Don't Abandon Existence

The first question:

Divyananda,

THERE IS NO WAY TO SEEK TRUTH because truth is not far away. Truth is not "there" somewhere so that you have to go to it, so that you have to reach to it; truth is not to be sought because truth is the very being of the seeker. How can you seek the seeker? How can you know the knower? That is impossible. You cannot encounter yourself. You are the truth.

Hence all seeking is futile, but one learns only through seeking. One learns this tremendously important fact, that all seeking is useless, only through seeking; there is no other way to learn it. You seek and you fail, you seek again and you fail; slowly slowly it becomes clear to you that seeking itself is the cause of missing it. Then seeking drops of its own accord. And when there is no longing, no desire, when you are utterly silent, when the very mind of the achiever has disappeared, you are surprised that what you have been seeking all along has always been with you.

Yoka says:

Why? - because to look for it is to begin in a wrong direction and to avoid illusion is foolish because illusion means that which is not. How can you avoid that which is not and how can you seek that which is? That which is is, and that which is not IS NOT Yoka also says:

One has simply to become utterly empty. And when I say "utterly empty" I mean one has not to be just empty"utterly empty" means empty of everything and also empty of emptiness. Otherwise the mind is so cunning it can now cling to a new idea of emptiness.

A disciple of Yoka was coming again and again to him, bringing his experiences that were happening in his deep meditation, and Yoka was hitting him. Whatsoever he said he would be hit, irrespective of what he was saying. He was bringing beautiful experiences: the rising of the kundalini, a great experience of light, a beautiful inner fragrance, the sound of one hand clapping - whatsoever he had heard that people had achieved through meditation he was bringing - but he was being hit again and again.

One day he came with absolute trust: "Now the Master is going to accept my experience, to recognize it - the time has come," because that day he was going to say, "I have achieved emptiness."

That is the ultimate. What more can there be? What can there be beyond emptiness? He was very happy that for the first time he was not going to be hit - but even before he had spoken, the Master hit him.

He said, "This is too much! I have not even uttered a single word!"

Yoka said, "It doesn't matter what you say, it does not matter whether you say it or not - I know. I knew the moment you entered in the room that you were again here with some foolish idea."

He said, "But sir, you should have listened. This is not a foolish idea, this is the experience of all the Buddhas!"

So Yoka said,"Yes, so you say. It seems you are hankering for another hit!"

And the disciple said, "Sir, I have experienced emptiness!"

Yoka laughed, hit him and said, "Throw it away! It is all nonsense!"

The disciple said, "How can I throw emptiness? I can throw everything else!" That was the first time that he argued with the Master; obviously, his argument seems to be logical. You can throw the experience of light because you are the experiencer. You can throw the experience of energy - you are the experiencer. Any experience can be thrown, but how can you throw the experience of emptiness? There is nothing to throw!

The disciple said, "How can I throw emptiness?"

Then the Master hit him hard and said, "Then carry it out - but do something. Either throw it or carry it out."

And the disciple said, "What are you asking me? I cannot carry it out because it is just empty, and I cannot throw it either."

The Master said, "Now you are clinging to the idea of emptiness. This is not emptiness - this is not true emptiness. Now you are full of the idea of emptiness. Once it was light, once it was energy, once it was fragrance now it is emptiness. It is nothing but labels changing. And unless you throw this too you will not be truly empty. A truly empty person is neither empty nor nonempty. There is nothing to experience, not even emptiness. And in that state of silence when there is nothing to experience - no object, no content, but only consciousness, only the observer and nothing to observe only the seer and nothing to see - one attains truth."

Yoka says:

Once you are utterly empty you are a mirror. You are not only aware of your inner truth, you become aware of the truth of the whole existence. And they are not two; they are two aspects of the same phenomenon, two sides of the same coin - the outer and the inner.

Listen to these tremendously significant words of Yoka. Yoka is one of the great Zen Masters. He says:

Don't abandon existence. Don't abandon the ordinary existence in any effort for some illusory truth, for some illusory longing for God. Leave that for the fools. The intelligent person simply lives moment to moment with no desire to seek anything, with no expectation of finding anything. He simply lives moment to moment, joyously. His life is very ordinary; he has no desire to be extraordinary. He has no desire to be a Buddha, hence he is a Buddha. He has no desire to be extraordinary, hence he is extraordinary. Because every ordinary person has the desire to be extraordinary; only extraordinary people don't have that desire.

Once you say, "This is truth and that is untruth," you have started discriminating - and to discriminate is the disease of the mind. That is the function of the mind: to discriminate. "This is right, that is wrong. This is true, that is false. This is worldly, that is spiritual. This is materialist, that is religious." Once you start discriminating there is no end to it and you are in the grip of the mind.

Drop discriminating and you are out of the grip of the mind. To be out of the grip of the mind is to be free, is to know what freedom is.

NIRVANA IS not somewhere else; it is your inner space. Just get out of the clutches of the mind.

Your mind is like an octopus: if somehow you get free of one of the legs of the octopus, there are other legs. There are gross legs and there are subtle legs, and by the time you start getting free of the other legs you are getting entangled into other legs. It goes on and on in circles.

The man who escapes from the world, what is her sayin? In the East for thousands of years people have been renouncing the world because they say it is illusion. If you truly understand that it is illusion, then what is there to renounce?

These fools even come to me and they ask, "What kind of sannyas are you teaching people?

Sannyas means renunciation. They should leave the world, but they live in the world. Not only do they live in the world, they live more deeply and totally in the world than other worldly people!

What kind of sannyas is this?" They think I am teaching a wrong kind of sannyas.

I am teaching the ultimate sannyas, not a wrong kind but for the first time the right kind. The wrong kind has prevailed for a long time, for centuries. See the stupidity of the whole thing: you call something illusory and then you escape from it. If it is illusory there is no need to escape. It should be so simple! If it is real then why escape? If it is real then how can you escape?

Nobody renounces their dreams. Or do you renounce them every morning when you wake up - "I renounce all my dreams. I renounce all the treasures that I had in my dreams. I renounce the kingdom of my dreams"? You con'd renounce them, otherwise people would laugh at you - you have gone mad! Dreams are dreams.

And these so-called spiritual people have been telling the world that the world is a dream - renounce it. What nerve - to call it a dream and in the same breath to say, "Renounce it"! Either it is not a dream or it is a dream - make sure what it is. And either way you cannot renoucne it. If it is a dream there is no point in renouncing; if it is a reality, how can you renounce reality? - because reality is synonymous with God.

Hence I teach: Rejoice! There is no need to renoucne anything - there is nothing to be renounced.

Rejoice, and rejoice more totally! Rejoice in a multi-dimensional way. Dance, sing, be blissful. Let laughter be your life, let love be your lfie. That is the only true way to know what is.

The second question:

Prem Nisang,

MIND, ANY KIND OF MIND - Catholic or communist, Jew or Jaina - is the same. Mind is a disease, and every mind crates a prison around you. There are different kinds of prisons; their architecture is different, they are made of different material. Some are made of stones, some are made of bricks, some are made of wood, and so on and so forth, bjut it does not matter - the material is not important - you are imprisoned. A Catholic mind has different concepts, a Hindu mind is rooted in a different ideology, but every mind needs an ideology. Even the atheist lives in a prison although he does not believe in God. He thinks he is a disbeliever - he is not. His disbelief is his belief.

He fanatically disbelieves, in the same fanatical way that believers believe, sometimes even more fanatically because the people who believe in God remember God only once in a while, maybe on Sundays - it is a Sunday religion - but the atheist continuously argues against God; he remembers God continuously.

There is a very beautiful story in Indian scriptures:

When Narda, a devotee, a great devotee, was dying God appeared to him. Such things used to happen in the past; they don't happen anymore. And God asked him what he would like, if he had any desire to be fulfilled in the next life.

He said, "Yes, I want to be born an atheist."

Even God was puzzled. Remember, such things used to happen in the past; now they no longer happen. God said,'What? You want to be an atheist? Such a great devotee, such a believer, such a religious man who has been singing and singing my name?"

Narda said, "Yes, because although I am a devotee, I continuously go on forgetting you, but I have seen atheists who never forget you. That's why I want to be an atheist next time: so that I can remember you continuously. I don't want to forget you even for a single moment. Now you are only one of the items of my mind, but for the atheist you seem to be his whole heart - although he denies you, he remembers you. So just give me one blessing: that I should be born an atheist so that I can talk about you continuously."

This story is beautiful. It says in a very symbolic way that the atheist and the theist are not in different boats.

The communist goes on arguing against God. Now he has no business with, God, nothing to do with God. How was Karl Marx concerned with God? God does not come into it as far as economics is concerned, he is not an economic theory or anything. But Marx was obsessed, continuously obsessed: again and again he came to deny God, as if God were haunting him.

These are all fanatics; believers, non-believers, Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians - all are fanatics.

And the fanatic never looks at the facts, that's why he is a fanatic. The creed of the fanatic is:'We are right and don't be distracted by the facts-whatsoever the facts say they are bound to be wrong."

The fanatic's creed is: "We have already concluded what is true; now the facts have to fit with our creed, not vice versa."

And all these so-called ideologies have created very crippled people, Nisang. Of course the Catholic mind is one of the most crippled and paralyzed minds in the world, because it is repressive - and whenever you repress something you become ugly. Whatsoever is repressed remains there. Not only does it remain there, it becomes every day more and more powerful; it accumulates energy. If you express it, it evaporates.

For example, a man who gets angry in an ordinary way, just as everybody else does - if you insult him, he gets angry - is not a dangerous person because he will never accumulate so much anger that he can prove dangerous. But a man who goes on repressing his anger is sitting on a volcano; any day the volcano can erupt - either he is going to commit suicide or murder - less than that won't do.

It is because of repressive religions that so much pornography exists in the world. Pornography exists because of the priests, not because of the PLAYBOYS. In fact, the PLAYBOYS are only by-products of the priests. So much pornography exists simply because so much sex has been repressed; it wants to find some way, some outlet. And once you repress sex it starts finding perverted ways. It can become a political trip - it is sexuality, nothing else, repressed sexuality.

That's why in all the armies of the world, sex is repressed. And American soldiers have been continuously in difficulty for the simple reason that it is the first time that any army has been allowed some sexual outlet. American soldiers cannot win; their defeat is certain. Whatsoever they do, wherever they go, they will be defeated for the simple reason that American soldiers are a new phenomenon in the world - they are not sexually repressive. They can't win against the Russians - they could not even win against the Vietnamese. The poor Vietnamese defeated one of the greatest world powers that has ever existed in the whole history of man for the simple reason that if sex is repressed then a man is very dangerous, really dangerous - he is boiling within. He wants to hit hard, he wants to be violent.

And the person who is sexually satisfied is not really interested in killing. In fact, all the surveys of American armies show that at least thirty percent of the soldiers did not use their weapons in the war; thirty percent is a big percentage. And if thirty percent of soldiers are not using their weapons at all, they simply go every day to the front and come back without killing anybody, how are they going to win? They are not interested in killing, there is no desire to kill.

Killing arises only if sex is repressed very much. It is a strange fact that whenever a society has been affluent, rich, sexually free, it was destroyed by poor, backward, repressive societies. That was the fate of Greek civilization, that was the fate of Roman civilization, that was the fate of Hindu civilization, and that is going to be the fate of American civilization. It is very strange that the further evolved a society is the more it is vulnerable to being destroyed easily by the less evolved, because the less evolved are more repressive - they are more foolish, they are more stupid; they still go on listening to the priests.

Now Ayatollah Khomeini-type people cannot have any influence in an advanced, cultured country, but they have tremendous power in Iran. The Mullas of Iran are the most powerful people there. And the Ayatollah is just a madman! But that madman has become powerful. Now he is doing all kinds of things. People are being killed; people are continuously being killed, butchered, in the name of Islamic justice - as if justice can also be Islamic, Christian and Hindu.

Just a few days ago Pakistan decided that women will not be able to participate in any sports with men because that is against Islam. The woman has to be completely covered. Now you cannot play hockey if you are completely covered in a black veil with only two holes for your eyes to see out of.

A very strange kind of hockey will have to be evolved! And then they run, and running, their bodies sway and their breasts jump; that is against Islam! So in Pakistan they cannot participate anymore - this is the twentieth century! - they can only play with women players and the spectators also can only be women. And even then they have to use clothes which cover their bodies - they have to use Punjabi clothes, chalwah and kurta, so their whole body is covered. They cannot play tennis in half-pants because their legs will show and that is against Islam.

These are the foolish people, but these foolish people are dangerous people. They can defeat anybody because they will repress sexuality so much, so much energy will be repressed, that it will be ready to explode. Any excuse will be enough. These are the people who are responsible for all the rapes in the world.

This is the experience of my woman sannyasins in India. They love me so much, that's why they are here and suffering so much. It is really a sacrifice to be here because wherever they go they will be watched by the so-called cultured, religious Hindus with such greedy eyes, as if these people are just there to tear them apart. And whenever they have any chance they hit them, they push them, they do anything ugly that they can do. Women have been molested, raped. And these are the great Hindus, the great religious people, the great spiritual people of the world! But it is natural; I don't see any contradiction. This is repression - any chance and it surfaces.

Two nuns were walking from the nunnery towards town to do some shopping. To save time they decided to take a short-cut across a dimly-lit, deserted wood. While they were in the wood, both of the nuns got raped.

"Oh no! How are we going to explain to the Mother Superior that we both got raped twice?"

"Just a minute," retorted the other nun, "we only got raped once!"

"Yes, I know, but we're going back that way, aren't we?"

There are rapists and there are women who are waiting for these rapists.

Nisang, you ask me: MUCH OF MY CATHOLIC MIND HAS BEEN TENSE....

It can't be otherwise. You will have to drop it, root and all. You cannot save anything of it. Don't try to save anything of it because it is all contaminated.

You say: It is TENSE WITH STRUGGLE FOR POWER....

It is bound to be. If sex is repressed it starts moving into other dimensions. It becomes a great lust for power. If sex is repressed you start asking for approval; that is a poor substitute for love, for appreciation. And now that you are here you are becoming aware that there is a great need for love, but you are afraid - your Catholic mind is against love. The Catholic mind says, "Love only God."

Now how can you love God? That is sheer nonsense. You have to love human beings; that is the only way to love God. Love unconditionally, love without any demands. But you have to love the people that surround you - these are God's available forms; you cannot love the formless. "Love God," they say, "and avoid man." Now they are teaching nuns, "Love Christ"; nuns are called "brides of Christ." What nonsense! The poor man was never married and now so many nuns are married to the poor man! Brides of Christ! And then of course they start imagining, projecting, and then their mind starts playing tricks on them.

If you look into the history of monasteries and nunneries in the Middle Ages you will be surprised.

Thousands of cases are on record that nuns were raped by the devil and his disciples; not only that, nuns even used to become falsely pregnant. What imagination! When a woman imagines, she can imagine far-out things. Men are not that capable of imagining, but women can really imagine things.

Women confessed in the courts. And what were these courts doing? These courts consisted of bishops, archbishops, popes. These courts were inquiring about details; in fact they were enjoying as much as possible the details of how the devil made love to the nuns. If you go into the details you will find them more pornographic, more obscene than anything ever written. And they had to confess and they confessed strange things: that the devil came in the night and made love to them, and they were absolutely unable, incapable... they could not do anything else. What could they do when the devil came and took possession of them?

All kinds of sexual perversions arose out of the monasteries. Sex would never have become perverted if it were not for the monasteries and nunneries. And the whole world is dominated by some kind of repression or other.

Nisang, you have to drop this whole mind.

You say: MEDITATION STIRS UP FRUSTRATION.

It will stir up frustration. It is nothing to do with meditation; meditation simply brings your reality to you and that encounter is frustrating. Seeing the ugliness of your own mind you feel frustrated. But don't be worried. Meditation is bringing up all that is repressed in you; you will have to pass through it. If you know what is there it can be dropped; if you don't know, how can you drop it? Before something can be dropped it has to be known, well understood. In fact, to understand it perfectly is the only way to drop it.

And the day you drop your mind in toto you are freed from the priests. Priests are the most cunning people in the world and most foolish too, because only foolish people are cunning. Intelligent people are never cunning; they need not be cunning - intelligence is enough. When you are not intelligent you have to be cunning as a substitute; you have to learn the ways of cunningness.

But remember, all these priests - Catholic or Protestant, Hindu or Mohammedan - all these ayatollahs and all these mullas and all these pundits are stupid people but they have dominated humanity and they have reduced the whole of humanity to a big mass of stupidity. Get out of it!

Meditation is bound to stir up all this that has been done to you for centuries, but that cannot be avoided. If you want to avoid it you will remain the same. You will have to go through this pain of seeing all these ugly things that are in you. But better to see and go through it to reach your innermost core so that you can find your own intrinsic intelligence, so that you can find your own lost consciousness.

Once freed from the priests you are free from stupidity. Then you are neither Catholic nor Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan; then you are simply a human being, and then great beauty arises in you.

A Catholic priest went into a pet shop to buy a parrot. He was shown an especially fine one which he liked the look of, but he was puzzled by the two strings which were tied to its feet.

'What are they for?" he asked the pet shop manager.

"Ah well, father," came the reply, "that's a very unusual feature of this particular parrot. You see, he is a trained parrot, father - used to be in a circus. If you pull the string on his left foot he says'Hello!' and if you pull the string on his right foot he says'Goodbye!' "

"And what happens if I pull both the strings at the same time?"

"I fall off me perch, you fool!" screeched the parrot.

Even parrots are far more intelligent than your priests, than your politicians, than the people who have been dominating you.

Nisang, get rid of them.

Meditation is a process of getting rid of the whole past, of getting rid of all diseases, of getting rid of all the pus that has gathered in you. It is painful, but it is cleansing, and there is no other way to cleanse you.

The third question:

Vivek,

YES I TOO AM AWARE that I have left one person out of the account and I think everybody else is also aware of it. That person is "Proper" Sagar. But I had to leave him out - he is too proper! He is a category in himself; he cannot be put with others. Moreover, he is really a gentleman.

Somendra I can count with ladies - he is an energy phenomenon, a Holy Ghost type! Now nobody knows who the Holy Ghost is, male or female; you can put him here or there. So Somendra can be counted anywhere. But Sagar is too proper a British gentleman, that's why I left him out. And, moreover, I thought there was no need to tell you his name - everybody knows anyway. Secondly:

even if I had counted him he would have missed the joke!

Mulla Nasruddin was brought to court. He was accused of telling a joke to his wife. When she heard the joke, said the police report, she exploded into laughter and laughed so hard that she died.

"I don't believe it," said the judge, who was a proper Englishman. "Tell the joke!"

Mulla tried to refuse, but the Englishman insisted "Tell the joke! I order you!"

So he told the joke and everybody exploded into laughter, and one by one they all died laughing - except the Englishman, who died one week later!

The fourth question:

Gitananda,

YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY WRONG - there are no great men. If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.

This is the truth! This is it! There are no hidden meanings.

I am just an ordinary man - as you are, as everybody else is. The difference is not that I am great and you are not great, the difference is that I am awake and you are asleep. But that does not make you small, that does not make me great either. Nobody is great. This whole nonsense has to be dropped.

Don't start looking on me as a hero. I am still alive! You can do whatsoever you want to do when I am dead because then I cannot prevent you, but right now I won't allow such things!

The fifth question:

Yogesh,

I SUSPECT so! Gautam the Buddha used to say that after twenty-five centuries there would arise one awakened man whose name would be Maitreya; Maitreya means the friend. Now for twenty-five centuries it has been thought that this would be the name of the awakened person, but my own interpretation is that Buddha is not talking about the name, he is talking about the quality of the person. He is saying that he will be the first Master who will be the friend, who will not pretend to be the Master, who will simply say, "I am your friend."

And that's what I am saying to you: I am your friend. Hence I say I suspect he may have had some idea.

But Jesus certainly had a very clear-cut idea about me, because there is an ancient story.... You may not have heard it because it has been whispered from Master to disciple in deep privacy, and it has been kept private up to now. For the first time I am telling you!

It was the Last Supper and Jesus was talking to his disciples: "You, Peter, will be the founder of my church. You, Andrew, will spread my gospel to the four corners of the earth. You, John, will go forth and heal the sick and feed the poor. You, Thomas, will write a gospel for Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to speak about two thousand years from now. And you, Judas, will pay the bill, as no one else has money!"

The sixth question:

Prem Patipada,

I KNOW, because just the other day somebody was talking about you.

A swami was saying to another swami, "Boy, she is a high explosive girl!"

"High explosive girl?"

"Yes, dangerous when dropped!"

Italian plus American - it is the most dangerous combination.

"That wasn't your daughter screaming," the Italian told the horny broad's father when he came down to the living room with a loaded shotgun. "That was me!"

You get it? Let me repeat it: "That wasn't your daughter screaming," the Italian told the horny broad's father when he came down to the living room with a loaded shotgun, "That was me!"

An Englishman sits down beside a beautiful blonde Italian girl in a pub. After a few drinks she says to the Englishman, "Amore, I love you."

"I love you, too," he replies hesitatingly and a little embarrassed.

"I love you three," says the Italian girl.

A week before the wedding the young Italian girl came to her mother in tears. "I'm so afraid about getting married," she said. "I'm afraid I won't be able to please my sweetheart."

Her mother, who wanted to make the girl's trials easier, undertook to explain to her the secrets of married life. With some hesitation she began to explain to the girl what she would have to go through.

"Oh, that doesn't bother me, mother," said the daughter. "I can screw all right, but I can't cook!"

Roberto and his over-developed wife were sitting in the stands waiting for the football game to begin.

A friend walked over, said, "Hello, Roberto," gave his wife's breasts a little squeeze, and walked away.

A few minutes later another guy walked over, said, "Hello, Roberto," fondled the wife's breasts, and walked on. This strange sequence of events went on for some time.

Finally a man sitting next to Roberto spoke up: "Listen, pal, it's none of my business, but isn't it a little odd? At least twelve guys came by, said hello to you, and then grabbed your wife by the breasts.

What's the story?"

Roberto looked at him and moaned, "What-a can-a I do? If-a I leave-a her-a at home, she-a sleeps with-a everybody-a!"

Streetcorner hood: "You want a little action, honey?"

Italian girl: "How dare you speak to a strange girl like that? A strange girl who lives at 22 Mulberry Street, telephone, Algonquin 55857."

Patipada, will it do, or you want some more-a?

It is good. I am happy that you are enjoying both worlds together, the Italian and the American, you are doubly blessed.

Patipada is really a beautiful woman, very courageous; she wants, and also knows how, to live dangerously. And they are always to my liking - the people who want, and are ready, to live dangerously. Patipada is almost a crazy girl, but if a woman is a real woman she is a little crazy! If she is not a little crazy she is cold, she is half-dead.

That's why I am joking so much about English ladies - they are half-dead. Italian women are so alive! For centuries Italy has been fortunate in a way. Since the days of the Roman Empire, Italy is the only country which has never been very repressive. The Romans were never phony spiritual people, never; never for a single period did they become so-called holy people. They were very earthly people and that has remained in the Italian blood even now. Even the Catholic Church has not been able to corrupt them very much, although the Vatican is there. But the Italians are incorruptible - they corrupt the Pope!

I like that quality of earthiness, that smell of earth that makes people alive.

I have chosen a few of the Italians as my mediums. Now many ugly women, flat-chested women, go on writing letters to me. It has now reached epidemic proportions: "Osho, it seems we can never be your mediums - we are ugly and flat-chested!"

Don't be worried. You will have your reward in the other world. You can't have both worlds. To be a medium a woman at least has to look like a woman! The day I start choosing flat-chested women, then why not choose men? What is wrong with them? Just a little bit of difference - a difference of little tits and bits So please stop writing such letters to me. I may be enlightened but I am not so enlightened - I still have some aesthetic sense! When I choose a woman I choose a woman!

At least she should look like a woman! And I have to see those mediums every day.... And I am finished with all my karmas so I am not ready to suffer anymore - enough is enough! I have suffered a lot in my past lives - I have suffered many flat-chested women.

But you should be happy that I will try in every possible way that you become enlightened in this life so that you need not come again and torture people. I will send you to the farther shore - let the saints suffer! So in that way you are fortunate. My mediums may have to come back - some other enlightened person may need them - but you, rest assured, this is your last life. I am going to finish you! So you be happy on that account. And you will be immensely rewarded in the other world.

That's why Jesus goes on saying.... Look at his Beatitudes. He never said, "Blessed are the rich," he said, "Blessed are the poor." Why? - because the poor need consolation. He never said, "Blessed are the successful," he said, "Blessed are the meek." Those meek people, poor people, they need some consolation - they will inherit the kingdom of God.

And I say to you: Blessed are the flat-chested for theirs is the kingdom of God... but please, leave the earth alone!

The seventh question:

Sangeet,

I WILL TELL YOU a small story that will explain my attitude towards reincarnation.

Surmano explains to the rabbi the theory of reincarnation: "Let's say, your holiness, that you die tomorrow. A flower blooms on your grave after a few days. A cow comes and eats the flower. The next morning the cow has a good shit. I go for a walk, see the shit and say, "Ah, your holiness, you haven't changed a bit!' "

The eighth question:

Anand Sudharka,

TWO JEWISH BUSINESSMEN were relaxing in Harlem one afternoon when one said to the other, "We forgot to lock the safe."

"What does it matter?" asked his partner. "We're both here, ain't we?"

A group of Jewish friends discuss if it would have been better not to have been born.

"Of course it would," says one of them, "but how many of us have such luck?"

It is a little subtle. It will take seven days for you.

Two Jews were walking in a concentration camp. One of them asked, "Hey, Moshe, do you know what time it is?"

"Why?" answered the second. "Do you have to go somewhere?"

A Scotsman, an Englishman and a Jew went to an expensive place to eat, somewhere in London.

The Scotsman was heard to say at the end of the evening, "It's okay, lads, I'll pay tonight."

The next day the newspaper headlines read: "Jewish Ventriloquist Found Dead Outside Restaurant."

And the last:

A man riding in a train is reading a novel; sitting by his side is a young woman.

"Hey, Jew!" says the woman.'What time is it?"

The man is shocked, but plays it cool and does not answer.

A minute later she asks again, "Hey, Jew! What time is it?"

No answer. So she asks five more times.

Finally the man gets angry and says, "Myna watch is in myna pocket. You just take a look and see what time it is."

"How can I see inside your pockets?" she asks.

"How did you discover that I was a Jew?" he replies.

The ninth question:

Anand Premda,

NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT - you are just catching the local disease!

And the last question:

Avinash,

EVERYBODY IS AFRAID OF ASKING the real questions. That's why people ask metaphysical questions, philosophical questions - questions about God, the creation, after-life, reincarnation - because these questions are not in any way related to you; you remain outside.

To ask a real question is dangerous because when you ask a real question you have to encounter me directly and you have to face the consequences. I am not a predictable man; one never knows what I am going to say. One never knows whether I am going to hit you or to pat you; you can never be sure. And then to ask a real question needs the courage to open your heart, to show your wounds, to show where it hurts. Nobody wants to show their wounds, nobody wants to show their tears - and everybody is full of tears and full of wounds, and everybody is pretending that he is happy.

You ask anybody, "How are you?" and he says, "Beautiful! Perfectly okay!" and nobody is okay and nobody is in a beautiful state. But people have to keep face.

Now asking me a question before three thousand people means exposing yourself. It is standing naked, spiritually naked. It is easy to stand naked physically - that is nothing much, one can drop the clothes very easily - but to stand spiritually naked needs tremendous courage. One has to be a dare-devil because it is like dropping your skin, showing your skeleton, it is like showing all your ugliness; and nobody wants to be exposed.

We are all covering our faces with masks - beautiful masks. The original face has never been shown to anybody; you yourself have forgotten what your original face is. In fact, when you look for the real questions, first you will come across unreal questions, a thousand and one unreal questions. Unless you are very persistent and go on digging and go on throwing the unreal questions.... When the mind says, "Ask who created the world," if you are a real seeker you will say, "What nonsense! What does it matter? Anybody will do. The whole point is that the world is there. X created it, Y created it, Z created it, what does it matter? And whether anybody created it or did not create it, that too is immaterial. This question is nonsense and it is not going to affect my life. If God created it so what?

Or if, as the Buddhists and Jainas say, nobody created it, so what? The Jainas and the Buddhists live in the same way as the Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians, in the same stupid way; it makes no difference to their lives."

Any question is unreal which does not make a difference to your life, but it is easy to ask such questions. In the first place it shows your knowledgeability, that you are a great student of metaphysics, philosophy, religion; it shows that you know the scriptures.

People go on writing to me, "Krishna has said this in the Gita - what does he mean?" Whatsoever he means it is not going to affect your life. And there are one thousand commentaries already available; if they are not making any difference - and the one thousand commentaries are useless - then my statement is going to be the same: it is not going to affect your life.

Once I was delivering a talk on Mahavira, the Jaina teerthankara, and a Jaina scholar, a very famous scholar whose books I had read and whose scholarship I had always appreciated, stood up. I was not aware that this was the man who had written so many books, whom I had always appreciated.

And he asked, "I have only one question. Buddha and Mahavira were both contemporaries. Who was older in age? - because for almost fifty years I have been working on it, but no conclusive decision has been reached yet. There are reasons to suppose that Buddha was older and there are reasons to suppose that Mahavira was older."

I looked at the man for a few moments. There was absolute silence. The scholar started feeling a little embarrassed - why was I looking at him in such a way? "Have I asked something wrong?" And then he said, "Why are you looking at me in such a strange way? Have I asked something wrong?"

said, "Not only wrong - you have wasted your whole life! Fifty years! What does it matter? If Buddha was older, so what? If Mahavira was older, so what? It does not affect their philosophy, it does not affect their approach to life. It is not going to affect you either. Why have you wasted your fifty years?

You seem to be just a goddamned fool!"

Somebody, the man who was presiding, nudged me and said, "Do you know who he is? He is a very famous Jaina scholar!" And he told me his name.

I said, "Then I will hit him even more hard, because I have always appreciated his books, but this man is stupid! How did he manage to write such good books? He must be functioning like a biocomputer, because looking at him, seeing him, listening to his question... and he says fifty years and he is almost bragging that he has devoted so much time to such a great question." He was showing his scholarship.

It is easy to ask metaphysical, philosophical questions; it shows your knowledge, it shows your ego, your pride. But when you ask a real question it can hurt, it can expose you, it can show your ignorance. It is bound to show your ignorance - not only your ignorance, it is bound to show your insanity, it is bound to show your schizophrenia, it is bound to show your neurosis.

That's why, Avinash. And you are an Indian, and the Indians are super-egoists. They have nothing else to brag about. Money they don't have, power they don't have, technology they don't have, science they don't have; they don't have anything else. They have only one thing: that egoistic attitude of "holier than thou." So Indians are very afraid to ask real questions; they never ask real questions. I have never come across Indians who ask real questions - they will never expose themselves. Even if they are going insane they try to cover it up in some beautiful way.

Just the other day I received a letter saying that one woman has gone a little berserk. But the people who had written, they wrote not that she has gone mad or berserk, they wrote: "She is behaving like Ramakrishna, like Meera, so, Osho, only you can help."

A few days ago they phoned. The message was given to them: "Take her to the psychiatrist there."

Now a very angry letter has come: "When you are here, why should we take her to a psychiatrist?

She is not mad, she is in a very high state! And going to the psychiatrist can be dangerous because he will give her shock treatment or tranquilizers. He may bring her down to earth, back to her ordinariness - and she is flying very high. Only you can understand it."

Now that woman is simply mad - I know that woman. Just a few days before she was here and when she was here, and she came to touch my feet, I felt that this woman could go mad any time.

But in India if you go mad you become a mystic, not mad. It is just the reverse in the West: if you become a mystic they put you in a mental asylum immediately! Indians don't like this idea that she is mad.

Nobody likes to bring his real problems. No Indian will talk about his sexual fantasies. He will come and ask, "How to attain celibacy, BRAHMACHARYA?" Now really he is suffering from sexuality, but he will not talk about it. And then people have become afraid that others will laugh. And that's what happens in an ordinary world.

This is not an ordinary place, Avinash. Nobody is going to laugh at you. People will have every compassion for you if your problem is real; in fact they will be more compassionate towards you if your problem is real. But people are hiding their real problems. And it is true as far as the outside world is concerned: if you tell the outside world your real problems, people will start laughing at you.

They will not feel compassion, they will make you a laughing-stock. But not here. Here we have so many other things to laugh about. I give you so many opportunities to laugh that nobody has any laughter left to spare for your real problems. That's why I go on telling so many jokes: so that when real problems arise people can have compassion for you. But in the outside world it happens so - but this is a very special kind of place.

A man entered the doctor's office wearing a robe. Surprised, the doctor asked, "Why do you wear a robe?"

"Ah, you saw the problem right away," said the patient. "I have one huge ball and I can't wear trousers."

"Okay," said the doctor, "let me examine it."

"No, doc, you'll laugh at me!"

"Show me," said the doctor.

"I know you'll laugh."

"No, I won't."

"Promise?"

"Promise!"

So the man lifts his robe, exposing his left leg. The doctor, seeing the oversized ball hanging down to the man's knee, forgets himself and roars with laughter.

"You sonofabitch!" yells the patient."You promised you wouldn't laugh! Now I ain't gonna show you the big one!