Not answers, no questions

Question 1

If really it happens that you have no questions to ask, it is a tremendous phenomenon. It is one of the most beautiful _ states of mind; because when there are no questions, that nonquestioning consciousness is the answer to all questions. Not that you get the answers, but, simply, questions dissolve. The mind becomes nontense, because each question is a tension, is a worry; it is an anxiety.

And no answer is going to solve the question. The questioning mind is the problem, not the question. Your question can be answered, but from the answer your questioning mind will create a thousand and one more questions; you will reduce every answer into many more questions. It never helps. It helps only when all questions drop, when consciousness transcends questioning, when you understand that there is nothing to be asked, nothing to be answered.

Life is a mystery, not a problem -- you cannot ask anything about it. If it really happens, this is samadhi. This is what my whole effort is all about. You should come to a point where no question arises. In that silence, in that total beatitude, in that peace, you are transformed: all anxiety, anguish, disappears.

But the question is if it is real, because you may not be asking questions and questions are there; then it is of no use. Then it is better to ask. If questions are in the mind and you don't ask, then you feel shy, that won't help. It is better to ask and be finished with them. Not that by asking you will get the answers -- nobody has got the answer -- nobody ever had it -- nobody will ever have it. The answer is impossible because life is a mystery. It cannot be solved. The more you solve it, the more you find that it is impossible to solve it. But by questioning, by and by, you become aware of the futility of questioning.

Then one day in a subtle moment of awareness, in an integrated moment of consciousness, you transcend questions. Just as a snake goes out of the old skin -- the old skin is dropped, the snake moves on -- one day your consciousness moves and the old skin of questions is left behind. Suddenly, you are fresh and virgin -- attained. You have become a Buddha. A Buddha-consciousness is not that consciousness which has all answers; it is a consciousness which has no questions.

Question 2

Yes, a time of crisis is a very valuable time. When everything is established and there is no crisis things are dead. When nothing is changing and the grip of the old is perfect, it is almost impossible to change yourself. When everything is in a chaos, nothing is static, nothing is secure, nobody knows what is going to happen the next moment -- in such a chaotic moment -- you are free, you can change. You can attain to the innermost core of your being.

It is just like in a prison: when everything is settled it is almost impossible for any prisoner to get out of it, to escape from the prison. But just think: there has been an earthquake and everything is disturbed and nobody knows where the guards are and nobody knows where the jailer is, and all rules have dissolved, and everybody is running on his own -- in that moment if a prisoner is a little alert he can escape very easily; if he is foolish, only then will he miss the opportunity.

When the society is in a turmoil and everything is in crisis, a chaos pervades -- this is the moment, if you want, you can escape from the prison. It is so easy because nobody is guarding you, nobody is after you. You are left alone. Things are in such a shape that everybody is bothering about his own business -- nobody is looking at you. This is the moment. Don't miss that moment.

In great crisis periods, always, much enlightenment has happened. When the society is established and it is almost impossible to rebel, to go beyond, not to follow the rules, enlightenment becomes very, very difficult -- because it is freedom; it is anarchy. In fact it is moving away from society and becoming individual. The society doesn't like individuals: it likes robots who just look like individuals but are not individuals. The society doesn't like authentic being. It likes masks, pretenders, hypocrites, but not real persons because a real person is always trouble. A real person is always a free person. You cannot enforce things on him; you cannot make a prisoner out of him; you cannot enslave him. He would like to lose his life, but he would not like to lose his freedom. Freedom is more valuable to him than life itself. Freedom is the highest value for him. That's why in India we have called the highest value moksha, nirvana; those words mean freedom -- total freedom -- absolute freedom.

Whenever society is in a turmoil and everybody is tending his own business -- has to tend -- escape. In that moment the doors of the prison are open, many cracks are in the walls, the guards are not on duty... one can escape easily.

The same situation was at the time of Buddha, twenty-five centuries before. It always comes in a circle; the circle completes in twenty-five centuries. Just as a circle completes in one year -- again summer comes back, one year's circle and the summer is back -- there is a great circle of twenty-five centuries. Every time after twenty-five centuries, the old foundations dissolve; the society has tb lay

new foundations. The whole edifice becomes worthless; it has to be demolished.

Then economic, social, political, religious -- all systems -- are disturbed. The new is to be born; it is a birth pain.

There are two possibilities. One, one is the possibility that you may start fixing the old falling structure: you may become a social servant and you may start making things more stable. Then you miss, because nothing can be done: the society is dying. Every society has a life-span and every culture has a life-span.

As a child is born and we know the child will become a youth, will become old, and will die -- seventy years, eighty years, at the most a hundred years -- every society is born, is young, becomes old, has to die. Every civilization that is born has to die. These critical moments are moments of the death of the past, the old; moments of the birth of the new. You should not bother; you should not start supporting the old structure -- it is going to die. If you are supporting, you may be crushed under it. This is one possibility: that you start supporting the structure. That is not going to work. You will miss the opportunity.

Then there is another possibility: you may start a social revolution to bring the new. Then, too, again you will miss the opportunity, because the new is going to come. You need not bring it. The new is already coming -- don't bother about it; don't become a revolutionary. The new will come. If the old is gone nobody can force it to remain, and if the new is there and the time has reached and the child is ripe in the womb, the child is going to be born. You need not try any Caesarian operation. The child is going to be born; don't bother about it. Revolution goes on happening by itself; it is a natural phenomenon. No revolutionaries are needed.

You need not kill the person; he is going to die himself. If you start working for a social revolution -- you become a communist, a socialist -- you will miss.

These are the two alternatives in which you can miss. Or you can use this time of crisis and be transformed, use it for your individual growth. There is nothing like a critical moment in history: everything is tense and everything is intense, and everything has come to a moment, to a peak, from where the wheel will turn.

Use this door, this opportunity, and be transformed. That's why my emphasis is for individual revolution.

Question 3

The question is in two parts. Humanity is not dirty because of dirty politicians; dirty politicians are there because of dirty humanity. You have to understand it well. Don't throw the responsibility on the politicians. They simply represent

you, nothing else. This is absurd: first you choose them, then you call them dirty.

And when you choose you choose the dirtiest. You vote for them, and then you call them dirty. How do they come? From where do they come? They come from you. They are there with your support; they will fall if you don't support them.

Don't call them dirty. This is an old trick of the mind: always throw the responsibility on somebody else and you feel guilt-free. You are the real culprit.

If dirty politicians exist they exist because of your dirty mind. Somewhere in your mind they have their roots; from there they are nourished. So just by changing the politicians nothing will change. For thousands of years man has been changing politicians, nothing else, but nothing happens -- because man has not changed himself. You go on changing the politician but who will choose the next? You will choose the next again.

And whenever a politician is out of power he looks very beautiful, good, innocent, because without power you cannot be dirty -- you need power. So whenever a politician is not in power he looks so humble, so sincere. Just give him the power, and immediately he is transformed, he is no longer the same person -- because politics is a power trip. The man was after power: he had to be humble to persuade you, to seduce you, that he is a humble, saintly man. Once he is in power he doesn't care about you. He, in fact, never cared before; he was just playing a game with you. He was seducing you, exploiting you. Now he has attained his goal -- why should he bother about you? Who are you? He doesn't recognize you. Now the long-cherished power is in his hands; he starts using it.

Then you start calling him dirty.

And you have been changing politicians for centuries -- nothing has changed.

Rather, change yourself. It is time -- enough time now -- you must understand that no social revolution can be a revolution. No political revolution Can be a revolution. At the most it can give you a temporary relief, but that's nothing, nothing of any worth. Unless you change, nothing changes: the human individual has to be changed.

And, the second part of the question. You think that today, nowadays, right from birth till death everything is being controlled by politicians -- "guided, dictated, influenced, governed." Do you know any time when it was not so? Why do you call it "nowadays"? It was always so; always man was guided, controlled. In fact today the control is not so strong; that's why the question arises. In the days of Rama the question would not have arisen -- the control was perfect. Go further back and the control is so perfect that you cannot even ask the question. Now you can ask the question because the control is a little loose. You can raise the question: at least that much freedom has happened in the world. The further back you go, the more conditioned you will find people.

There has never been a moment in the past like this moment. It is the best up to now. Hitherto, this is the best moment you are living, and this should be so. The past was not better than the present -- it can't be. Now, at least, a facade of freedom exists in the world: at least you are allowed to talk; at least you are

allowed to question. This is one of the greatest physiological insights to be understood.

For example, in India sudras, untouchables, have existed for thousands of years, but never in the past history was there ever a question raised against their slavery. Why? -- the control was perfect. The control was so perfect, the conditioning was so absolute, they couldn't even feel that they were controlled.

Who will feel it? How will you feel if the conditioning is total? You will think this is the only life there is; there is no possibility of any other life to be compared with it. Sudras accepted that this was the only possibility. They lived one of the ugliest lives on the earth, but they were never aware. The conditioning was perfect.

You cannot find greater conditioners than brahmins; and they have to be the best because they are in the trade for the longest. They have been in the trade for the longest -- nobody knows more tricks than they know. The whole world has to learn from brahmins how to condition. They are the oldest brainwashers. They conditioned so perfectly that sudras, a great mass of people, simply believed that this is because of their past bad karmas that they are suffering; so there is no question of any revolt -- you have to suffer it. If you suffer silently there is a possibility in the next life you may not be born a sudra; if you create trouble then in the next life also you will be born a sudra, even worse than this. They not only conditioned one life, they conditioned the whole chain of lives. And the sudras were not allowed to read because when you start reading you start questioning.

They were not allowed to know anything about the Vedas, the scriptures, because if you know the same secrets as the oppressors know then it will be difficult. They were never allowed to have any understanding of any sort. They lived like animals.

That slavery was perfect; and this has been so all over the world. It is for the first time that man has got a little freedom, a little rope. So don't say "nowadays," because in that "nowadays" there is a condemnation of the present and appreciation of the past; that's not right. The present is always better. It has to be because it has grown out of the past: more experienced, richer, future will be better. But conditioning is there; it has always been there. Society lives on conditioning; it conditions everybody. The methods may differ -- in China they condition in a different way, in Russia in a different way, in India in a different way -- but the conditioning is the same.

And what do you think?... what have religious people been doing? Do you think only politicians have been conditioning people? Religion has been the greatest politics in the world; it has also conditioned people. How are you a Hindu? What is being a Hindu or a Christian or a Mohammedan? It is a conditioning. The child is born: the politics will be able to catch hold of the neck of the child very late, when the child goes into the school -- only then. By that time he will be seven years of age. Now scientists say that by the time of the age of seven the child is already eighty percent conditioned. So who is doing that conditioning? -- the

parents, the priest, the temple, the church. From the very beginning they are loading your mind that you are a Hindu, that you are a Mohammedan, that you are a Christian -- or, that you are a Communist.

Every religion is interested in children, to teach them. Immediately, the moment they can understand words, they have to be taught. Immediately -- because once they miss the opportunity of teaching them early, there is danger; your unconscious should be completely conditioned. And that affects your whole life.

Whatsoever you become, that conditioning will be there always, coloring your attitudes, your mind. If you have been a Hindu, a born Hindu, then by studies, intellectual understanding, meeting with other peoples, knowing other religions, other scriptures, you may become a little aware that not only Hindus are right, that there are other people also who are right -- the Koran is also good, not only the Veda is good -- but if you look deep down in the unconscious, you will always find a hierarchy: the Veda will always be at the top. You may appreciate Christ, but Krishna will be at the top.

Even a man like Bertrand Russell, who became absolutely agnostic in his later life, became religionless, stopped believing in God or in any future life -- even he says that he knows well that Buddha seems to be the greatest person ever born in the world, but intellectually he can say that: his heart goes on saying, "No, how can Buddha be so great -- greater than Jesus? Not possible." So he says, "At the most I can put them on the same pedestal, but I cannot put Buddha higher. And I know intellectually that Buddha seems to be a greater phenomenon than Jesus" -- but the childhood training goes on clutching your heart.

Religions have been conditioning you, politicians have been conditioning you: you are a conditioned mechanism. Only through meditation is there a possibility to uncondition the mind. Only a meditator goes beyond conditioning. Why?

Because every conditioning works through thoughts. If you feel you are a Hindu, what is it? -- a cluster of thoughts given to you when you were not even aware of what was being given to you. A cluster of thoughts and you are a Christian, a Catholic, a Protestant. Only in meditation thoughts dissolve -- all thoughts. You become thought-less. In that thought-less state of mind there is no conditioning: you are no longer a Hindu, nor a Christian, nor a Communist, nor a Fascist. You are no longer anybody -- you are simply yourself. For the first time all conditioning has been dropped. You are out of the prison.

Only meditation can uncondition you. No social revolution will help, because the revolutionaries will again condition you in their way. In 1917 Russia went through a revolution. Before it, it was one of the most orthodox Christian countries. The Russian Church was one of the most orthodox -- more orthodox than the Vatican -- but [hen, suddenly, Russians changed everything. Churches were closed -- they were converted into schools, Communist Party offices, hospitals -- religious teaching was banned, and they started conditioning people for Communism. Within ten years everybody was an atheist. Just in ten years! By

the year 1927 the whole of religion disappeared from Russia; they conditioned anew.

But to me it is the same: whether you condition a man as a Catholic, Christian. or you condition a man as a Communist, it makes no difference to me, because the whole question is of conditioning. You condition, you don't give him freedom -- what difference does it make whether you live in a Christian hell or a Hindu hell, or you live in a Christian slavery or a Hindu slavery? What difference does it make? There is no difference. If you live in a Hindu prison, hmm?... just the label.

Then someday there comes revolution: they tear away the label; they put "Communist Prison." Then you are happy and rejoicing that you are free -- in the same prison! Only the words change. First you were taught there is a God, he created the world; now you are taught there is no God and nobody has created the world; but both things are being taught to you.

And religion cannot be taught. All that can be taught will be politics. That's why I say religion itself has been the greatest politics in the past. And there is no possibility of any social revolution, because all revolutions will again condition you.

There is only one possibility: that is individual flowering of no-mind. You attain to thoughtlessness. then nobody can condition you, then all conditionings drop.

Then, for the first time, you are free. Then the whole space is yours: without any limitations, without any walls, in life you move, you live, you love, you rejoice, you delight.

Question 4

It drops itself when it is finished. You need not drop it. By and by you will feel there is no energy in it. By and by you will feel that you are doing catharsis but they are empty gestures, the energy is not there -- in fact, you are pretending to do it, acting it; it is not happening. Whenever you feel that it is not happening and you have to force it, it has already dropped. You just have to listen to your heart.

When you are angry, how do you know when the anger has disappeared? When you are sexual, how do you know that the sexuality has gone? Because the energy from the thought is no longer there. The thought may remain, but the energy is no longer there; it is an empty thing. You were angry a few minutes before: now, your face may be still a little angry, but deep down you know now there is no anger, the energy has moved. In fact, you have been angry at your child: you cannot smile, otherwise the child will misunderstand you, so you are pretending that you are still angry; but you would like to laugh now and you would like to bring the child near you, kiss the child, love the child. But you are still pretending. Otherwise the whole point will be lost -- your anger -- and the

child will start laughing, and he will think it was nothing. You are pretending, just the face, but deep down the energy has moved.

The same will happen in catharsis. You are doing catharsis; it is an energy phenomenon. Many emotions are suppressed -- they are uncoiling, they are coming up, bubbling up. Then there is much energy. You are screaming -- there is energy. And after the screaming you feel relieved, as if a burden has disappeared. You feel weightless; you feel more at ease, calmed down, slowed down. But if there is no suppressed emotion, then you can do the gesture -- after the gesture you will feel tired, because you were unnecessarily wasting the energy. There was no suppressed emotion, nothing was coming up, and you were unnecessarily jumping and screaming; you will feel tired.

If the catharsis is true, you will feel rejuvenated after it; if the catharsis is false, you will feel tired. If the catharsis was true, you will feel very, very alive after it, younger than before, as if a few years have disappeared -- you were thirty, now you are twenty-eight or twenty-five. A load has disappeared -- you are younger, livelier, fresher. But if you are just making the gesture, you will feel tired -- you were thirty: you will feel thirty-five, old.

You have to watch. Nobody else can tell what is happening within you. You have to be a watcher. Continuously watch what is happening. Don't go on pretending -- because catharsis is not the goal; it is just a means. One day it has to drop. Don't go on carrying it. It is just like a boat, a ferry boat: you cross the stream and then you forget about it; you don't carry it on your head.

Buddha used to tell a story again and again that once it happened, five fools crossed a river. Then they pondered over the matter because their boat had helped them so much. It was rainy season and the river was flooded and it was almost impossible to cross it without the help of the boat, so they said, "This boat has been so beneficial that how can we leave it here? We should show our respect and gratitude." So they carried the boat on their head in the marketplace.

People asked, "What are you doing?" They said, "This boat has helped us so much, how can we leave it now? We will carry it our whole life. Even then the gratitude will not be enough. This boat has saved our lives."

Buddha used to say, "Don't be foolish like those five fools." Religion is a boat; life is the goal. Religion is the boat; ecstasy is the goal. All methods are methods, remember -- don't forget that. No method should become the goal. The whole of Patanjali has to be dropped one day because it is all methodology. And when the whole of Patanjali has been dropped then suddenly you will discover a Lao Tzu hidden behind -- he is the goal. The goal is to be. The goal is not to do anything; the goal is to be. All methods are to do something, they help to bring you home, but when you enter the home you forget about the cart that brought you or the donkey on which you came or the boat. All methods drop outside: you have reached home.

Remember, catharsis can become your obsession. You can go on doing it, and then it can become a rut, a pattern. It is not to be made a pattern. Watch, when it

is needed, go on watching. By and by you will become aware -- it is a very subtle awareness because the phenomenon is very subtle -- that now there is no energy: you scream but really the scream is not coming, you jump but you have to make effort. Then allow it to be dropped; don't carry the boat.

At what point can catharsis be dropped? It drops itself. You simply remain alert and watch it. And when it wants to drop, don't cling to it; let it be dropped.

Question 5

Because of too much repression. The mechanism has to be understood. Patanjali's times were very primitive, natural, primordial; people were like children, innocent. Now, everybody is civilized, cultured. The child within you has been crushed, completely crushed. The civilization is like a monster: it goes on killing and murdering the child within you. All that is natural has been perverted; all that is natural has been condemned.

There are reasons for it. For example, every culture, every society, has to pass through many wars. If sex is not suppressed then an army cannot be created. A soldier has to suppress his sex; only then the same energy becomes the fighting energy. No country allows its soldiers to take their wives and girlfriends to the front -- except America. And America will get defeated everywhere because then there is no built-up energy. A soldier needs frustrated energy. If he has the girlfriend or the wife with him he is satisfied. Why should he fight?

Have you watched? Whenever you suppress sex, more anger happens. Go and look at your monks, your so-called sadhus, and you will always find them angry.

Anger is their style of life now because they have been suppressing sex. Suppress sex: then the energy has to be released from somewhere. If you close one door another door opens immediately -- and the other door will be perverted. The first was natural. Close the second door, then the third door opens -- the third will be even more perverted. And by the time you open the fourth, you will be in a madhouse.

All societies use sex energy; that's why all societies are against sex. If everybody's sex is fulfilled, happy, beautiful, who bothers to fight? You cannot send hippies to the war. The only reason is they are so happy, living their life so naturally that not only will they not go. they demonstrate with placards -- "Love, not war." And they are right. If people are allowed to love. war will disappear from the world.

This is very complex. Even religions like Jainism, which teaches nonviolence, also teach repression of sex. This is absurd. If sex is suppressed war will be there, violence will be there, because where will the energy go? If really you want no war in the world then the energy should be allowed to move in a natural way.

But no society can allow, because war is necessary; otherwise others will jump on you. They won't think that you are good people so no need to trouble you. If

India allows total sex freedom and becomes a hippy land, China will come. It is not possible. If China allows, the fear is there, Russia will come. If Russia allows, America is waiting there. So everybody is after everybody else, and nobody can allow life to flower in natural ways. To be natural has become the most difficult thing in the world.

Then, if you want to teach a child, you have to suppress sex because near about thirteen, fourteen, a child becomes sexually mature. Then nature has given him the ticket, now he can reproduce children -- but college has to be finished. If he starts getting married by the age of fourteen then how will he become a doctor, an engineer? No, he has to become a doctor, but to become a doctor he will have to wait. By the twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth year he will be an engineer or a doctor or a professor; then he is allowed to get married -- because the same energy has to be used for learning. If you allow girls and boys to live in the same hostels, universities will disappear; they cannot exist. They exist on a subtle mechanism of suppression. Sex should be suppressed; only then is there energy available for something else. Then the boy and the girl put their energy into the examination.

They don't like it, but what to do? The energy is there.

Then all the societies are against masturbation, because if you don't allow girls and boys to live together, the boys will masturbate, the girls will masturbate.

Societies have to be against it because they are leaking energy. The energy has to be forced into the university; they have to become engineers. They are not to enjoy themselves. So all societies create guilt around masturbation. And all societies go on praising, that if you conserve sex energy you will become very, very great. Of course, in a way, one becomes: in the world of ambition. If you have not suppressed sex you cannot become a great political leader, because who bothers? It is such nonsense that who wants to go to Delhi or to the White House, Washington? Nobody bothers. What is the need? Your small house is the "White House." You live beautifully and you enjoy. and why should you waste your life travelling towards Delhi or Washington? No, then you cannot become a great political leader.

The sex energy has to be frustrated; then you become great artists. The sex energy has to be frustrated; then you become great scientists. Freud says that people who have very, very repressed sex energy, they become scientists; because to try to find out the secret is a sexual curiosity -- a small boy trying to know how the nude girl looks, curious. All boys, all over the world, play a game called "doctor." They become the doctors and the girl becomes the patient -- small girls, small doctors, small patients -- just to know how the girl looks inside the clothes. And a doctor, of course, is allowed; he has to check the body. This curiosity is the same curiosity as a scientist's curiosity. If sex is repressed, by and by, the scientist will be trying to poke his nose everywhere -- to undress nature, to know the secrets, what are the secrets. He wants the whole world, the whole existence, to be nude so he can know every secret, every nook and corner.

If sex is allowed.... For example, there are primitive societies all over the world, a few primitive societies. They have not created any great scientist. They cannot. In Bastar, in India, I have been to a small community of very primitive people. They have a small house, a community house, in every town. Every boy and girl after the age of twelve is allowed to go the community house and sleep there; all girls sleep there, all boys sleep there. And no restriction on their sexuality -- they enjoy. There is only one restriction, that is wonderful, that is no boy should move with any girl more than three days, so that he comes to know all the girls of the town so he can decide, and every girl has to know every boy of the town. So they can decide with whom to live their whole life. This looks really beautiful, simple, and very human. Every boy is allowed every freedom, every girl is allowed every freedom -- no suppression.

Once they have known all the boys and all the girls of the community they can decide. Once they decide, then no freedom. In fact. there is no need. They are such authentic lovers as you cannot find anywhere in the world. Once a boy and a girl decide to get married they forget about other boys and girls completely.

There is no point: they have known all and this is their choice. They have found their partner -- finished! They are never unfaithful to each other -- never has it happened in their history that a husband has been found making love to some other woman or being interested in some other woman or a woman secretly becoming a beloved of somebody else. No, this simply doesn't happen. It need not happen.

But they have not created great scientists or great poets or great artists or great warriors. No, they have not produced any great men of any sort. They have produced ordinary, simple, natural men. In fact all sorts of greatness are a sort of abnormality; and, somewhere, the sex energy has to be used, because that is the only energy.

In Patanjali's days people were simple, natural. No need for catharsis; nothing was repressed. There was no need to go into catharsis. But now everybody is repressed. And everybody is repressed in so many ways that years of catharsis will be needed: only then you become natural again. You have collected so much garbage in the unconscious, it has to be thrown out. Right now you cannot move on the path -- first you have to unload yourself.

You must understand society has its own needs, every nation has Its own needs.

They are not necessarily the needs of the individuals. this is the problem. The individual's need is to be happy, to be blissful -- to delight in this small life that has been given to you. That is the individual need, but that is not the social need.

Society doesn't bother whether you are happy or unhappy: the society wants you to be more productive, the society wants you to be great warriors so that you can protect the society, the society wants you to be great scientists because science is power. The society has its own needs, and the individual has totally different needs.

In a perfect society there will be no society, only individuals. In a perfect state there will be no state, no government, only individuals. At the most, a minimum of government can be allowed. For example, a postal service has to be looked after by a central agency, or the railway has to be looked after by a central agency. that's all. A government should run railways and look after the post office, and things like that. And a government should be a negative force. When I say "negative force" I mean a government should see that no individual interferes with any other individual and any other individual's freedom and life, that's all.

Government should not impose any positive rules on people. This much is enough: that everybody is allowed to live his own life, to do his own thing, and nobody interferes. If somebody interferes, then the government comes in, otherwise not. But that seems to be just a utopia. The word "utopia" is very beautiful. It means "that which never happens." Utopia means a nowhere-land which doesn't exist, and doesn't seem to exist; the very thing seems to be impossible.

So I am not teaching you to desire any utopia. All that can be done, and all that is practical, is to become alert so you get out of the mess. And you, please, don't be worried about others, because nobody can bring them out of their mess if they don't want. If they are enjoying let them enjoy. If they are feeling happy in their misery let them be miserable, that is their freedom. Don't try to impose anything on anybody -- that is transgression, trespassing. That is violence, to me. Allow everybody his own being and his own freedom; then there will be no need for catharsis. But right now everybody is interfering in everybody else's life; nobody wants to leave you alone.

And such subtle techniques have been used, unless you are very, very alert you will not be able to know what type of techniques have been used to make you a slave. Religions say that wherever you are, God is looking at you. That means nowhere is there any possibility to be alone and to be yourself. This God seems to be a peeping Tom. Wherever you are -- even in your bathroom -- he is there looking at you. Even there, you cannot hum a song, even there you cannot make faces in the mirror, even there you cannot have a little dance of your own, no.

God is looking. And "God" means very serious: an old man -- white hair, white beard -- and always a long face and serious, and he is looking.

I have heard about a nun who used to take her bath without removing her clothes. So somebody asked, "What are you doing? In the bath you can remove your clothes." But she said, "God is looking everywhere, so how can I be naked?

That will be insulting." But if God is looking everywhere, he must be looking under the clothes. So what is the point? You can be naked anywhere. that means.

God is looking everywhere: you cannot escape. Forget about him.

These are subtle techniques. The society has created conscience in you, so whatsoever you do, the conscience goes on functioning in the service of the society. And the society has taught you, "This is your inner voice." This is not your inner voice. If you have been born in a Mohammedan family then you can

have four wives, and your conscience will never interfere -- up to four. With the fifth there will be danger. With the fifth wife your conscience will start stirring, and it will say, "This is not good." But if you are a Hindu or a Christian then only one wife is allowed. With the second wife, trouble would arise. Your conscience will start saying. "This is bad, this is not good, this is immoral. What are you doing? You should love only one woman -- and forever and forever."

What is conscience? A Mohammedan has a different conscience? A Hindu has a different conscience?

In my childhood, in my house tomatoes were not allowed, because I was born in a Jain family, and the tomato looks like meat -- just looks like! There is nothing in it. Hmm?... tomato is so innocent and harmless, but in my childhood I never ate tomatoes because in my family it was not allowed. And when for the first time.

visiting a friend's house, I was offered a tomato, I vomited. The whole conscience: I couldn't believe that people are eating tomatoes. Tomato is such a dangerous thing -- looks like meat. How can you eat it?

Conscience is nothing but a trickery of the society. It gives some ideas to your inner mind, and from there they start functioning. They are like Delgado's electrodes. Very subtle... wherever you go the society follows you, hidden behind you, within you. If you do anything against, the conscience pricks.

This is not the real inner voice -- because the real inner voice cannot be different for a Hindu and a Mohammedan and a Jain and a Christian, no. The real inner voice will be the same because the real inner voice is not produced by the society.

The real inner voice comes from your innermost core of being, but to discover that, one has to pass through all the phases of meditation. Unless all thoughts dissolve, you cannot hear your own voice. Society has filled your mind so much that whatsoever you hear will be society trying to manipulate you from within.

From without it manipulates through the policeman and the judge. From within it manipulates through God, conscience, morality, hell, heaven. and a thousand and one things.

Hence, there is a need of catharsis. You are not natural, and only through catharsis will you be able to unburden yourself from the society, will you be free from society. Free from society, you become available to nature; available to nature, you become available to existence. And, to me, existence is God.

Question 6

For a specific reason. I insist first to jump into dhyan, into meditation, and then complete all the other steps because you have lost the taste of dhyan. of meditation, so completely that unless you regain the taste you will not take the trouble of fulfilling all other things.

In Patanjali's time meditation was an accepted fact. Everybody was meditating.

Every child was to be sent to gurukul, into a forest monastery. There the basic teaching was of meditation; everything else was secondary. When he is twenty- five he will come back to the society, but he has learned meditativeness. He will live in the marketplace, but live meditatively. By the age of fifty, he is again ready to go back to the forest. And by the age of seventy-five he will not do anything else other than meditation.

So if you just look at the whole span of life, if it is a hundred years: in the first twenty-five years, in the beginning, the taste of meditation has been given -- one knows the flavor of it, the flagrance of it. One knows the beauty of it, the benediction of it -- and then one comes into the world. Now, one will never be part of the world; one knows something beautiful exists there in the forest. One has known aloneness; now being together in a crowd, in a world, one will never be at home. One has tasted... now all other tastes are not of any worth. One will be in the world as a duty.

That's what Hindu scriptures say, that one has to be in the world as a duty. Your parents reproduced you: you have to fulfill your duty and reproduce others so that the society and the chain continues and the river goes on flowing -- you should not block the river. But the call goes on coming. The man works in the shop, lives in the market, raises children, gets married, a thousand and one things he does, but the call goes on coming. In certain moments, in the morning when the market is silent and the world is still asleep -- he gets up... he takes a dip in that meditation he has been allowed to know in his first twenty-five years.

In the night, when everybody has gone to sleep, he sits in his bed... the call goes on following him like a shadow.

By the age of fifty, he has to move again because now his children are almost twenty-five; they are coming back from the forest. Now they will take care of the world; now his duty is fulfilled. But at the age of fifty he does not go to the forest, actually. The Sanskrit word is vanprastha: he turns his face towards the forest.

He does not leave the house, because for a few years he will be needed for the children who are coming back, to give them his own experience of life, to let them settle. Otherwise this will be a very unsettling phenomenon -- they come home and he goes, then there will be no link with the world. They have learned something about existence; now they have to learn something of the world from the father.

But now the father will be secondary; the children will become the primary forces. The father will step back, the mother will step back... the daughter-in-law comes, the son comes. Now they become the real householders, and father and mother are there just if they need some advice. The advice can be given, but now their faces are towards the forest; they are getting ready.

When they are seventy-five, their children will be almost fifty. Now the mother and father are getting ready to turn towards the forest -- they leave, they go to the forest again.

The Indian life started in the forest, then ended in the forest; started in loneliness, ended in aloneness; started with meditation, ended with meditation. In fact -- seventy-five years for meditation, only twenty-five years for the world: the world cannot be too much... the inner current continues. In fact the whole life was meditative -- only for twenty-five years did one take something as a duty to be done.

In those days there was no need to give you a taste of meditation, you had already known it, but now things are totally different. You don't know what meditation is. When I say "meditation," just a word rings in your ears -- there is no response. If I say lemon" the saliva starts flowing in your mouth, but when I say' meditation," nothing corresponds. When I say "God" the mouth remains dry.

You have not tasted; the word is meaningless.

Hence, I say first meditate. That is, just take a little taste, just have a little glimpse. Then you will start on your own, and then you will start fulfilling other steps. You need a glimpse, it was not needed before; hence my emphasis on meditation directly. Once you are meditative everything will follow. I need not talk about it; you will start doing it by yourself.

When you are meditative, you would like to sit silent and still: asan will follow.

When you are meditative, you will come to the understanding that breathing has a rhythm of silence: pranayam will follow. When you are silent, meditative, enjoying aloneness, your character will change; you will not interfere in anybody's life: you will be nonviolent. You will be true because whenever you will be untrue your inner balance will be lost. By being untrue you may save five rupees, but by being untrue you will lose so much -- inside, a new wealth now you have to lose. I have never seen such a person who would be so foolish -- that just for five rupees he would lose the inner treasure, which is more valuable, infinitely valuable. Then yam follows. When you become more and more silent, life becomes spontaneous: niyam, an inner discipline, comes automatically. Just a little help from you, and understanding, and things start falling in line. But the first thing is to know what meditation is; everything else follows.

Jesus said, "Seek ye the kingdom of God first, then all else shall follow." The same I say to you.

Question 7

That fear is natural, and, in a way, good. Nothing to be afraid of in it; that fear will help. All fears are not bad, and all fearlessnesses are not good. Sometimes fearlessness is simply foolishness; sometimes fear is wisdom. This fear I call

wisdom, because you know this is possible. You have been missing many Buddhas in the past -- more possibility is there that you will miss me also, because you have become so trained in missing. The fear is good. That will help.

The fear is wise; that will not allow you to relax and become unaware -- that will not allow you to miss again.

Be thankful to the fear, and always remember, fear is not always bad. When you find a snake on the path, what do you do? You simply jump. Are you afraid? Are you a coward? Some idiot can tell you that you are a coward, but what do you think?... what will Buddha do? He will jump faster than you, that's all. Because he is more alert he will see the snake before you can see; he will see the danger before you can see. You may take a little time because you are so deeply asleep.

A Buddha will jump faster, that's all. But is a Buddha afraid of the snake? No, the question is not of being afraid or not. He is simply alert, and out of alertness he acts.

This fear is a sort of alertness. Don't call it "a lurking fear"; rather, call it "an arising alertness," because the way you call a Thing makes much difference. If you call it "fear" you have already condemned it. If you call it "an arising consciousness" you have already accepted it, appreciated it.

And if you are alert, this time you will not miss. The whole thing is alertness. If you are aware. you will not miss. You missed in the past because you were in a deep sleep, in a hypnotic state. Your eyes were closed. You missed because you couldn't understand that there was a Buddha. Once you understand that there is a Buddha. how can you miss? Once you know that this is a diamond, you cannot throw it. You may have thrown other diamonds thinking that they are just pebbles....

I have heard a Sufi story. It happened: A fakir. a poor beggar, was passing along the shore of a small lake. He stumbled upon a bag. It was early in the morning.

The sun had not risen; it was still dark. He opened the bag, felt what was inside; there were just stones. Sitting on the shore of the lake, not having anything to do, he started throwing those stones in the lake. They splashed, they created ripples... he enjoyed. Then, by and by, the morning came nearer and nearer, darkness disappeared. By the time it was light enough to see what he was doing, the last stone was left. It was a diamond. He started crying and weeping. They were all diamonds. But now he cannot throw it.

You may have thrown the whole bag of stones and Buddhas. This time if a small alertness has come to you and the light has dawned. how can you throw it? It is impossible.