To Enjoy Life Is Bliss

The first question:

PREM GAYAN,

THE WHOLE PROBLEM is rooted in the desire of attaining a permanent meaning for life. Life is not a problem at all, but we expect things which are against the fundamental law of life and then we are in trouble. Life is constantly changing and it is good that it is constantly changing; that's its beauty, its splendor. If it were permanent, static, it would be not life but death and it would be utterly boring. It would stink because it would be stagnant. And the mind is constantly asking for something permanent. The mind is the desire for the permanent, and life is impermanence.

Hence if you really want to be blissful you have to live the impermanent life as it is, without any expectation, without any imposition on your part. Flow with life. It changes - you change with it.

Why bother about a permanent meaning? What will you do with a permanent meaning?

And meaning exists only when something functions as a means to some other end. Life is not a means to some other end, it is an end unto itself, hence really it cannot have any meaning. That does not mean it is meaningless, it simply means it is transcendental to meaning or no-meaning.

Those words are irrelevant.

What is the meaning of a rose flower? And what is the meaning of a sunset? What is the meaning of love? What is the meaning of beauty? There are no meanings because they are not means to anything else. A sunset is simply beautiful just for its own sake; it has no utility, you cannot use it as a commodity. A car has meaning, a machine has meaning, a house has meaning, but what is the meaning of a rose flower? There is no meaning in it, but because there is no meaning in it it has tremendous beauty. A machine, howsoever meaningful, is never beautiful; it can't be - it is a commodity, it is utilitarian; it is not poetry.

Life is poetry, life is a song, life is a dance.

Gayan, your very approach is wrong, that's why you go on missing.

You say: EXCEPT FOR SHORT GLIMPSES, I AM UNABLE TO FIND ANY LASTING MEANING IN IT.

Just meditate over those short glimpses. Those glimpses must have happened when you were not seeking for meaning, when you were relaxed, when you had forgotten all about meaning, when you were not concerned about meaning. Then suddenly there was joy, there was bliss. The moment you start grabbing, clinging to those beautiful glimpses, those moments, the moment your mind says, "Make it permanent. Now this is the thing that I have been always asking for, now don't let it go," you destroy it, you kill it. The glimpse disappears; it remains only a memory and it goes on fading far away. Soon you will not be able even to believe that it had existed. It will happen again only when you have forgotten again the constant desire for meaning, the constant desire for permanency, the constant desire that things should be according to you.

No, that is not the way of a sannyasin, Gayan. A sannyasin has no expectations from existence; he simply flows with the existence without any resistance. The sannyasin allows existence to have its own course; wherever it leads, the sannyasin is ready to go with it. The sannyasin has no destination, no goal as such. And then these glimpses will be coming more and more.

But you have to meditate on these glimpses - when they happen, how they happen, what makes them happen. And you will find a few essential things: you are relaxed when they happen, you are at rest when they happen, you have no desire when they happen, you are not greedy when they happen, you are not thinking of meaning, significance, value when they happen. There is the secret.

Drop all these hindrances forever. Let life exist according to its own harmony; simply be a part in it, just a wave in the ocean. Don't try to dominate the ocean; that very effort is an ego trip.

Meditate over Murphy's maxim:

If you don't care where you are you ain't lost.

And also:

Nothing is ever so bad that it can't get worse.

Rejoice! And why be afraid of the "nowhere"? Everywhere is nowhere. Wherever you are it is nowhere. Existence is infinite, so you will always be in the nowhere. You have to accept it. Buddha calls it tathata - suchness. Such is the case: wherever you are it is nowhere, whoever you are you are a nobody.

Once these truths are accepted, life starts happening in a totally different way, because in this acceptance the ego dies. The ego can exist only through resistance, through fight, through struggle.

That's what you have been doing, Gayan. But it is nothing special about you, that's how the whole German mind is conditioned.

Gayan is a German - one hundred percent German. Once I wanted to choose her as one of my mediums, but I had to drop that idea at least for the time being for the simple reason that the German conditioning is very deep-rooted in her. She could not flow with my energy - unconsciously, she was not aware. She wanted to be a medium, she was immensely happy that I had called her; she was hoping that she would be chosen. She would have been chosen, but there was deep unconscious resistance. Consciously she was totally in my hands, but unconsciously she was trying to give my energy a certain shape, a certain pattern, a certain flow. Hence I thought it better to wait a little longer.

Gayan, you will have to drop your German conditioning. That conditioning is good if you want to become a soldier, but it is not good if you want to become a sannyasin; they are poles apart - they are just the opposite of each other. The sannyasin has to be utterly restful, relaxed, resistanceless - a hollow bamboo - so he can become a flute for the divine lips, so a song can flow through him.

It will happen, Gayan, it is going to happen. If glimpses are happening then there is no problem.

If once in a while a few windows open then doors will also open, and you can escape through those windows into the open sky. But you are too much after becoming perfect. Drop that idea.

Imperfection is perfectly good. Don't try to do the impossible. Just being ordinary is immensely beautiful.

But I can see her problems. The fundamental problem is: she is a German. The second problem:

she has worked as a fashion model so she has the idea of how to be perfectly beautiful. Those things have gone deep into her. She is a perfectionist, so wherever she has been in these two and a half years she has come into conflict with people. Because this place is not for perfectionists, this place is a crazy place - it is absolutely un-German! And the problem is that I have got so many German sannyasins! And I can understand why the German government is so worried, because I am destroying their young people - I am destroying their conditioning as Germans. Once they have been sannyasins, once they have understood the art of being a sannyasin, no Adolf Hitler can ever dominate them; that is impossible.

Perfectionism is a kind of neurosis; it is neurotic - it is a beautiful name for neurosis.

Gayan, drop that idea. Just be ordinary, simple, nobody, and then things will start happening in leaps and bounds.

I am sending her back for a few days to Germany just to see and compare what has happened to her. She will not be able to realize it here; she will be able to realize it only in Germany. There she will be able to see that in these two and half years much water has gone down the Ganges; she is no more the same person. And there she will be able to recognize how people are behaving, how people are being trained to be neurotics. And when she is back I hope she will come with a better understanding, more relaxed, more restful.

I have great hopes about you, Gayan - much is possible. You are just on the verge. If you start accepting things as they are and you drop the idea of how they should be, if you drop the "shoulds"

and "should-nots," then there is not much trouble. Life starts helping you, caring about you. Life is very caring, very loving; we just never allow it. We are always trying to force it to go our way, and that is not possible. Life cannot go our way, we have to go life's way.

That's what I mean when I emphasize again and again the philosophy of let-go. Let-go is my only approach towards life and existence.

The second question:

Helga Szelinsky,

PLEASE DON'T TAKE SANNYAS. Wait. This is not the right time. If it is not really coming from your heart then don't force it upon yourself; it will be something imposed and ugly. Anything imposed becomes ugly, even sannyas. It will be plastic; it will not be real, it will not be alive. There is no need. If it happens spontaneously without any feeling of pressure, only then; otherwise it will create trouble for you, and I am not here to create unnecessary trouble for you. Once you are a sannyasin there are many many necessary troubles, so avoid unnecessary troubles as far as possible because there are too many necessary ones.

And never do anything for wrong reasons - because so many people are taking sannyas, because your friends have taken sannyas, "There must be something in it - why so many people are attracted." These are all wrong reasons.

Murphy says: Nothing is ever done for the right reasons.

He is right in almost ninety-nine point nine percent cases: nothing is ever done for the right reasons.

People go on doing things for wrong reasons and then they complain that their life is miserable; it is bound to be so. They are responsible for it; nobody else is responsible for it.

Do things always for the right reasons. And the right reasons always come from your heart, not from your head.

Murphy also says: No matter where you go, there you are.

So how is it going to help? You may become a sannyasin, Helga, you may wear orange, but there you are underneath the orange clothes, behind a new name. Everything will be old, just the label will be changed. By changing the label you don't go through a revolution, you are not reborn. And unless you are reborn you cannot be a sannyasin.

Wait. This is not the right time. And never be in a hurry about such important matters. It is a question of life and death - in fact far more important than life and death because it can take you beyond life and death. That's the whole alchemy of sannyas: to take you beyond life and death. It is far more important than anything else, so one should not be in a hurry. Don't be impatient.

In these five weeks just be here, meditate, do a few groups, watch sannyasins, then go back home.

Don't create this anxiety in your mind: "To be or not to be..." otherwise your five weeks will be wasted.

You will not be able to participate in anything totally because your constant worry will be: "When am I going to take sannyas?" If you don't take sannyas you will feel you are missing; if you do you will think you have done something which was not coming out of your heart. Either way you will be a loser.

There is a season, a right season, when things happen easily, when you need not do them, when they simply happen; you are only a witness to the fact that they are happening. Just as the snake leaves the old skin one day, slips out of it - it did not make the decision; the time had come. One day the child is born out of the womb; nine months are over. It is not a decision on the child's part that "Now is the time for me to be born." Spring comes, and flowers and flowers... the whole earth rejoices.

Sannyas also happens like that. Then there is beauty, then there is grace, and only then are you a sannyasin. It is not a question of being recruited, it is not some discipline that has to be forced on you, it is not a question of arguing for or against. When it comes from your heart there is no alternative, there is no either/or; it is not philosophy.

Soren Kierkegaard has written one beautiful book; the name of the book is EITHER/OR. And it is not only the name of the book, his whole life can be called an experiment in either/or. In his whole life he was never decisive - always thinking whether to do it or not to do it.

For years a woman waited for him and he was unable to decide whether to marry her or not to marry her. He pondered and pondered, he consulted encyclopaedias, great treatises on marriage and love, took many notes for and against, weighed it this way and that, but could not come to a conclusion. All the arguments came out almost equal. Much could be said for, much could be said against, and it was so equally balanced - how to decide? Tired, the woman married somebody else.

And this was his whole life: about everything he went on pondering and pondering; he never could do anything If death had also been a question to be decided by him he would not have died yet; he would be sitting in Copenhagen and pondering over death. If birth had been a question of a decision on his part he would have never been born; he would have pondered and pondered in the mother's womb, sitting there - to come out or not? His approach, this stupid approach towards life, became so famous that when he used to pass down the streets - only once a month; he had to go to the bank to draw some money.... His father, seeing his son and his inability to decide about everything, had deposited some money in his name because it was absolutely certain he would not be able to do anything in his life. A good offer had come for a professorship; he pondered so long that the university decided to appoint somebody else. So he lived in a very poor way, because the money in the bank was limited - that was his only money, and he had to live his whole life on that money.

Once every month, the first day of the month, he would go to the bank to withdraw a small sum of money and come back home. Even going to the bank he would ponder whether to go this way or that. He would stand at the crossroads for hours-and not just once, it was an every-month affair, and every month he had to decide again and again. His approach became so famous that urchins used to follow him from his house to the bank and from the bank to the house, calling behind him, "Either/Or, Either/Or, Either/Or!" Copenhagen knew him not by his name, Soren Kierkegaard, his name became Either/Or.

Helga, wait. Next time when you come - if I am still here.... Until then, wait. And there is no better time than the present when you want to postpone a thing. And who knows? We may not be made for each other. I am not saying you are not made for me, that I cannot say, but I may not be made for you; that much I can say. I may not deserve you! So leave it aside; the very question has to be put aside.

She has also asked another question: "Osho, when you tell jokes I cannot laugh. I can only listen to serious things." That's enough indication that we don't deserve each other. Certainly I don't deserve you - I take the whole responsibility on myself. Then this place will not fit with you and it will be difficult for me to make the whole lot fit with you and according to you. If you can only listen to serious things... Listen! The world is full of serious things.

This is a place of laughter and love. We don't believe in serious things, we believe in living non- seriously.

The third question:

Gautami,

ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL YOU LOSE. All things being in your favor, you still lose. Win or lose, you lose.

The fourth question:

Muktananda,

THAT'S JUST FAR OUT! Don t do a thing. Please remain as you are. Remember, fools rush in and get the best seats!

The fifth question:

Swami Anand Neeraj,

I THINK YOU ARE turning into a nun - miracles happen! I will have to change your name; just wait a little longer. If you finally decide that it has really happened and it was not just a passing phase, you will be known as Ma Anand Neeraj.

An old man phoned his son-in-law - he had just got married to his daughter - and asked him, "How are things going?"

The son-in-law said, "I am sorry to say, sir, but it seems I am married to a nun."

The old man said, "What do you mean - 'married to a nun?

The young man said, "None in the night, none in the morning."

The old man laughed and he said, "Now I understand. Then tonight you come for dinner to my home and see the Mother Superior."

If, Neeraj, you have turned into a nun, slowly you will grow into a Mother Superior! Don't be worried.

Growth is all that is needed - this is a growth center. Just go on growing. Don't be worried about what you are growing into; growth is the point. If you are growing, all is right.

The sixth question:

Now I always get puzzled with Dutch names. The spelling says "Joke," but Dutch people are strange, they pronounce it as "Yokay" - they destroy the whole beauty of it! Okay, Yokay....

The first question:

How many Women Libbers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Five: one to screw it in and four to consider the implications.

Second:

And how many Buddhists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Two: One to screw it in and one not to screw it in.

Third: And how many Jewish mothers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

None: the Jewish mother says, "So? I will sit in the dark! "

And fourth: And how many sannyasins does it take to change a light bulb?

Only one to screw in the light bulb and ten thousand to celebrate the great occasion!

The seventh question:

Devena,

BEING OPEN SIMPLY MEANS being without mind. If the mind is there you are closed. Mind is a wall surrounding you. It is a transparent wall, hence you can see through it and you can go on living behind it without ever becoming aware that you are living in a prison cell. Prisons should be made of glass, then very few people will suffer so much in prisons. They will be able to see the people walking on the road, talking; they will be able to see everything, and they will believe that they are free. If they are not going out and mixing with the people, that is simply their own decision that they don't want to mix with the crowds. They are "aristocrats," they are not ordinary people, they are "special" people. And these walls which cannot be seen will not be thought of as walls, they will look like protection.

That's how the mind is: mind is a transparent wall of glass, very transparent glass - Belgian-made, not Indian, because in India you cannot make transparent glass; it is impossible.

If you have a mind then politically the mind is going to be either communist or socialist or fascist; religiously it is going to be Catholic, Protestant, Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan; philosophically it will belong to a certain school of philosophy. It can't be free. Mind can't have freedom - its very existence is a slavery - and mind keeps you closed. You always look from a certain fixed angle, from a certain fixed obsession; you can't see things as they are. It is impossible for the mind to see things as they are - it is inevitable that it will distort them according to its own a priori conclusions.

Just the other day I was telling you I received a letter from an Irish mother written to her daughter who is a sannyasin here, saying that she has been reading my books, she has looked at pictures of me, she felt something - the books are beautiful. The only question she wants to ask is: Is this man a Catholic or not? "If he is a Catholic then everything is okay; if he is not a Catholic, then come back home as soon as possible."

And Irish Mukta has also received a letter from her mother, a totally different letter but in a way the same. Mukta's mother says, "As I have understood, you are in the best of places in the world. The only thing that disturbs me is that it is a religious place; if it were not for the religion, then it would be one hundred percent beautiful." Now, for one the word "religion" is creating trouble; for the other, if it is not Catholic then there is trouble.

People go on inquiring who I am, Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan. And I say I am neither this nor that, I am simply a blissful man who is enjoying life in totality. And I call this religion - the only real religiousness.

Devena, dropping the mind is becoming open. Meditation is an effort to dismantle the wall brick by brick. Sannyas is a decision that we will behead ourselves and we will start living as no-minds. We will function from a state of not-knowing, because only then are you innocent and only then are you open. And that's the really scientific attitude, the scientific approach towards life.

At the ultimate peak, science and religion have to meet. If both are seeking truth - and both are seeking truth - then at the ultimate peak they are bound to meet. Howsoever different the paths are that they follow, their fundamental, their essential core cannot be different. The essential core of the scientific approach is that you should not approach any fact with any conclusion; you should approach the fact in a state of not-knowing; only then will you be able to encounter it as it is. If you have a certain idea then your idea is going to influence your conclusion; your observation will become prejudiced. And a prejudiced mind can never be scientific; in fact, a prejudiced mind is the only mind there is. Hence I say a mind can never be scientific, nor can a mind be religious.

Science approaches the outer world of facts without any fanatical attitudes and religion approaches the inner world of facts without any fanatical attitudes. The fanatic believes more in his fiction than in the facts; he imposes his fictions on the facts.

A certain Dr. Banerjee came to me; he wanted my help. He said, "I am a scientist." He is the head of a department at Rajasthan University, doing some research work in parapsychology; he is the head of the parapsychology department. He told me that he wanted my help because he was doing some scientific work on the theory of reincarnation: that man is born many times again and again.

I talked with him and I said, "Do you believe in reincarnation?"

He said, "Certainly. I am a Hindu and I believe that it is true. Now I want to prove it scientifically."

I said, "Then your research is unscientific from the very beginning. If you are a Hindu and you believe that it is true without experimenting, without going into the process of experimentation, without gathering facts, and already the belief is there, then you will impose your belief. You will not listen to the facts; you will try to distort the facts according to your theory, according to your a priori belief.

You are not a scientist at all. Forget that idea that you are a scientist. Who has given you a Ph.D.?

And what nonsense are you doing in your parapsychology department? Better call it the teaching of Hindu religion. Why call it parapsychology? Then some Christian will try to prove scientifically that there is no reincarnation, there is only one life. And if it is to be proved democratically, then Christians, Jews and Mohammedans outnumber Hindus and if it is to be decided democratically, by vote, then they will win because how many Hindus are there? Almost half of humanity is Christian, the second great religion is Mohammedanism, then there are Jews - all three together are enough to defeat a small community of Hindus very easily. If everybody sets out with his belief to find out facts to prove it, then it is not scientific."

He had come to stay for a few days; he escaped immediately, and I have not heard of him anymore since then. He was not interested in inquiring, he did not have an open mind, but he confessed to me that he was a Hindu thinking that I was also a Hindu. He would not have said that to any Christian or to a Mohammedan or to a Jew. He was very embarrassed when I said these things to him. The last thing that he asked me was, "Are you not a Hindu?"

I said, "I am nobody. Why should I be a Hindu? Blood is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian, nor are bones Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian. How can consciousness be Hindu, Mohammedan and Christian? I am just my consciousness, I am my bliss. How can bliss be Hindu or Mohammedan?"

Devena, being open means dropping your mind politically, religiously, philosophically; dismantling it brick by brick. It is a painful process, but it is the only way to know the truth and it is the only way to be free from all kinds of superstitions, from all kinds of fanatical beliefs. The idea of the fanatic is: "My religion is true, and don't be misled by the facts!" He does not trust the facts; he believes his dogma. And the more ancient it is the more he believes in it. His idea is: "How could people have believed in it for such a long period? It must be true."

But the Jews are as old as the Hindus and they have always believed that there is only one life, and Hindus have always believed that there are many lives. The religions that were born out of Hinduism - Jainism and Buddhism - both believe in many lives, and the religions that were born out of Judaism - Christianity and Islam - both believe that there is no other life, only one life. Time cannot be decisive. nor can numbers be decisive.

Only a scientific approach or a religious approach... it is the same to me. I call it science when your inquiry is objective, I call it religious when your inquiry is subjective, but for both inquiries an open consciousness is absolutely required. That is the first, fundamental requirement: a consciousness without any mind - and that can happen only through meditation. Meditation is the only magic that can help you to be free from the mind, can help you to be free from yourself, your past and all the burden of the past.

The eighth question:

Suriyo,

NOT MUCH. An optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist fears this is true.

The ninth question:

Prem Kavita,

CERTAINLY but you are not ready yet. I am ready to kill, but you can be killed only at the right moment, not even a single minute before. And you are not yet ready. Your desire is good, but it is only a desire. You will have to deserve it.

Just last night I killed Magga. Now she is crying, not understanding what has happened. She was a medium; suddenly I dropped her. It is ego-shattering. The mediums are bound to feel special; they can start gathering a certain ego in themselves - they can become serious.

I have been looking at your questions, Kavita. All your questions show a certain sarcastic attitude.

This is the first question that I have chosen as being worth answering, otherwise I simply throw them in the wastepaper basket. They don't show love, they don't show trust, they don't show surrender.

And if I kill you without your love it will be murder. If I kill you with your love it is transformation. You will have to look deep within yourself; somewhere the bridge has not happened yet. You are here, but your questions show that you are still functioning from knowledge.

Kavita is a breath therapist here; that may be the cause of the whole trouble. If you are a therapist here you start feeling a certain ego, a subtle ego. The cleaners, the toilet cleaners are in a far better situation: they cannot carry any ego. And it has been my experience that they come far closer to me than the therapists because the therapist comes with the idea that he "knows." Somewhere deep down he also carries the idea that he is helping Osho's work, that he is very essential to the work, that he is indispensable, that without him there will be a gap; he is needed. The cleaner cannot feel that, hence sometimes the toilet cleaners blossom.

Just three days ago I chose Nandan as a new medium. She has been a cleaner, but I am surprised at her availability, at her total surrender, at her absolute trust. I can flow through her just as the wind can pass through the pine trees - no hindrance, no obstruction.

Kavita, I don't feel that in you yet. I am ready to kill - that's my whole function here. A Master is needed only because you cannot kill your own ego, it is a difficult task. It can be done, but it is a very difficult task. It is almost like pulling yourself up by pulling your shoestrings. It is difficult; some help is needed. Some help can be given, but it can be given only when there is no ego.

Kavita, meditate over it. The day you are ready... my sword is always ready! What am I doing the whole day in my room? - polishing my sword so it does not gather rust!

The tenth question:

Anand Devendra,

RUSSIANS ARE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE but they are victims of a very stupid philosophy, of a very stupid political ideology. The people are beautiful but they are dominated by the most ugly regime ever.

A few of my sannyasins in Russia - of course they are underground sannyasins - have sent me a few jokes. Just the other day I received them. They have been translating jokes, Newsletters, SANNYAS and circulating them underground. They gather once in a while to listen to a tape, to meditate. And they have been hearing so many jokes about everybody that they must be feeling that I am not paying any attention to them, so they have sent me two beautiful jokes.

First:

A man goes into a food shop in Moscow and asks for two kilos of meat. As usual, the shop-girl answers, "No meat today, Comrade."

"No meat!" he shouts. "No meat! They haven't got any meat!" He runs into the street with both arms raised, shouting at the top of his voice, "No meat! No meat! They haven't got any meat!" Then on he continues down the street shouting at everyone, "They haven't got any meat! No meat!"

He makes such a noise that the police come running. They see him shouting his head off, immediately arrest him and take him off to prison. In his cell he continues to cry out as he shakes the bars, "No meat! They haven't got any meat!"

"We'll have to teach this chap a lesson," says the prison officer. "Take him out into the yard and pretend you're going to shoot him. That'll soon shut him up!"

So the guard marches the man, still shouting, into the yard. They line him up against the wall, load the rifles with empty cartridges, take aim and fire.

There are a few seconds' silence and then suddenly the cry goes up. "No bullets! No bullets! They haven't got any bullets either!"

And the second:

A Swede, a Pole and a Russian met together and naturally their conversation got round to sex.

"Sex in Sweden," said the Swede, "is a group of people getting together in someone's flat and having an orgy."

"Sex in Poland," said the second man, "is a group of people watching a program on TV about people having an orgy in a flat in Sweden."

"What does sex mean in Russia?" they both asked the third man.

"Sex in Russia," said the man sadly, "is a group of people meeting someone from Poland who saw the TV program about the Swedish people having an orgy...."

They are beautiful people but under a rotten regime. They need to be freed - they need to be freed from this violence, this dictatorship that is imposed on them against their will. But the imposers say this is for their own sake. In the beginning the communists used to say that the dictatorship was only a temporary phenomenon; soon it would disappear. Once socialism was established even the state would wither away, so what to say about dictatorship? But now sixty years have passed since the Revolution; just the contrary has happened: the state has become more and more powerful. There seems to be no sign of its ever withering away. It is the first time in the whole history of humanity that a state is so powerful that there is no possibility of any revolution against it. No people have been so crippled and paralyzed. Before there was always at least a possibility of rebelling against a regime. If it was too much you could always throw it away. But now for the first time it has happened:

the Russian government is so powerful, so immensely powerful, that the individual is nothing.

And they have learned one thing: how to prevent a revolution from the very beginning, from the very seeds of revolution, so not even freedom of opinion is allowed. You are even afraid to talk to your own wife because, who knows? - she may be an informer. Nobody knows about anybody. You are afraid to talk to your own children because they belong to the Young Communists' League and they inform against their parents. Only in Russia do walls have ears - only in Russia. Everywhere else it is only a proverb, in Russia it is a reality. You cannot even think independently because to think independently you need certain things to be made available. If Marx had been born in Russia he would not have been able to write DAS KAPITAL because there is no British Museum where he could have gone and consulted all kinds of books.

My books cannot enter Russia legally. They enter illegally, but not legally. The government watches everything that comes in. For freedom of thought you need some kind of climate; that climate has been destroyed. And every child is conditioned according to the state religion - communism is the state religion.

Russians are beautiful people as all people are beautiful. They deserve the love and sympathy and compassion and help of the whole world because there is only one possibility: if the free world helps them from the outside, only then they can be free; otherwise now, scientifically, technologically, the government is so powerful it is impossible to overthrow it, absolutely impossible to throw it. Even to talk about throwing it is enough and you will disappear; you will never be found again, no one will know where you have gone. Anybody who disagrees politically is immediately declared a mental case. According to their definition, according to their belief, only a madman can disagree with communism. How can a sane man disagree with communism? That's what fanaticism is. Even if the person is a Nobel prize-winner it does not matter - if he disagrees about anything he is insane.

Now, he is not even declared a political prisoner, he is not thrown in jail, because that has certain respect.

Jesus was crucified; that was respectful. At least they accepted him as a dangerous man. But if Jesus was born in Russia he would not be crucified, remember; they would simply declare him mad.

They would give him electric shocks, not crucifixion. They would give him insulin shocks, they would operate on his brain, they would destroy his whole nervous system - they would make him a wreck of a man. They would not kill him; that way they would look very compassionate. They would not crucify him; there is no need to crucify now. He would be put in a mental hospital where he would be given treatment along with the mad people; that would be far more dangerous.

Socrates being treated in a madhouse would be far more disrespectful. At least the Greeks were respectful: they poisoned him - that's okay. If you don't agree with the man and the man is not ready to agree with you, you kill him! It seems perfectly okay. But to make him a madman and then torture him and slowly slowly destroy his whole mechanism of thinking, his whole brain system, to operate on his brain and do damage to his brain, that is ugly. That's what is happening in Russia.

Russians are beautiful people, Devendra, but they are living under a very ugly regime. And it is the responsibility of the whole of humanity to help them to be free of this big prison, these iron walls that surround them.

And you also ask me: WILL THERE BE A THIRD WORLD WAR?

It is impossible. A Third World War is not possible for the simple reason that science has given us so much technology to destroy each other that a Third World War means a total world war. A total world war means that nobody will be the survivor - neither will there be any winner or any loser. For the first time war has lost all its meaning. It is not because of Buddha or Christ that the Third World War is not going to happen; it is because of scientific technology - atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, super-hydrogen bombs, death rays. They have made it impossible. Unless we decide on a global suicide, a Third World War is impossible.

Small conflicts will go on happening because they are needed; they are an economic need.

Sometimes in Vietnam, sometimes in Korea, sometimes in Israel, sometimes in Kashmir, sometimes in Afghanistan - small wars, not a Third World War. Small wars have to happen, otherwise where are these big powers going to sell their weapons? And those weapons are accumulating and every day new developments are happening so their old weapons become out of date. Who is going to use them? They cannot use them; they cannot be used by themselves. Poor countries, backward countries, like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, these small countries can be sold out-of-date weapons. So these countries have to be continuously quarreling with each other - small quarrels, lukewarm fights. The superpowers, America and Russia, need these wars to sell their weapons, otherwise their stockpile of weapons will be so great that they themselves will die under the burden. So these small wars are an absolute necessity.

And these backward countries are so foolish that they can't see the point, so somewhere or other a war erupts. One country starts purchasing weapons from America, another country starts purchasing weapons from Russia. Both are in a way in the same business. Those who can see, they can see they are partners - they both need wars to continue somewhere or other. But they should not trigger a Third World War, no, because a Third World War means those two superpowers coming in conflict directly.

If Russia attacks America, then it will take only ten minutes for America to retaliate; or if America attacks Russia, it will take only ten minutes for Russia to retaliate. There will be only a ten-minute gap, that's all. If you think that is victory, then it is okay. After those ten minutes both are finished.

In fact, if these superpowers come in conflict there is every possibility that people who are very primitive and living far away in the forests of South Africa or in the Himalayas, in Tibet, may be the only survivors. They will be the only people who will be benefited. For the first time their backwardness will pay; for the first time they will be the winners and the winners will be the losers.

But that too is a far, far-away, remote possibility because a Third World War will trigger so much fire around the earth that there seems to be no possibility that anybody can survive. Not only human beings - trees, birds, animals, all will be gone.

Hence I can say it categorically: there is not going to be any Third World War. With the Second World War, world wars were finished. Now there will be only small fights - battles but not wars.

The last question:

Sarjano,

NEVER ASK FOR ONE JOKE. You can ask Laxmi: whenever I order one thing she always orders two - she knows me! So whenever you ask for one joke you have to suffer two.

First:

Two Italian nuns were sitting at the table talking about the beauty of the flowers, plants and vegetables in the garden of their nunnery.

One of the nuns says, "Did you see the big, red, juicy tomatoes in the vegetable garden?"

As she is talking the nun joins both hands into a circle, showing the size of the tomatoes "Yes," answers the other nun, "and did you see the size of the cucumbers this year?"

While she is describing them, her hands indicate the size of the long cucumbers An elderly nun sitting in the corner of the same room, nearly deaf but not blind yet, asks with an eager voice, "Which Father are you talking about?"

And second:

An explosion once happened in an Italian salami factory and one of the salamis is blown into heaven.

An angel flying around heaven bumps into the salami and grabs it with her wing. "This is a funny thing," she says. "I wonder what it is?"

She flies to Joseph and asks him, "Have you ever seen such a thing before?" swinging the salami in front of his nose.

Joseph, staring at the salami, says, "No, I've never seen one before!"

The angel flies away and meets Mary. "Mary, do you know what this is?" she says, swinging the salami in front of her.

"Oh!" exclaims Mary, "You know, if there wasn't that funny net around it I would say it is the Holy Ghost!"