Freedom is a higher Value

Question 1:

The first thing: There are two kinds of love. C.S. Lewis has divided love into these two kinds: 'need-love' and 'gift-love'. Abraham Maslow also divides love into two kinds. The first he calls 'deficiency-love' and the second he calls 'being-love'. The distinction is significant and has to be understood.

The 'need-love' or the 'deficiency-love' depends on the other; it is immature love. In fact it is not truly love - it is a need. You use the other, you use the other as a means. You exploit, you manipulate, you dominate. But the other is reduced, the other is almost destroyed. And exactly the same is being done by the other. He is trying to manipulate you, to dominate you, to possess you, to use you. To use another human being is very unloving. So it only appears like love; it is a false coin. But this is what happens to almost ninety-nine per cent of people because the first lesson of love that you learn is in your childhood.

A child is born, he depends on the mother. His love towards the mother is a 'deficiency-love': he needs the mother, he cannot survive without the mother. He loves the mother because mother is his LIFE. In fact, there is no love; he will love any woman - whosoever will protect him, whosoever will help him to survive, whosoever will fill up his need. The mother is a sort of food that he eats. It is not only milk that he gets from the mother, it is love also - and that too is a need.

Millions of people remain childish all their lives; they never grow up. They grow in age, but they never grow in their minds; their psychology remains juvenile, immature. They are always needing love. They are hankering for it like food.

Man becomes mature the moment he starts loving rather than needing. He starts overflowing, sharing; he starts giving. The emphasis is totally different. With the first, the emphasis is on how to get more. With the second, the emphasis is on how to give, how to give more, and how to give unconditionally. This is growth, maturity, coming to you.

A mature person gives. Only a mature person can give, because only a mature person has it. Then love is not dependent. Then you can be loving whether the other is or is not. Then love is not a relationship, it is a state.

What will happen if all the disciples disappear and only I am here? Do you think there will be any change? What happens when a flower blooms in a deep forest with nobody to appreciate it, nobody to know its fragrance, nobody to pass a comment and say 'beautiful', nobody to taste its beauty, its joy, nobody to share - what happens to the flower? It dies? It suffers? It becomes panicky? It commits suicide? It goes on blooming, it simply goes on blooming. It does not make any difference whether somebody passes by or not; it is irrelevant. It goes on spreading its fragrance to the winds.

It goes on offering its joy to God, to the whole.

If I am alone, then too, I will be as loving as when I am with you. It is not you who are creating my love. If you were creating my love, then naturally, when you are gone, my love will be gone. You are not pulling my love out - I am showering it on you: it is 'gift-love', it is 'being-love'.

And I don't really agree with C.S. Lewis and Abraham Maslow. The first love that they call 'love' is not love, it is a need. How can a need be love? Love is a luxury. It is abundance. It is having so much life that you don't know what to do with it, so you share. It is having so many songs in your heart that you have to sing them - whether anybody listens or not is not relevant. If nobody listens, then also you will have to sing it, you will have to dance your dance.

The other can have it, the other can miss it - but as far as you are concerned, it is flowing, it is overflowing. Rivers don't flow for you; they are flowing whether you are there or not. They don't flow for your thirst, they don't flow for your thirsty fields; they are simply flowing there. You can quench your thirst, you can miss - that's up to you. The river was not really flowing for you, the river was just flowing. It is accidental that you can get the water for your field, it is accidental that you can get water for your needs.

A Master is a river, the disciple is accidental. The Master is flowing; you can partake, you can enjoy, you can share his being. You can be overwhelmed by him, but he is not FOR you. He is not flowing for you in particular, he is simply flowing. Remember this. And this I call mature love, real love, authentic love, true love.

When you depend on the other there is always misery. The moment you depend, you start feeling miserable, because dependence is slavery. Then you start taking revenge in subtle ways, because the person you have to depend upon becomes powerful over you. Nobody likes anybody to be powerful over them, nobody likes to be dependent; because dependence kills freedom, and love cannot flower in dependence. Love is a flower of freedom - it needs space, it needs absolute space.

The other has not to interfere with it. It is very delicate.

When you are dependent, the other will certainly dominate you, and you will try to dominate the other. That's the fight that goes on between so-called lovers; they are intimate enemies - continuously fighting. Husbands and wives - what are they doing? Loving is very rare; fighting is the rule, loving is an exception. And in every way they try to dominate - even through love they try to dominate. If the husband asks the wife, the wife denies - she is reluctant. She is very miserly:

she gives, but very reluctantly; she wants you to wave your tail around her. And so is the case with the husband. When the wife is in need and asks him, the husband says that he is tired. In the office there was too much work, 'really overworked', and he would like to go to sleep.

I have read one letter written by Mulla Nasruddin to his wife. Listen to it.

To my dear, ever-loving wife, During the past year I have tried to make love to you 365 times, an average of once per day, and the following is a list of the reasons you gave for rejecting me:

Wrong week 11 It will wake the children 7 It is too hot 15 It is too cold 3 Too tired 19 Too late 16 Too early 9 Pretending to sleep 33 The window is open, neighbors might hear 3 Backache 16 Toothache 2 Headache 6 Not in the mood 31 Baby restless, might cry 18 Watched late show 15 Mud-pack 8 Grease on face 4 Too drunk 7 Forgot to visit chemists 10 Visitors sleeping in the next room 7 Just had hair done 28 'Is that all you think about?' 62 Dearest, do you think we can improve on our record during the forthcoming year?

Your ever-loving husband, Mulla Nasruddin.

These are ways how to manipulate, how to starve, the other, how to make him more and more hungry so that he becomes more and more dependent.

Naturally, women are more diplomatic about it than men, because man is already powerful. He need not find subtle and cunning ways to be powerful, he is powerful. He manages the money - that is his power. Muscularly, he is more strong. Down the centuries he has conditioned the mind of the woman that he is more powerful and she is not powerful. In every way he has always tried to find a woman who is in every way lesser than him. A man does not want to be married to a woman who is more educated than him, because then the power is at stake. He does not want to marry a woman who is taller than him, because a taller woman looks superior. He does not want to marry a woman who is too much of an intellectual, because then she argues, and argument can destroy power. A man does not want a woman who is very famous, because then he becomes secondary. And down the centuries man has asked for a woman who is younger than him. Why can't the wife be older than you? What is wrong? But an older woman is more experienced - that destroys power.

So man has always asked for a lesser, in every way a lesser woman - that's why women have lost their height. There is no reason for them to be of lesser height than men, no reason at all; they have lost their height because only the smaller woman was always chosen. By and by the thing has entered in their minds so deeply that they have lost their height. They have lost their intelligence, because an intelligent woman was not needed; an intelligent woman was a freak. You will be surprised to know that just in this century their height is increasing again. And you will be surprised... even their bones are becoming bigger, and their skeleton is becoming bigger. Just within fifty years... particularly in America. And their mind is also growing and becoming bigger than it used to be: their skull is becoming bigger.

With the idea of freedom, some deep conditioning has been destroyed. Man already has power so he need not be very clever, need not be very indirect. Women don't have power. When you don't have power, you have to be more diplomatic - that is a substitute. The only way they can feel powerful is that they are needed, that the man is continuously in need of them.

This is not love - this is a bargain. And they are continuously haggling over the price; it is a continuous struggle. C.S. Lewis and Abraham Maslow divide love in two. I don't divide in two. I say that the first kind of love is just a name, a pseudo coin; it is not true. Only the second kind of love is love.

Love happens only when you are mature. You become capable of loving only when you are a grown- up. When you know that love is not a need but an overflow: being-love or gift-love, then you give without any conditions.

The first kind, the so-called love, derives from a person's deep need for another, while 'gift-love' or 'being-love' flows or overflows from one mature person to another out of abundance; one is flooded with it. You have it and it starts moving around you, just as when you light a lamp, rays start spreading into the darkness. Love is a by-product of being. When you ARE, you have the aura of love around you. When you are not, you don't have that aura around you. And when you don't have that aura around you, you ask the other to give love to you. Let it be repeated: When you don't have love, you ask the other to give it to you; you are a beggar. And the other is asking you to give it to him or to her. Now, two beggars spreading their hands before each other, and both are hoping that the other has it... Naturally both feel defeated finally, and both feel cheated.

You can ask any husband and any wife, you can ask any lover: they both feel cheated; it was your projection that the other had it. If you have a wrong projection, what can the other do about it? Your projection has been broken; the other did not prove according to your projection, that's all. But the other has no obligation to prove his being according to your expectations.

And you have cheated the other... that is the feeling of the other, because the other was hoping that love would be flowing from you. You both were hoping love would be flowing from the other, and both were empty. How can love happen? At the most you can be miserable together. Before, you used to be miserable alone, separate, now you can be miserable together. And remember, whenever two persons are miserable together, it is not a simple addition, it is a multiplication.

Alone you were feeling frustrated, now together you feel frustrated. One thing is good about it in that now you can throw the responsibility on the other: the other is making you miserable - that is the good point. You can feel at ease. 'Nothing is wrong with me... the other... What to do with such a wife - nasty, nagging?' One has to be miserable. 'What to do with such a husband? - ugly, a miser. 'Now you can throw the responsibility on the other; you have found a scapegoat. But misery remains, becomes multiplied.

Now this is the paradox: those who fall in love don't have any love, that's why they fall in love. And because they don't have any love, they cannot give. And one thing more: an immature person always falls in love with another immature person, because only they can understand each other's language. A mature person loves a mature person. An immature person loves an immature person.

You can go on changing your husband or your wife a thousand and one times, you will again find the same type of woman and the same misery repeated in different forms - but the same misery repeated; it is almost the same. You can change your wife, but you are not changed. Now who is going to choose the other wife? You will choose. The choice will come out of your immaturity again.

You will choose a similar type of woman again.

The basic problem of love is to first become mature, then you will find a mature partner; then immature people will not attract you at all. It is just like that. If you are twenty-five years of age, you don't fall in love with a baby two years old, you don't fall. Exactly like that. When you are a mature person psychologically, spiritually, you don't fall in love with a baby. It does not happen, it CANNOT happen. You can see that it is going to be meaningless.

In fact a mature person does not fall in love, he rises in love. The word 'fall' is not right. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. They cannot manage and they cannot stand - they find a woman and they are gone, they find a man and they are gone. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don't have the backbone, the spine; they don't have that integrity to stand alone.

A mature person has the integrity to be alone. And when a mature person gives love, he gives without any strings attached to it: he simply gives. And when a mature person gives love, he feels grateful that you have accepted his love, not vice versa. He does not expect you to be thankful for it - no, not at all, he does not even need your thanks. He thanks you for accepting his love. And when two mature persons are in love, one of the greatest paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone; they are together so much so that they are almost one. But their oneness does not destroy their individuality, in fact, it enhances it: they become more individual. Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free.

There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. How can you dominate the person you love?

Just think over it. Domination is a sort of hatred, anger, enmity. How can you think of dominating a person you love? You would love to see the person totally free, independent; you will give him more individuality. That's why I call it the greatest paradox: they are together so much so that they are almost one, but still in that oneness they are individuals. Their individualities are not effaced - they have become more enhanced. The other has enriched them as far as their freedom is concerned.

Immature people falling in love destroy each other's freedom, create a bondage, make a prison.

Mature persons in love help each other to be free; they help each other to destroy all sorts of bondages. And when love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness.

Remember, freedom is a higher value than love. That's why in India, the ultimate we call MOKSHA; MOKSHA means freedom. Freedom is a higher value than love. So if love is destroying freedom, it is not of worth. Love can be dropped; freedom has to be saved: freedom is a higher value. And without freedom you can never be happy - that is not possible. Freedom is the intrinsic desire of each man, each woman - utter freedom, absolute freedom. So anything that becomes destructive to freedom - one starts hating it.

Don't you hate the man you love? Don't you hate the woman you love? You hate. It is a necessary evil; you have to tolerate it. Because you cannot be alone you have to manage to be with somebody, and you have to adjust to the other's demands. You have to tolerate, you have to bear them.

Love, to be really love, has to be 'being-love', 'gift-love'. 'Being-love' means a state of love. When you have arrived home, when you have known who you are, then a love arises in your being. Then the fragrance spreads and you can give it to others. How can you give something which you don't have? To give it, the first basic requirement is to have it.

You ask: THE LOVE IN ME IS DEPENDENT ON THE OUTSIDE WORLD... Then it is not love; or if you want to play with words like C.S. Lewis and A.H. Maslow, then call it 'need-love', 'deficiency- love'. It is like calling a disease 'healthy-disease' - it is meaningless, it is a contradiction in terms.

'Deficiency-love' is a contradiction in terms. But if you are too attached to the word 'love' it is okay, you can call it 'deficiency-love' or 'need-love'.

AT THE SAME TIME I SEE WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT BEING COMPLETE WITHIN... No, you cannot see it yet. You hear me, you understand it intellectually, but you cannot see it yet. In fact, I am speaking one language, and you understand a different language. I am shouting from one plane and you are listening at a different plane. Yes, I am using the same words as you use, but I am not like you, so how can I give those words the same meaning as you give them?

Intellectually you can understand and that will be a misunderstanding: all intellectual understanding is a misunderstanding.

Let me tell you a few anecdotes.

A Frenchman, who was visiting Ireland, entered a compartment of a train, and in the carriage were two Irishmen who were commercial travellers. One of these said to the other 'And where have ye been lately?'

Came the reply 'Sure and haven't I just been to Kilmary and now I am off to Kilpatrick. What about yerself?'

To which the first replied 'I have been to Kilkenny and Kilmichael and now I am off to Kilmore.'

The Frenchman listened in amazement. 'Murdering scoundrels!' he thought, and got out at the next station.

Now listen: Kil-mary, Kil-patrick, Kil-kenny, Kil-michael and Kil-more, Kill more... the Frenchman must have got frightened. 'Murdering scoundrels!'

Something exactly like this continuously goes on happening. If I say something, you understand something else. But it is natural, I am not condemning it, I am simply making you aware of it.

There were three boys, one called Trouble, one called Manners, and one called Mindyourownbusiness. The father was a philosopher so he had given them very meaningful names.

Now, it is very dangerous to give people meaningful names...

Trouble got lost, so Manners and Mindyourownbusiness went to the police station.

Mindyourownbusiness said to Manners 'Now you wait here outside' and in he went.

Inside he said to the copper at the desk 'My friend's lost.'

The copper said 'What's your name?'

'Mindyourownbusiness.'

'Where's your manners?' said the copper.

'Outside on the doorstep.'

'Are you looking for trouble?'

'Yes, have you seen him?'

This goes on continuously. I say that until you are total within yourself, love will not flow. Of course you understand the words, but you give those words your own meaning. When I say 'unless you are total within yourself', I am not proposing a theory, I am not philosophising at all; I am simply indicating towards a fact of life. I am saying: How can you give if you don't have it? And how can you overflow when you are empty? And love is an overflow: when you have more than you need, only then you can give, hence it is a 'gift-love'.

How can you give gifts when you don't have? This you hear and you understand, but then the problem arises because the understanding is intellectual. If it has penetrated your being, if you have seen the facticity of it, then the question will not arise. Then you will forget all your dependent relationships and you will start working on your own being: clearing. cleansing, making your inner core more alert, aware; you will start working that way. And the more you start feeling that you are coming to a certain totality, the more you will find that love is growing side by side - it is a by-product.

LOVE IS A FUNCTION OF BEING TOTAL.

Then the question will not be there. But the question is there, so you have not seen the fact. You have listened to it as a theory and you have understood it, you have understood the logic of it. To understand the logic is not enough, you will have to have the taste of it.

THE LOVE IN ME IS DEPENDENT ON THE OUTSIDE WORLD. AT THE SAME TIME, I SEE WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT BEING COMPLETE WITHIN. WHAT HAPPENS TO LOVE IF THERE IS NOTHING AND NOBODY TO RECOGNISE AND TASTE IT?

It need not be recognised: it needs no recognition, it needs no certificates, it needs nobody to taste it. The recognition of the other is accidental, it is not essential to love; love will go on flowing. Nobody tastes it, nobody recognises it, nobody feels happy, delighted, because of it - love will go on flowing, because in the very flow you feel tremendously blissful, you feel tremendously rejoicing. In the very flow... when your energy is flowing...

You are sitting in an empty room and the energy is flowing and filling the empty room with your love; nobody is there - the walls will not say 'thank you' - nobody to recognise, nobody to taste it. But that doesn't matter at all. Your energy releasing, flowing... you will feel happy. The flower is happy when the fragrance is released to the winds; whether the winds know about it or not is not the point.

And you ask: WHO ARE YOU WITHOUT YOUR DISCIPLES?

I am. I am. Whether disciples are there or not - that is irrelevant; I am not dependent on you. And my whole effort here is that you can also become independent of me.

I am here to give you freedom. I don't want to impose anything on you, I don't want to cripple you in any way; I want you just to be yourselves. And the day it happens that you are independent of me, you will be able to really love me - not before it.

I love you. I cannot help it. It is not a question of whether I can love you or not, I simply love you. If you are not here, this Chuang Tzu Auditorium will be full of my love; it will not make any difference.

These trees will still get my love, these birds will go on getting it. And even if all trees and all birds disappear, that doesn't make any difference - the love will still be flowing. Love is, so love flows.

Love is a dynamic energy, it cannot be stagnant. If somebody partakes, good. If nobody partakes, that too is good.

What God said to Moses - do you remember? When Moses encountered God, of course God gave him a few messages to deliver to his people. And Moses was a true Jew, he asked 'Sir, but please tell me your name! They will ask "Who has given you these messages?" They will ask God's name, so what is your name?'

And God said 'I am that I am. You go to your people and say that I AM THAT I AM says so. It is a message from I AM THAT I AM.'

It looks very absurd, but is of tremendous significance: I am that I am. God has no name, no definition, just being.

Question 2:

Yes, there is no goal and nowhere to go. And the map is not needed if you have understood me. But you have not understood me, and the map is needed. And the need of the map is not because there is a goal, it is not to go somewhere that the map is needed; the map is needed because you have gone somewhere and you have to come back to the here-now. It is not needed to go somewhere, but you have dreamt that you have gone somewhere; the map is needed to come back home. You have gone astray; you have moved in your imagination, in your desire, in your ambition; you don't look at yourself; your being is at your back and you are rushing away. The map is needed to look back, to meet your being, to encounter yourself.

But if you understand me - that here and now is all that is - you can burn the map, you can throw the map; then the map is not needed for you. For one who has arrived home the map is not needed.

But don't burn the map until you have arrived home.

There is a famous painting of a Zen monk burning Buddhist scriptures. Somebody asks him 'Master, what are you doing? And you have always taught these scriptures, and you have always been commenting on and reflecting upon these scriptures - why are you burning them?'

And the Master laughs and he says 'Because I have come home, so the map is not needed.'

But you should not burn them unless and until you have come home. You carry a map - it ii meaningful while you are away. When you have arrived, you throw it. If you throw it before you have arrived, you will be in danger.

Yes, here and now is more than enough - not enough, more than enough - it is all that there is.

But you are not here-now, so all these maps are needed to bring you home. You have not gone anywhere really, but you are dreaming that you have gone somewhere. These maps are also dream maps. Remember, these maps are dream maps; these maps are as false as your SAMSARA, as your world.

The ultimate scripture has no word in it. The Sufis have a book, THE BOOK OF THE BOOKS. It is simply empty - not a single word written it it. Down the centuries it has been given from one Master to another, handed over from the Master to the disciple and has been kept with tremendous respect. That is the ultimate in scriptures. The Vedas are not so beautiful, the Bible is not so beautiful because something is written there. THE BOOK OF THE BOOKS is really of tremendous value, but will you be able to read it? When for the first time in the West the Sufis wanted it to be published, no publisher was ready.'What? There is nothing to publish!' they would say. 'It will just be an empty book. What to publish it for?'

The Western mind can understand the word: the black ink spread on the white page; it cannot see the white page directly. The white page does not exist for the Western mind, only the black ink. The clouds exist for the Western mind, not the sky: mind exists for the Western mind, not consciousness.

Content exists, but they have completely forgotten the container.

Thoughts are just like black ink on white paper; thoughts are just the written message. When thoughts disappear, you will become THE BOOK OF THE BOOKS - empty. But that is the voice of God.

You say: I DON'T GO ANYWHERE. WHY IS A MAP NEEDED? ISN'T BEING HERE-NOW ENOUGH?

Just because you ask the question, you will still need the map: a question is a question for the map.

If you have understood me, there is no question left. Then what is there to be asked? Here and now is enough. What is there to ask? What can you ask about the here and now? All asking is asking about the goals of somewhere else, then and there.

Question 3:

Mind always goes bananas - that is the way of the mind.

The mind is a flux: it continuously changes. It is not the same for any two consecutive moments, each moment it is different. Yes, one moment you feel that you have not seen your wife in your whole life, you have not met her yet although you have been living with her for twenty years. Another moment you see yourself just in the middle of a honeymoon - you have seen her beauty, her grace, her joy, her innermost core; and then it is gone. And the scene goes on changing.

The mind is very slippery: it goes on slipping, it cannot stay anywhere, it has no capacity to stand; it is a flux. With the mind everything is like that. One moment you are happy, another moment you are unhappy. One moment you are so joyful, another moment you are so sad. It goes on and on.

The wheel of the mind goes on moving - one moment one spoke is on top, another moment another spoke has come to the top, and it goes on this way. That's why in the East we call it SAMSARA, the wheel. The world is a wheel: it goes on moving - the same wheel, again and again. And it is not stable for a single moment.

It is like a movie. If the movie stops for a single moment you will be able to see the screen. But the movie goes on moving, and it is moving so fast and you are so engrossed in it, so occupied with it, that you cannot see the screen. And the screen is the reality. The pictures projected upon it are just dreams. Mind goes on projecting...

I have heard...

A millionaire entered a Post Office and saw an elderly couple standing at the counter drawing their old age pensions. He was in a good mood. He felt very sorry for the old couple, and he thought they should be given one week's holiday to know the beauties and the joys of life. He was in a charitable mood. Going up to them he said 'How would you like to spend a week at my residence? I will give you both a wonderful time.'

Well, the old couple agreed and so the millionaire took them off to his house in his Rolls and, as he had promised, saw that they had a really good holiday with excellent food, colour television and many luxuries which they never dreamt they would ever have. At the end of the week he walked into the library where the old boy was enjoying a quiet time with a glass of wine and smoking a cigar.

'Well' he said 'have you enjoyed yourself?'

'Indeed I have' the old boy replied. 'But, can I ask you a question?'

'Certainly' replied the millionaire.

'Then' said the other 'who's the old woman I have been sleeping with all week?'

This will be the situation of people who have lived with their wife, with their husband, their whole lives. Who is the woman you have been sleeping with for twenty years? There are moments when you feel you know. There are moments when suddenly there is a China Wall, opaque, dark - you cannot see anything. You don't know who is this stranger here.

All our knowing is so superficial. We remain strangers. You can sleep with the woman for twenty years - that doesn't make much difference, you remain strangers. And the reason is that you don't even know yourself, how can you know the other? It is impossible, you are hoping for the impossible.

You don't even know yourself. You don't know the man you are, and you have been here in existence for eternity - you have been here for millions of lives, and you don't know YET who you are! So what to say about twenty years?

And how can you know the other woman who is far away from you? You cannot enter into her dreams, you cannot enter into her thoughts, you cannot enter into her desires, how can you know her being? Even dreams you cannot know. You may be sleeping with the same woman for twenty years in the same bed, but she dreams her dreams, you dream your dreams; your subjectivities remain worlds apart.

Even while you are making love to a woman and holding her in your hands, are you really holding the woman who is there, or are you holding just an image, a projection, a shadow'? Are you really holding the real woman in your hands, or just a mind image, a ghost? Do you love this woman who is there, or do you have certain ideas that you love and you find those ideas reflected in this woman?

When there are two persons in a bed, my feeling is that there are always four persons: two ghosts lying just in between the two - the woman's projection of the husband and the husband's projection of the wife.

It is not accidental that the husband goes on trying to change the wife according to some ideal, and the wife goes on changing - trying, at least, to change - the husband according to some ideal. Those are the two ghosts. You can't accept the woman as she is, can you? You have many improvements to make, many changes. And if it were really possible... If one day God came to the world and said 'Okay. Now all wives are allowed to change their husbands as they want' or 'All husbands are allowed to change their wives as they want' what would happen, do you know? The world would simply go crazy. If women were allowed to change their husbands, you would not find a single man left that you could recognise: all old people would be gone. If husbands were allowed to change their wives, then no single woman here would be left as she was.

And do you think you would be happy? You would not be, because then the woman that you changed and made according to your ideas would not appeal to you; she would not have a mystery in her.

Look at the absurdities of the mind, the demands of the mind - suicidal demands. If you are able to change your husband and you really become powerful enough to change him totally, will you love that man? He will be just some 'thing' put together by you. He will not have any mystery, he will not have any soul, he will not have any integrity OF his own, and he will not have anything to be explored by you. You will lose interest, you will be bored by him; it will be just 'home-made'. What interest?

Interest arises only because there is something unknown to be explored, a mystery, an invocation challenging you to move into the unfamiliar.

The first thing: you have not known yourself, how can you know your wife? Not possible. Start by knowing yourself. And this is the beauty of it: the day you know yourself, you will know all. Not only your wife - you will know the whole existence; not only man, but trees and birds and animals, and the rocks and the rivers and the mountains. You will know all because you contain all; you are a miniature universe.

And another beauty, another incredible experience is that the moment you know yourself, the mystery is not finished. In fact, for the first time, the mystery becomes tremendous. You know, and yet you know that much is there to be known. You know, and yet you know that this knowledge is nothing. You know, and yet the boundary is FAR away - you only enter into the ocean of knowledge, you never reach the other shore. That moment the whole existence is mysterious: your wife, your child, your friend. And that knowledge is not destructive of the magic, of the poetry of life - that knowledge enhances the poetry, the magic, the miracle, the mystery.

I HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR TWENTY YEARS ALREADY, AND THAT 'WHY CAN'T SHE UNDERSTAND?' FEELING IS THERE.

Do you understand yourself? Have you not been doing things for which you repent later on? And you say 'I have done it in spite of myself'. Do you understand yourself? Do you do things through understanding? When somebody hits you and you become angry, are you becoming angry with understanding? Or just because he has pushed your button?

Your knowledge about yourself is so superficial. It is just like a driver: a driver driving a car. Yes, a few things he knows: he can manage the steering wheel, he can manage the accelerator, he can manage the clutch, he can manage the gearbox, he can manage the brake, that's all. Do you think he knows everything about the car? What is hidden under the bonnet is not known at all, and that is the 'real car; that is where the action is, that is where the real thing is happening. And what he is pushing and pulling are nothing but buttons. Sooner or later these things are going to disappear from cars. They should disappear, they are very primitive. This steering wheel, this accelerator, this brake - they should disappear. They are not needed - a computer can do all that. And then even a small child can drive the car - there is no need for a license really.

But do you understand what is happening inside? When you push a button and the electric light comes on, do you understand electricity? You simply know how to push the button, that's all that you know.

I have heard a story:

When for the first time electricity came to Vienna, a friend of Sigmund Freud came to visit him. He had never seen electricity. At night Freud left him in his room to rest. He was very worried he had never seen electricity. He tried hard. He stood on the bed, he tried to blow out the light, but he could not find any way to blow it out. And he was afraid to go back and ask Freud, because that would be too foolish. 'What will these people think: You cannot even blow a light out? You don't know even that much?' That would look too ignorant... And he was from a small village so they would laugh, and that would not be good. So he covered the lamp with a towel and went to sleep. He couldn't sleep well; again and again he thought about it, 'There must be some way.'

He got up; again and again he tried. And there was the light and it was difficult to sleep. And more than the light was this pricking, a continuous pricking thought 'I don't know even such a small thing?'

In the morning when Freud asked him 'Did you sleep well?' He said 'Everything was good. Just one thing I have to ask - how to put this light off.'

And Freud said 'You don't know electricity at all, it seems. Come here. Just on the wall is the switch.

You push the switch and the light is off.'

Then the villager said 'So simple! Now I know what electricity is.'

But do you know what electricity is? Do you know what anger is? Do you know what love is? Do you know what happiness, joy is? Do you know what sadness is?

Nothing is known. You don't know yourself. You don't know your mind. You don't know your inner being. You don't know how this whole life happens. From where? From where comes anger? From where comes joy? From where...? One moment you feel so celebrating and the next moment you are ready to commit suicide.

PLEASE, WHY CAN'T SHE UNDERSTAND THAT FEELING? About your wife is natural. How can you understand her? You have not even understood your mind. The day you understand your mind and your being, you have understood all minds and all beings, because the fundamental law is the same. If you can understand a single drop of sea water, you have understood all the seas - past, present, future - of this earth, of other planets. Because once you have understood that it is H20, you have understood water. Wherever water exists, it will be H20. Once you have understood your anger, you have understood all the angers of all the human beings ever past, present, future. If you have understood your sexuality, you have understood all sex.

Please don't try to understand the other, that is not the way. Try to understand yourself, that is the way. You are a miniature universe. In you is the whole map of existence.

Question 4:

It is. But man is an animal - as much of an animal as any other animal. But when I say that man is an animal, I don't mean that man finishes with animality; he can be more than the animal, he can be less also. That is the glory of man, the freedom and the danger, the agony and the ecstasy. A man can be far lower than animals, and a man can be far higher than gods. Man has infinite potentiality.

A dog is a dog: he remains a dog. He is born a dog and he will die a dog. A man can become a Buddha, and a man can become an Adolf Hitler too. So man is very open-ended on both sides - he can fall back.

Can you find any animal more dangerous than man, more mad than man? Just think of a scene:

fifty thousand monkeys sitting in a stadium killing small children - throwing them into a fire. What will you think about them? Thousands of children are being thrown into a fire... A great fire is burning just in the middle of the stadium, and fifty thousand monkeys enjoying with joy, dancing, and children are being thrown - their own children. What will you think about these monkeys? Will you not think that the monkeys have gone mad? But this has happened in humanity. In Carthage it happened:

fifty thousand men burning children. They burnt three hundred children at one time. as an offering to their god. Their own children!

But forget about Carthage, it is long past. What did Adolf Hitler do in this century'? Of course, this is a far-advanced century, so Adolf Hitler was capable of doing greater things than Carthage. He killed millions of Jews, thousands at a time would be forced into a chamber and gassed. And hundreds of people would be looking from the outside... watching through one-way mirrors. What you will think about these people? What type of men...? People being gassed, burnt, evaporated, and others are watching? Can you think about animals doing such a thing?

During three thousand years, man has been through five thousand wars - killing and killing and killing. And you call sex animalistic? Animals have never done anything more 'animalistic' than man.

And you think man is not an animal?

Man IS an animal. And the idea that man is not an animal is one of the hindrances for your growth.

So you take it for granted that you are not animals, and then you stop growing. The first recognition has to be this: 'I am an animal and I have to be alert and and go beyond it.'

It happened:

A man wrote to a country hotel in Ireland to ask if his dog would be allowed to stay there. He received the following answer: Dear Sir, I have been in the hotel business for over thirty years. Never yet have I had to call in the police to eject a disorderly dog in the small hours of the morning. No dog has ever attempted to pass off a bad cheque on me. Never has a dog set the bed-clothes alight through smoking. I have never found a hotel towel in a dog's suitcase. Your dog is welcome.

P.S. If he can vouch for you, you can come too!

Animals are beautiful, whatsoever they are; they are just innocent. Man is very cunning, very calculating, very ugly. Man can fall lower than the animals, because man can rise higher than man higher than gods. Man has an infinite potentiality: he can be the lowest and he can be the highest. He has the whole ladder in his being, from the first rung to the last rung.

So the first thing I would like to say to you: don't call sex just animalistic, because sex can be just animalistic - that is possible, but it need not be. It can rise higher, it can become love, it can become prayer. It depends on you.

Sex in itself is nothing like a fixed entity; it is just a possibility. You can make it as you like it, as you want it. That is the whole message of Tantra: that sex can become SAMADHI. That is the vision of Tantra: that sex can become SAMADHI, that through sex the ultimate ecstasy can enter in you. Sex can become the bridge between you and the ultimate.

You say: I LOVE MY HUSBAND BUT I HATE SEX, AND THAT CREATES CONFLICT. How can you love your husband and yet hate sex'? You must be playing on words. How can you love your husband and hate sex?

Just try to understand it. When you love a man, you would like to hold his hand too. When you love a man, you would like to hug him sometimes too. When you love a man, you would not only like to hear his sound, you would like to see his face too. When you only hear the sound of your beloved, the beloved is far away, the sound is not enough; when you see him too you are more satisfied.

When you touch him, certainly you are even more satisfied. When you taste him, certainly you are even more satisfied. What is sex? It is just a meeting of two deep energies.

You must be carrying some taboos in your mind, inhibitions. What is sex'? Just two persons meeting at the maximum point - not only holding hands, not only hugging each other's bodies, but penetrating into each other's energy realm. Why should you hate sex? Your mind must have been conditioned by the MAHATMAS, the so-called 'religious' people who have poisoned the whole of humanity, who have poisoned your very source of growth.

Why should you hate? If you love your man, you would like to share your total being with him: there is no need to hate. And if you hate sex, what are you saying'? You are simply saying that you want the man to take care of you financially, to take care of the house, to bring you a car and a fur coat.

You want to use the man... and you call it love'? And you don't want to share anything with him.

When you love, you share all. When you love, you don't have any secrets. When you love, you have your heart utterly open; you are available. When you love, you are ready to go with him even to hell if he is going to hell.

But this happens. We are very expert with words: we don't want to say that we don't love, so we make it look as if we love and we hate sex. Sex is not all love - that's true, love is more than sex - that's true; but sex is the very foundation of it. Yes, one day sex disappears, but to hate it is not the way to make it disappear. To hate it is the way to repress it. And whatsoever is repressed will come up one way or other.

Please don't try to become a monk or a nun.

Listen to this story:

The nuns ran an orphanage, and one day the Mother Superior summoned to her office three buxom girls who were leaving and said 'Now, you are all going out into the big sinful world and I must warn you against certain men. There are men who will buy you drinks, take you to a room, undress you and do unspeakable things to you. Then they give you two or three pounds, and you're sent away, ruined!'

'Excuse me, Reverend Mother' said the boldest one 'did you say these wicked men do this to us and give us three pounds too?'

'Yes, dear child. Why do you ask?'

'Well, the priests only give us apples.'

Remember, sex is natural. One can go beyond it, but not though repression. And if you repress it, sooner or later you will find some other way to express it; some perversion is bound to enter - you will have to find some substitute. And substitutes are of NO help at all; they DON'T help, they CAN'T help. And once a natural problem has been turned in such a way that you have forgotten about it, and it has bubbled up somewhere else as a substitute, you can go on fighting with the substitute, but it is not going to help.

I have heard...

A stranger got into a suburban railway carriage in which two men were already sitting. One of them had a peculiar mannerism - he scratched his elbow again and again and again. This elbow- scratching was nearly driving the stranger mad by the time the victim got out at his station.

'Gravely afflicted, your friend' he said to the other man.

'Yes indeed. He has got a terrible dose of piles.'

'I'm not talking about piles. I'm talking about all that scratching just now.'

'Yes, that is right - piles. You see he is a very religious man and a civil servant too. And that scratching of the elbow is just a substitute.'

But substitutes never help; they only create perversions. obsessions. Be natural if you want to go beyond nature some day. Be natural: that is the first requirement. I am not saying that there is nothing more than nature, there is a higher nature - that is the whole message of Tantra. But be very earthly if you really want to rise high in the sky.

Can't you see these trees? They are rooted in the earth, and the better they are rooted the higher they go. The higher they want to go, the deeper they will have to go into the earth. If a tree wants to touch the stars, the tree will have to go and touch the very hell - that's the only way.

Be rooted in your body if you want to become a soul. Be rooted in your sex if you really want to become a lover. Yes, the more energy is converted into love, the less and less need of sex will be there, but you will not hate it.

Hate is not a right relationship with anything. Hate simply shows that you are afraid. Hate simply shows that there is great fear in you. Hate simply shows that deep down you are still attracted. If you hate sex, then your energy will start moving somewhere else. Energy has to move.

Man, if he suppresses sex, becomes more ambitious. If you really want to be ambitious you have to suppress sex. Then only can ambition have energy, otherwise you will not have any energy. A politician has to suppress sex, then only can he rush towards New Delhi. Sex energy is needed.

Whenever you are suppressing sex, you are angry at the whole world you can become a great revolutionary. All revolutionaries are bound to be sexually repressed.

When, in a better world, sex will be simple, natural, accepted without any taboo and without any inhibition, politics will disappear and there will be no revolutionaries there will be no need. When a man represses sex, he becomes too attached to money; he has to put his sexual energy somewhere.

Have you not seen people holding their hundred rupee notes as if they were touching their beloved?

Can't you see in their eyes the same lust? But this is ugly. To hold a woman with deep love is beautiful; to hold a hundred rupee note with lust is just ugly - it is a substitute.

You cannot deceive animals...

A man went to the zoo and took his son; he wanted to show his son the monkeys there. The son was very interested: he had never seen monkeys. They went there - but no monkeys. So he asked the zoo-keeper 'What has happened? Where are the monkeys?'

And the zoo-keeper said 'This is their love season, so they have gone into the hut.'

The man was very frustrated. For months he had been trying to bring the boy. They had travelled far, and now this was love season! So he asked 'If we throw nuts won't they come out?'

And the zoo-keeper said 'Would you?'

But I think man can come out; if you throw nuts, man HAS to come out. The zoo-keeper is wrong:

the monkeys will not come that is certain; if you give them money they will not come. They will say 'Keep your money. The love season is on! Keep your money.'

And if you say 'We can make you President of India', they will say 'You keep your presidency. The love season is on!'

But man, if you make him a president, can kill his beloved. If that is the stake, he can do that. These are substitutes. You cannot befool animals.

I have heard...

The spinster had a parrot who kept repeating 'I want to poke! I want to poke!' She found this slightly irritating, until a married friend explained what it meant. Then she became very alarmed...'I love that bird, but I'll have to get rid of him, or the vicar will never call again' she said.

But her more experienced friend said 'Well, if you really love him, you'll get him what he longs for, which is a female, then he won't keep on about it all the time.'

Off went the spinster to the bird shop, but the man said 'No can do, no lady parrots coming in all season, Miss. But I can do you a lady owl at a reasonable price.'

Anything was better than nothing, so she popped the owl into the parrot's cage, and waited with thrilled anticipation...

'I want to poke! I want to poke!' said the parrot.

'Ooo-Ooo' said the lady owl.

'Not you, you goggle-eyed freak!' said the parrot 'I can't stand women who wear glasses!'

Substitutes won't do. Man is living with substitutes. Sex is natural, money is unnatural. Sex is natural; power, prestige, respectability, are unnatural. If you really want to hate something, hate money, hate power, hate prestige. Why hate love?

Sex is one of the most beautiful phenomena in the world. Of course, the lowest, that is true, but the higher moves through the lower - the lotus comes out of the mud. Don't hate the mud, otherwise how will you help the mud to release the lotus? Help the mud, take care of the mud, so that the lotus is released. Certainly, the lotus is so far away from the mud that you cannot even conceive of any relationship. If you see a lotus, you cannot believe that it comes out of dirty mud. But it comes: it is the expression of the dirty mud.

The soul is released from the body. Love is released from sex. Sex is a body thing, love is a spiritual thing. Sex is like mud, love is like a lotus. But without the mud the lotus is not possible, so don't hate the mud.

The whole Tantra message is simple; it is very scientific and it is very natural. The message is that if you really want to go beyond the world, go into the world DEEPLY, fully alert. aware.

Question 5:

The question is from Dharma Chetana.

Can't you recognise my voice?