always moving, it is a current. The notes that you have in your pocket may have moved through thousands of hands. Many untouchable people, Mohammedans, Christians, may have touched them. They may be carrying all kinds of diseases, because people who have tuberculosis, who have cancer, who have AIDS, may have used them. In fact, the whole system of currency is absolutely unhygienic and it should be changed. It is unscientific.

You should have credit cards which belong to you and remain with you and that don't change hands.

Currency is simply ugly, and it may be spreading many diseases. But no medical experts are raising their voices against it.

But in Dakshineshwar, Rani Rukmani Devi's temple remained empty, because no brahmin was ready to worship in it. She searched all over Bengal, and this young man, Ramakrishna - he was only twenty years old - said, "There is no problem. I will come."

His whole society condemned him. People told him, "You are destroying yourself. You will be expelled from brahmin status. You are falling down. You are becoming an untouchable."

He said, "I don't care, but I cannot see one god remaining unworshipped. I am ready to risk myself, but I cannot risk that poor god."

Against everybody - against his family, against everybody - he went, but he was a strange person.

He started worshipping.

Rani Rukmani was really a graceful woman, very wise. Even though the temple started with a priest, she never entered the temple. She would always come, remain outside where people leave their shoes, sit there - and she was the queen - and just watch from the door, the worship, Ramakrishna dancing, singing... But the problem was that sometimes Ramakrishna would sing for hours and dance for hours. All the other people who had come would leave - he would continue alone. And sometimes he would not even open the doors of the temple, he would put a lock on the door.

Rani Rukmani called him and asked, "What is the matter? Sometimes you worship for hours. I have heard that some days you worship the whole day, and sometimes for days you don't open the temple."

He said, "It is between me and my god. Nobody has to interfere. When he is graceful to me, I am graceful to him. When he starts behaving rudely, then I give him a lesson! Then I tell him, 'Remain without food for two or three days and you will come to your senses.'"

Rani Rukmani Devi said, "What are you talking about? It is just a stone statue."

Ramakrishna said, "If it was just a stone statue, I would not have lost my caste. Against the whole society I would not have come. To me it is not."

Rani said, "And I have also heard that the food you prepare to offer to the god - first you taste it.

That is against all scriptures. You have to offer it first to the god, then it can be distributed to the devotees and then you can take it. But you are not supposed to taste it first."

He said, "You can take your temple and I resign from it, because I know perfectly - my mother used to taste first before she would give anything to me. And when I asked her why she was doing that, she said, 'If it is not good, I will not give it to you.' How can I do otherwise? I don't care about your scriptures; I don't know them. I have learned only from my mother that if there is love, love cannot give something which is not tasteful. First I have to taste it, and then only can I offer it."

Now this man, Ramakrishna, is expelled from Brahmanism, and you will not find another brahmin of the same status, of the same insight. He was not there just to get some salary. He was there really to worship, and worship is a love affair. It knows no other rules except love. Love is decisive, not any other law.

So it is not a question of whom you have to choose, the question is, are you going to love existence, are you going to love existence as divine? Then it does not matter in which religion you are born.

All those things become unnecessary. You have found the essential core. And if you are going to decide, you will never be able to decide.

For example, no Jaina is going to accept Christ as enlightened, for the simple reason that it is inconceivable according to the Jaina perception that any enlightened man will drink alcohol. When you are enlightened, you have tasted the ultimate ecstasy - now what can alcohol give to you?

Alcohol is for miserable people to forget their misery. Alcohol helps you to forget something. You want to forget misery and suffering, but nobody wants to forget blissfulness, ecstasy.

If an ecstatic person drinks alcohol, he will forget all about it. No meditator is going to drink alcohol.

That is simply illogical, unscientific. So no Jaina, no Buddhist, is going to agree that Jesus is enlightened. But on the other hand, the Christian also has questions, because Buddha neither served the poor nor helped the sick to become healthy, nor did Mahavira raise the dead back to life.

They had no concern at all for other people.

According to the Christian attitude, these people are utterly selfish, they are simply meditating for their own enlightenment. While millions of people are dying, starving, or sick, they are not doing anything for them. How can these people be enlightened if they don't have compassion, service, as their prayer? If they can't serve others, it is certain they don't see the divine in others. You will be caught into such difficult arguments that you will not be able to choose - but there is no need at all.

The very need to choose is wrong. You are not to decide who is right and who is wrong. That is their problem. Whether Jesus is enlightened or not, whether Gautam Buddha is enlightened or not, is not your problem. Your problem is whether you are enlightened or not!

There is no way to decide about Jesus, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, but there is absolute certainty about you. You can decide yourself. You know perfectly well you are not enlightened. Is this the time, when you are not enlightened, to decide about others... wasting your life, your time, your energy?

And still you cannot come to any conclusion, because they all have their arguments.

Christians say Jesus is crucified to save humanity; he gives his own life. And in the Christian context it looks perfectly right. But looked at from the Hindu, Jaina, Buddhist or Tao context it is absurd.

According to these four religions, the crucifixion of Jesus is possible only if he had done some great evil acts in his past life. Otherwise crucifixion is not possible. What to say of the crucifixion?

Jainas say that Mahavira is naked, walks barefooted and that even thorns on the way, seeing that Mahavira is coming, get out of his way. They simply jump out of his way because his karmas are finished! He cannot have even that much suffering, because suffering needs some cause, and he has destroyed all the causes. The thorn has to move.

The Buddhists say that when Buddha sits underneath a tree, it may not be the season for the tree to blossom, but it simply blossoms abundantly. It has to because the existence of an enlightened man is so rare, so precious, that the tree even forgets that this is not the season to blossom. But who cares about the season? When an enlightened person is sitting underneath, the tree is so joyous; it is her way of singing and dancing and celebrating.

Now Buddhists cannot believe that Jesus comes to a tree, a fig tree - for three days he has been hungry, and because there are no figs on the tree, he is very angry. Although he is called the prince of peace and he talks about loving your enemies just like yourself, he behaved in such a retarded way with the fig tree. He cursed it "because you are not welcoming me and my friends who have been hungry for three days. Where are the fruits?" But it was not the season. What could the poor fig tree do?

And to curse a tree which is incapable of producing fruits out of season is simply nonsense. It simply shows a man in absolute anger, almost insane. He is behaving like a retarded child, who because he stumbles on a table, starts beating the table as if the table had struck him. That's what Jesus is doing - cursing the fig tree because there are no fruits.

No Eastern religion can accept Jesus and his behavior. But Christians cannot accept the thousand and one things in the Eastern prophets. Mahavira standing naked simply shows that he is an exhibitionist. You will know exactly. Just tomorrow stand on the road naked. Nobody is going to worship you. Immediately the police will be called and you will be taken to the police station, because to stand naked on the road is illegal and criminal.

Sigmund Freud has decisively given his testimony that when you want to show your naked body to people it is exhibitionism, and that is a mental disease. And there are other things which go along with it. There are mad people all around the world who pull their hairs out; Mahavira used to do that.

He never got shaved by a barber, because he never wanted to be dependent on anybody. He never used a poor razor blade, because he never wanted to use any technology. So the only way was to pull his own hairs, beard, mustache. Every year he would do it, and thousands of his followers, with tears in their eyes, would watch it thinking what great austerity he was showing.

But according to Sigmund Freud, this man had some streak of insanity. And these people who were standing there, dropping all their jobs, closing their shops, tears in their eyes... they are also psychologically sick. According to psychoanalysis, these people are sadists; they enjoy somebody torturing himself.

And the person who tortures himself - and I don't think in the whole history of man anybody has tortured himself more than Mahavira - is a masochist. He loves to torture himself, and he loves to show how much he is torturing himself. He will attract only the sadistic people - those who want to see somebody torturing himself. They want to torture, but they are not brave enough to do it because that is risky and dangerous. But when somebody is doing it on his own, this is a beautiful moment not to be missed.

If you go on analyzing these people you will never come to any conclusion, you will get more and more confused. My suggestion is that it is none of your affair whether they were enlightened or insane, it is their problem. Your problem is basically to look within yourself, where you are. And if you are in misery, in suffering, in anxiety, in anguish; if you are missing something in life, if you are discontented, if you don't see any meaning anywhere and you are simply dragging yourself towards death...

The darkness goes on growing darker, every day death goes on coming nearer - is this the time to get into great theological problems? It is the time to change your being. You don't have much time.

You will be surprised to know that one of the great masters of this age, George Gurdjieff, has stated something which has never been stated in the whole history of man by any mystic, by any master.

He has said to his disciples, "Don't remain in the illusion that you all have souls. You are not born with souls. You are soulless. Only very few people have been able to create a soul. Those who create a soul may survive death, but the majority are simply vegetables. You will die completely; nothing will be left behind."

It was very shocking, because all the mystics down the ages have been telling you just the opposite - that you are born with a spiritual being, you are just not aware of it. So learn the art of awareness and you will discover it.

Why did Gurdjieff say that that is absolutely wrong - "The reality is that nobody is born with a soul.

The soul is something to be created with arduous effort and intelligence, and very few succeed.

Only those go on living in a future life, others disappear with death, they did not use the opportunity."

I have often been asked what the truth is, whether what Gurdjieff said is true or what all the mystics of all the ages have said is true. Both are true. The mystics of the past have told you the truth simply, but man is so unconscious and cunning. Listening to the truth, whether you do anything or not, you always have the hidden potential of becoming an enlightened person.

The sleepy people thought, "Then there is no hurry. First, do other things which tomorrow you may not be able to do" - and there are a thousand and one things in the world which attract your attention.

As far as the soul is concerned, it is always there. You can have it today, you can have it tomorrow, you can have it in the next life. It is only a question of time - and anyway, you have it. It is just a question of becoming aware. So why not do other things which you don't have and just by becoming aware you won't get?

By becoming aware you won't become rich. On the contrary, you may become poor, because you will start trusting people and people will start cheating you. You may start being compassionate and people will take advantage of it.

I was coming from Indore, and going to Nagpur....

In the middle, at the junction Khandava, I had to change trains. I had almost two hours to wait, so I waited in the old train which had brought me to Khandava. I was sitting alone in the compartment when one beggar came towards me and he said, "My wife has died."

I said, "That's very bad," and gave him one rupee.

He looked at me. He could not believe - he looked at the rupee - whether it was authentic or fake.

I said, "Don't be worried. It is absolutely authentic. It is not like your wife."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "I don't mean anything. Just by the way, I reminded you that it is not like your wife, it is a real rupee."

He went away, but he remained puzzled.

After five to ten minutes he came back again. Last time he had a coat and a cap; this time he had dropped the coat and the cap, thinking that now he would not be recognized. But as he came I asked, "What happened? Has somebody else died?"

He said, "What? How did you know? My father has just died."

I said, "I knew it, and I would like you to know that I am going to be here for two hours, so you can let your relatives die - as many as you want. And it is not costly for me. Take one rupee and finish another relative."

He said, "It is a sad thing and you are making a joke of it."

I said, "It is really sad: first your wife died, and within ten minutes your father died. You just go home to find... somebody else must have died!"

He said, "If you say, I will go."

"But you should go and you should come back, because somebody is bound to be dead. I am here for two hours."

Within ten minutes he was back. He said, "You seem to be very prophetic. I went home and my mother has died."

And I said, "Take one rupee. How many relatives do you have in all, the total?"

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "I can give you advance money. You let them die, because it is such a torture for you"... the poor man running home, coming back... again somebody will die.... "Your whole family is going to die today, so you just tell me the whole number - how many people have you got still alive?"

At that moment something happened in the man and he said, "No. I cannot take advance money.

This is too much. This is too much, because I have been cheating people. Every day my wife dies.

Today you have killed three of my people and now you are giving me the advance for everybody. No, that is too much. I cannot do that."

And he asked me did I not feel cheated. I said, "No, I am enjoying! Just sitting here alone - I have nothing else to do, and you are such an entertainment. I am enjoying the whole scene. I was simply wondering how many relatives you could invent. You must have a joint family: uncles and their wives and their children. You just count them all and I am ready to give one rupee for each."

He took the three rupees that I had given to him and he said, "Please take them back. I cannot cheat you."

I said, "What happened? What is the trouble? You have been doing this business your whole life, and I am just another man who passes in these trains, and you cheat."

He said, "No, you are not one of them. You... you are making me feel so bad that it is not only a question of cheating you. I am showing my ugliness too - that just to get some money, every day I have to kill my people. No, I cannot take, and you please take these three rupees back. If you don't take it, I am not going to leave from here. You will have to take these three rupees back, because my wife is alive, my father is alive and my mother is alive."

Then I said, "Take them just as a celebration because they have not died, they are alive. If I can give for the dead, why cannot I give for the living ones? I give them more joyously; don't you feel guilty."

The more aware you become, the more loving you will be, the more compassionate you will be. You will not be cunning, you will not be cheating, and everybody around you will take advantage of you.

Naturally, the whole world of sleepy people decided that the soul is something which you need not bother about - even death cannot take it away! It is with you always, whatever you do. Be a sinner, be a saint, but the soul is your eternal possession. It can be postponed; you can do other things first.

Seeing this, Gurdjieff told a lie out of compassion, out of sheer compassion. He wanted to shock you that you have misused the old mystics' simplicity, their innocent statements about truth. He shocked his disciples by saying, "You have to do something urgent. This is the most important thing to do, the first priority. You cannot postpone it even for a single moment."

To make it such an intense longing in you, he had to lie. And he helped many people to go into deep, arduous training, self-discipline, to become aware. Because if somebody declares that you don't have a soul, naturally, you will forget all about your factory and your shop, and all about your children and all about your wife. Your first priority will be how to attain your innermost being, because all these things that you have will be taken away. And if you don't have a soul, death will be total, nothing will survive.

I don't want to say to you that you don't have a soul. But still, I want you to understand and not misinterpret what I am saying. You have a soul as much as anybody else has ever had. In fact there is no possibility of any communism other than the communism of spirituality. Only spirituality is equally the same. The greatest was Gautam Buddha, and you are no different in potential. He has actualized it, he has recognized it; your potential is lying dormant.

And the methods that all the religions have been teaching to you are methods of fighting; they don't lead anywhere. They simply spoil your joys of life. They poison everything enjoyable in this life. They have created a sad humanity. I would like a humanity full of love and full of song and full of dance.

So I want it to be clearly understood that my method is the second, and by the second method I mean you are not to fight the current and go upstream - that is stupid. You cannot fight, the current of nature is too big and too strong. The best way is to learn from a dead body. Dead people know a few secrets which living people don't know.

Living people, if they don't know how to swim, drown. This is very strange. By the time they are dead, they surface again. When they were living, they went down; when they died, they came up. Certainly, the dead person knows something which the living person does not know. What happened? Why do the river and the ocean behave differently with the dead person? The dead person is in absolute let-go. He is not even swimming. He is not doing anything.

The best swimmer simply floats. The ultimate swimmer just goes like a dead body with the current, wherever the river leads - it always leads to the ocean. Every river leads to the ocean, so you need not be worried whether you are in a holy river or not. Holy or unholy, every river is destined to reach sooner or later to the ocean. You just go on floating with the river. And this I call trust - trusting in existence that wherever it is leading, it is leading to the right path, to the right goal. It is not your enemy. Trust in nature that wherever it is taking you, there is your home.

If the whole of humanity learns relaxation rather than fighting, learns let-go rather than making arduous effort, there will be a great change in the quality of consciousness. Relaxed people, simply moving silently with the flow of the river, having no goals of their own, having no egos...

In such a relaxed floating you cannot have any ego. Ego needs effort - you have to do something.

Ego is a doer, and by floating you have become a non-doer. In this inaction, you will be surprised how your anxieties and miseries start dropping away and how you start becoming contented with whatsoever existence gives to you.

One Sufi mystic was traveling....

And every evening he would thank existence: "You have done so much for me and I have not been able to repay, and I will never be able to repay it." His disciples were a little disgusted, because sometimes life was so arduous.

The Sufi mystic was a rebellious person. It happened this time that for three days they had no food, because every village they passed refused because they were not orthodox Mohammedans. They had joined a rebellious group of Sufis. They wouldn't give them shelter for the night, they were sleeping in the desert. They were hungry, they were thirsty, and it was the third day. At the evening prayer, the mystic again said to existence, "I am so grateful. You have been doing so much for us and we cannot ever repay it."

One of the disciples said, "This is too much. Now for three days please tell us what existence has done for us? For what are you thanking existence?"

The old man laughed. He said, "You are still not aware of what existence has done for us. These three days have been very significant for me. I was hungry, I was thirsty; we had no shelter, we were rejected, condemned. Stones were thrown at us, and I was watching within myself - no anger arose. I am thanking existence. Its gifts are invaluable. I can never repay them. Three days of hunger, three days of thirst, three days of no sleep, people throwing stones... and yet I have not felt any enmity, any anger, any hatred, any failure, any disappointment. It must be your mercy; it must be existence supporting me.

"These three days have revealed so many things to me which would not have been revealed if food had been given, reception had been given, shelter had been given, stones had not been thrown - and you are asking me for what I am thanking existence? I will thank existence even when I am dying, because even in death I know existence is going to reveal mysteries to me as it has been revealing in life, because death is not the end but the very climax of life."

Learn to flow with existence so you don't have any guilt and any wounds. Don't fight with your body, or nature, or anything, so you are at peace and at home, calm and collected.

This situation will help you to become more alert, more aware, more conscious, which finally leads to the ocean of ultimate awakening - nirvana.

Question 2:

A little more watching - who is being cheated by the ego, who is feeling, "I am being cheated by the ego"? There must be something more than the ego, otherwise, you could not feel it. If you are only ego, then there is no way to get out of it. But you are already aware. You have not taken note of it. You have not yet emphasized the fact that you are already aware that "My surrender is goal-oriented," and you always have some motivation. Even if you want to be free from all misery, suffering, it is always I - but who is making this statement? Just a little more watching....

You are already on the verge of it. Just a step more so that you can see clearly. And in the very seeing is the transformation. You have not to do anything, you have just to become aware that you are not the ego and that the ego falls with all its desires, motivation - good or bad, religious or irreligious, this-worldly or the other-worldly - the ego simply falls down. Its whole structure collapses, and the moment you see it collapsing, that moment is the moment of freedom.

This question is significant for everybody. The person who has asked the question - I have answered many of his questions, but I have not answered any for a few days. Yesterday he wrote a question - very angry. I still did not answer it because I wanted him to realize that unless he asks an authentic question, he is not going to get the answer. And today, he has come to his senses.

Yesterday he was very angry, saying that all questions are equally important. I know it. They are equal, but not in importance. All questions are equally unimportant.

In your state of consciousness you cannot ask a really important question. If you can ask a really important question there will be no need to ask it, you will be almost awake. You are asking while you are asleep. In your sleep many people go on talking.

I used to travel a lot all over India from one corner to another corner, continuously, for years. And sometimes it happened - I was always in the air-conditioned compartment in a small coupe. Perhaps there was one person... sometimes the coupe was not available and I had to travel in a bigger, four- seat compartment, so there were four persons.... And it was a great joy to listen to them in their sleep. Ordinarily I miss that because I sleep alone. And people say such strange things in their sleep, that I was surprised. If you wake them up, they will deny that they have said this, but in their sleep they are more truthful. Sometimes it was a great trouble.

Once it happened...

I was with three persons, and all the three persons were great snoring people. And they snored in such a way that one would snore, the other would reply with loudness, the third would surpass the both, and then the number one would come up again.

I could not understand how they were managing the arrangement even while they were asleep.

Exactly the same round went on and on. Finally, I had to start snoring while I was awake - and so loudly that they all three woke up.

They looked at me - and I was sitting with my eyes open - and they said, "You are strange. You snore while you are awake."

I said, "That's the difficulty. When I am asleep, I am asleep, but because of you three, I cannot sleep.

And this is the problem with me: when I am awake, I snore. So we have to decide. I am ready for any negotiation: either I have to be awake, but then you three cannot sleep. If you allow me to sleep, then you three cannot snore. You can choose. I am not in a hurry. The journey is long. We will be together for forty-eight hours - two nights - so you can decide."

They said, "This is a strange kind of person." All three discussed, "We have never heard anybody snoring while awake! But from the very beginning this man looked strange. Now what are we going to do?"

I said, "There is no problem. You just don't snore. If I am asleep, I will not snore."

They said, "Okay. We will try."

Out of fear, it worked! They did not snore the whole night. In the morning they said, "You have done a miracle. Our whole lives we have been trying to stop snoring. We are all three brothers, and the oldest is the loudest. Our whole family is disturbed by us. They have put all the three of us in one room to sleep. In the night, they don't allow us to sleep in different places - even with our wives!

Even our wives are not willing to sleep with us. So we three sleep together."

Then I said, "I can understand. Otherwise, I was puzzled at how you were managing a certain synchronicity. Then I can understand. If you have been sleeping together for years, then naturally, there is a certain arrangement in sleep. One snores, two are silent; when he stops, the other begins; when he stops, the third one begins; when the third one stops, the first again is back, and this goes round and round."

And they said, "You have done a miracle - you have broken our circle! And now tell us, really, is it true that you snore while you are awake?"

I said, "What else can you do when there are three persons, snoring so loudly?! I had to snore while awake to make it clear to you that if you want to sleep, then you have to allow me to sleep."

In your sleep also you may sometimes ask very logical questions, and they may seem to you to be very relevant.

But just because you have asked, does not mean that I am obliged to answer it. And the person was getting angrier, and I was watching him every day. And I knew that I would bring him to his senses - and he has come back. I guessed that he must be in the legal profession. I know how to treat people who deal with law and logic and that kind of expertise. But I am happy that he is back to humanity - he is no longer a legal expert.

This question is significant. You have just to emphasize more the understanding part within you, the observing part within you which is making you feel that every motivation, every goal, every desire, is based on the ego. How can you get out of the ego?

You cannot get out of the ego.

You are out of it!

There is a Zen story....

One Zen master - and Zen is the cream of Buddhism. In Zen it has come to its ultimate flowering. I don't think there is anything possible more than Zen.

It is a strange thing: Buddhism has reached to its peak in a rebellious group of people who have created Zen. It is not the orthodox Buddhism. Mohammedanism has reached to the same peak in the Sufis, who are the rebellious people, not the orthodox. Judaism has reached in Hassidism to the same peak as Zen, as Sufism. But Hassidism and Hassids are not orthodox. Jews don't accept them even as religious. But these three rebellious schools of three different religions, belonging to three different races, have come to the same status when they flowered, and reached to the highest peak.

This should give you an insight, that if you want to be religious, you have to learn to be rebellious.

You cannot remain orthodox and become religious. That is impossible. That has never happened and it is not going to happen.

You have to go beyond traditions.

You have to go beyond the past.

You have to be really rebellious in spirit. Then whether you are born in a Jewish family or in a Buddhist family or in a Mohammedan family does not matter, you will attain.

These three religions, of different categories, have produced the same result through rebellion. That can give you a certain insight. There are religions which have remained barren. Christianity has not created anything equal to Zen; Hinduism has not created anything equal to Zen; Jainism has not created anything equal to Zen. Those three have remained barren, so they have only orthodoxy, they don't have the rebellious spirit.

The three religions which have attained to the heights - their orthodoxies don't accept those heights.

But anybody who is impartial - a person like me who does not belong to any tradition, who does not belong to any orthodoxy - can see the same fragrance in Zen, in Sufism, in Hassidism.

I am trying to emphasize the point that to be rebellious, against dead traditions, is part of becoming really spiritual. And the greatest rebellion is when you become an authentic watcher of your ego.

The ego is always nourished by tradition. The ego is always nourished by the orthodox people. The ego is always respected by the old, by the dead.

When you are egoless, you will not become humble. Remember, don't get into that fallacy. The egoless person is not humble, because in humbleness the ego can hide, it can play a new role. It can give you the sense that you are the most humble person around, but then the ego has come from the back door.

An egoless person is neither egoistic nor humble, he is simply authentic, he is simply true. Whether you enjoy his truth or you are hurt by his truth, does not matter.

I have been answering one Western woman's questions. I am still waiting, because she is around.

She has again asked today. I will call her to ask her question on the microphone, only on the day when I see that she has come to an individual problem, her problem. She is still bothering about others. Now she has asked, "You have said that all the Polacks are idiots. What do you mean by this?"

I am not a pope. I am fallible. What I really wanted to say is that all the idiots are Polacks. They may be born anywhere, it does not matter, but they have the qualities of a Polack. So to satisfy the Western woman, I change my statement. But she is cunning.

She had another question which is an indication that she is coming closer to asking something really concerning herself. And if she is around here, getting so many hits, it certainly means she is interested. No matter what, no matter what I say, she is finding some kind of nourishment in it.

I will wait for her. The moment she asks a question relating to her own spirituality... because what business has she with Polacks?

I am reminded of George Bernard Shaw....

He was visiting America for the first time. And at his reception - there was a great meeting in New York. All the celebrities, all the bureaucrats, intellectuals, were present. And he said, "I have always thought that fifty percent of Americans are idiots."

It was very shocking. The Americans are giving a reception, it is his first day in America, and to start it with such a statement that fifty percent of Americans are utter idiots... The mayor who was in the chair could not contain the temptation to ask immediately, "What do you mean?"

George Bernard Shaw laughed. He said, "I mean that fifty percent of Americans are very intelligent people."

And they all clapped!

And Bernard Shaw leaned towards the mayor and said, "Do you see? What I said before was right."

Okay, Arun?