A Buddhafield in Spring

From:
Osho
Date:
Fri, 14 December 1978 00:00:00 GMT
Book Title:
Osho - Sufis - Unio Mystica, Vol 2
Chapter #:
4
Location:
am in Buddha Hall
Archive Code:
N.A.
Short Title:
N.A.
Audio Available:
N.A.
Video Available:
N.A.
Length:
N.A.

The first question:

Question 1:

BELOVED MASTER,

IN YESTERDAY'S LECTURE YOU SAID THAT PROGRAMS, NAMES AND LABELS AND BECOMING CRYSTALLIZED AND IDENTIFIED ARE HINDRANCES AND LIABILITIES IN THE SEEKER'S SEARCH FOR THE SUPREME SELF. THIS IS SO FOR ME. I DON'T WANT A LABEL. I WANT TO BE VAST, UNLIMITED. I DON'T WANT TO BE CRYSTALLIZED. I WANT TO FLOW LIKE A MOUNTAIN STREAM. TO BECOME ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE ORGANIZATION AROUND YOU AS A DISCIPLE, ONE MUST ACCEPT A PROGRAM WHICH IN PART CONSISTS OF WEARING THE MALA AND ORANGE CLOTHES AND HAVING YOUR NAME CHANGED WHICH SEEM TO FUNCTION AS BADGES OR LABELS IDENTIFYING ONE AS A SANNYASIN.

PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT A NEO-SANNYASIN IS AND WHAT, IF ANYTHING, IT REQUIRES TO BE ONE. THIS IS IMPORTANT TO ME BECAUSE YOU ARE A LIGHT IN THE DARK FOR ME, BUT THE ONLY WAY TO GET CLOSE TO YOU, TO TALK TO YOU, IS TO BECOME A SANNYASIN WHICH SEEMS TO INVOLVE CARRYING SOME EXTRA BAGS BEYOND THE SIMPLE WISH TO STAND IN YOUR GUIDING LIGHT.

Roland Seeman, sannyas is not a program at all: it is a process of de-programming. But because you are programmed already, you will have to accept the process of de-programming.

You say you don't want to get identified with a name - then who is this Roland Seeman? You say you don't want to become a label, but you are one. The question is not of becoming a label, a name - you already are one. It is as if a hypnotized person says, "I don't want to be hypnotized." Neo-sannyas is a process of de-hypnosis: the person who is already hypnotized needs to be de-hypnotized - if he says this again is a kind of hypnosis, then he is going to remain hypnotized forever.

The society hypnotizes you, the church hypnotizes you, your parents hypnotize you. You have passed through that process already; now you will have to go backwards. Neo-sannyas is a process of dropping all that has been forced on you; neo-sannyas is an anti-process.

Mulla Nasruddin has a signboard in front of his office saying that no salesmen are allowed in. If anybody tries to enter he will be prosecuted.

A friend asked him, "Why are you so much against salesmen?"

He said, "They bore me to death."

The friend said, "That's true, that's my experience too. From where did you get this signboard?"

And Mulla laughed and said, "That is the only practical thing I have ever purchased from a salesman."

Sannyas is not a new program. The orange and the mala and the new name are just a gesture from your side that you are ready to drop all the programs, a gesture from your side that you are open to me. It is just a gesture; that's why it is so simple Anybody can take sannyas, with no conditions attached to it, no strings attached to it.

Have you ever heard of any spiritual tradition in the world giving sannyas so easily? Great preparation is needed. If you want to become a Hindu sannyasin you will have to go through a long process of preparation. If you want to become a Christian monk, the same. This is happening for the first time in the whole history of humanity: I am giving you sannyas without asking whether you are worthy of it, ready for it. Why? Because it is not a program.

To be a Catholic monk is a program. It will require that a few conditions be fulfilled before you can enter into it, it will take years of preparation. To be a Jaina monk will take even longer, because it is a process of becoming an ascetic. The more unnatural a program is, the more preparation will be needed.

I give you sannyas with no requirement, no condition, to be fulfilled on your side. It is a simple gesture. And you are only thinking about having a new name, about having to live in orange clothes.

But you don't know: that new name will help you to become disconnected from your whole past.

Those orange clothes will declare that you are no more part of any religion, that you are simply religious - that you are neither Hindu nor Christian nor Mohammedan.

Sannyas is like when you have a thorn in your foot: you need another thorn to take it out. The other thorn is exactly like the first thorn. Sannyas is just a thorn to take out all the thorns that are in your being. You are not getting into some new identity. Sannyas is not serious; it is very playful, it is non-serious.

And I have told you that PROGRAMS, NAMES AND LABELS AND BECOMING CRYSTALLIZED AND IDENTIFIED ARE HINDRANCES AND LIABILITIES IN THE SEEKER'S SEARCH FOR THE SUPREME SELF.

Yes, I repeat it again. But you will still have a name: don't get identified with it. I have not told you not to have any names - or have I? Without names it will be impossible to exist. They have some purpose to fulfill. Without names, without addresses, it will be impossible to exist where so many people are around you. You need a certain name; it is utilitarian, it has no ultimate truth about it.

When you start thinking that your name has something ultimate about it, then you have become crystallized, and identified with it.

I have said don't get identified with your name, and don't get identified with any label that you have to use in life. And you will have to use many labels. I am not against life. If you drop all labels and all names, you will have to go back to a very primitive state - to live in a cave in the Himalayas. There you will not need any name, because no postman will ever come to deliver your post, nobody will ever call you, nobody will ever address you. But that will be a kind of suicide. I am not teaching you any suicide. I am against renouncing the world.

I would like you to live in the world, to live more totally, to live more intensely. But then labels and names will be needed. Then what has to be done? Don't get identified with them, that's all.

And if you have carried a name for forty years it is good to change it, because with the new it will be easier not to get identified. With the old, forty years' association has made it very crystallized; it has entered deep into your sleep and your dreams too. The new name will be just on the surface. Now, don't do the same with the new name as you have done with the old one.

And the organization that exists around me is not really an organization but a device - a device which creates a certain space. You may not be able to see it right now, unless you enter the space.

Those who have entered, they know that the organization is there between me and the world, and it has some function to fulfill.

Roland Seeman, if there were no organization here, you would never be able to sit silently for even two minutes with me. There would be thousands and thousands of people always clamoring around me; no work would be possible. I lived that way for many years. It became impossible to work on people, because there was no possibility of any communion. Crowds were always there. Even when I was asleep in my room, people were sitting around; I was eating, and people were sitting around.

There was a continuous crowd. Nobody was able to ask any personal question, no intimacy was possible.

This organization has been created, not to be an organization but just to be there so the whole world does not start impinging upon me, and I can remain available to real, authentic seekers.

Now you are sitting in silence here with me, thanks to the so-called organization. Otherwise, it was impossible. It used to happen: thousands of people were listening to me; I was traveling around the country. A gathering of fifty thousand people would be there in the cities. And on one side people who were against me shouting, and people who were for me would also be shouting - and I was speaking! And the police standing there continuously, so that those people who were for and against didn't start clashing.

It was almost impossible to work; that's why I stopped traveling. Now I don't go anywhere. Those who are really interested in truth will have to come to me. And the organization is just a device to screen people. If you are really a seeker, this is nothing - to wear orange, to become a sannyasin.

If you can't pay even this much price for it, then you are not a real seeker - maybe curious.

And to be with a master needs a kind of participation with the master. That is the only way to be in communion. It is not only a question of talking to me: it is a question of sharing my being. You will have to give me an indication that you will remain open, that you will not be defensive.

Your question, Seeman, is nothing but a defence. You want to have all the opportunities that are given to those who have surrendered in trust, yet you don't want to surrender and you don't want to participate. You want all the benefits without paying for them in any way.

You say: IN YESTERDAY'S LECTURE YOU SAID THAT PROGRAMS, NAMES AND LABELS AND BECOMING CRYSTALLIZED AND IDENTIFIED ARE HINDRANCES AND LIABILITIES...

Yes, they are. So, when you take sannyas, if you ever take it, don't become identified with the name:

think of it as a utility. And don't become identified with the orange clothes: think of them as a gesture.

And you say: THIS IS SO FOR ME.

This is not so for you. If it was so, truth would have already happened to you. Then what is hindering the truth? If you have dropped all labels, all programs, all names, all labels - if you are not identified with anything - then what is hindering the truth from happening? In fact you are being very clever and cunning. You are identified with your name, you are identified with the programs, you are identified with your past and all the conditionings that the past has given to you. But listening to me, this idea felt very good, comfortable - so you need not change anything, you can simply say: THIS IS SO FOR ME. If this is so for you, why are you here in the first place?

You say: I DON'T WANT A LABEL.

Who is this 'I' who does not want a label? It itself is a label - and the deepest label!

You say: I WANT TO BE VAST, UNLIMITED.

Who is this 'I' who wants to be vast and unlimited? This is the greatest ego trip! You can never become vast and unlimited. When you have disappeared, there is vastness, there is unlimitedness - but it will not belong to you, remember. You will not be able to claim, "I am vast." If you are there, no vastness is possible. The 'I' is bound to remain limited. The idea of the ego can never be unlimited; the idea of the ego keeps you separate from the infinity of existence.

You say: I WANT TO BE VAST, UNLIMITED.

Your ego wants to go on the trip of being infinite and vast. Sannyas simply means that you drop your ego trips. You say, "I don't want to be anybody, I don't want to be anybody in particular, I don't want to have any goal." The goal of infinity, the goal of vastness, are all in the future. And whenever there is a goal, the ego is strengthened.

The ego exists through goals; what name you give to the goal does not matter. You can call it money, you can call it power, you can call it prestige, or you can now call it infinity, vastness, God - it is the same ego trip. Now it has become even more subtle and more poisonous, because the more subtle the ego is, the more dangerous it is.

You are afraid, but trying to cover up your fear philosophically. This is what goes on continuously: I say one thing, you understand another. You understand according to yourself, you immediately start manipulating, distorting what you hear.

That's why communication between light and darkness is so difficult. Between those who know and those who don't know it is so impossible. You immediately jumped upon the idea, and you made a beautiful weapon out of it to protect yourself.

See the point. Sannyas means dropping all goals, sannyas means being happy as you are. Sannyas means living life in utter ordinariness. What nonsense you are talking about - becoming vast and infinite! Living life in its pure ordinariness is sannyas. And then one day it happens: suddenly boundaries disappear. But they disappear only for those people who are ready to live in an ordinary way - eating when hungry, sleeping when feeling sleepy; just living the ordinary life - chopping wood, carrying water from the well, with no pretensions, with no trips in the future, worldly or otherworldly; just living moment to moment, with no desire to proclaim oneself.

You must have great desire to proclaim yourself:

I WANT TO BE VAST, UNLIMITED.

You can never be vast, you can never be unlimited. you are the barrier! Now the disease wants to be healthy. The disease cannot be healthy: the disease has to go. When there is no disease left, health wells up.

You ask: WHAT IS NEO-SANNYAS?

It is creating a space in which melting becomes possible, creating a space where you see many many people melting, dissolving, and you see the beauty arising in them, and you see their benediction, and you see something mysterious surrounding them.

That triggers a process in you. Sannyas cannot cause God to happen in you. Sannyas does not believe in the cause-effect relationship; sannyas is a kind of synchronicity where many many people are flowering, and a great energy is released in you. It is not caused by others; it is simply triggered.

Somebody is singing a song, and suddenly a song arises in your heart and your lips start moving.

It has not been caused, there is no inevitability in it. It is not the effect of somebody's singing, it is parallel to it. It is provoked, not caused; you have started responding.

And you know it happens, in ordinary life also it happens. Somebody comes who is very happy, laughing, jubilant; you were sitting in a kind of sadness, but suddenly seeing this person, his laughter, his bubbling energy, your sadness disappears. You start laughing. You have forgotten completely your misery, your agony, your problems, your worries. For a moment the other person has called up something from deep in you, just by his presence. He is a catalytic agent. So is the master.

And when there is an energy-field, a Buddhafield, when there are so many disciples around a Master, you are in garden in the time of spring. Thousands of trees blooming - suddenly your seed gathers courage: your seed starts feeling the potential, your seed is ready to risk. That's what sannyas is.

If you have any courage, if you are really a seeker of truth, then take the jump into the unknown.

It is not a conditioning; it is an anti-program, it is de-conditioning. It is not hypnosis, it is de-hypnosis.

It is not a program, it is a de-programming.

The second question:

Question 2:

WHAT IS LOVE?

It depends. There are as many loves as there are people. Love is a hierarchy, from the lowest rung to the highest, from sex to superconsciousness. There are many many layers, many planes of love.

It all depends on you. If you are existing on the lowest rung, you will have a totally different idea of love than the person who is existing on the highest rung.

Adolf Hitler will have one idea of love, Gautam Buddha another; and they will be diametrically opposite, because they are at two extremes.

At the lowest, love is a kind of politics, power politics. Wherever love is contaminated by the idea of domination, it is politics. Whether you call it politics or not is not the question, it is political.

And millions of people never know anything about love except this politics - the politics that exists between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. It is politics, the whole thing is political:

you want to dominate the other, you enjoy domination.

And love is nothing but politics sugar-coated, a bitter pill sugar-coated. You talk about love but the deep desire is to exploit the other. And I am not saying that you are doing it deliberately or consciously - you are not that conscious yet. You cannot do it deliberately; it is n unconscious mechanism.

Hence so much possessiveness and so much jealousy become a part, an intrinsic part, of your love.

That's why love creates more misery than joy. Ninety-nine percent of it is bitter; there is only that one percent of sugar that you have coated on top of it. And sooner or later that sugar disappears.

When you are in the beginning of a love affair, those honeymoon days, you taste something sweet.

Soon that sugar wears off, and the realities start appearing in stark nakedness and the whole thing becomes ugly.

Millions of people have decided not to love human beings any more. It is better to love a dog, a cat, a parrot; it is better to love a car - because you can dominate them well, and the other never tires to dominate you. It is simple; it is not as complex as it is going to be with human beings.

At a cocktail party the hostess couldn't help overhearing the conversation of a suave gentleman.

"Oh, I adore her. I worship her," declared the gentleman.

"I would too if she were mine," agreed his friend.

"The way she walks and swishes. Her beautiful big brown eyes, her head so proud and erect..."

"You're very fortunate," commented his friend.

"I would too if she were mine," agreed his friend.

"The way she walks and swishes. Her beautiful big brown eyes, her head so proud and erect..."

"You're very fortunate," commented his friend.

"And do you know what really thrills me? The way she nibbles my ear."

"Sir," the hostess interjected. "I couldn't help listening to those affectionate words. In this day of numerous divorces I admire a man who so passionately loves his wife."

"My wife?" said the gentleman, surprised. "No - my champion race horse!"

People are falling in love with horses, dogs, animals, machines, things. Why? Because to be in love with human beings has become an utter hell, a continuous conflict - nagging, always at each other's throats.

This is the lowest form of love. Nothing is wrong with it if you can use it as a stepping-stone, if you can use it as a meditation. If you can watch it, if you try to understand it, in that very understanding you will reach another rung, you will start moving upwards.

Only at the highest peak, when love is not a relationship any more, when love becomes a state of your being, the lotus opens totally and great perfume is released - but only at the highest peak. At its lowest, love is just a political relationship. At its highest, love is a religious state of consciousness.

I love you too, Buddha loves, Jesus loves, but their love demands nothing in return. Their love is given for the sheer joy of giving it; it is not a bargain. Hence the radiant beauty of it, hence the transcendental beauty of it. It surpasses all the joys that you have known.

When I talk about love, I am talking about love as a state. It is unaddressed: you don't love this person or that person, you simply love. You are love. Rather than saying that you love somebody, it will be better to say you are love. So whosoever is capable of partaking, can partake. Whosoever is capable of drinking out of your infinite sources of being, you are available - you are available unconditionally.

That is possible only if love becomes more and more meditative.

'Medicine' and 'meditation' come from the same root. Love as you know it is a kind of disease:

it needs the medicine of meditation. If it passes through meditation, it is purified. And the more purified it is, the more ecstatic.

Nancy was having coffee with Helen.

Nancy asked, "How do you know your husband loves you?"

"He takes out the garbage every morning."

"That's not love. That's good housekeeping."

"My husband gives me all the spending money I need."

"That's not love. That's generosity."

"My husband never looks at other women."

"That's not love. That's poor vision."

"John always opens the door for me."

"That's not love. That's good manners."

"John kisses me even when I've eaten garlic and I have curlers in my hair."

"Now, that's love."

Everybody has their own idea of love. And only when you come to the state where all ideas about love have disappeared, where love is no more an idea but simply your being, then only will you know its freedom. Then love is God. Then love is the ultimate truth.

Let your love move through the process of meditation. Watch it: watch the cunning ways of your mind, watch your power-politics. And nothing else except continuous watching and observing is going to help. When you say something to your woman or your man, look at it: what is the unconscious motive? Why are you saying it? Is there some motive? Then what is it? Be conscious of that motive, bring it to consciousness - because this is one of the secret keys for transforming your life: anything that becomes conscious disappears.

Your motives remain unconscious, that's why you remain in their grip. Make them conscious, bring them to light, and they will disappear. It is as if you pull up a tree and bring the roots to the sunlight:

they will die, they can exist only in the darkness of the soil. Your motives also exist only in the darkness of your unconsciousness. So the only way to transform your love is to bring all the motivations from the unconscious into the conscious. Slowly slowly, those motives will die.

And when love is unmotivated, then love is the greatest thing that can ever happen to anybody. Then love is something of the ultimate, of the beyond.

That is the meaning when Jesus says, "God is love." I say to you: Love is God. God can be forgotten, but don't forget love - because it is the purification of love that will bring you to God. If you forget about God completely, nothing is lost. But don't forget love, because love is the bridge. Love is the process of alchemical change in your consciousness.

The third question:

Question 3:

I WAS BROUGHT UP WITH THE TWISTED IDEAL THAT RAGE AGAINST EXISTENCE WAS MAN'S DIGNITY. ALL MY LIFE I HAVE BEEN FIGHTING, BUT FOUND NO DIGNITY - ONLY PAIN AND SUFFERING. LIFE IS LIFE - UNAFFECTED. FROM WHERE THIS STUPID IDEAL?

I WANT TO HOLD ON TO SOMETHING, ANYTHING, EVEN THE ANGER FOR BELIEVING LIES, LIES AND MORE LIES. I WANTED THEM TO BE TRUE. HOW CAN I BE SO STUPID?

Weechee, everybody is brought up with the ideal of raging against existence, because that is the only way to create the ego - to fight against existence. Only through fighting with existence is the ego created - because in fighting you become separate, in fighting you start swimming upstream.

Then the stream and you are enemies: you have to conquer the stream and any idea of conquering is very fundamental in creating egoing.

You have been brought up with the idea of fighting. Fight with nature, fight with people, compete, because that is the only way to survive. And only the fittest survive - so become a more and more competent fighter. The society wants to create the ego in you. Once the ego is created in you, you are a miserable person, false, phoney, and you can be exploited.

Then the society can exploit you, your parents can exploit you, the priests can exploit you. Then everybody is capable of exploiting you.

If you really want to get rid of the ego - and to get rid of the ego is the only freedom there is - then you will have to drop this stupid idea of constantly raging against nature, against existence. That is not man's dignity, that is man's original sin. That is man's condemnation; it is a calamity, a curse.

Man becomes dignified only when man is not. When man Man becomes dignified only when man is not. When man disappears as man, and allows the existence to flow through him, then there is dignity, exquisity, beauty, grace, splendor. When you are not, there is splendor. If you stop fighting you will disappear; automatically you will disappear.

And because you don't want to disappear, you go on following the stupid idea that has been given to you. Then your whole life is nothing but constant warfare - and how can you be happy and blissful and celebrating when each moment is a fight? And you are fighting against so many: really the whole world is your enemy, and you are so alone. There is fear - bound to be - and trembling and anguish, because the whole thing seems to be so impossible.

How can you conquer this existence? It was there before you ever were, it will be there when you are gone. How can you win against this? And you are such a tiny part of it. The whole idea is absurd. A wave trying to win over the ocean, your hand trying to win over the whole body: the whole idea is absurd.

Relax, be in a let-go. Live with nature as an intrinsic part of it. Cooperate rather than conflict.

The very idea of survival of the fittest is utterly wrong. Survival in itself is not a value either. It is not a question of how long to survive; it is a question of how to live totally, deeply, intensely, passionately.

Then even a single moment of total life is more valuable than a long long life of a hundred years.

A single moment of passionate love, of passionate living, of passionate stillness, is more valuable than the whole of eternity. It is not a question of survival, it is really a question of how to live this moment. The idea of survival makes tomorrow more important than today, the idea of survival makes it easier for you to sacrifice today for tomorrow. And tomorrow never comes: whenever it comes, it is today. And your mind is programmed to sacrifice today for tomorrow, so you go on sacrificing your whole life.

Parents sacrifice their lives for their children. The children again in their turn will sacrifice their lives for their children, and so on and so forth. And nobody will ever live.

I am against the very idea of sacrifice. Never sacrifice! Live this moment; live it totally, intensely, passionately. And then a miracle happens: if parents have lived their life beautifully, if they are fulfilled, their very fulfillment creates the space for their children to live, to live in the right way. And by the right way I don't mean the moral way, by the right way I mean the total way. To live partially is to live wrongly, to live totally is to live rightly.

If children are brought up by parents who have been living their lives afire, aflame, who have been celebrating their moments, these children will learn how to celebrate, how to live joyously, how to live affirmatively, how to live saying yes to existence. A deep yes will arise in their hearts: it will be triggered by their parents. And the parents were not sacrificing, not at all, and so the children will not learn the suicidal idea of sacrifice.

If parents are sacrificing for their children, then sooner or later, when the parents are old, they will demand sacrifice from the children. They will say, "We sacrificed so much for you, now you sacrifice for us."

The country demands sacrifice from the people who live in it, the church demands sacrifice, everybody demands sacrifice. Just look around you: they all are standing around you, asking for sacrifice. And they teach you that to sacrifice is moral.

To sacrifice is immoral! Whether you sacrifice for the country or for the religion or for the children, it is immoral. It is immoral because it does not allow you to live your life. You become sad, you become frustrated, and then in return you start coercing others to sacrifice for you. Then the whole life of the whole world becomes simply crippled and paralyzed.

A mother was teaching her small child the great truths of life and religion. She was a Catholic; she told her small son, "God has created you to serve others."

The little boy pondered over it, and he said, "Okay, if you say so. But then why did he create the others?" To serve me? This looks so absurd, that I am created to serve somebody else, and somebody else is created to serve me; it looks so illogical. Why should I not serve myself, and he can serve himself?" That seems simply logical, mathematical.

I teach you a kind of self-love. You are not created to sacrifice yourself for somebody else, you are not created to serve others. You have been taught this because those others want you to serve them, to sacrifice. And because they want you to serve them, they have to serve you; because they want you to sacrifice yourself for them, they have to sacrifice themselves for you. So we are at each other's throats continuously, demanding sacrifice.

The whole idea has to be dropped. You are created to live and celebrate, just as others are being created to live and celebrate. God is not a murderer; he demands no sacrifice from you. He demands that you bloom and flower.

Only when you have flowered will you be accepted. And the way to flower is the way of acceptance.

Don't resist, don't rage against existence: relax, surrender, go with the flow.

Weechee - and this truth you have learned from your own life - you say: ALL MY LIFE I HAVE BEEN FIGHTING, BUT FOUND NO DIGNITY - ONLY PAIN AND SUFFERING.

Now it is time: if you have understood it, drop it! Drop it, immediately - don't carry it even a single moment any more because who knows? The next moment may never come. Drop it this very moment!

Always see that whatsoever you have understood has to immediately become your life. Don't postpone it.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

I WANT TO BECOME A SANNYASIN BUT MY HUSBAND IS STUBBORNLY AGAINST IT. I WONDER WHAT MAY BE THE CAUSE OF HIS ANTAGONISM.

Denise felt very self-conscious about her face. "I'm ugly," she said to herself as she looked into the mirror. "My nose is crooked, my chin is weak, my ears stick out, and I have bags under my eyes."

In desperation she went to a plastic surgeon and had a face lift. Her chin was strengthened, her nose remodeled, her ears adjusted, and the bags under her eyes removed.

After months of suffering, the ordeal was finally over. She was now able to entertain friends, but she still sulked about herself.

One day her friend Joan looked at her in amazement. "I don't know why you look so sad. You now have the face of a movie star."

"I know," sobbed Denise. "But now my new face doesn't go along with my old body."

That is the fear. If a woman wants to take sannyas the husband is afraid, if the husband wants to take sannyas the wife is afraid - because something new is entering. If you become a sannyasin, that means the relationship between you and your husband cannot be the same. Something new has entered; your husband will have to readjust.

He may have been a good husband to a non-sannyasin wife, he may not go well with a sannyasin wife: a maladjustment is feared.

It always happens; it is not new to you. This is happening almost every day. Any couple feels disturbed, because something new entering will be a disturbance; it will create chaos. You will have to start from ABC again. Somehow you have managed, somehow you have come to an adjustment - and remember, it is always an adjustment. You have come to a compromise, you have learnt how to live with the woman. And now she wants to become a sannyasin. You don't know what she is going to be like after she becomes a sannyasin, how she will behave. She will become unpredictable.

And there is danger, because sannyas means going through a revolution. She has lived with you:

she may not be conscious that she has never loved you. There may have been other motives - maybe you were rich and she wanted to live a secure life. Now she becomes a sannyasin: sooner or later she will discover - because this sannyas is a constant adventure into one's own being, an exploration - sooner or later she will become aware that she has never loved you, she loved your money. And she may see that because of this she has missed the opportunity of love.

Sannyas may give her courage. It is bound to give courage. She may drop out of your life, seeing that her motive was wrong, seeing that she has been deceiving herself and you - although unknowingly, not deliberately, but once she understands and sees it, who knows what is going to happen?

She has lived with you; she may have become bored by now, but she cannot gather courage to get out of the boredom. The relationship may have gone stale. Sannyas is bound to make her aware not to live in a stale relationship.

This sannyas is not an ordinary religious thing like you have known in the past. This sannyas is really an exploration of your inner depths. It is to live according to your understandings, and to live authentically. If sannyas is anything it is the courage to live sincerely.

There is danger: she may leave you, she may fall in love with somebody else - she may have been repressing that idea up to now.

My sannyas is not repressive. It wants you to live naturally, a life of uninhibited joy, a life which knows nothing of repression. My sannyas is expressive, not repressive.

If you were becoming a Christian, going to the church, there would have been no trouble - because the church would make you even more repressed, the church would make you more of a slave. Your husband would have been happy; he might even have gone with you to church sometimes to support you. The church supports the status quo, the church supports things as they are. The church is anti-revolutionary - all churches, Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan.

I am not a church, I am not for the established, adjusted life. I am for real life: eve if it brings chaos, welcome it. Hence the fear.

And couples, slowly slowly, just become indifferent to each other. Seeing that there is no possibility of change, they lapse into a kind of coma. Their relationship is not alive, is not aware, is not radiant, all romance is dead.

I bring romance into your life again, because I can't conceive that a life can ever really be life if it is without romance. Either you will fall in love with your husband for the first time, or you may fall in love with your husband AGAIN, or you may fall in love with somebody else. Or you may become so alert that you may not fall in love with anybody else again. You may simply be able to live alone, you may be able to enjoy the beauty of aloneness. Nobody knows; my sannyasins are unpredictable and that is the trouble.

Familiarity breeds contempt, but people go on dragging.

Marge often burned with anger because her husband Elmer seemed to ignore her.

"How do you like my new hat?" asked Marge proudly.

"Uh huh... It's all right."

"Don't you think my new dress is cute?"

"It'll do."

"Do you think the white shoes will go with it?"

"Oh, I guess so."

"Do you think the shell necklace clashes with the blouse?"

"It's okay."

"Why don't you put down the newspaper, dear?" she hissed through clenched teeth.

"In a few minutes"

"Do you mind if I season your supper tonight with arsenic?"

"Whatever you wish, dear."

Sooner or later, wives and husbands lose all possibility of communication. They live together, but not in togetherness. They become dull, insensitive. Hence the fear. The fear is that you will become alive again. And then who knows what is going to happen?

Sadie and George were having dinner when suddenly the lights went out.

"A power failure," moaned George.

"What'll we do?" groaned Sadie.

"I wonder if a car ran into a power line?" pondered George.

"Who cares how it happened?" declared Sadie. "What'll we do?"

"I know," suggested George. "But don't be alarmed. We'll light some candles."

"Splendid," agreed Sadie. "We have a few in the cupboard."

So they continued to eat by candlelight.

"Isn't this romantic?" cooed Sadie.

"Yes," agreed George. "It's a shame we're married."

Married people have completely forgotten what romance is. A real marriage will go on growing in romance. But our whole life is unreal, hence our marriages are unreal. Because our individualities are not there, we are phoney, then whatsoever we do with those phoney personalities becomes doubly phoney.

And whenever there is a possibility of coming across some truth, fear arises. The wife wants to become a sannyasin: the husband becomes stubbornly antagonistic. The husband wants to become a sannyasin: the wife becomes absolutely antagonistic.

The fear is that something new is there and it may disturb the arrangement. And people want to live in security, even if security means death. People want to live in comfort, even if comfort simply means nothing but dragging your life. Security, comfort, convenience, have become ultimate values.

In a society which thinks of security as a value, comfort as a value, convenience as a value, everybody remains afraid, nobody wants anything to change. Everybody is for the status quo: let things remain as they are, don't touch them.

And sannyas is really a drastic step.

Your husband is simply representing all the husbands of the world. It is just fear - have compassion on him. Help him to meditate, help him to go through a few therapy groups. Help him, don't argue.

And don't be in a hurry to take sannyas - wait a little. Just let him come closer to me, and then he may want to take sannyas and you may become afraid. Then you will understand what was happening to him.

We are living such an ugly life - and for no reason at all, except that we have been brought up in that way.

It will be good if you both become sannyasins; but be a little patient, don't frighten him too much. If you insist too much on taking sannyas, in the same proportion he will become antagonistic. Take things more relaxedly, take things easy. If you really want to become a sannyasin, it is going to happen. But help him also - that poor man also needs a revolution in his life.

If it was a question from a husband, my answer would have been different. Because it is a question from a wife, my answer is different. If the husband had asked to take sannyas I would have told him, "Take it immediately" - because there is no way to persuade a woman, there is no way to argue with a woman. Only if you take sannyas may she be able to understand, otherwise not.

And I would have said also, if the question had been from a husband, "Take it immediately. For the first time in your life, do something you want to do. Don't be henpecked: do it! And your woman will respect you because you have done it. She will deep down feel very happy that she has got a real man. Otherwise, wives never think that their husbands have any integrity."

But because the question is from a wife... I trust women very much: I know she will take sannyas, there is no fear about it. Today or tomorrow - she can wait, she will take it. This is my experience:

when a woman decides, she decides. The husband can hesitate; tomorrow he may not be able to take it at all. So I cannot tell him to wait. The husband is always wavering. But once a woman has decided, she has decided - because the husband decides from the intellect, and the woman decides from the heart. And the quality of the decision is totally different.

When the woman decides, she is ready to go to any end. She can sacrifice her life too if she decides for something. She knows how to commit herself through the heart, she knows how to love. Her decision is not through intellectual conviction, hence it cannot be shaken. Her decision is more intuitive; it is total, it is absolute, because intuition is never divided, it is non-dual. And when you decide something through the intellect, it is always a parliamentary decision. Maybe the major part of your mind was saying, "Go ahead," - but today it may not be the major part; a few members may have crossed the floor. It is always a majority decision, and the minority is always there against it.

A woman decides through the heart. It is not a parliamentary decision, it is total. It is ultimate in a sense: she can wait for years, and still the decision will be there.

That's why women are very patient in their love affairs; they can wait. I know women who have waited for years and years. But the man is very indecisive: today he is in love, tomorrow love disappears. It was not love, it was a thought of love.

To you I say wait. And I know you can also seduce your husband into sannyas - bring him with you!

When I have the opportunity of two persons becoming sannyasins, I can wait.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

BELOVED MASTER,

KINDLY LET ME KNOW WHETHER THERE IS A LAW IN INDIA PROHIBITING INDIAN CITIZENS TO INHABIT, DWELL OR LIVE IN A HOUSE OR HOUSES OR AN ASHRAM IN ANY PART OF INDIA, TO STUDY AND LEAD A BLISSFUL HUMAN LIFE FOR THE GROWTH OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. IF YES, THEN WHAT IS INDEPENDENCE? IF NO, THEN WHY DON'T WE START ESTABLISHING A VILLAGE FOR NEO-SANNYASINS, "RAJNEESHDHAM," BEYOND MUNICIPAL JURISDICTION?

Dharma Sharan Das, there is no law prohibiting us from establishing a commune. But the people who are in power always think they are beyond law. There is no law that goes against establishing a commune, an ashram. But the people who are in power can always find ways to delay it - that's what they are doing.

In his books, TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT, Graham Greene tells the story of a retired income-tax official, Mr Pottifer, who was now set up as an income-tax consultant, and who delighted in advising his clients how they could outwit the income-tax laws by driving the income-tax bureau crazy.

"He was a great believer in delaying tactics. 'Never answer all their questions,' he would say. 'Make them write again. And be ambiguous. You can always decide what you mean later according to circumstances. The bigger the file, the bigger the work. Personnel frequently change. A newcomer has to start looking at the file from the beginning. Office space is limited. In the end it's easier for them to give in.' Sometimes if the inspector was pressing very hard, he told me that it was time to fling in a reference to a nonexisting letter. He would write sharply, 'You seem to have paid no attention to my letter of April 6, 1963.' A whole month might pass before the inspector admitted he could find no trace of it. Mr Pottifer would send in a carbon copy of the letter containing a reference which again the inspector would be unable to trace. If he was a newcomer to the district, of course he blamed his predecessor; otherwise, after a few years of Mr Pottifer, he was quite liable to have a nervous breakdown."

That is what is being done. Mr Morarji Desai has been a deputy collector: he still functions like a deputy collector. That's what is being done with us - just delaying tactics. They go on asking about this, about that, and there is no end to it.

For example, the Maharajah of Kutch donated four hundred acres of land in Kutch. It is desert land, of no use; nothing can be cultivated on it. That's why nobody has ever been interested in purchasing it, that's why the Maharajah easily donated it to us.

Then the delaying started - it is almost one and a half years ago now. First they said they had to study the case, because the land is too close to Pakistan: in times of war they might need it. In times of war - when that war is going to happen, nobody knows - but in times of war they might need the land.

Somehow we convinced them that it was not likely. Then they started writing letters saying that because there would be so many foreigners and it is on the boundary of the country, it was a question of safety and security: spies might enter.

We convinced them. Then they started telling us that just close by it - not very close, thirty miles away - there is an army camp. And they didn't want us to be so close to the army camp.

Now there is no law, but you can always find these things. So we dropped that idea. Still it is continuing, but we dropped the idea because this seemed to be too much of a hassle.

So we purchased seven hundred and fifty acres of land, just close to Poona - fifteen miles away.

Now problems have started - delaying tactics.

First they asked that we should produce a certificate from the medical board as to whether the climate is such that people can live there. Just fifteen miles from Poona! And just beside the land, two miles away, there are villages, and people are living there. Just close to the land, two hundred people are living.

So we produced a certificate. That took two or three months - because the board consists of six members and unless those six members meet and agree... So they delayed and delayed; finally it happened. Then they asked for another medical certificate to say whether the water and the land are such that people can live there.

There is no law against it, but these are tricks and strategies. They can't say no, they don't want to say yes.

We inquired. All the authorities said that this has never happened before. Nobody ever asks about the water and the land and the climate - but if they are asking then we have to fulfill their requirements. So the paper work goes on and on.

Now we have managed that. The land is barren, no cultivation has ever been done on it. But in their files it is mentioned as agricultural land. Now they have created some new trouble: we cannot construct on agricultural land; first we have to produce a certificate stating that it is non-agricultural land. Nobody has ever done any agriculture there; we took the officers to see, it is barren land, anybody can come and see - rocky, barren, absolutely useless. But they say that because in the file...

So first we have to apply to transfer the land from agricultural to non-agricultural. That is taking time; now they are delaying that. This could be done easily, within a single day - that is how it is done.

Four months have passed: all the officials have been ordered to delay as long as they can. And when they cannot delay any more and it becomes a legal problem over which we could go to court - "Now you are delaying us too much" - then that officer simply sends the file to a higher official.

He says, "Because it is such a complicated phenomenon and a political issue, and your master is a controversial man; and I am such a small official, I cannot decide it. Go higher."

Now the whole process starts again with the higher official. It was to be done by the Tahsildar, the lowest. It moved to the S.D.O. Now the S.D.O. has taken his time; now his time is finished and it has moved to the collector. And the people in the collector's office say that it is going to move to the commissioner. And the commissioner is very friendly, he says it is beyond his power to do it: "You will have to ask the revenue minister of Maharashtra."

Now the revenue minister says, "Your master is so controversial that I cannot take the risk of deciding anything, for or against, because there will be political repercussions from it. And I don't want to lose my chair, so you had better decide with the chief minister." And he said, "Even the chief minister cannot decide on his own; he will have to ask the whole cabinet."

And my feeling is that they will say, "This cannot be decided by the Maharashtra government, it has to be decided by the central government in Delhi."

And I am not only a nationally controversial figure, I am an internationally controversial figure. So my fear is that this will have to be decided by U.N.O.! So now as to when it will be decided, nothing can be said. These are delaying tactics and strategies. If they say no they can be caught immediately, because it is illegal to say no. But they don't say no.

Dharma Sharan Das, I can understand your anxiety, your problem. That is the anxiety of every sannyasin. It is becoming so difficult here, the space is so small. And thousands and thousands more are going to come: I have given the invitation to them, they are on the way.

Even this land we are sitting on: we have been here for five hears, and have still not yet legalized it. We are already here, they cannot throw us out, but they have not legalized it. We don't have the papers with us, the papers are with the government. They go on saying, "We are going to do it, we are going to do it" - but it never happens.

This is how Morarji Desai is behaving, in a fascist way - but very legally; you cannot find any legal flaw. This is a very cowardly way. If you are against me, that's okay. I am ready to get into any discussion with you, I am ready to argue with you. If he needs a public debate, it can be a public debate. If he needs me to answer, I can come to the parliament and answer the parliament, I will really enjoy it!

But very cowardly ways, cunning ways... he remains a deputy collector. He is not worthy to be a prime minister to such a big country. His mind is that of a deputy collector - a very small mind. I don't call him Morarji-bhai Desai, I call him Mediocre-ji-bhai Desai.

My challenge is open. And even if he does not agree with me, then too there is no point in obstructing my work. Your agreement is not needed at all. That is the meaning of independence and democracy:

people who cannot agree with each other can coexist. Otherwise what is the difference between a democracy and a dictatorial regime?

I can exist, I have every right to exist, even if Morarji Desai does not agree with me. His agreement is not needed at all - who cares? This is his problem. If he does not agree, so what?

But if because of his personal disagreement he obstructs my work in such cunning and vicarious ways, then he is destroying democracy from the very roots. And then independence is simply a slogan, to a reality.

I have not yet thought of leaving this country. But if this continues and the work becomes impossible, I will have to leave this country. And they should know perfectly well that once I leave this country it will prove to the whole world that this country only claims to be a democracy - it is not. And my leaving the country will not be only a single individual leaving: thousands will leave with me. That will show the whole world that the Indian claim of being the greatest democracy in the world is just hocus pocus.

If I decide any day to leave this country - which they are forcing me to decide - that will be a calamity.

Because my millions of sannyasins all around the world will become the living proof that this country is not independent, and this country is not democratic either.

Thirty years ago, when India became independent, Winston Churchill said in the British parliament:

"What we are doing is not right. Although it is every human being's birthright to be free, to give freedom to India is not right, because the time is not ripe. And within thirty years it will fall a victim to rogues, scoundrels and thugs."

And I wonder - thirty years have passed: it seems Churchill's prophecy has come true.

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"If I'm sorry for anything, it is for not tearing the whole camp
down. No one (in the Israeli army) expressed any reservations
against doing it. I found joy with every house that came down.
I have no mercy, I say if a man has done nothing, don't touch him.

A man who has done something, hang him, as far as I am concerned.

Even a pregnant woman shoot her without mercy, if she has a
terrorist behind her. This is the way I thought in Jenin."

-- bulldozer operator at the Palestinian camp at Jenin, reported
   in Yedioth Ahronoth, 2002-05-31)