Male mind, female mind, no-mind

Question 1

THIS is good, that you are becoming aware that neither doing can help nor nondoing, because your nondoing is a subtle doing. With this awareness a new door will open any day, any moment. When you neither do nor not-do, when you are simply there, when you are a being -- not a doer or a nondoer, because a nondoer is also a doer -- the duality disappears. Then suddenly you find you have always been in the home, you have never left it -- you had never gone out anywhere else. Then the dog realizes there is no need to chase the tail, the tail belongs to him already. There is no need to chase the tail because the tail follows the dog already. But one has to do to reach to nondoing. Then one has to do the nondoing to reach being. And everything helps. Even failures, frustrations -- everything helps. Finally, when you reach, you understand that everything helped -- going astray, falling into old ruts and traps -- everything helped; nothing goes useless. And everything becomes a step to another.

Just yesterday I was reading an article from Swami Agehananda Bharti. He relates that once he asked Ravishankar how well George Harrison plays the sitar.

Ravishankar thought for a while and then said, "Well, he holds it alright." But that too is a great beginning. If you want to learn to play sitar, holding the sitar absolutely as it should be is a good beginning; it is already something. So don't laugh. Ravishankar has appreciated George Harrison, that he holds it well.

First you will become a doer. Do it well, that's the whole thing. If you don't do it well you will have to come back again and again, because nothing can be left incomplete; it has to be completed. In fact you have to be frustrated so totally that you never come back to doing again. Then do the nondoing, and do it so totally that that too is finished. And then there is no way to go back. You cannot fall back if everything has been complete; only incomplete experiences go on calling you back.

Incomplete experiences have a magnetic force in them; they demand fulfillment.

That's why you again and again fall in the rut. You move immaturely. One

experience has not ripened -- intellectually you start understanding it but not totally -- and you move. That won't help. Your whole being should understand it that "this is futile." Not because I say -- that is not going to help -- but because your whole being says, "This is futile. What are you doing? It is nonsense."

Then db nondoing. It is a doing, that's why I say "do." Very subtle. Gross is the first, the part when you do. Second is the subtle; soon you will realize that this, again, is that you are doing -- you are trying not to do, but the trying is there and that is effort. Your effortlessness is also effort. But you can understand it right now, what I am saying. That is not the point: you have to feel it, pass through it, realize it. Maturity is needed -- through experiencing -- then one day gross and subtle both disappear. Suddenly you are sitting there -- nothing to do and nothing not to do.

Then what will you do? You will simply be. There is no need to chase the tail.

Now, the dog knows that the tail belongs to him; now, the dog has become a Buddha. This is enlightenment.

Question 2

That depends on you. I will not leave any stone unturned, but that is not going tb help very much -- Buddha also didn't leave any stone unturned, neither Jesus.

No Master ever leaves any stone unturned, but no Master can confer enlightenment on you. Unless you understand, nothing can be done.

Sometimes, the very effort of the Master may even create a resistance in you. I feel that many times. If I am after you too much you start escaping from me. If I am trying too hard to do something you become afraid. I have to give you doses according to your capacity to digest.

It depends on you. If you want, everything is possible; but deep down you don't want it. That is the problem you cling to it. You say that you would like to be enlightened, you say that you are finished with this whole rotten life and you would like to transcend it -- but are you really finished with it? Have you really closed your accounts with it? Is not there somewhere deep inside you a desire lurking still, a hope alive still, a seed which can sprout any moment in another life? If you watch you will understand that there is a desire, a hope, that you may not have known the whole of life, that maybe there is something you have been missing, that maybe there was some bliss and you didn't knock at the right door.

That continues.

You come to me, but you come halfheartedly. That is not a coming; that is not a coming at all. You only appear to come to me, but you never come. I promise you

I will not leave any stone unturned, but are you here? Are you close to me, near?

You are very cunning and clever; even when you are close you go on protecting yourself in a thousand and one ways.

For example, even your questions, your attitudes, are protective. And you don't know what they are protecting. I know one of you, a very miserly woman -- she is here to get enlightenment. But since she has been here she has been asking questions: why the ashram has such a costly car, why I wear a costly watch.

What has she to do with the car or the watch? Why are only these questions arising in her mind? Her own miserliness -- protecting. I know she is an adamant miser, and unless her miserliness is broken she cannot grow.

That is for me to decide, what car to have or not have. And I have my own reasons, and you cannot understand my reasons. I never use it, but I have it. It is just sitting there. But it did a miracle; it changed many things. I was surrounded by a few misers, marvadis, and they wouldn't leave me. I purchased this car -- they all left. They simply left; they never came again. There were only two possibilities: either they had to leave their miserliness, then they could have been here; or they had to leave me. And since they have gone the ashram has a different quality to it. They were dirty people, but I cannot tell somebody to leave. I have to create a device. That car has done more than its cost, but you don't know. But you need not be concerned about these things at all.

Gurdjieff used to say, whenever somebody would come he would say, "Give all your money to me." Many people simply left him because of this; because they had come to a spiritual Master and he is after their money. But those who remained, they were transformed. Not that Gurdjieff was interested in their money -- he was interested in breaking their miserliness, because if you are miserly you cannot expand. The whole consciousness of a miser shrinks.

Miserliness is a constipation of being: you cannot expand, you cannot share. you cannot flow. Miserliness is a neurosis; everything is blocked. And money is the God. To give you a real God your false God has to be broken. The first thing Gurdjieff will ask will be about money.

Even to ask him a question was not so easy as it is for you to ask me. He used to ask one hundred dollars for one question, that means one thousand rupees for one question. And maybe he will say "yes" or "no" -- "Now if you have another question, give one thousand rupees again." When he wrote his first book ALL AND EVERYTHING he would not publish it. Disciples were after him: "Publish it; this is a great work." He said, "Wait." He will allow a person to look into the manuscript and he will take one thousand dollars -- just to look into the manuscript.

What was he doing? And he was not at all interested in money: with one hand he will take, with another hand he will give. He died a poor man; and he must have accumulated millions of dollars if he was interested in money, but he had nothing -- when he died not even a single dollar was found. Where did the

money disappear to? He was taking from somebody, giving it to somebody else.... He was just an in-between passage for money to flow.

People will leave him immediately the moment they will see that he is asking for the money. And he was not like me: he will ask for the whole money -- "Whatsoever you have, you give. Surrender." But those who surrendered, they were blessed; they totally were transformed. That became the beginning. That was the breaking point from where everything became different. For a person who was too attached to money, it was a great thing to give all.

It happened once: A woman, a great musician, came to him, and he asked for all the ornaments that she had. She was really in deep trust with him; she immediately gave all the ornaments. By the evening, those ornaments were returned to her. But not only did she find those ornaments there, a few more were added by Gurdjieff in the bag -- more valuable than her own ornaments.

She couldn't understand what was happening.

Then just fifteen days afterwards another woman came, a very rich woman, and Gurdjieff asked for whatsoever she had -- all ornaments and money and everything -- to be put in a bag and given to him; only then he starts the work.

The woman was afraid. She said, "I will think and tomorrow I will reply." Then she heard about this musician woman. She went to her and asked, "What has happened?" She told the whole story. Then she was very happy. She said, "Then It is good, a good business -- a bargain: you give a few ornaments and they are almost doubled." Immediately, in the night -- she could not wait for the next day -- immediately, she put all the ornaments in it, in the bag, gave it to Gurdjieff.... It was never returned. The woman waited and waited but it was never returned.

You cannot understand, on the surface, what is happening. The woman who surrendered was not attached to the money; there was no point in taking it.

Gurdjieff returned it with more ornaments added. The other woman gave the money as a bargain. She was obsessed with the money; the money cannot be returned. But even the other woman changed, understanding the whole phenomenon of why they were not returned.

Don't bother. What I do and what I do not do -- that is not your concern, not your worry. You are enough in your own worries; you have too much of your own problems. Don't bother about me. I have my own ways. And don't try to advise me -- just forget about it. Just think about your own self, why you are here. And you can miss for small things because those things will close your eyes. "Why this?" and "Why that?" -- that is not for you to think about.

I know what is going on, and every step that I take is very, very consideredly taken. And in my life I have never repented for anything that I have done: it was the thing to do.

But the woman who goes on asking about the car, about the house, this and that - - and she is a rich woman, in fact, very rich -- she is afraid about her own money: she is protecting her own miserliness. And she is thinking she is asking very relevant questions. But if she remains here I am going to break the ice. The only

point is if she has the courage to be here for a few days. And her miserliness has to be broken, because without it being broken she will never grow. If she is really afraid, she should escape -- she should escape as immediately as possible -- because soon there will be no possibility to escape.

Ask questions which are concerned with your growth -- your questions, which are deeply within your being and need to be answered.

Question 3

Yes. Mind is stupid. There is no mind which is intelligent. Mind cannot be intelligent; mind is stupidity. To say "stupid mind" is not right; it is repetitive because "stupidity" and "mind" both mean the same thing.

Why is mind stupidity? Because mind is nothing but the past. the collected dust that you have gathered on the way -- layers and layers of dust. That hinders your intelligence. It is just like a mirror covered with dust: mind is dust; mirror is consciousness. When all dust is washed away, intelligence arises: when there is no mind you are intelligent; when there is mind you are stupid.

Of course, there are two types of "stupid" -- ignorant stupids, knowledgeable stupids: people who don't know anything that are stupid and people who know too much and are stupid. And remember, the second type is more dangerous than the first because the second type has more dust on the mirror than the first.

An ignorant man can evolve more easily than a pundit, the man who thinks he knows. The very thinking that he knows becomes the hindrance. Mind is not intelligence; intelligence is of the no-mind. Mind is a block.

Try to understand this. Mind is all that you have experienced, all that you have gone through, all that is already dead -- mind is the dead part of your being.

Then you go on carrying it. It does not allow you to be here; it does not allow you to be present. It does not allow you to be intelligent. Before you respond, it starts reacting.

For example, if I ask a person, "Is there God? Does God exist?" -- if he answers from the mind he will be stupid. If he says, "Yes, God exists," because he has been brought up in such a way -- taught, cultivated, conditioned, that God exists -- he says, "Yes, God exists"; but this is not an intelligent response. He does not know; somebody else, others, have told him. They also didn't know; somebody else, others, had told them. He has heard a rumor, and he believes in the rumor.

No, he is not intelligent. He is not even intelligent enough to understand what he is saying. Or the man can say, "No, God doesn't exist," because he was brought up in a communist family or in Russia or China. That too is the same stupid mind -- conditioning changed, but the stupidity is the same: he knows that God doesn't exist, without knowing. He has not searched; he has not investigated. He has not gone into the matter at all.

But if an intelligent person is asked.... Intelligent person: I mean a man who does not look through the mind, puts aside the mind. You ask him, "Does God exist?" - - there will be no answer. At the most an intelligent man can say, "I don't know."

When you say, "I don't know," you show a certain intelligence, the possibility. It is very small, but it can grow and can become a big phenomenon. Or the person will say, "I have not investigated. I have heard people saying this and that, but I don't know. As far as I am concerned I am not aware either this way or that, yes or no. Both are impossible; I cannot say."

This is intelligence, and this man can know someday because with this intelligence discovery is possible. If you are clogged with theories, burdened with scriptures, you will never be intelligent; you will always remain stupid.

Mind is the past -- the dead hovering over the living. It is like a cloud surounding you: through it you cannot see, the vision is not clear, everything is distorted. Let this cloud disappear. Remain with no answers, no conclusions, no philosophies, no religions. Remain open, just open; remain vulnerable, and the truth can happen to you. To be vulnerable is to be intelligent. To know that you don't know is to be intelligent. To know that through mind you miss is to be intelligent. To know that through no-mind the door opens is to be intelligent.

Otherwise, mind is the stupidity.

Question 4

Because I don't want the ashram to be run by intellect. I want it to be run by the heart. I don't want it to be run by the male mind. I want it to be run by the feminine heart... because, to me, to be feminine is to become vulnerable, to become receptive. To be feminine is to become passive, to be feminine is to allow; to be feminine is to wait, to be feminine is not to be in a hurry and tense; to be feminine is to be in love. Yes, the ashram is run by women, because I want it to be run by the heart.

I say I never came across a woman who is really intelligent. I mean "intellectual," not the intelligence I was talking about just now. That intelligence is neither male nor female. That intelligence is of the no-mind. Mind is male, mind is female -- no-mind is none. No-mind has no sex to it. No-mind is just an openness, a space.

There all dualities disappear -- male/female, yin/yang, positive/ negative, existence/nonexistence. All dualities disappear in the no mind, but before that no-mind comes, if you have to choose in the mind, then choose the feminine mind rather than the male mind -- because male mind has an aggression to it.

It is good in the world; if you want to succeed in the world then the male mind is needed: to be aggressive, pugnacious -- to be always ready to fight, to be always ready to be competitive, to be always ready to kill and murder -- violent, jealous -

- to be always alert and to live in a world where everybody is thought to be an enemy and always be on guard that everybody else is trying to attain the same that you are trying to attain... and there is tremendous struggle.

If you want to succeed in the world, then the male mind. If you want to succeed in the inner world, then the feminine mind. But that is only a beginning -- feminine mind is jUst a beginning. It is a step towards no-mind. This is the point: the male mind is a little farther away from the no-mind than is the feminine mind. That's why the feminine mind looks mysterious.

In fact you can love a woman for your whole life, but you will never be able to understand. She will remain a mystery, unpredictable; lives more through the moods than through the thoughts, is more like the climate, less like a mechanism.

In the morning there were clouds and by the afternoon the clouds have disappeared and it is very sunny. Love a woman and you will know. In the morning there are clouds and she is sad and, immediately, nothing in particular has happened, and the clouds have disappeared and it is again sunny and she is singing. Unbelievable for a man. What nonsense goes on in a woman? Yes, it is nonsense because, for a man, things should have a rational explanation. "Why are you sad?' A woman simply says, "I feel sad." A man cannot understand it.

You have to have some reason to be sad. Just being sad? "Why are you happy?"

A woman says she is feeling happy. She lives through moods.

Of course, it is difficult for a man to live with a woman. Hmm?... because if things are rational, things can be managed. If things are just irrational -- out of the blue things come and go -- then it is very difficult to manage. No man has ever been capable of managing a woman. Finally, he surrenders; finally, he surrenders the whole effort to manage.

Male mind is farther away from the no-mind; it is more mechanical, more rational, more intellectual -- more in the head. Feminine mind is closer. more natural, more irrational -- but nearer to the heart. And from the heart it is easier to drop into the belly, where no-mind exists. Head is the location of intellect; heart is the location of love, intuition; and just below the navel, two inches below the navel, is the center Japanese call hara. That is the center of no-mind -- where life and death meet, where all dualities disappear. From the head you have to fall deep down into the hara.

A child is born, then he functions from the hara. In the mother's womb a child functions from the hara: he has no mind, no thoughts. He is alive -- perfectly alive -- in fact he will never be as much alive again as he is in the womb. Then the child is born. Then too for a few months the child goes on functioning from the hara. See a child sleeping: he breathes from the belly, doesn't breathe from the chest; the chest is completely relaxed. The breathing goes just to the hara, and hits the hara. He functions from the hara. That's why every child looks so innocent. Whenever you can again get to the hara you will again become innocent, a mirror with no dust.

The feminine is not the goal -- the feminine is nearer to the no-mind. That's why Lao Tzu goes on insisting, "Become passive. Wait, patience. Don't be in a hurry.

And don't be aggressive," because truth cannot be conquered. You can Only surrender to it.

So the ashram will be run by women till I find people who have no-minds. When the no-minds are available then there will be no question of male and female; then the ashram will be run by no-minds. Then a different type of intelligence functions. In fact then only, intelligence functions: it is not intellectual; it is total.

Question 5

This has always remained, for centuries, a relevant question. A Buddha is there, offering all that he can offer, ready to share his being, but nobody seems to be in need -- and everybody is in need. Everybody is ill, and Buddha is there offering the medicine, but nobody seems to be interested in medicine. There must be some cause.

This is my observation: that to be interested in happiness is very difficult, to be interested in health is very difficult. People have a morbid liking for illness and people have a morbid attachment with unhappiness. That's why you are always ready for unhappiness. No preparation is needed, no Patanjali is needed -- no eight steps to become unhappy. Everybody is ready to jump. As far as unhappiness is concerned everybody follows Lao Tzu and nobody ever asks how. Nobody comes to me and asks how to be unhappy; everybody knows.

Nobody has been teaching you unhappiness -- nobody, not at all. You know it by instinct. You are already masters in that.

There must be some deep investment in it. Why do people like to be unhappy?

When I say "like" I don't mean that they know they like. They may say that they don't like: "Who likes unhappiness!" They want to be happy, but that is not the point -- they cling to unhappiness. They may say they like happiness, but they cling to unhappiness. They say they desire happiness, but whatsoever they do creates unhappiness. And it is not new; they have been doing it for many lives.

Again and again they do the same -- then they are unhappy. And they say they want happiness.

There is some investment. I would like to tell you a few things because they maybe helpful. When you are unhappy it is easy to condemn the whole world, it is easy to throw responsibility on everybody else. When you are unhappy you can manipulate others who are near you -- because you are unhappy, and they

have a responsibility to make you happy. When you are unhappy you can demand attention: I am ill; I am unhappy.

You must have come across hypochondriacs who go on talking about their illnesses and diseases and they magnify it so much that, in fact, illnesses that big do not exist. But if you say, "You are magnifying," they feel very much hurt. In fact they relish the very idea that they are so ill. They go from one doctor to another just to tell their story. Nobody can help them with what they have -- that they know. Nobody is that wise; nobody knows anything. And they have such mysterious illnesses around them, they know from the very beginning nobody is going to help. What are they doing when they talk continuously about their illness -- as if somebody goes on showing you his wound again and again and goes on fingering with the wound and playing with the wound and hurting himself? He asks for sympathy, attention.

And from the very childhood a child learns the trick. The whole society, from the very beginning, goes wrong. Whenever a child is ill the parents will pay more attention. Whenever he is unhappy the whole family feels responsible, and the child becomes a small dictator in himself. When a child is ill he can dictate his terms. He can say this toy has to be brought this evening, and nobody can say no -- because he is ill. But when he is healthy nobody bothers about him; when he is healthy nobody comes and sits by his side. When he is ill Father comes, big Daddy, so important a man that the little child feels happy; now he is more important than you. You are just sitting by the side of the bed asking about his health; then doctors come, great doctors, well-known doctors; neighbors come; the mother is continuously fussing about his illness. He becomes the center of the whole family, and the whole family is the world for a child. The whole world revolves around him: he becomes the sun and everything becomes a planet. It is so beautiful, he feels. Now he is learning a trick for which he will suffer his whole life -- a trick which is very dangerous.

If I am allowed my own way I will tell parents to never pay much attention when a child is ill and unhappy. Care, but don't pay much attention. Rather, when he is happy and healthy pay attention. When a child is happy make him feel that he is the center of the family. When he is unhappy just leave him by the side, give him medicine, but let him feel that nobody is really bothering about him He is put by the side. It looks very, very unkind, cruel -- what I am saying looks very cruel -- but I tell you this is compassion, if you understand the whole phenomenon, because for your ordinary kindness the child is going to suffer his whole life. Not only one -- it becomes a deep-rooted pattern: in many lives he will go on repeating the same thing.

Whenever in life you need attention.... And everybody needs attention, because attention is a food for the ego. Only a Buddha doesn't need attention -- because the ego is not there the food is not needed -- otherwise everybody needs attention. And whenever you need attention, what will you do then? You know only one trick: to be unhappy, to fall ill. Ninety percent of illnesses arise first in

the mind, in the unconscious. The wife doesn't bother about you: rather on the contrary, when you come from the office she is waiting to fight or she has left the plates for you to wash. But when you are ill she surrounds you, she becomes a warmth, she takes care of every small thing, she does not fight.... You feel good.

This is really a morbid affair: that when you are bad you feel good and when you are good you feel bad. But this is the situation. If the wife is in the husband comes with flowers and ice cream. When she is okay he doesn't even look at her - - he comes with his newspaper, opens his newspaper, and starts reading.

Everybody goes on playing the game of being unhappy. You want to be happy, but unless you cut the investment in unhappiness you cannot be happy. And happiness is not somebody else's responsibility towards you, remember. Nobody else can make you happy. It is your own growth, your own awareness, your own moving energy -- higher and higher -- that gives you bliss. But you have to understand the deep-down unconscious mechanism -- that you talk about happiness but you desire unhappiness.

That's why.... And whatsoever you want happens! This world is really a magic place. If you want unhappiness it will happen, if you want happiness it will happen -- because you are the deciding factor; you are the base of all that happens to you. This is the whole law of karma: whatsoever you want, you do, and it happens. If you are unhappy it is because you want it. I again look cruel.

Hmm?... because you come to me to be consoled. I should say to you, "You are unhappy because the whole world is conspiring against you." You feel good, but then I am not a help to you. I am helping your illness; I am making you more and more neurotic.

No. Nobody is responsible for your unhappiness except you. And this is categorically so. There are no exceptions to it. This is a very scientific -- absolutely scientific -- law: you are responsible. Let this penetrate deep into your mind that only you are responsible. Whenever you feel unhappy, suffering, sad, know well you are creating it. And if you want to create, good. Enjoy it. Then don't ask for happiness. Then just relax into it: be sad, be unhappy, become a dark night. I am not saying that you should become a day; there is no need. If you like to be a dark night, be -- but then don't ask for the day. The trouble arises: you cling to the night and you ask for the day. You come to me and I see. You ask for silence -- and I see you are clinging to noise, thoughts, thinking. You ask for peace and you are clinging to things which will not allow you to be peaceful.

So clear this mess inside you.

People are in need, they have always been in need, but they won t come because they may be afraid. People come to me, and sometimes they become afraid of the happiness that starts growing within them -- something so unfamiliar.

It happened once, George Bernard Shaw was talking about a man very condemningly. One mutual friend, who knew George Bernard Shaw well and knew the other man well, said to George Bernard Shaw, "I know well that you don't know him at all; and you are condemning him and criticizing him in such

certain terms -- and I know that you have not even been introduced to him. You are not even a distant acquaintance, so if you really want to know the man, should I bring him and introduce him to you?" George Bernard Shaw said, "No, no -- because if you introduce him I'm apt to like him."

That is the trouble. People may be suffering, but you bring them to me: there is a possibility they may become happy. That is the fear. There is a possibility they may become peaceful. That is the fear. So rather than coming to me they will talk against me. They are talking against me not to convince somebody else; they are talking against me to convince themselves so they need not come to me. Mind is very cunning and goes on playing with you, and unless you are really aware you can never come out of this whole mess that mind is.

Question 6

The question is in three steps. First step: "If Lao Tzu and Patanjali met today could they reconcile their teachings about spiritual growth?"

If they meet they will not find that there is anything to be reconciled -- everything is reconciled. They will embrace each other, sit holding hands, but won't talk. They may already be doing it somewhere in heaven; because everything is reconciled. The problem is for you, not for them. The problem is for those who are on the path, not for those who have reached the goal, because on the goal everything is reconciled. The goal is one; paths are many. Travelling on a path you feel that somebody else is travelling on another path, but reaching to the goal you suddenly become aware that everybody reaches to the same goal.

The truth is one.

So there is no question of any reconciliation. There is no need for any synthesis; everything is absolutely synthesized. They may have a good laugh or a cup of tea, but there is not going to be any philosophical discussion -- that much is sure.

They may play cards or something else nonsensical, but no rational discussion is going to be there. I always think that in heaven, where liberated people are, what will they be doing? They must be playing cards, chess -- nonsense things.

What?... what will you do there? Playing Those are not games there, because a game becomes serious. A play is just a play. You enjoy it, just like small children.

The second part of the question: "If in their Buddhahood no distinction exists between them, why are their teachings so different?"

The teachings are different but the teachers are not. There exists only one teacher.

Teachings are different because students are different, disciples are different.

Patanjali was talking to a different category of people -- you have to understand this. Lao Tzu was talking to a different quality of people.

In India even mysticism is a very, very logical phenomenon. India is a very, very thinking country: it thinks about "unthinkables" also; it theorizes about that which cannot be theorized; it defines that which cannot be defined. The whole of Indian scriptures are full of.... They will go on saying, "God cannot be defined" -- and they will define. And they will say, "Truth is indefinable" -- and in saying this they have defined it; they have shown one quality, of indefinableness. They go on saying, "Nothing can be said about God"and immediately they will say, "He is within you" or "He created all" or "He is all."

India is a contemplative country. It loves thinking. It loves thinking so much that it has become almost impractical. People loved thinking, and they thought and thought and they became impractical, almost impractical. India has not produced any scientific technology. If the mind is practical the mind is interested to do something. India is an impractically thinking country; it goes on thinking. The whole business of life seems to be to think.

Lab Tzu's China was totally different, and the disciples that Lao Tzu had gathered around him.... And this was not a new tradition which Lao Tzu was propagating. It had existed for at least five thousand years before Lao Tzu. It was very, very ancient. China in those days was a nonthinking country: less contemplative and more meditative. It was not concerned about thinking, theorizing, philosophizing. China has not given beautiful philosophies to the world -- India has given. Of almost all the philosophies that you can come across anywhere, you will always find a seed in India. Sometimes it becomes a surprising phenomenon.

You cannot conceive any philosophy in the world which does not have a parallel in India. Everything that has been thought anywhere else has already been thought in India. In thinking you cannot compete with Indians. Not of today's Indians -- I'm not talking about today's Indians. They are just a ruin of a past glory. In fact, India no longer exists. The India of Buddha, the India of Patanjali, the India of the Upanishads and Vedas, does not exist at all. They thought and thought and they created magnificent theories about the world, but they were not empirical, they were not practical.

China is totally different. They were not interested in contemplating about theories; rather, they were interested in living. They were interested in being, more than in thinking. And Lao Tzu is the pinnacle.

When Bodhidharma went to China these two currents met -- the Lao-Tzian meditation and Buddha's contemplation. They met, and one of the most beautiful things was born, that is Zen. It has the quality of Buddha and it has the quality of Lao Tzu. It is neither Buddhist nor Lao-ist; it is both. It is the greatest crossbreeding that has ever happened on the earth.

Patanjali is very logical, logical in the world of the mysterious. Step by step he moves, analytical. He could have satisfied any Einstein, any Wittgenstein or Russell. Lao Tzu could not have satisfied Einstein, he could not have satisfied Russell or Wittgenstein, because he would have looked absurd. He was talking patent nonsense. But Patanjali would have satisfied any scientific mind, howsoever great, because he talked so scientifically and he moves so gradually, step by step, showing every link.

The teachings are different because Patanjali was born in India, was talking to Indians -- a very contemplative country. Lao Tzu was talking to mystics, a very meditative country in those days. Both were talking to different people; different types of disciples gathered around them. Teaching differs because teaching is for the taught. Teachers don't differ. If you leave Patanjali alone and Lao Tzu alone they will be just the same, but if Patanjali is with his students and Lao Tzu with his disciples, they will be different. If Patanjali and Lao Tzu are silent, they are the same, but if they talk to somebody they will be different. A teacher has to teach according to the disciple -- his understanding, his training, his aptitude, his intelligence, his conditioning. He has to bring his teaching to the level of the student; otherwise he is not a teacher. That's why teachings differ.

And one more thing: there are two types of people. One, who are very, very courageous and crazy take the jump; in fact, dangerously courageous, irrational.

In a certain mood they can take the jump; they don't bother about the consequence. And then there is another type of person -- hesitating, will make every certainty about what is going to happen, about the consequence and the result; only then will he move. Patanjali has appeal to those who would like to be convinced before the jump. Lao Tzu is for those who don't bother for any conviction; they are ready to jump. For these tWo different types two different teachings exist, but the teachers are the same.

The third part: "And why has there not been a Master before you in all the ages who has combined and synthesized all the teachings of past Buddhas?"

There was no need; now the need exists. The world was, in the past, divided. The world was very, very big. People remained confined in their own countries.

Teachings were not meeting: a Mohammedan lived like a Mohammedan, never aware of what the Vedas say; a Hindu lived like a Hindu, never knowing really what Zarathustra has taught. But now the world has become very small, a global village; the world has shrunken tremendously. Now everybody knows everything else: a Christian is not just a Christian -- he knows what the Geeta says, he knows what the Koran says. Now there is confusion; because the Koran says something, the Geeta says something, the Bible says something else. Now everybody is aware of everything else that is around. People go on moving from one country to another country, from one teacher to another teacher. There are many here who have been with many teachers; now they are a mess.

A great synthesis is needed. In the future, religions will not be able to exist separately, no. That will become impossible. I am just creating the base for a new temple -- which will be a church also, a mosque, a gurudwara. I am creating a base for the religious man who will neither be a Christian nor a Hindu nor a Mohammedan, just religious. Now the time is ripe for a great synthesis; it was never so.

Buddha was talking to people who were not Mohammedans. Jesus talked to people who were Jews; Jesus talks as if there exists nobody else other than Jews.

He was talking to Jews, but now to whom am I talking? Here are Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs -- all are here. You here are a miniature world. Soon, when people will understand each other more. the differences will be lost. When a Christian will understand the Geeta really, the distinction between the Geeta and the Bible will be lost; they will become one whole.

That's why I am trying to talk about all the systems and all the Masters, so a base can be created. On that base will stand the temple of the future, the religious man of the future. He will not be a Christian. In fact in the future if somebody is a Christian he will look a little outdated, and if somebody is a Hindu he will look a little stupid, and if somebody still insists that he is a Mohammedan he will not be a contemporary -- a dead man. The future is for religion -- in which all religions will mingle and meet and dissolve.

That's why it was not needed in the past. Now it is needed. Now man is just around one of the greatest turning points. It always happens after twenty-five centuries that humanity takes a turn; the circle is complete. The human consciousness had taken one turn at the time of Buddha. Now twenty-five centuries are over and the turn is just in the near future. Those who are alert will be benefited most by that turn because they can use that tide. They can ride on that tide; they can reach home easily. When the sea is on ebb it is difficult to reach the shore. When the sea is on tide the waves are moving towards the shore on their own -- you just leave your boat with them and they carry you.

Just within twenty-five years one of the most significant points of history will be reached and human consciousness will take a turn. If you are ready and meditative at that moment, much is possible which will not be possible again for twenty-five centuries. At Patanjali's time there was a turn; Patanjali existed twenty-five centuries before Buddha. This has always been so.

It is just like the earth takes one round of the sun in a certain period of time: the whole human consciousness moves in a circle and comes to the original source in a certain time, that is twenty-five centuries. That critical moment is near. It can become very radical. If in your mind you are synthesized, you will be able to use that turn. If you are not synthesized -- you remain a Mohammedan, you remain a Christian -- you remain out of date, you remain of the past. You are not here; you are not available to the present. To make you available to the present, to make

you capable of understanding what is going to happen soon, that's what this whole synthesis is all about.

Question 7

Yes. Emptiness has its own voice. Literally, it is not a voice; it is an urge. It is not a sound, it is silence. Nobody says something to do; you simply feel like doing.

Listening to the inner voice means leaving everything to the inner emptiness.

Then it guides you. You always move right if you move empty. If you have the inner emptiness nothing will be wrong, nothing can go wrong. In emptiness nothing ever goes wrong -- that is the very criterion of being right, always right.

Yes, emptiness has its own voice, silence has its own music, no-movements has its own dance; but you will have to reach to it.

I'm not saying listen to the mind. In fact mind is not yours. When I say, "Listen to your voice," I mean drop all that society has given to you -- your mind is given by the society. Your mind is not yours. It is a society, a conditioning; it is social.

Emptiness is yours; mind is not yours. Mind is Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian; mind is communist, anti-communist, capitalist. Emptiness is none, nobody; it is sunya. In that sunya, nothingness, is the virginity of your being. Listen to it.

When I say listen to it, I don't mean there is somebody speaking to you. When I say listen to it I mean be available to it, give your ears and your being to it; and it will guide you. And it never misguides anybody. Out of nothingness whatsoever comes is beautiful, is true, is good, is a benediction.