Just a remembrance

Question 1:

What are you talking about? Ideals? That's exactly what I go on destroying. I am not putting any ideals before you. I am not giving you any fantasies about the future. I am not giving you any future at all, because the future is a trick to postpone the present. It is a trick to avoid yourself, a way to escape from yourself.

Desire is a deception, and ideals create desires. I am not giving you any 'should' or any 'should not' either positive or negative. I am simply telling you to drop all ideals and BE.

But I can understand your question. You make an ideal out of it. You start thinking 'How should I be?' You start thinking 'What should I do to be?' I am trying to take away the ideals and you make an ideal out of it - how to drop all ideals. You misunderstand me, you misinterpret me. You don't hear what I am saying, you go on hearing what I am not saying at all. Listen more carefully.

It has always happened. We don't know what Buddha said exactly, because the people who reported were people just like you. We don't know what Jesus has said, because the people who reported were, again, people like you. The report certainly says what THEY HEARD, but it doesn't say anything about what HE SAID. And these can be diametrically opposite things.

I speak a totally different language. You reduce it to some other thing - to your language. You come in and you start interfering.

You ask: WHY IS IT THAT WHENEVER I LEAVE YOUR LECTURE I QUICKLY BECOME DISILLUSIONED WITH MYSELF...?

You become disillusioned with yourself because you don't know who you are, and you have a certain image of yourself. That image is not you, that image cannot be you - that image is d mind construction. You have created an image of yourself: you think this is what you are, and when you listen to me and I start pulling your legs, you become disillusioned. Your image is broken, your image is not left intact as it was.

But YOU are not broken. In fact, the image is not allowing you to have space, it is not allowing you to be. The image has to be thrown out so you can have enough space to grow. The image has become too huge, too powerful. It has taken over your whole house and you are living in the porch. It does not allow you to come in. And the image which you have made out of ideals goes on condemning you: the creation goes on condemning the creator.

Look at the foolishness of it, the ridiculousness of it. You create an image - very beautiful, naturally, when you are creating you create a beautiful image - and then, because of that image, you start looking ugly in comparison. You create a very, very great image that you are a saint, and then you find yourself doing things which are not very saintly. Now you feel condemned. The image is yours, and against the image your act looks stinking.....

What I am saying here, what Saraha is saying to the king is that the image has to be completely dropped. The moment you drop the image and you forget about the image, then what is right and what is wrong? Then who is a sinner and who is a saint? Then you don't have anything to compare with. Then, suddenly, you are at ease. The comparison disappears... and the condemnation disappears. The comparison disappears... and the ego disappears - the ego of the sinner and the ego of the saint. Without the ideal there can exist no ego at all. It exists through the ideal, via the ideal. The ideal is a MUST for the ego.

Either you think that you are a sinner - you create an ego, an identity, or you think you are a saint, then you create an ego. But both can only come into existence through the ideal. If the ideal is not there, who are you? Saint or sinner? Good or bad? Ugly or beautiful? Who are you? You are simply yourself, without any judgement, without any justification, without any condemnation. You are simply there in your reality: that's what I am calling BEING.

Now you must be becoming disillusioned again and again, because your grip on the image becomes a little loosened. Whenever your grip on the image is a little loosened, you become afraid.

The ideal is creating an illusion, and whenever I start taking the ideal away, you feel disillusioned.

Be utterly disillusioned, and don't create the illusion again - the illusion of the ideal. And then see how life attains to a sublime silence. Then see how tremendous acceptance arises, how great benediction simply surrounds you, for no reason at all. It is yours - just for the asking. You are not to do anything. You are acceptable to God as you are. This is my whole message, and this is whole of Tantra's: YOU ARE ACCEPTED AS YOU ARE!

But you go on rejecting yourself. The ideal makes it possible for you to reject. The ideal makes it possible for you to be unkind to yourself, cruel, aggressive - to become a self-torturer.

My effort here is to help you to become sane. This idealism creates insanity. It has turned the whole earth into a madhouse. And you say:... I BECOME DISILLUSIONED WITH MYSELF BECAUSE I AM UNABLE TO LIVE UP TO THE IDEALS YOU PUT FORWARD IN YOUR LECTURE.

What are you talking about? What ideals? I am not saying 'You should do this.' I am not saying 'You should be like this.' I am simply saying 'Whatsoever you are, BE.' I am trying to take all becoming from you. I am trying to help you see the point that you are already at home; you have never to go anywhere, and you have nowhere to go. It is already the case - God is showering on you SAMADHI is already the case. Wherever you are, you are in NIRVANA. This is enlightenment: this moment - with no ideals, with no desires, with nowhere to go; this moment - utterly relaxed in it, here-now, is the moment of God, the moment of truth.

But you listen to me and you start parroting. You listen to me and you start repeating words. You don't follow the meaning; you follow the letter and not the spirit.

I have heard...

A certain tough, old sea captain bought a young parrot at a foreign port - being assured it was a marvelous learner - and hung it on the bridge. Coming back through the Bay of Biscay, a fearful black cloud came over, and the skipper remarked 'It's gone bloody dark at all once!'

Soon after, the cloud burst in a dreadful torrent, and the captain said to the mate 'It's bloody hissing down!' The storm got worse, the ship lurched and developed a leak, so that one of the men called up 'What shall we do to be saved?'

He got the reply 'Pump, you lousy shower! Pump, you poxed-up beggars, pump!'

The ship and all were lost; a wet, swearing, washed-up parrot alone survived, and after some adventures, finished up with a dear spinster, who was just expecting the vicar. As a precaution she threw a cloth over the cage, so that the vicar was greeted with 'It's bloody dark all at once!' The lady was livid, and put the parrot immediately under the cold water tap, at which he shrieked 'It's bloody hissing down!'

'No, no, Miss Fantight! You mustn't be so cruel to God's creatures, rather bring him to church on the Sabbath, and expose him to good influences.' This was done and the parrot behaved like an angel, even joining in the hymns. The vicar, beaming at his own success, rose to announce his text.

'Brethren, today we ask: What shall we do to be saved?' and down the aisles rang the parrot's clear tones 'Pump, you lousy shower! Pump, you poxed-up beggars, pump!'

Don't become parrots. You can repeat what I am saying, but that is not the point at all. Understand what I am saying. Repetition will create troubles for you. A slight change of tone, of emphasis, a slight change of a single comma, a full point, and all is lost. Listen to the meaning.

And there are different ways of listening. One way is: listening from the mind then you memorise.

And you have been taught how to listen through the mind, because all your schools, colleges, universities teach you how to cram. They give you a wrong notion: as if memory were knowledge.

Memory is not knowledge; memory is simply parroting. You will know the letter, you will know the word, but it will be empty - inside there will be no significance, no meaning in it. And that word is dangerous which has no meaning in it.

There is another way to listen, and that is from the heart. Listen through the heart. Listen as if you were not listening to an argument, but to a song. Listen as if you were not listening to a philosophy, but to a poem. Listen as you listen to music. Watch me as you watch a dancer. Feel me as you feel a lover. Then the letter will be there, it will be used as a vehicle, but it will not be the real thing. The vehicle will be forgotten, and the meaning will enter into your heart and will remain there. And it will change your being, it will change your vision of life.

Question 2:

It is related to the first question.

What Buddha said must have been misunderstood. Yes, he said that to go into meditation one has to go beyond sex. Now, the people who heard him thought he was against sex, naturally so - he said you have to go beyond sex. They started thinking 'Sex must be a hindrance then, otherwise why do you have to go beyond sex?' They started fighting with sex rather than going beyond it; their whole emphasis changed. They started fighting with sex, and Buddhism became one of the most ascetic religions of the world.

Can't you observe his tremendous grace in the statue of Buddha or in his pictures - can it come out of ascetism? Is it possible that this beautiful being, this graceful face, this love, this compassion can come out of ascetism? Ascetics are people who torture themselves; and when a person tortures himself he starts torturing others too with a vengeance. When a person is in misery himself, he cannot see anybody else being happy; he starts destroying others' happiness too. That's what your so-called MAHATMAS go on doing: they can't see you happy, so whenever you are happy, they immediately come and say 'There must be something wrong, a happy person means a sinner'

You can observe it in yourself also, because down the centuries your so-called MAHATMAS and saints have conditioned you to feel guilt whenever you feel happy. Whenever you are miserable, everything is okay. But if you are feeling great joy, you start feeling a little uneasiness - somehow it doesn't seem to be right. Have you not watched it in yourself? From where does it come?

Happiness... and not right? And misery is 'okay.'

Something very antagonistic to life - very life-negative, very life-denying - has entered into the bloodstream of humanity. And it has come through those so-called ascetics. These ascetics are neurotic people: they are masochists, they torture themselves. Their only joy is in creating more and more misery.

Buddha is not a masochist - cannot be. Buddha looks so beautiful, so joyful, so happy, so tremendously blissful. Those who were hearing him have misunderstood somewhere. Yes, he says go beyond sex. One has to go beyond it because it is only the first rung of the ladder. But he is not saying go against it. Going beyond is not necessarily going against. In fact, the contrary is the case. If you go against sex you will never be able to go beyond it. Going beyond comes only through going through.

You have to understand sex, you have to befriend sex.

Something, somewhere, got misinterpreted. Saraha comes as a right interpretation of Buddha.

And Saraha must have watched what a calamity had happened to thousands of people who were following Buddha: rather than going beyond sex, they had become obsessed with it. When you are continuously fighting with something you become obsessed with it.

You can watch it: a person who believes in fasting becomes obsessed with food. Mahatma Gandhi was obsessed with food, continuously thinking about food - what to eat and what not to eat. As if that seemed to be the only important thing in life - what to eat and what not to eat. Ordinary people are less obsessed; they are not thinking about it too much. Do a three-day fast, and think about what goes on in your mind. You will think about food continuously. Now, going beyond food is good, but fasting cannot be the way, because fasting creates an obsession with food. How can it be the way to go beyond it? If you really want to go beyond food, you have to eat rightly. You have to eat the right food, you have to eat it in a right way at the right time. You have to find out what suits your body, what is nourishing.

Yes, that will take you beyond food: you will never think about food. When the body is nourished, you don't think about food. So many people think about food because in some way or other they are fasting. You will be surprised when I say that. You may be eating too much ice-cream - that is a sort of fast because it is not nourishing; you are simply throwing rotten things inside you. They don't satisfy: they fill you but they don't fulfil you. You feel stuffed but not contented.

Wrong food will create discontent, and your hunger will not be satisfied because hunger needs nourishment not food. Remember, hunger is for nourishment NOT for food! And hunger does not bother much about taste. The basic thing is whether it suits your body, whether it gives your body the needed energy. If it gives the needed energy then it is okay. If taste goes with right nourishment, you will be tremendously satisfied.

And remember, I am not against taste, I am all for it. But just taste cannot be nourishing. And just food without taste is unintelligent, stupid. When you can have both, why not? An intelligent person will find nourishing food, tasteful food. It is not such a big problem. Man can go to the moon and cannot find a nourishing food for himself? Man has done miracles and cannot satisfy his hunger?

This does not seem to be the right situation. No, man has not looked into it.

There are people who believe in fasts - they destroy the body. And then there are people who go on stuffing any rubbish - they destroy the body. Both are in the same boat: both are fasting, and both are continuously obsessed. One is obsessed through indulgence, the other is oppressed through repression. Just in the middle is transcendence.

So is the case with sex, and so is the case with everything in life.

Saraha must have become aware that the people who said Buddha had said to go beyond sex, were not going beyond at all. Rather, they were becoming more and more obsessed with it and falling deeper into its mire.

There was a young nun who went to the Mother Superior in some distress, and after a great deal of beating about the bush, admitted she was pregnant.

'Who was it? Who was this wicked, wicked man?' said the Mother Superior.

'Oh, Reverend Mother, I wouldn't commit a carnal offence with a man!' exclaimed the nun.

'Well, it wasn't fathered by a woman, was it?' said the Mother Superior, beginning to lose her temper.

'No, indeed, Blessed Mother, but it was fathered by one of the Holy Angels.' SIMPER, SIMPER.

'Holy Angels what is this nonsense?'

'Yes, Blessed Mother, he came down to me in the middle of the night in my sleep, and when I asked who he was, he said "Saint Michael" and showed me his name on his vest to prove it.'

Once you are against something you will find some ways to get out of it. You will find some back door. Man is cunning. If you repress something, the cunning mind will find some other way. That's why you dream about sex. Your saints dream too much about sex; they have to. In the day they can deny, but in the night... When they are conscious they can repress, but when they are asleep...

then, in the dream, sex takes great, fantastic colours; it becomes psychedelic. And then in the morning they feel guilty, and because they feel guilty they repress more. And when they repress more, the next night they have an even more beautiful dream of sex - or horrible, according to them.

It depends on how you interpret it whether it is beautiful or horrible.

A 'difficult' schoolgirl of fifteen was sent to the psychologist, who asked her a number of very personal questions. He was sure that sex lay at the bottom of the trouble, and asked her 'Do you suffer from sexy or erotic dreams?'

'Certainly not!'

'Are you sure?'

'Quite sure' said the girl 'in fact, I enjoy them.'

It depends on you whether you call them beautiful or horrible. In the night they are beautiful, in the morning they become horrible. In the night you enjoy them, in the morning you suffer. And there is a vicious circle created, and your so-called saint goes on moving in this vicious circle: the day he suffers, the night he enjoys, the day he suffers, the night he enjoys - and he is torn between these two.

And if you look deep down into yourself you will find it easily. Whatsoever you repress will remain there, you cannot get rid of it. The repressed remains, only the expressed disappears. The expressed evaporates, the repressed remains and not only remains, but it becomes more and more powerful. As time passes by, it becomes more and more powerful.

Saraha must have looked at what had happened after two hundred years of Buddha - wrong interpretations, and people were almost obsessed with sex. Out of that obsession of the Buddhist monks and nuns, Tantra was born as a rebellion a rebellion against Buddhism, not against Buddha.

Through that rebellion, Saraha brought Buddha's spirit back. Yes, one has to transcend sex, but the transcendence happens through understanding.

Tantra believes in understanding. Understand a thing totally and you are free of its clutches.

Anything not understood rightly will remain as a hangover.

So you are right. You ask: HOW DID TANTRA GROW OUT OF BUDDHISM WHICH, AS FAR AS I KNOW, VIEWS SEX AS A HINDRANCE TO MEDITATION? Precisely because of that. It is a rebellion against Buddhism, and it is for Buddha. It goes against the followers, but not against the Master. The followers were carrying the letter, and Saraha brings back the spirit.

Saraha is a reincarnation of the same enlightenment as Buddha was. Saraha is a Buddha.

Question 3:

'The honeymoon is over' means that the fantasy part of your love is finished. Honeymoon is a fantasy: it is a projection, it is not reality. It is projected dream. 'The honeymoon is over' means that the dream is over, and now starts the marriage. The higher the honeymoon, the greater will be the disillusionment. That's why love-marriages don't succeed. Marriages succeed, but not love- marriages.

The love-marriage cannot succeed. That failure is intrinsic to it. A love-marriage is a fantasy, and the fantasy cannot win over reality. There is only one way to remain in fantasy and to remain always in a honeymoon, and that is to never meet your beloved. Then it is possible: you can have it for your whole life - but never meet the beloved, never meet your lover.

The greatest lovers in history were those who were not allowed to meet: Laila and Majnun, Shiri and Farihad - these are the great lovers. They were not allowed: the society created so many obstacles that they remained always in a state of honeymoon. It is just like when food is there but you are not allowed to eat it, so the fantasy continues. If you are allowed to eat it, then the fantasy disappears.

Love-marriage cannot succeed. What do I mean by 'not succeed'? In the sense that people want it to succeed, it cannot succeed. Marriage is successful, but then there is no love. That's why in the past all the societies of the world, out of experience, decided in favour of marriage and against love. Indian society is one of the most ancient societies of the world. It has existed for at least five thousand years, or more than that. Out of this long experience India decided for marriage without love - because a marriage without love can succeed. Because it has no honeymoon part in it, from the very beginning it is very realistic, down-to-earth. It does not allow any dreaming.

In India, the partners themselves are not allowed to choose. The boy is not allowed to choose the girl, the girl is not allowed to choose the boy; the parents choose. Naturally they are more down-to- earth, more experienced. And naturally, they cannot fall in love. They think of other things: finance, prestige, respectability, family. They think of thousands of things, but they don't think of one thing - love. Love is not brought into the matter at all. They go to the astrologer; they ask the astrologer and inquire into everything but not love. Love has not to become an ingredient in it. Two unknown people - the man and the woman are put together by the parents, by the society - are left together.

Naturally, when you live with a person, a sort of liking arises. But that liking is just like the liking you have for your sister; it is not love. Because you were born into a certain family, you have not chosen your sister, neither have you chosen your brother: they were not chosen by you. It was accidental that you were born to the same parents. So you have a certain liking. Living together for long, a thousand and one associations, and one starts liking - or disliking - but it is never love and never hate. It never goes to extremes, it is very balanced.

The same is the case with marriage, arranged marriage. The husband and wife live together and, by and by, they start feeling for each other.

Another thing the society does: the society does not allow any extramarital sex, so naturally the husband HAS to make love to the wife, and the wife HAS to make love to the husband. If you are allowed only one food to eat and no other food is allowed, how long can you wait? You have to eat it. This is the trick of the society. If extramarital sex were allowed, then there is every possibility that the husband may not want to make love to the wife, the wife may not like to make love to the husband. Just out of hunger, and with no other outlet, they start making love to each other. Out of desperation, they start becoming associated with each other. Then children are born... and more ties: religious, social ties. Then the children and the responsibility... and the family starts rolling.

Love-marriage is bound to fail, because the love-marriage is a poetic phenomenon. You fall in love and you start dreaming about the woman or the man, and you reach to a peak, a climax of dreams.

Those dreams continue until you meet the woman, until you meet the man. Then you come together, you become satisfied. Those dreams start disappearing. Now, for the first time, you start seeing the other as he or she IS.

When you see your wife as she is, when you see your husband as he is, the honeymoon is over.

This is the meaning of the phrase 'the honeymoon is over'. And it does not happen only in marriage, it happens in many sorts of relationships. It happens here with me.

You come to me and you can have a honeymoon, you can start fantasizing about me. I have no part in it, I am not a party to it. It is something that you do all alone. But you start fantasizing, desiring:

This is going to happen and that is going to happen, and Osho will do this and Osho will do that.

Then, one day, the honeymoon will be over. In fact, I always like to wait till the honeymoon is over, then I start working, never before it, because I don't want to become a party to your fantasies. I only start working when I see that now the honeymoon is over and you are back on the earth. Now something real can be done. In fact, I always like to give sannyas when the honeymoon is over.

To give sannyas during the honeymoon is dangerous, very dangerous, because the moment the honeymoon is over, you will start feeling against me, you will start rebelling against sannyas, you will start reacting. It is better to wait.

In every relationship - in friendship, in a Master-disciple relationship - in any kind of relationship there is a part which is of fantasy. That fantasy is just your mind: repressed desires are flying into dreams. In a better world, with more understanding, marriage will disappear, and with marriage will disappear the honeymoon too.

Now listen.

There have been societies: for example, the Hindu society - it has killed the honeymoon by killing love, and only marriage exists. In America, they are killing marriage and saving love - the honeymoon and only the honeymoon exists, not marriage. It is disappearing.

But to me, both are deep down in conspiracy. The honeymoon can exist only if there is some repression, otherwise there is nothing to project. And if there is something to project, then love fails again and again. Then the social PUNDITS come in and they start making arrangements for marriage, because it fails. It drives people crazy, and does not help them to live their lives. It makes them suicidal. It makes them neurotic, schizophrenic, hysterical. So the social PUNDIT has to come in, the priest and the politician have to come in and arrange for marriage, because love is too dangerous. And that's how the society has moved between these two polarities.

Sometimes, when people get fed up with marriage - as they have got fed up in America - they start thinking of love. When people get fed up with love as sooner or later they will find; they are already - then they start moving towards marriage. Both are polarities of the same game.

To me, a different kind of society is needed where marriage and romance disappear. Marriage disappears, because to make two people live together by legal enforcement is immoral. To force two people to live together when they don't want to live together is against nature and against God.

Ninety-nine per cent of social diseases will disappear if people are not forced.

Listen to this:

A man went to his solicitor and said 'I am very rich, so money is no object, but I want to be rid of my wife, who is a bitch, without being had for murder. So tell me what to do.'

'Buy her a strong horse and it may throw her.'

A month later the man came back and said his wife was now the best horsewoman in the district...

'Try' said the lawyer 'buying her a mini and send her up the mountains in it.'

The man did this, but she drove like Sterling Moss, putting in danger everybody but herself. The husband told the solicitor he was desperate...

'Then buy her a big Jaguar.'

The man was back in a week, delighted. 'Name your fee' he said 'it worked.'

'What happened then?'

'Well, when she opened the cage door to feed the jaguar, it bit her bloody head off!'

Marriage creates a thousand and one complexities and solves nothing. Yes, it succeeds - it succeeds in making people slaves. It succeeds in destroying people's individuality. Don't you see it all around? An unmarried man has a certain individuality, and a married man starts losing his individuality. He becomes more and more of a type. The unmarried woman has a joy, something flowing. The married woman becomes dull, uninterested, bored. This is ugly - to force people into boredom. People are here to be happy, people are here to enjoy and celebrate. This is ugly!

Marriage has to go. But if you choose fantasy and love, you will again fall into the same trap of marriage. Because love never succeeds - never succeeds the way marriage succeeds financially, security-wise, for children, for society, for this and that. Love never succeeds as marriage succeeds.

So love is bound to create other kinds of troubles. And love exists because of repressed desires.

When marriage disappears and desires are not repressed, love will disappear automatically.

A real society of human beings will not know anything of marriage and will not know anything of the honeymoon. It will know only of joy, of sharing with people. As long as you can share, good; if you cannot share, good-bye. Marriage disappears, and with it disappears the ugly divorce. Marriage disappears, and with it disappears the fantasy of the honeymoon.

When you are free to love, to meet, to be with people, the honeymoon will disappear. Laila and Majnun, and Shiri and Farihad, will not be possible - nobody is obstructing the way. You can meet any woman and you can meet any man. Whomsoever you desire and whosoever desires you - nobody else is barring the way. Then what is the need for fantasy? All kinds of food are available, and yet whatsoever is standing there is like a policeman or a magistrate or a priest and making you afraid and scared that if you eat this food you will go to hell. If you eat this food, only then can you go to heaven, and that food you don't want to eat; and that food leads you to heaven, and the food that you want to eat leads you to hell. Anything that gives you joy leads to hell, and anything that makes you miserable leads to heaven. When nobody is standing in between you and your desires, when desire is free, there will be no repression.

Without repression the honeymoon will disappear. The honeymoon is a by-product: it exists with marriage. It is like bait. You go fishing, you use bait. Honeymoon is a bait: it takes you into marriage. That's why women are very, very insistent about marriage - because they know. They are more down-to-earth, more empirical than men. Men have remained dreamers, they think of stars and moons. And women only laugh at their ridiculous desires. The woman knows - she is very down-to-earth-she knows that within ten, twelve, fifteen days, two to three weeks, the honeymoon will disappear. Then what? She insists on marriage.

A man was asking his woman - he was in love -and he asked her in the night 'Love or something?'

And the woman said 'Marriage or nothing.'

He asked again 'Love or something?'

And she said 'Marriage or NOTHING.'

Love is not reliable. It comes and goes; it is a whim, a mood. If love remains, that simply means repression is still there.

Then, in a different society there will be joy. 'Love' will not be so important a word as 'delight', 'celebration'. Two people want to share their energies; if they are both willing, then there will be no hindrance. There will be only one limitation, that if the other is not willing, then it is finished. Then it never starts. All other limitations should be dropped.

And now science has made it possible for the problem of children to be very easily solved. In the old days people were not so fortunate. You are more fortunate. The problem of children can be solved.

You can stay with a woman until the day you think 'Now we have lived together long enough and my love, my joy with the woman goes on increasing, my joy with the man goes on increasing, and now there is no possibility of our becoming separate.' You have found your soul-mate. The day you feel that, you can have children, otherwise there is no need to have children.

And in a better society, children should belong to the communes. The family has to disappear.

There should be communes of people: a commune of painters, where painters - painter men and painter women - live together and enjoy their togetherness; a commune of poets, a commune of carpenters, a commune of goldsmiths: communes of different kinds of people who live together, rather than families.

The family has been a calamity. It is better when many people live together who possess everything in common and who share their love with each other.

But there should not be any restriction. Love should never become a duty - only then is it joyful.

The moment it becomes a duty, it is dead, heavyweight. And it creates a thousand and one problems which cannot be solved directly. That is the whole situation in the world. You can go to the psychoanalyst, you can come to a Master, you can meditate, you can do this and that - but your basic problem is not touched.

Your basic problem remains somehow connected with your sex energy, and you go on tackling it somewhere else. You go on cutting the leaves, pruning the leaves, and you never cut the root.

People are miserable because people are fed up with each other. People are sad because they don't enjoy the company of each other. People are simply burdened: they are doing their duties, the love is not there.

Marriage and the honeymoon both come in the same package; they both have to go. Then there can be a non-repressed humanity, a fully expressive humanity, a fully expressive human being who knows nothing except joy, and who decides according to joy. Joy should become the criterion: that's what Tantra is all about. Joy should become the criterion.

Question 4:

The question is from Prem Aniket.

The first thing: no desire is the last if you are still living. No desire is the last desire if you are still living. Who knows about the next moment? And how can you manage to know the next moment'?

How long you have known Savya? A few weeks. Before those few weeks, you had not even dreamt about her. If this can happen, this can happen again. After three weeks, you may meet another woman. Until you are dead no desire is the last desire. Each desire creates another desire: desire is a continuum. Only two things, death or enlightenment, stop desires. And certainly neither of them has happened yet, Aniket; neither death has happened nor enlightenment.

It is good to understand desire. Each desire brings in new desires. One desire creates ten desires.

It is just like out of one small seed comes a big tree, thousands of branches, and millions of leaves.

Out of one desire, the seed, many desires arise.

You cannot say anything about the future - you should not say - the future remains open. This is one of the greatest efforts of man - ridiculous, but man goes on making it. One: he wants to reform the past which cannot be done. Whatsoever has happened has happened, there is no way to redo it; you cannot even touch it here and there. You cannot make it better, you cannot make it worse. It is simply beyond you. It has happened, it has become actual; and that which has become cannot even be touched. The past is finished; it is complete the way it is. You cannot go back and you cannot rearrange it. It is good. Otherwise, if you could rearrange the past, if you could go back you would go mad.

Then you would never come to the present again; the past is so long. It is good that the doors of the past are closed. But man, the stupid mind of man goes on thinking of reforming, reformulating, doing something here and there. Don't you think about it sometimes: you had not said it, and you start thinking what would have been better; you had not done it - what would.have been better?

And in your fantasy you try to say that and do that. But you are simply wasting time - now nothing can be done, it has slipped out of your hands.

The past cannot be reformed, and the future cannot be predicted. That too, man goes on doing - he wants to predict the future. The future is that which has not happened. The future remains open: openness is what the future is. The future is indeterminate; it is not actual, it is only probable.

Nothing is certain about the future. There is no certainty about the future. But man is foolish. Again he goes to the astrologers, consults the I CHING, tarot cards, shadow readers. Man is so foolish that he tries to find ways somehow so that he can know beforehand what the future will be. But if you can know about it beforehand, it is already past, it is no longer the future. Only the past can be known, the future remains unknown.

That is the intrinsic quality of the future - unknownness. All is possible and nothing is certain - that's what future is. All has happened, nothing more can happen - that's what past is. And the present is just a passage from the actual to the potential, from the closed to the open, from the dead to the alive.

Now, you ask: IS THIS A GOOD LAST DESIRE?

You would like that it should be your last desire, but then you would have to commit suicide, either actually or metaphorically. You will have to commit suicide if you want it to be your last desire. Either go and jump in front of a train, or into the sea, or into an abyss - actually commit suicide - then you can have this as the last desire. Or psychologically commit suicide, which is what many have done. Don't look at any other woman again. Close your eyes, become afraid. Cling to whomsoever you love and don't go here, there, astray. Don't even think, don't even dream... that is psychological suicide. But in both ways you will not be able to live, because you will not have any future to live. It you really want to live and you want to live, in fact, that's what you are asking: you want to live with Savya - to live you have to be alive.

Don't think in terms of 'the last desire'. And why, why would you like it to be the last? Why can't you share your energies some day with some other women? Why be so miserly? Why be so inhuman?

Are not other women as divine as Savya? Has not God. appeared in many, many forms, millions of forms around you? Why cling to one form? Why this clinging?

This clinging comes out of repression, because you have repressed your desires. Then one day you find a woman who is loving towards you and you cling. You are afraid to lose her, because you know all those long nights when you were alone. If now this woman goes, again you will be alone. Now this woman is afraid of her loneliness herself; she clings to you. She is afraid that some day you may move towards somebody else; you may not look towards her, and she will be left alone. 'Long have been those nights of loneliness, now no more. We have found each other. We should cling to each other. We should possess each other and we should guard each other, so nobody goes anywhere.

But out of this guarding look what has happened: people are bored. You want a lover not a guard; you want a beloved not a jailer. You want to flow, not to be imprisoned. Look at the contradictory desire: you want to live and love, but whatsoever you do disturbs your love, destroys your love, creates hindrances to the flow. You want to love and live, and you want to be joyously alive, but whatsoever you do goes against it, is against it.

Why should this be the last desire? I am not saying that this should not be the last desire, remember, don't misunderstand me. I am not saying THIS should not be the last desire. I am saying simply saying, WHY should it be the last desire? If it happens that you remain together, if it happens that you never find a more beautiful woman, a more loving woman - good, you are fortunate. If it happens that Savya never finds another man who is more loving, more alive than you - fortunate.

But if she finds a more loving man who can make her more joyful, who can bring her to greater peaks of ecstasy, then what? Should she cling to you? Then she is going against herself. Why should she cling to you?

And if she clings to you, she will never be able to forgive you, because it will be because of you she had to miss that ecstatic man; she will always be angry with you. That's why wives are angry, husbands are angry. That anger has a natural base to it. The anger is not about mundane things; it is not about the tea not being hot enough, it is not that. Who bothers, when you love a woman, whether the tea is hot or not'? When love is hot everything is hot. When love has gone cold everything seems cold. It is not that your slippers were not there where they should be when you get up. When you love a woman who bothers?

But when love disappears, that heat disappears. Then you are angry, and the anger is such that you cannot say it and the society does not allow it. The anger is such that you cannot be true about it. Maybe you have repressed it so deeply that you don't even become aware of it, you are not even conscious of it - that you are angry because now, because of THIS woman, other women have become unavailable to you. Because this woman goes on surrounding you, and is constantly watching you. Because this man goes on watching you and does not allow you to move and have your life in your own way, the way you want it now.

Your past promises have become prisons. Then you are angry; and the anger has nothing to do with anything in particular, it is a general anger. So you cannot even say where it is, why it is, how it is! Then it jumps on any excuses - the tea is not hot, the food is not as you would like it to be.

This clinging creates anger, and we are not here to be unnecessarily in anger. Why? For what? For what purpose? If Savya meets some beautiful person and suddenly feels that now she has found the right person, then what should she do? She should cling to you? She should not betray you?

These words are ugly...'betray'. In fact, if she remains with you she is betraying her own being. If she remains with you she is betraying her love, she is betraying her joy, she is betraying God. Now God has called from another door; she is betraying God. And she will never be able to love you anymore that is not possible; God has called from somewhere else. Some other eyes have become the doors and windows. Some other form has become alive and attractive. What can she do now? She can avoid seeing that person, but how will she be able to forgive YOU? Now anger will start erupting.

Now she will be angry for no reason at all, and the anger will destroy your love. It has already flown.

Remember, love is a breeze. Just see... no breeze right now. the trees are silent. What can they do? They cannot create the breeze. Whenever it comes, it comes. When it comes, they will dance with joy. When it has gone, it has gone. They have to wait.

Love is like a breeze. When it comes, it comes. Who knows from what direction, from what person, from whom?

This is the Tantra liberation. Tantra is a dangerous philosophy, it is a dangerous religion. It has not yet been tried on a larger scale - only a few individuals, far and few between. And they have suffered very much, because the society does not allow... The society thinks: This is absolute sin.

But Tantra says: To live with a woman with whom your love flow has ceased, with whom you are no longer joyful, is sin. It is rape to make love to a woman you don't love. It is rape to make love to a man you don't love; it is prostitution.

This is the Tantra attitude about life. Tantra believes in joy because Tantra says: Joy is God. Remain true to joy and sacrifice everything to joy. Let joy be the only God, and sacrifice everything - whatsoever is needed. Remain flowing.

You say :I LOVE MA PREM SAVYA, I WANT HER TO BE WITH ME UNTIL I DIE...

Are you thinking to die very soon? Who knows how long you may live? Why are you thinking about the future in the first place? To think about the future is to miss the present. You think that you are thinking great things. You have read such things by foolish poets. Poets are almost always foolish; they don't have a real experience of life, they only dream.

Now look, you think this is great love - that you want to live with her until you die. This is not great love, you are afraid. In fact, right now you are not enjoying it, that's why you are spreading into the future. Right now you are missing it, so you want to have it anyhow. Maybe not today, then tomorrow, the day after tomorrow - that's why the fear arises. You would like to be with her for your whole life, so that somehow you can manage.

But why not now? If it can ever be had, it can be had right now. You don't know how to live right now, so you think about the future. And time is a great illusion. Only NOW exists. Tomorrow, again it will be today. The day after tomorrow, again it will be today. After one year, it will be today. It will always be today. God is always in the present. If you want to live, live right now. Why think of the future? Let your love be so intense, like a flame, that it burns you totally right now.

And now you are thinking 'until I die...'

Who can say? At least I am not going to say anything about it, because I would like you to remain free. And I would like Savya also to be free. Meet as two free individuals, meet as two freedoms.

And let the meeting be there while the freedom lasts. When your meeting starts corrupting freedom, separate - the time has come to say good-bye. Feel grateful for the days that you lived with the woman or with the man. Feel tremendously grateful that those days were made available to you through the other. Feel grateful for all that experience. But what can you do? With tears in your eyes, with gratitude, with love, with friendship, with compassion - separate. The breeze is no longer blowing this way. What can you do? Feel helpless, but become separate. Don t cling, otherwise you will destroy each other.

If you really love the other person, the moment love has disappeared, you will make the other free.

At least this much love is due... to make the other free, so that somewhere else, in some other pasture, love can flower and bloom. At least this much you can do for the other, that the love - if it has disappeared between you - can flower and bloom somewhere else with somebody else. Love is God - it is irrelevant where it happens, between whom it happens - between A and B, or C and D, or E and G. It is irrelevant where it happens.

If it happens, it is good. The world has become so loveless because we cling to people when love stops. The world will be so full of love if people don't cling and remain free.

Be free in your love. Meet out of freedom, and when the freedom is destroyed, let that be an indication that love has disappeared. Because love cannot destroy freedom: love and freedom are two names for the same thing. Love cannot destroy freedom. If freedom is being destroyed, then something else is pretending to be love - jealousy, hatred, domination, safety, security, prestige, social respectability: something else has come in. Before it enters and corrupts you and poisons you too much, escape from it.

Question 5:

I can only promise that you will get into troubles. I cannot say that you will not get into troubles. It is a device to create chaos in your life.

But there are two kinds of troubles: destructive troubles and creative troubles. Avoid destructive troubles, because they simply destroy. There are creative troubles which create, which bring you to a higher plane of consciousness.

Troubles you have enough already. Certainly I am not going to add any more troubles of that kind.

It happened...

There was a woman in a railway carriage who was joined by a man who had with him a crowd of dirty and ill-behaved kids. Before they had gone very far, he gave one of his kids a fearful belting.

'Look here' said the woman 'you stop beating that child or I'll get you into trouble.'

'You'll do what?'

'I said: I'll get you into trouble!' the woman shouted.

'Listen, lady, my wife has run off with a black man, taking every penny I've got; I'm on my way to leave these kids with a relative who drinks; the girl in the corner is fifteen and eight months pregnant, that kid over there has messed his pants, the baby has thrown the flask out of the window, and the one I've just beaten has swallowed our tickets. For being off work, I've had the sack! Did you say you were going to get me into trouble - what more trouble?'

No, I am not going to put you into more trouble of the same kind you have been living in your whole life. I will introduce new kinds of troubles into your life. Be courageous. And you have waited long.

You say you have been thinking about it for years?

There was this football match between the mice and the insects. At half-time the score was six all, and at the end, it was eleven-ten to the mice. So the insects went to the centipede's cave and said 'Why haven't you been at the match?'

'I've been putting my boots on' said the centipede.

How long will you be putting your boots on? Soon the match will be over! Please do things faster.

Question 6:

Two fellows, Pete and Dave, are working on the scaffolding. There's a man comes past looking for new acts for the Varieties, and he's just under the building, when all of a sudden he sees Pete doing a triple somersault off the top of the scaffolding, followed by a backflip, another double somersault, and landing on his feet.

The fellow on the ground thinks that's tremendous, so he goes up to Pete and says 'Would you like to come and do an act for me?'

'Yes, all right.'

'How much do you want for it?'

'A hundred pounds.'

'A hundred pounds?'

'Well there's fifty for me, and fifty for Dave who hit me on the foot with a hammer.'

Alone, you will not be able to go. You will need a Master to hit you. The journey is so unfamiliar, the journey is into an abyss. If somebody really pushes you hard, you are not going to take the jump.

You will have to be hammered.

Question 7:

This story is about NIRVANA... this ancient Buddhist story.

An exceptionally beautiful young woman, Enyadatta, enjoyed nothing quite as much as gazing at herself in the mirror. She was a little crazy, as all human beings are. When she looked into her mirror one morning, the figure in the glass had no head. Enyadatta became hysterical and rushed around yelling 'My head is gone, where is my head? Who has my head? I shall die if I don't find it!'

Even though everyone assured Enyadatta that her head was on her shoulders, she refused to believe them. Every time she looked in the mirror, her head wasn't there, so she continued her frenzied search, shouting and crying for help. Fearing for her sanity, Enyadatta's friends and relatives dragged her home and tied her to a pillar so she wouldn't hurt herself.

Enyadatta's friends continued to reassure that her head was still on her shoulders and slowly she began to wonder whether they might not be telling the truth. Suddenly one of her friends gave her a sharp clout on the head. She cried out in pain, and her friend exclaimed 'That's your head! There it is!' Enyadatta immediately realised that she had somehow deluded herself into thinking she had no head, when, in fact, she always had it.

So it is with NIRVANA.

You have never been out of it. You have never been away from it. It is in you; you are in it. It is already the case, you have just to become a little more alert. You need a clout on the head.

The head is there. You cannot see it because you are looking in the wrong direction or in a wrong mirror. You cannot see it because you don't have the clarity to see. Otherwise NIRVANA is not some goal somewhere, it is not the after-life; it is here-now. NIRVANA is the stuff you are made of. It is in each cell, it is in each fibre of your being. It is YOU. Just a remembrance is needed.