Morality: nothing but delusion

Maneesha, there is a tremendous gap between morality and religion. Most of the religions are just moralities; their function is to decide what is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong. They look at man through his actions and they decide his innermost being accordingly, but this is a false approach.

Sometimes a man who thinks he is doing good, and it may appear to others also that he is doing good, will do immense harm - of course unintentionally...

For example, Krishna, in SHRIMAD BHAGAVADGITA, argues that his disciple Arjuna should go to war. Arjuna's father had a brother who was blind, and he had one hundred sons - perhaps, being blind, he had nothing else to do! - and now the question was to whom the kingdom belonged.

The sons had come of age. Up to now Arjuna's father had been ruling the kingdom because the blind brother could not do that, so the question had never arisen before. But now it was a different situation.

Arjuna had only five brothers, including himself, and on the other side were a hundred sons. They demanded that since their father had been denied half of the kingdom just because he was blind, now they wanted to claim the whole kingdom, "... because you are only five, and we are one hundred."

All the armies of both sides gathered near Delhi in a vast, open ground. Krishna was the charioteer of Arjuna. Seeing the situation - on both sides there were relatives; although they were fighting, they were cousin-brothers, and in every way everybody was entangled with each other - the grandfather of Arjuna, who was one of the wisest men of those days, Bhisma, had decided to be on the side of the blind son.

He loved Arjuna.... Arjuna was the master archer, and there was every possibility that he would win.

The teacher who had taught Arjuna had also taught his one hundred cousin-brothers. Now it was such a difficult division. This master who had taught them archery had also chosen to be with the blind man. His blindness created a kind of sympathy, that he had been denied and now it was time for his sons. But the master also loved Arjuna as his best disciple.

Seeing the complexity, knowing perfectly well that he was going to win but it was going to be a massacre of his own friends, family, relatives, Arjuna told Krishna, "Take my chariot to the front so I can see who is on my side and who is on the other side."

Seeing the faces, he said, "I don't feel like fighting. The throne is not worth that much massacre, and I cannot conceive of myself on the throne with all these people dead. I have loved them, we have lived together, we have played together. Now this is very unfortunate. It is better that I should retire to the Himalayas and let my brothers rule the kingdom. Obviously, their father had been denied because of his blindness. And it was not his fault." But Krishna was very much insistent.

Krishna's sister was married to Arjuna - he had a vested interest that Arjuna should get the kingdom, win the war. He argued for the war as an essential necessity at this moment "... because those hundred cousin-brothers are all sinners, drunkards, gamblers. It is your duty, for the sake of goodness, to fight. It is not a question only of a fight between two parties, it is a fight between darkness and light. It is a fight between God and the Devil." But Arjuna was not convinced, and the final strategy of Krishna was one which I call very deceptive.

Krishna is one of the incarnations of the Hindus, the perfect incarnation of God. There are other incarnations which are partial incarnations, but Krishna is the perfect incarnation.

But if you look at him without any prejudice, he is the perfect politician! The final trump card was that he said, "As an incarnation of God, I order you to go to war. Remember, it is God's will. Nothing happens against God's will. Not even a leaf falls from the tree without the will of God."

Now, this was too much for poor Arjuna to fight against. Unwillingly, he went to war. He won the war. It has been five thousand years now, but it has broken the very spine of this country. After that war this country has never been interested in war, it has never invaded any country. It has been invaded by many - small countries have ruled over it for two thousand years continuously - and it has not even resisted because it has seen, in the Indian 'Great War' as it is called, such a massacre of humanity - for the sake of power? For the sake of money? But Arjuna was managed by a very good argument: "Nothing happens without God's will. How can it happen without God's will? So don't bring your mind in, just do what God wants."

If I had been in the place of Arjuna I would have put my arrows and my bow in the chariot and moved towards the Himalayas, saying that "This is God's will - what can I do? Nothing happens without his will. Now this is happening!" But he got caught by the argumentation and Krishna convinced him that it was a good war.

No war is good! No war can be good. Every warmonger in the world has been trying to prove the same thing, that "This war is for the good." Adolf Hitler killed six million Jews in Germany just for God's sake and for the fatherland. He was doing a great service to his fatherland....

You cannot find any war that was fought for any other than good reasons: for God, so many crusades; for God, so many living human beings, particularly women, burned alive.

Morality is concerned only with actions. And I want to say to you, Zen has nothing to do with morality. It is pure religiousness, which is a much higher point of view. It does not decide what is right and wrong, it simply wants your consciousness to have the clarity to see in every situation. The question is never of deciding. Deciding means that doubt has already arisen. Deciding means you are wavering; deciding means half of you is on this side and half of you on that side, and you are troubled about where to go.

A man of pure consciousness never decides, he simply acts spontaneously. There is nothing good for him and nothing bad for him.

The only thing good is to be conscious and the only thing bad is to be unconscious. Actions don't count. This has to be understood - then Eno's words will be very easy. He is making a very fundamental statement.

ENO SAID:

GOOD FRIENDS, IN THIS TEACHING, FROM THE OUTSET, SITTING IN MEDITATION DOES NOT CONCERN THE MIND NOR DOES IT CONCERN PURITY; WE DO NOT TALK OF STEADFASTNESS. IF SOMEONE SPEAKS OF 'VIEWING THE MIND', THEN I WOULD SAY THAT THE MIND IS OF ITSELF DELUSION, AND THE DELUSIONS ARE JUST LIKE FANTASIES, THERE IS NOTHING TO BE SEEN. IF SOMEONE SPEAKS OF 'VIEWING PURITY', THEN I WOULD SAY THAT MAN'S NATURE IS OF ITSELF PURE, BUT BECAUSE OF FALSE THOUGHTS, TRUE REALITY IS OBSCURED.

The question is not of finding in your thoughts what is right and what is wrong, in your actions what is right and what is wrong. The question is of finding a consciousness so total and so intense that only whatever is right remains, and whatever is false burns out. You don't have to decide.

And when action arises out of silent meditation, it has a purity and a beauty and a fragrance. It has nothing to do with morality or immorality. Those are very low considerations of society, of the collective mass. Zen belongs to the highest peaks of the Himalayas, to the highest peaks of consciousness. From there, the vision is clear in all directions. There is no need to decide; you simply see what is right. You don't even think about it, you simply act. You don't think about the consequences.

Out of this purity, only roses can bloom. Out of this purity, there is no possibility of anything evil arising in you.

Zen's concern is a pure religiousness - not religion, remember. Religion has become almost identified with moral conceptions, with commandments. But time goes on changing; every moment, everything is moving. You cannot decide what is right forever, you can only depend on your clarity.

What is right today may be wrong tomorrow. Commandments belong to the very lowest class of morality.

I remember, when God made the world and he went around selling the commandments, he asked the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and everybody asked, "First tell us, just as a sample, what are your commandments? Just tell us one."

And God thought the best would be, with no argumentation, "You should not commit adultery."

The Egyptians said, "Then what shall we do? Keep your commandment to yourself; we will find our own ways to decide what to do and what not to do. You have done enough that you have made us, now please leave us."

And just on the way he met Moses. Being a Jew, you can understand, Moses' approach was totally different. When God had asked, "Do you want a commandment?" everybody else had asked, "What is the commandment?" Only Moses asked, "How much?"

God said, "It is absolutely free, you don't have to pay anything."

Moses said, "In that case, I will have ten."

And with those ten commandments Jews are carrying a load of mountains on their hearts.

Everything becomes wrong, everything makes you feel guilty.

And this is not only true about the Jews - all the religions have used the strategy to exploit man by making him feel guilty. The first thing to enslave a man is to make him feel guilty, that whatever he is doing is wrong. Then he loses his nerve. Then he is not strong enough to resist the oncoming slavery.

Your so-called morality and immorality are all devices of parasites, priests, politicians.... This 'p' is strange - all the pigs! And you will be shocked to know that the pig is one of the Hindu incarnations of God. Avirbhava is not here; she is finding other ancient gods in the Far East; otherwise, she would have enjoyed. She has got the pig already, but she does not know that it is a Hindu incarnation.

These priests have made man absolutely unthinking. They have enforced only one thing, guilt and belief. It is a double-edged sword: on one side it makes you guilty, and on the other side it makes you believe - because how are you going to get rid of your guilt? The priest is there to help you. He has become, on his own accord, a mediator between you and God.

Just a few months ago Pope the Polack brought a new sin into the world; it has never existed before.

The new sin, he has declared, is confessing to God directly. You have to confess through the right channel, through the Catholic priest, because if you start making direct phone calls to God, what is the purpose of the priest and what is the purpose of the pope? Their purpose is to stand in between you and God. And the problem is, there is no God; it is their invention. So naturally they have to stand in between to hide the fiction. If they remove themselves... if you remove all the priests, all the gods will disappear. They are created by man.

The Bible says God created man in his own image. It is absolute nonsense. On the contrary, it can be said that man created all the gods in his own image. Just fictions. And from those gods descend paigambaras, prophets, tirthankaras, avataras, messiahs, Christs. The simple fiction of God is so reproductive that it creates a thousand and one fictions, and man is surrounded by a fictitious world in which only the vested interests are benefited. The whole of humanity is crushed, sacrificed to ideas which have no existence at all.

Zen has nothing to do with any worship, any God, any religion. It has nothing to do with any morality.

It is a very rare phenomenon.

Eno says:

IF YOU EXCLUDE DELUSIONS, THEN THE ORIGINAL NATURE REVEALS ITS PURITY.

All that is needed is to put aside your delusions, and your original purity will arise, and you will have, for the first time, eyes to see and ears to hear the existential.

Otherwise, these shopkeepers - Christians and Hindus and Mohammedans and Jews - never allow you to reach existence. Just on the way you meet a priest. All directions are full of priests; wherever you go you will meet a priest and he will hand over to you as many commandments as you can carry.

He will give you permanent values in an impermanent world. He will give you unnatural ideas which cannot be implemented, and because they cannot be implemented they make you feel guilty.

Almost all the homosexuality is produced by religions, their monasteries, where they force men and women to live apart. It was bound to happen. Where is the sexual energy going to move? You don't give them any formula for any transformation of the energy, any alchemy. You just separate men and women, and the women become lesbians, the men become homosexuals. And now all your thousands of years of religion have produced nothing but AIDS. That is the greatest contribution of all your religions.

I have been in contact with all kinds of monks - Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Christian missionaries - and I was surprised that these people are diverting people's naturalness, their purity. A love between a man and woman has a religiousness, has a sacredness. It is natural while it lasts - although it is a beautiful delusion. But so what? Everything is delusion - why not have good delusions? Why insist on having nightmares? But in your monasteries, nightmares are created.

Strange things, that are unbelievable, happened in the Middle Ages. Thousands of women were burned in the name of God; priests enjoyed it very much. A special court was made to decide whether the woman was a witch or not. And what was the criterion for a woman to be a witch? The criterion was whether she was making love with the Devil or not. They tortured the woman, and just because of the torture the woman finally had to confess that she had been making love with the Devil; otherwise they would continue to torture her. There is a limit to human patience. And once she had confessed that she was having a love affair with the Devil, the court was free to decide that she should be burned alive.

Now, there are no witches to be found. It seems the Devil has become fed-up with women... or maybe he has also gone gay. One never knows about these gods and devils.

Everything is so fictitious, so unbelievable that it was at one time even believed that the Devil's prick was forked. And the women, thousands of women, confessed in the court that "Yes, it is true - he makes love in both the openings together." Such nonsense! And great bishops and popes and cardinals and a special court, a Grand Jury, deciding these stupid things.... And first the poor women were tortured so much that they found only one escape - to confess. Whatever was said, they had to accept it.

Now, the Devil has no more businesses going on around the world. As a consequence, God's own business is becoming a failure, a bankruptcy.

Zen is not concerned with such gods and such devils, which are only imaginary nightmares. Its concern is to put aside all fictions of the mind and to let your natural purity have its say.

That naturalness, all religions have condemned. That naturalness does not need any god. You cannot find that trees have gods, or lions have gods, or any birds have gods. The moment a man becomes natural, simple, unclouded by any fictions created by the priests to exploit and suck his blood, he simply sees that he is part of this vast cosmos and whatever is natural, whatever arises out of his own original being is the only religiousness, the only honesty.

But every natural thing has been condemned. And once a thing is condemned it becomes an obsession; it becomes very desirable.

I used to live in a city, Raipur, and just across from me lived a very snobbish man. He was very rich and powerful. One day he found a man pissing by the side of his garden. In India it is absolutely natural; there is no constitution, no law against it. He called his servants to beat the man.

I was looking at all this and I said, "There is no need. Just make a few small signboards here and there. You have a big property, a vast garden; just write around it, 'Don't piss here.'"

He said, "The idea is good...." And the next day when he woke up, all around the wall people had pissed! - as if the whole city became obsessed with pissing....

Every negation of nature is bound to create an obsession.

It almost became difficult to pass by his house without pissing... so many boards calling you forth, your bladder trickling.... He was very angry with me. He said, "I thought you were a nice fellow!"

I said, "I am not. I am simply an ordinary, natural human being. Nice fellows... YOU are a nice fellow."

He said, "I thought you were a professor of psychology, so you would give me a good suggestion.

What kind of suggestion have you given?"

I said, "This is a suggestion which comes directly from God!"

It was God who first prohibited Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the tree of wisdom and the tree of eternal life. It was because of his prohibition that they had to eat. Whether the Devil persuaded Eve or not, it does not matter. If he persuaded her he did a great revolutionary act; he should be worshipped for it.

But my understanding is that just by giving them the order to avoid these two trees... and those two trees were nothing but apple trees, so innocent. I lived for years only on apples, just to see how much sin... Finally my doctors persuaded me, "It will destroy your health. Apples are good, but one apple only."

But one apple destroyed Adam and Eve. They became sinners. Not only did they become sinners - after them all their descendants up to now, we are all sinners because Adam and Eve disobeyed God.

In fact the whole responsibility goes on God. Why did he give them this stupid idea? In a vast Garden of Eden there were millions of trees. If he had not told them, perhaps we would still be jumping from tree to tree, Charles Darwin included! No need to find out where the tail has disappeared to; it would be hanging around. No need to find out where the missing man is; there has never been any man.

It is because of disobedience - I will call it rebellion - that you are here. You have to thank the Devil for provoking Eve to eat the fruit. And his argument was perfect; even Aristotle would not have been able to find any fault in his argument.

He said, "God has prohibited only these two trees. Do you know why? Because if you eat the fruit of the tree of wisdom" - to me it is a metaphor, it means meditation - "and eternal life" - because meditation ultimately finds the eternal sources of life.... Those two trees are joined together in their roots; it is one tree, in fact, expressing in two ways: eternal life and wisdom - God has prohibited you, according to the Devil, because he is very jealous. If you eat these fruits you will also be like gods, and then all his power-trip, his speciality, is gone. He becomes a commoner. Everybody is a god.

What Christianity, Mohammedanism, Judaism, have been doing is preventing you from becoming gods. That's why in all these three religions there is no place for meditation, because meditation will take you to the roots of your being, where wisdom blossoms, where eternal life becomes your own life. You become part of the oceanic existence, and out of this situation, out of this state, there is no question of morality or immorality. Whatever you do, whatever you are is good, divine; it has a bliss and a grace of its own.

And because it comes from your own original source it gives you a great individuality. You are no more a Christian or a Hindu or a Buddhist; you are no more a follower of anybody. You are simply rejoicing in your existence, dancing in tune with the trees, with the rivers, with the ocean, with the stars ... with the wind blowing through the pine trees... with the rain, with the clouds. You have become one with the whole.

There is no question - you cannot hurt yourself, you cannot do what is thought to be evil. It is possible only if you are kept away from your own original self.

Zen's search is not for any stupid God or any Devil. Its search is for your original face.

IF YOU EXCLUDE DELUSIONS, THEN THE ORIGINAL NATURE REVEALS ITS PURITY. IF YOU ACTIVATE YOUR MIND TO VIEW PURITY, WITHOUT REALIZING THAT YOUR OWN NATURE IS ORIGINALLY PURE, DELUSIONS OF PURITY WILL BE PRODUCED.

There are people who are trying to be pure. In different religions there are different superstitions about how one becomes pure.

I had a friend: he was very old, but he loved me. He was thought to be the father of the Indian parliament. He remained continually, for sixty-five years, as a member of the Indian parliament.

From the very beginning he was a member, until his last breath just a few years ago. But he was very puritanical.

I used to stay in Delhi, in his house. He used to drink only milk, because milk is the only pure food:

God himself has given the child only milk; everything else is man-manufactured. The argument seems to be convincing - but the milk had to come only from a cow. I said, "Up to that point I could reluctantly agree that it is right that the child is given only milk... but the child is not given the milk of the cow. A cow has her own children. Taking the milk of the cow is exploiting the cow."

And not only would he use cow's milk, the cow had to be absolutely white, no black dots. I said, "My God, do you think a black cow gives black milk?"

He said to me, "To be on the safer side, I want absolutely pure milk." So that idiot, although he had many honorary D.Litts, used to take a cow with him wherever he went. Behind his car would be a truck carrying a pure white cow. It was not possible that in every village - he was a politician, and he had to visit great constituencies; it was not possible... Cows you can find anywhere but sometimes they have brown patches, sometimes black patches; that makes them impure.

Strange ideas.... If you look without any prejudice, you can only laugh.

I was born, unfortunately, in a Jaina family. It is one of the ancientmost religions. Even small children are not allowed to eat or drink in the night. You can eat only after sunrise, up to sunset. After that, even small children who may be thirsty, may be hungry... but there is no way.

Up to my eighteenth year there was no way because all food would be distributed by the evening. In the night, even if you entered the kitchen you could not find anything.

And the conditioning of centuries....

I went for a picnic with my school friends on a nearby mountain where there was a very ancient, beautiful castle. They were all Hindus so they were not concerned about day or night. I asked them again and again, "Just think of me, too. When are you going to prepare the food?"

They said, "Right now we are going to explore the whole castle. It has so many things to be explored...." There were hidden water currents, hidden swimming pools, beautiful halls, carved pillars, great statues. So I had to remain hungry the whole day, and in the night they started making food.

I have never smelled such beautiful food! It was nothing much, but my hunger was so much, and I had been constantly holding back, that "I will not eat." But my whole nature was saying that my stomach was hurting, the whole day walking over the mountain, around the castle, inside the castle...

and they were all very persuasive and they said, "We are not going to tell anyone...."

I said, "It is not a question of telling anyone. The question is, I know that I am eating in the night and that is a sure way to hell." But finally they succeeded because they said, "If eating in the night is a sure way, then wouldn't you like to come with your friends? We are also going the same way, you will not be alone."

My hunger and their persuasion, and the fragrance that was coming from the food, all conspired together, and I ate. But the whole conditioning was against it. I had to vomit the whole night, until every single grain that I had eaten was thrown out. I went to sleep only in the early morning hours.

But that became a clear indication to me what a superstition can do. Nobody else vomited; everybody slept so soundly, tired from the whole day's exploration. They were snoring and I was alone. I said to myself, "These people were saying 'We will be with you,' but only I am in hell! They are all enjoying a beautiful sleep - must be having great dreams - and I cannot sleep because of that food. Unless I throw it out...."

Practicing purity is not true purity.

Purity has to come out of your spontaneity.

Anything practiced makes you a hypocrite, and all the so-called religious people are hypocrites because they are practicing religion.

Whatever you want to practice you can practice - you can force your nature into the unconscious, into the collective unconscious, or even deeper, to the cosmic unconscious, but it will remain there, and any moment.... You are sitting on a volcano. Your nature can explode and all your conditioning will be thrown away. It is good that the explosion happens and they are thrown away, so only your pure nature, without anybody's conditioning, remains as the source of your words, of your actions, of your gestures.

A religious man, in this sense, is a natural and original man. He does not belong to any organization.

To belong to any organization is to go against nature.

Just to belong to nature is enough.

PURITY HAS NO FORM, BUT NONETHELESS SOME PEOPLE TRY TO POSTULATE THE FORM OF PURITY AND CONSIDER THIS TO BE ZEN PRACTICE. PEOPLE WHO HOLD THIS VIEW OBSTRUCT THEIR OWN ORIGINAL NATURES AND END UP BY BEING BOUND BY PURITY.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who are suffering from guilt because they could not manage to go against their nature, and the others who are suffering from their saintliness because they did not listen to their nature and went ahead, against it. Of course they have respectability, but their whole being is poor. Their whole being is on fire. They may have become saints by doing all kinds of stupid things that their surrounding society expects... for example here in India you will find many people standing on their heads. Even the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, used to stand on his head every morning in the garden, and he was respected for it tremendously. He did nothing for the country, but he was respected because he was following yoga.

The truth is that if you stand on your head more than three minutes, you will destroy many subtle cells, and there are millions of those cells in your small skull. If you stand on your head blood comes like a flood because of gravitation, and that flood destroys the most intelligent parts of your brain.

Why don't the animals have such developed brains? - because they are horizontal. Their blood circulation is equal from the head to the tail. It is only man who stands erect, on two feet. That creates the possibility for the growth of the brain, because when you are standing the blood reaches not as a flood but in the right amounts, as much as is needed. The more intelligent a man, the more delicate and complicated system of cells he will have in his head.

Albert Einstein has left his brain to be examined after his death. He himself was puzzled: "Why are other people not so intelligent? There must be something wrong with me." He wanted to know, but anyway there was no way to convey the message to him when he was dead. Now we know what was the matter: he had twenty-six percent more of these subtle cells than the ordinary human brain.

Now those cells can be cultivated, but not by standing on your head.

Standing on your head is the worst thing that you can do for your intelligence, but in the Hindu conditioning that posture is very much valued. Not knowing anything about what is happening inside, people have followed it for thousands of years. It is not a coincidence that forty percent who receive the Nobel Prize are Jews; it is very disproportionate, looking at the whole world. Only three Hindus have been able to receive a Nobel Prize up to now. Such a vast country, such an ancient culture, so many practices, so many disciplines, but as far as intelligence is concerned it is very low.

And yoga is one of the reasons - keeping people's brains from growing.

But any absurdity, if continuously told to you, becomes a great discipline. Every religion is against me for the simple reason that I am trying to make it clear to the intelligent people around the globe that you don't have to practice anything, you don't have to discipline yourself in any way, you don't have to follow any commandments - you have only to go in and allow your own self-nature to move according to its own growth. Don't disturb it. All that you can do is not to disturb your inner nature and you will blossom like any great flower.

ONE WHO PRACTICES STEADFASTNESS DOES NOT SEE THE FAULTS OF PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. THIS IS THE STEADFASTNESS OF SELF-NATURE. THE DELUDED MAN, HOWEVER, EVEN IF HE DOES NOT MOVE HIS OWN BODY, WILL TALK OF THE GOOD AND BAD OF OTHERS THE MOMENT HE OPENS HIS MOUTH, AND THUS BEHAVE IN OPPOSITION TO THE WAY. THEREFORE, BOTH 'VIEWING THE MIND' AND 'VIEWING PURITY' WILL CAUSE AN OBSTRUCTION TO THE WAY.

You don't have to be a traditionalist and you don't have to be an anti-traditionalist. This is a great problem: it is very easy to be unorthodox, but it is changing your prisons from orthodoxy to non- orthodoxy, from traditionalism to non-traditionalism. Both are binding, both are obstructing your self-nature. Drop both, the negative and the positive, the yes and the no. Simply be, without any judgment, and in this being without any judgment have arisen the greatest peaks of consciousness man has encountered.

Kyogen wrote:

AT ONE STROKE I FORGOT ALL MY KNOWLEDGE!

THERE IS NO USE FOR ARTIFICIAL DISCIPLINE, FOR, MOVE AS I WILL, I MANIFEST THE ANCIENT WAY.

Another Zen poet:

THE FLUTE WITHOUT HOLES IS THE MOST DIFFICULT TO BLOW.

... Not only difficult, it is impossible. So what the poet is saying is, the flute has all the possibility of bringing songs to the world; you just have to open all your doors and windows, all your holes.

Otherwise, every bamboo will be a flute; they have the potentiality. Just a little difference - opening a few doors, a few windows, just a few holes in a hollow bamboo - and it becomes a great instrument of music. Existence can flow through it and can become a great musical wave. Existence has its own sound and its own music. We just have to be silent enough to hear the soundless sound.

Basho wrote:

THERE IS NOTHING YOU SEE THAT IS NOT A FLOWER; THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN THINK OF WHICH IS NOT THE MOON.

Great statements, so condensed... THERE IS NOTHING YOU SEE THAT IS NOT A FLOWER - it may be in the seed, it may be not yet manifest, but there is nothing that has not the potential to blossom. THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN THINK OF WHICH IS NOT THE MOON.

The moon has become symbolic in Zen because of Gautam Buddha. Gautam Buddha was born on a full-moon night, he became enlightened on a full-moon night, and he died on a full-moon night.

Because of this coincidence the moon has become a symbol of Buddha.

Wherever you are, whoever you are, you are the moon, the buddha.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked:

Maneesha, you have asked two questions. One is, "What then is the urge, the energy that provokes a person to go above what is natural?" Boredom.

Have you ever seen a bored buffalo, or a bored donkey? In the whole of nature you will not find anybody bored except man. Boredom is a unique quality as far as man in concerned, a very high- rate quality.

Man becomes bored with nature too, but first one should come to be natural. As you become natural, slowly slowly you become bored with it. And that boredom is being discussed by the existentialists in the West, but without understanding the deeper implications the East has encountered. The existentialists stop with boredom; the East has not stopped with boredom, it has taken a quantum leap. It has gone beyond nature.

But beyond nature is not against nature. Beyond nature is simply above nature, supranature, transcendental to nature.

So the first thing is finding the self, the nature. There is not much trouble in it, you just have to put your delusions aside. Then soon, you will start feeling bored with nature itself because it is repetitive: waking in the morning, eating your food, going to your work, coming home in the evening, going to your bed... a circle... silent, peaceful, no more tensions of the old days, no more anguishes and worries of the old days, very content. But even contentment at a point becomes boredom, even peace at a point becomes heavy.

Even enlightenment at a point has to be dropped.

The moment you drop enlightenment you transcend nature. Enlightenment is the ultimate point up to which nature can take you, and then there is the cliff. Jumping into the unknown, disappearing into the universe - that is the quantum leap.

So there are two jumps: one is a very small one, from delusions to nature; the other one is really The Great Matter - but boredom is the cause.

Just look at the life of a Gautam Buddha - no television, no cigarettes, no cards to play, no chess, no football games, no boxing matches.... What is in the life of poor Buddha? - just a silence, eternally silent, where nothing happens, no football.

That's why I say it is very difficult for Americans to become enlightened. They are so entertained that the point of boredom never comes. They go on changing their wives.... In India you are bound to get bored with your wife, but in America you will simply change. Why get bored?

The average time in America for everything is three years: in three years you have to change your wife, you have to change your car, you have to change your house, you have to change your job, you have to change your city, you have to change everything. This way... and seven and a half hours per day, millions of people are just sitting glued in their chairs before that idiot-box, television.

Now they have started a great association, the association of TV potatoes, and people are becoming members and wearing potato badges.

It is very difficult in America to become enlightened. So much is going on....

It was good Buddha was born twenty-five centuries before, in India. Here, things are very much still the same. Just go into a deeper part of the country, into a village, and you will find life utterly boring - simple, but there is nothing, just simplicity. This simplicity comes to a point when you want to disappear into the universe. That is the urge to go beyond the natural.

"And why does going in affect some people's lives, even totally change some people's lives, while it leaves others absolutely untouched?"

It all depends on the receptivity of the people. You may come across a buddha, you may even shake hands with a buddha, and you may not recognize anything unusual at all. You are a bamboo without holes. You are not receptive enough.

To recognize a buddha is in itself a great meditative quality. Unless you have been meditating you will not be able to see the radiance of the buddha nor his rhythmic heartbeat, nor his grace and beauty, nor the area of energy that is created around him just like a magnet. The deeper you go into meditation, the more you can recognize. So a few people who are in some way receptive - poets, dancers, musicians, creative people who are not limited by the boundaries of the knowledge given to them but are always searching for the new, always open to receive a new guest - these people will recognize the buddha immediately. But there are millions more to whom buddha is just a word.

They are bamboos without holes. They will not be affected at all.

It is unfortunate, but you cannot interfere in somebody's life. You cannot start drilling holes in somebody's life to make him receptive. You have just to wait: perhaps their time has not come.

Perhaps tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow... and it does not matter in the eternity of time.

Whenever it happens it is always fresh and new, whenever it happens it is always early.

Now, let us drill a few holes in everybody without touching any screwdriver.

Just the hands should be enough!

(THE MASTER MAKES TICKLING MOTIONS TOWARDS ANANDO, AND SETS OFF WAVES OF GIGGLES.) You should not touch....

Jablonski goes to the hardware store and asks the manager for a job.

"Okay," says the manager, "you can have the job if you can sell. Can you sell?"

"I guess so," says Jablonski.

"Well," says the manager, "watch me and learn something!"

A man comes into the store and asks the manager for some grass seed. "Fourth aisle over, third shelf," says the manager.

The man returns with the grass seed and the manager says, "Would you like to buy one of our new lawn mowers? They are on sale right now."

"What?" says the man. "But I don't even have my grass yet."

"I know," says the manager, "but you will in a few weeks and then you will need a new lawn mower.

And if you buy one now, it will be much cheaper."

"I guess you are right," says the man, and he buys the lawn mower.

"So," says the manager to Jablonski, "do you think you can do that?"

"Sure," replies Jablonski. "No problem!"

"Okay," says the manager. "I have to go to the bank. You take over - and sell!"

Jablonski nods and waits for his first customer. Just then a woman walks up to him and says, "Where are the tampons?"

"Fifth aisle over, fourth shelf down," replies Jablonski, professionally.

When she returns to pay, Jablonski asks, "Do you have a lawn mower?"

"No. Why?" asks the woman.

"Well," says Jablonski, "you might as well mow the lawn while you aren't doing any fucking!"

Young Leonard Loophole is on vacation in the woods, and he decides to write a letter to his girlfriend.

But he has no writing paper with him, so he walks to a nearby village store.

Inside, he approaches the girl attendant, Molly Must, a very sexy young brunette.

"Do you keep stationery?" asks Leonard.

"Well," says Molly, in a sexy voice, "I can until the last few seconds, and then I go completely wild!"

Zabriski is leaving on a business trip to Poland. "I always hate to leave," he says to his friend, Klopski.

"I never trust my wife on her own. There is always this doubt... always this doubt."

"Don't be worried," says Klopski. "I am your best friend. While you are gone, I will keep an eye on her."

"Really?" says Zabriski. "Would you do that for me? I am so relieved. I know that I should trust my wife, but there is always this doubt... always this doubt."

"It is okay," says Klopski. "Leave it to me."

Three weeks later Zabriski returns and meets with his friend. "I am afraid I have some bad news,"

says Klopski.

"Well, what is it?" asks Zabriski.

"The very first night you were gone," tells Klopski, "I watched Seamus O'Ryan sneak into the back door of your house. Your wife met him there dressed only in high-heels and red satin panties."

"Really?" asks Zabriski. "Then what?"

"Then Seamus kissed your wife and he put his hand down into her red satin panties."

"Really?" asks a shocked Zabriski. "Then what?"

"Then," says Klopski, "she put her hand down inside his pants, and Seamus began kissing her breasts."

"Really?" gasps Zabriski. "Then what?"

"Then," continues Klopski, "they fell back onto the sofa. She threw off her panties, he threw off his pants, and then the lights went out - so I could not see any more."

"What? The lights went out?" shouts Zabriski. "You see? There is always this doubt!"

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent, close your eyes.

Feel your body to be completely frozen.

Gather yourself in.

Nothing exists outside, just concentrate on the center of your being.

This is the only refuge - to be in this space, you are beyond death, beyond life. You are meeting with existence.

Except this meeting, all religion is simply talk.

From this point you can take the jump and disappear into the open sky. It is within you to transcend even yourself.

Rejoice this moment, feel blissful.

See the flowers everywhere.

Look - in everything, the moon.

From your space of buddhahood the whole existence becomes a great poetry, a great song.

A great creative energy arises out of this space.

This nothingness, this emptiness is the origin of the smallest grass leaf up to the biggest star.

Deeper... deeper.

Don't hold anything, just go deeper.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

The body is there, the mind is there, but you are not the body, you are not the mind.

You are just the watcher, just the witness.

Nothing has ever happened to you and nothing will ever happen to you; you are just a mirror, reflecting.

This moment, this suchness is your original nature.

Everything else is imposed on you.

This space is purely your own.

To realize this is to become a buddha.

It is simply a recognition:

you are already a buddha, you just don't have the guts to recognize and to remember it in your day-to-day work.

Twenty-four hours you are a buddha; there is not even a holiday for your buddha.

Just keep this consciousness as an undercurrent, flowing into all your activities, waking, sleeping...

This is the only religiousness that I know. All so-called religions are political exploitations, fictions of the priests. They have taken the whole dignity of human beings; they have made them slaves, and sacrificial. You can only assert your freedom by being a buddha. Out of this, whatever you do is right, is good, is graceful.

This moment, this place is so blessed that ten thousand buddhas have melted like ice into each other.

There is only one lake of buddhahood; drink out of it.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back from your great experience, but bring the fragrance of it with you.

Sit down like a buddha for a few seconds...

collecting all that has happened in these few moments within you, becoming clearly aware of the road that leads to your innermost core, because you will be going and coming on the same way every day.

This is the way towards your home, where you are the host, not the guest.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Can we celebrate the buddhas?

Yes, Beloved Master!