Discrimination in all Things

Question 1

No. Because to be in the presence too much can be an overdose. Rather than helping it can hinder you. Everything should always be in proportion and in balance. It is possible when something is sweet that you can eat more of it than you should. You can forget your need; you can overstuff yourself. And satsang is sweet it is the sweetest thing in the world. In fact it is alcoholic... you can become a drunkard. That will not liberate you; that will create a new bondage.

Being near a Master can either become a bondage or a liberation, it depends. Just by being near, there is no necessity that you will be liberated: you can get indigestion; and you can become addicted to the presence. No, that is not good.

Whenever I feel that somebody needs a space of his own, whenever I feel that somebody needs to go away from me, I send him away. It is good to create hunger, then satiety goes deep. And if you are with me too much you may become even oblivious of me. Not only indigestion, you may completely forget me.

Just the other day Sheela was saying that when she was in America she was closer to me. Now that she is here she feels thrown far away. How it happens?

She was much troubled, puzzled. It is simple. When she was in America she was constantly thinking about me, of coming here to be near me. She was living in a dream. In that dream she felt close to me. Now that she is here, how can she dream? I am there in reality; dreams are no longer needed. And I am so much here that she has started forgetting about me -- that's why she is feeling so far away.

Things are complex. Sometimes I send you away to feel me more. It is needed. A separation is needed so that you can come close again. There must be a rhythm of being with the Master and not being with the Master. In that rhythm many possibilities open because, finally, you have to be on your own. The Master cannot be with you forever and forever. One day suddenly I will disappear -- "dust unto dust." You will not be able to grope for me. Then, if you have become too addicted to me and you cannot be without me you will suffer, unnecessarily suffer. And I am here not to give you suffering; I am here to make you capable of more and more bliss. It is good sometimes that you go far away in the world, have your own space, move in it, live in it.

And whatsoever you have gained here with me, test it in life, because an ashram is not in life. An ashram at the most can be a discipline; it is not an alternative life. At the most it can be a school where you have a few glimpses. Then you carry those glimpses in the world -- there is the criterion, the test. If they prove real there, only then were they real.

Living in an ashram, living with a liberated man, living in his energy field, you may many times be deceived that you have attained something. It may not be your attainment; it may be just because of the magnetism that you touch new dimensions. But when I am not there and the atmosphere of the ashram is not there and you move in the ordinary day-to-day world, the world of the market, the office, the factory -- if you can carry the goal that you have attained here and it is not disturbed, then really you have attained something. Otherwise you can live here in a dream, in an illusion.

No, if it were possible for me to have you all here, then too I would have sent you. I would have actually done as I am doing now; there would have been no change. This exactly is helpful as it is.

Don't feel hurt when I send you away -- you need it. And don't feel too elated when I tell you to be here -- that too is a need. Both are needs. And don't make a fixed principle, because things are very complex, and every individual is unique.

Sometimes I allow somebody to be here because he is so dead he takes a long time to evolve. Somebody evolves so soon -- then within weeks I say, "Go." So just being here don't feel elated, and don't feel hurt if I send you away.

Sometimes I retain somebody because he is very balanced and there is no fear yet that he will eat too much, fall the victim of the disease of overdose; then I allow him.

Sometimes when somebody, I feel, has attained something, then too I send him away; because only the world can be the proof of whether you have attained or not. In the isolation of an ashram, in a different atmosphere, you may have glimpses because you become part of the collective mind that exists here. You start riding on my waves; they may not be yours. But when you go home you have to ride on your own waves -- may be small, but better because they are your own, truer to you, and finally they alone have to take you to the other shore. I can only indicate the way.

A Master should not become a bondage; and it is very easy for a Master to become a bondage. Love can always be converted into bondage. It can always become an imprisonment. Love should be a freedom; it should help you to be liberated from all fetters and bondages. So I have to keep myself continuously alert: who has to be sent, who has to be allowed to stay here, and how much.

A rhythm is needed -- sometimes being with me and sometimes not being with me. A day will come, you will feel the same. Then I will be happy with you.

Whether with me or not with me you remain the same; whether here in the ashram, meditating, or working in the marketplace you remain the same -- nothing touches you; you are in the world but the world is not in you: then you make me happy. Then you are fulfilled.

Question 2

This is from Anurag.

To me, marriage is a dead thing. It is an institution, and you cannot live in an institution; only mad people live in institutions. It is a substitute for love. Love is dangerous: to be in love is to be in a storm, constantly. You need courage and you need awareness, and you are to be ready for anything. There is no security in love; love is insecure. Marriage is a security: the registry office, the police, the court are behind it. The state, the society, the religion -- they are all behind it.

Marriage is a social phenomenon. Love is individual, personal, intimate.

Because love is dangerous, insecure.... And nobody knows where love will lead.

It is just like a cloud -- moving with no destination. Love is a hidden cloud, whereabouts unknown. Nobody knows where it is at any moment of time.

Unpredictable -- no astrologer can predict anything about love. About marriage?

-- astrologers are very, very helpful; they can predict.

Man has to create marriage because man is afraid of the unknown. On all levels of life and existence, man has created substitutes: for love there is marriage; for real religion there are sects -- they are like marriages. Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, Jainism -- they are not real religion. Real religion has no name; it is like love. But because love is dangerous and you are so afraid of the future, you would like to have some security. You believe more in insurance companies than in life. That's why you have created marriage.

Marriage is more permanent than love. Love may be eternal, but it is not permanent. It may continue forever and forever, but there is no inner necessity for it to continue. It is like a flower: bloomed in the morning, by the evening gone. It is not like the rock. Marriage is more permanent; you can rely on it. In old age it will be helpful.

It is a way to avoid difficulties, but whenever you avoid difficulties and challenges you have avoided growth also. Married people never grow. Lovers grow, because they have to meet the challenge every moment -- and with no security. They have to create an inner phenomenon. With security you need not bother to create anything; the society helps.

Marriage is a formality, a legal bondage. Love is of the heart; marriage is of the mind. That's why I am never in favor of marriage.

But the question is pertinent, relevant, because sometimes I tell people to get married. Marriage is a hell, but sometimes people need it. What to do? So I have

to tell them to get into marriage. They need to pass through the hell of it, and they cannot understand the hell of it unless they pass through it. I am not saying that in marriage love cannot grow; it can grow, but there is no necessity for it. I am not saying that in love marriage cannot grow; it can grow, but there is no necessity, no logical necessity in it.

Love can become marriage, but then it is a totally different kind of marriage: it is not a social formality, it is not an institution, it is not a bondage. When love becomes marriage it means two individuals decide to live together -- but in absolute freedom, nonpossessive of each other. Love is nonpossessive; it gives freedom. When love grows into marriage, marriage is not an ordinary thing. It is absolutely extraordinary. It has nothing to do with the registry office. You may need the registry office also, the social sanction may be needed, but those are just on the periphery; they are not the central core of it. In the center is the heart, in the center is freedom.

And sometimes out of marriage also love can grow, but it rarely happens. Out of marriage love rarely happens. At the most, familiarity. At the most, a certain kind of sympathy, not love. Love is passionate; sympathy is dull. Love is alive; sympathy is just so-so, lukewarm.

But why do I tell people to get married? When I see that they are after security, when I see that they are after social sanction, when I see they are afraid, when I see that they cannot move into love if marriage is not there, then I tell them to go into it -- but I will go on helping them to go beyond it. I will go on helping them to transcend it. Marriage should be transcended; only then real marriage happens. Marriage should be forgotten completely. In fact the other person you have been in love with should always remain a stranger and never should be taken for granted. When two persons live as strangers, there is a beauty to it, a very simple, innocent beauty to it. And when you live with somebody as a stranger....

And everybody is a stranger. You cannot know a person. Knowledge is very superficial; a person is very profound. A person is an infinite mystery. That's why we say everybody carries a god within. How can you know a god? At the most you can touch the periphery. And the more you know about a person, the more humble you will become -- the more you will feel that the mystery is untouched. In fact the mystery becomes more and more deep. The more you know, the less you feel that you know.

If lovers are really in love, they will never reduce the other person to a known entity; because only things can be known -- persons never. Only things can become part of knowledge. A person is a mystery -- the greatest mystery there is.

Transcend marriage. It is not a question of legality, formality, family -- all that nonsense. Needed, because you live in a society, but transcend; don't be finished at that. And don't try to possess a person. Don't start feeling that the other is the husband -- you have reduced the beauty of the person into an ugly thing: husband. Never say that this woman is your wife -- the stranger is no longer

there; you have reduced it to a very profane level, to a very ordinary level of things. Wives and husbands belong to the world. Lovers belong to the other shore.

Remember the sacredness and holiness of the other. Never impinge on it; never trespass it. A lover is always hesitant. He always gives you space to be yourself.

He is grateful; he never feels that you are his possession. He is thankful that sometimes in rare moments you allow him your innermost shrine to enter and to be with you. He is always thankful.

But husbands and wives are always complaining, never thankful -- always fighting. And if you watch their fight it is ugly. The whole beauty of love disappears. Only a very ordinary reality exists: the wife, the husband, the children, and the day-to-day routine. The unknown no longer touches it. That's why you will see dust gathers around -- a wife looks dull, a husband looks dull.

Life has lost meaning, vibrancy, significance. It is no longer a poetry; it has become gross.

Love is poetry. Marriage is ordinary prose, good for ordinary communication. If you are purchasing vegetables, good; but if you are looking at the sky and talking to God, not enough -- poetry is needed. Ordinary life is proselike. A religious life is poetrylike: a different rhythm, a different meter, something of the unknown and the mysterious.

I am not in favor of marriage. Don't misunderstand me -- I am not saying to live with people unmarried. Do whatsoever the society wants to be done, but don't take it as the whole. That is just the periphery; go beyond it. And I tell you to get married if I feel that this is what you need.

In fact if I feel that you need to go in hell I would allow you -- and push you -- to go in hell, because that is what you need, and that is how you will grow.

Question 3

I have said already, and I have answered this question. If you are here for some inner search then, please, for a few days while you are here with me forget the world. But it seems that it is difficult. So now there is only one way -- get miserable, as miserable as you want. Go and sit with the beggars on the streets and cry and weep and be miserable, and be finished with it. If you want hell, go into hell. This is a very egoistic attitude. You must be thinking that this is compassion. This is foolishness -- because just by your getting miserable, no beggar is helped on the street. If there were a hundred miserable people, your getting miserable makes them one hundred one. How can you help by being miserable? But this is some deep ego which feels good: "I am so kind, so

compassionate. I am not like other hard people, stony; I have a heart. When I pass through the streets I get miserable because I see so much poverty around."

This is pious egoism -- looks very holy but is deep down very unholy.

But if you have to pass through it, pass through it. What can I do?

You are here to seek your own self. Don't miss the opportunity. Beggars will always be there; you can get miserable later on. They are not going to leave the world so soon -- don't be afraid. You will always find them. If nowhere else, in India you will always find them. Don't be worried: you can always come to India and get miserable; there is no hurry about it. But I will not be here forever, remember.

Next time you come, beggars will be there -- I may not be here. So if you are a little alert, use this opportunity to be with me. Don't waste it foolishly. But if you feel that you cannot get out of it, then the only way is forget me and go and be with the beggars and get miserable -- as much as you can. Maybe that's how you may come out of it. You need help; go into it. I will be waiting. When you are finished with it, come on.

Question 4

There is no secret to it. Because I love you, you are not so many. My love surrounds you, you become one. I am not working really on individuals, then it would have been difficult. When I see you I don't see you at all. I see you as just a fragment of the whole. In my love you are one. The moment you surrender -- you disappear as an ego -- you become part of a vast phenomenon. You are like a drop: when you surrender you become part of the ocean. I work on the ocean, not on drops. There is no secret to it.

And, really, to say that I work is not good. This is the way I am. It is not a work; it is simply the way I am. It is happening. I cannot do otherwise. Once you allow your heart to throb with me, it starts working. In fact it is a question for you to decide. If you want me to work, simply allow. I am working already.

You may be twenty-five thousand all around the world -- you can become twenty-five lakhs, that will not make any difference. My work remains the same.

Even if the whole world is converted to sannyas, my work remains the same. It is just like a light burning in a room: one person enters -- the light functions for one; then, ten persons enter into the room. Not that the light is more burdened -- when there was nobody then too the light was burning, in absolute silence and loneliness. One entered: he could see. Now ten enter: they can see. Millions enter and they can see. The light is always burning there; when there is nobody, then too it burns.

If nobody is there I will go on functioning in the same way. It is not a question of numbers, and there is no secret to it. And, in fact, it is not a work. It is simply love. When you have attained to a state of love, you have attained to a state of light. It goes on burning. The flame is there: anybody who is ready to open his eyes can be benefited.

Question 5

Many things have to be understood; they will be helpful.

The first thing: I have no duty to fulfill towards anybody. Duty is a dirty word, a four-letter word to me, the dirtiest. Love is not a duty. You enjoy, when you love helping people. It is not a duty, not a burden. Nobody is forcing me to do anything. I am not obliged in any way to do it -- just love functioning.

When love dies, duty enters. You say to people, "It is my duty to go and work in the office because I got married and I have children and the duty has to be fulfilled." You don't love your wife, you don't love your children -- hence the word "duty" becomes meaningful. Your old mother is dying and you say, "This is a duty, to go and serve her." You don't love her. If you love, how can you use the word "duty"?

A policeman standing on the road is fulfilling his duty. Right, he does not love the people who are creating chaos in the traffic. When you go to your office, you are doing a duty, a job, but if you say that you are fulfilling your duty towards your children, you are committing a sin by using the word. You don't love the children; you are already burdened.

No, I have no duty to fulfill. I love you, hence many things happen. There is nothing even to be thankful towards me for because I am not doing any duty.

When I am doing a duty, you will have to be thankful towards me. This is simply love.

In fact, I am thankful to you that you allowed my love to shower on you. You could have rejected. And this is the secret of love: the more you love, the more it grows. The more you share it, more and vital springs are opening and more is flowing and is ready to be shared. The more you give, the more you have. I am not tired. I am not in any way weighed down by it. It's beautiful.

The first thing: I have no duty to fulfill towards you. If you want a guru who has a duty to fulfill, you have come to a wrong person. Go somewhere else. There are many gurus who are fulfilling great duties. I am simply enjoying myself. Why should I fulfill any duty? I delight in myself, and whatsoever I do is a delight, a celebration.

"I would have left you had I not taken sannyas from you." If the idea has come, you have already left. Physically you may be hanging around here, that is meaningless. If you say, "I would have left you had I not taken sannyas from you," you have already left and the sannyas is worthless. Please return it back -- because that is a bondage. You say, "I would have left" -- now, that sannyas is creating fetters on you. Drop it. I am here to liberate you, not to fetter you. Forget about it.

"Moreover, my previous Master now would not accept me, perhaps, because I betrayed him and lost my faith." That is for you to decide. You can go to a new Master if the old will not accept you, or you can go and try again. If the old was really a Master he will accept a thousand and one times, because when a disciple betrays, it is nothing much to fuss about. It is almost natural. More cannot be expected from ignorant persons. Go and try the old Master. Maybe he is waiting for you. And if he cannot forgive he is not a Master; then find one somewhere else.

And, "anyway I don't wish to lose faith in you." You have already lost it. In fact you never had it, because once you have faith how can you lose it? Difficult to understand, but once you have faith you cannot lose it. It is nothing which can be taken back. Who will take it back? Faith means you surrender the ego. This can be the last act of the ego. Surrendered, how can you take it back? If you can take it back, the surrender was not surrender at all -- you were playing with the word, but you don't know what it means. If you surrender, to be a surrender it has to be total and final -- utterly final. There is no way going back.

"Anyway I don't wish to lose faith in you." Why is this idea arising? You don't have faith; you have already lost it. In fact you never had it. This will look like a paradox, but this is true: Only that faith can be lost which was never there in the first place. If you don't have faith you can lose it; if you have, there is no possibility. It is utterly impossible to lose it, because in faith you have lost yourself -- now nobody is standing behind who can take it back and go home.

"Now I don't hanker after enlightenment." You are hanker ing; otherwise what is the need to cling to my feet? My feet are worthless. Why cling to them? What are they going to give to you? Deep down a hankering... maybe now more subtle, more garbed, not so gross, but it is still there. "If you can keep me bound to your feet...." But why? What have my feet done to you? What wrong? Why should you be so against my feet? What is the need? What is the point?

Just two days before, one very stupid woman came to see me. Stupid because she said, "I am in search of God." I asked her why she is searching for God, what wrong has God done to her. I asked her, "You must be searching for something else -- happiness, bliss, ecstasy...?" She said, "No. I am not interested in happiness, bliss, et cetera. I am searching for God." "But for what?" She got so angry because I asked "for what," she left immediately. Why should one search for God? What is the point? Looks absolutely stupid. One searches for God to be blissful. One searches for self realization to be ecstatic, to not be miserable. One searches for truth to be eternally in bliss.

In fact everybody is a hedonist and cannot be otherwise -- there is no possibility.

And people who say that they are not hedonists are stupid some way or other.

They don't understand what they are saying. Your hedonism may be this- worldly, your hedonism may be other worldly -- that doesn't matter -- but everybody is a hedonist. Everybody is seeking his happiness, and everybody is selfish deep down. Otherwise is not possible. I am not condemning it -- remember it. It is how it should be.

People come to me and they say they want to serve people. For what? If somebody is drowning in the river and you jump in the river and risk your life and help the man to come out, what do you think? You helped the man? If you think that you helped the man and you served the man and you risked your life and you are a great altruist, you are not going very deep. Helping the man you felt very happy. Not helping him you would have felt guilty. If you had gone, indifferent, your heart would have carried a guilt forever and forever. You would have felt miserable. Again and again in your dreams you would have seen that man drowning and you couldn't save him -- and you could have saved him.

When you save a man from the river you feel happy. Really you should be thankful to the man: "You are really wonderful. You were drowning in the right moment, when I passed by. You gave me such happiness, such deep happiness, such deep satiety that I could help a man. I could be of some use; I am not a useless garbage on the earth. I feel good." Your steps would have a dance after it, your eyes would have more light. You would feel more centered. You would feel more enhanced in your own eyes. It is simply hedonism.

Nobody helps anybody else -- cannot. Everybody is searching for his own happiness. Enlightenment is nothing but absolute happiness which once attained cannot be lost. To attain to that state, how can you drop the hankering? It is there; otherwise why should you cling to my feet?

Be alert. Learn alertness about your own desires because when you are alert, only then can you understand; and through understanding there is mutation.

I know until all hankering drops, enlightenment is not possible. And I have been telling you so -- so now you say you don't hanker. Then what are you doing here? If you understand you will not say, "I don't hanker"; you will not say, "I hanker." If you understand, hankering disappears -- without any trace. It does not leave the opposite behind; you don't say, "I don't hanker." Simply, hankering disappears... you are full of light, full of bliss, uncontaminated by any desire.

But for that you have to be continuously alert because desire will take many shapes and will deceive you in many, many ways, and desire can become so subtle that you can almost forget that it is desire. It can pretend to be something else. Desire can even pretend desirelessness, but you can understand: when somebody is not in any desire, there is nothing to ask. One simply is, and allows existence to take him wherever it wills. When you drop desire, then the whole takes you; you float with the river. Then you don't have a private goal.

Just a few days before, I was telling you the meaning of the word "idiot." It comes from a Greek root; the Greek word is "IDIOTIKI."It means"a private goal."A man who has a private goal, a man who has a private world -- against the whole -- is "idiot."

When you are with the whole -- not even swimming in the river but just floating with the river wherever it leads -- then each moment you live in enlightenment.

When the hankering for enlightenment disappears, enlightenment appears. It has not appeared to the questioner yet. Hankering must be there; be watchful.

Question 6

This is from "Pathik the Pathetic." He unnecessarily goes on becoming pathetic.

Now, "how to stop worrying?" What is the need to stop worrying? If you start trying to stop worrying, you create a new worry: how to stop worry. Then you start worrying about the worries; then you double them. There is no way.

And if somebody says, as there are people.... Dale Carnegie has written a book HOW TO STOP WORRYING AND START LIVING. These people create more worries because they give you a desire that worries can be stopped. They cannot be stopped, but they disappear -- that I know. They cannot be stopped, but they disappear! You cannot do anything about them. If you simply allow them and don't bother a bit, they disappear. Worries disappear, they cannot be stopped -- because when you try to stop them, who are you? The mind which is creating worries is creating a new worry: how to stop. Now you will go crazy, mad; now you are like a dog chasing its own tail.

Watch a dog; it is a beautiful phenomenon. In winter in India you can watch anywhere dogs sitting in the morning sunning themselves, enjoying. Then they suddenly become aware of their tail just by the side. Such temptation, they jump.

But then the tail jumps farther back. Of course this is too much for a dog to tolerate, this is impossible. It hurts: this ordinary tail, and playing games -- with such a great dog? He goes mad -- round and round he goes. You will see him panting, tired, and he cannot believe what is happening. He cannot catch this tail?

Don't be a dog chasing your own tail, and don't listen to Dale Carnegies. That is the only method they can teach you: chase your own tail and go mad. There is a way -- not a method -- a way worries disappear: when you simply look at them indifferently, aloof; you watch them as if they don't belong to you. They are there; you accept them. Just like clouds moving in the sky: thoughts moving in the mind, in the inner sky. Traffic moving on the road: thoughts moving on the inner road. You just watch them.

What do you do when you stand by the side of the road waiting for a bus? You simply watch. The traffic goes on; you are not concerned. When you are not concerned, worries start dropping. Your concern gives them energy. You feed them, you vitalize them, and then you ask how to stop them. And when you ask how to stop them, they have already overpowered you.

Don't ask a wrong question. Worries are there, naturally; life is such a vast and complicated phenomenon, worries are bound to be there. Watch. Be a watcher and don't be a doer. Don't ask how to stop. When you ask how to stop, you are asking what to do. No, nothing can be done. Accept them -- they are. In fact look at them, watch them from every angle, what they are. Forget about stopping, and one day suddenly you realize just by watching, looking, a gap arises. The worries are no longer there, the traffic has stopped, the road is empty, nobody passing....

In that emptiness, God passes by. In that emptiness, suddenly you have a glimpse of your Buddha nature, of your inner plenitude, and everything becomes a benediction.

But you cannot stop it. You can accept it, allow it, watch it, with a very indifferent, unconcerned look as if they don't matter. And they are simply bubbles of thought; they really don't matter. The more you become concerned with them, the more they matter. The more they matter, the more you become concerned. Now you create a vicious circle. Jump out of the circle.

Question 7

Yes, a vast difference. A judgement comes out of your beliefs, ideologies, concepts; judgement comes out of your past, out of your knowledge.

Discrimination comes out of your present, responding alertness.

For example, you see a drunkard. Immediately there is a judgement: this man is not doing good -- a "drunkard." Immediately a condemnation -- this is judgement. If you don't have any beliefs, what is good and what is wrong, how can you judge so immediately -- not knowing the man at all, not knowing his situation, not knowing his problems, not knowing his miseries? How can you judge not knowing the whole life of the man? How can you judge by a fragment?

How can you say this man is bad? If he had not been a drunkard do you think he would have been a better man? It is possible he would have been worse.

This has been my experience with many drunkards: they are good people, very delicate, very trusting, not cunning, simple -- a childlike innocence. Why are they drinking then? The world is too much for them; they cannot cope with it. They are not made for this world; it is too cunning. They want to forget it, and they don't know what to do -- and alcohol comes in handy; meditation, one has to seek.

This is my observation: all people who are alcoholics need meditation. They are in search of meditation -- in deep search for ecstasy, but they cannot find the

door. Groping in the dark they stumble upon alcohol. Alcohol, easily available in the market; meditation, not so easily available. But their deep search is of meditation.

People who are taking drugs all over the world are in search of inner ecstasy.

They are trying to create the feeling heart and they cannot find the right way, the right path. The right path is not so easily available, and drugs are available. And drugs give false glimpses: they create a chemical situation in your mind in which you start feeling more acutely, more sensitively. They cannot give you real meditation, but they can give you a false impression of it.

But this is my understanding: that one who is in search may have fallen a victim of a false phenomenon, but he is in search. Someday he will get out of it, because it cannot be a real thing and it cannot deceive him forever and forever. One day or other he will see that he has been befooling himself through chemicals; but the search is there. People who have never taken alcohol, people who have never taken any drug, people who, in a way, are not bad -- good people, respectable people -- they are not in search of meditation at all.

So how to judge? How to call the man "bad" who is in search, and how to call the man "good" who is not in search at all? The drunkard may someday find the divine because he is in search of it. And, in fact, unless he finds the divine he cannot go beyond his alcoholism -- because only that can satisfy. Then the false will disappear. But the respectable man who goes to the church every Sunday, does not drink. does not even smoke, reads the Bible, the Koran, the Geeta -- this man is not in search at all. Who is bad? How to discriminate?

Now all over the world there is much concern about drugs, about the new generation. The younger generation -- they have all become interested in drugs.

What is happening? How to judge? What to say about it? If you are aware, judgement will not be so easy. If you are not aware, you can simply judge that they are wrong or they are not wrong. Then there are people who are for drugs, Timothy Leary and others, who say, "This is ecstasy." And then there are people - - all the establishments in the world -- who are against; they say, "This is simply destructive."

But what is the actual situation? People who are taking drugs are not creating Vietnams, are not creating Kashmirs, are not creating Middle Easts. People who are taking drugs are not creating any war anywhere. They have not killed Mujibur Rahman; they are not killing anybody. Even if you think they are destructive: they may be destructive to themselves, but not to anybody else. They are not interfering in anybody's life; and these respectable people, they are responsible for tremendous violence all over the world. They are respectable.

Now the people who have killed Mujibur Rahman and his whole family -- now they have become the presidents and this and that, and they are respectable people.

Who are the real criminals? Richard Nixon has not taken drugs. Do you know?

Adolf Hitler never touched alcohol, never smoked, was a total vegetarian. Now

can you find anybody more criminal? He was a perfect Jain -- vegetarian, nonsmoking, nonalcoholic, and lived a very disciplined life, moved according to the clock -- and created hell on earth. Sometimes I think had he taken a little alcohol, would it not have been better? The man would not have been so violent then. Had he smoked a little -- a very stupid but innocent game of smoking -- he would not have been so cruel, because smoking is a catharsis.

That's why whenever you feel angry you would like to smoke; whenever you feel irritated you would like to smoke; whenever you feel in some inner turmoil, nervous, you would like to smoke. It helps. There are better things to do: you can use a mantra. Smoking is a subtle mantra. You can say, "Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram...."

Smoking is a subtle mantra: you smoke in you smoke out, you smoke in, you smoke out.... A repetition, a chanting through smoking. You can do "Ram, Ram, Ram" -- that will also help. If you are angry just try: chant "Ram, Ram, Ram.... " That is a better way, but the same -- not much different.

Had this man Adolf Hitler fallen in love with somebody's wife, he would have been condemned as a bad man, but he would not have been so violent. Released, relaxed... the world would have been better.

So what to say? How to judge? Things are complicated. I am not saying, "Go and become alcoholics," and I am not saying, "Go and take drugs." I am saying the complexity of life is such that one should not judge. Judgement belongs to stupid minds; they are always ready to judge. Your judgements are like if you come across a small piece of paper which is part of a big novel and you read a few lines -- those too not full -- just a few, a part of a page: and you judge. That's how you are doing it. A fragment of a man's life comes to your eyes and you judge the whole man -- that he is bad, and he is good. No, judgement is not for the wise.

That happened with Jesus. A woman was brought to him; and the whole town was mad. Foolish people are always mad, the crowd is always mad -- for small things, for nothings really. They said, "This woman has committed sin. She has been in a love affair with a man -- illegal. So what should we do with her? The old scripture says stone her to death."

They wanted to kill two birds with one stone -- that woman, and Jesus also.

Because if Jesus says, "Yes, the old scripture is right. Kill her," then they were going to ask, "What about your teachings -- Love the enemy? What about your teachings -- Give the other cheek; if somebody hits you on your cheek give him the other? What about forgiveness? Have you forgotten about it completely?"

And if Jesus is going to say that the old scriptures are wrong, then he is a heretic, a rebel -- he is against religion! He should be killed. The people were ready. In fact, they were not much concerned with the woman; they were more concerned with Jesus. The woman was just an excuse to trap Jesus.

Jesus thought for a while. Judgement is always immediate, in a way, because it is ready made. It looks immediate; it is not immediate. It is ready made: you have already got it. A man of awareness hesitates, looks around, feels, sends his feelers around -- what is the situation? He looked at the poor woman sitting there, tears flowing down. He looked at these angry people. He felt the whole situation, then he said, "Yes, the scripture says stone the woman to death, but the first stone should be thrown by a man who has never committed a sin. If you have not indulged in sexual affairs with women, if you have not indulged in your minds, then take the stones."

They were sitting near a river; many stones were Lying around. People who were just standing in front -- respectable people of the town -- they started moving backwards. They became afraid; now this is too much. By and by people disappeared. Only Jesus was left with the woman. The woman felt Jesus very deeply.

Look at the situation: those respectable people could not feel Jesus, and the sinner felt.

She fell at his feet, and she said, "I have committed sin. Forgive me." Jesus said, "That is between you and your God. Who am I to judge? If you think you have committed something wrong then remember not to commit it again, that's all.

But who am I to judge and say that you are a sinner? That is between you and your God."

A man of understanding responds -- not with judgement, but with discrimination. Jesus did a great deed of discrimination. He said, "Yes, it is right; the scripture is right. Kill this woman." Then he created the discrimination, "Now, those who are not sinners themselves, they should take the stones in their hands and kill her." This is discrimination. It came out of awareness; it was not a dead judgement. He didn't follow the scripture -- he created his own scripture in that moment of awareness! A man of awareness follows no guidebooks; a man of awareness has his own awareness as the guide. And it never fails, I tell you. It never fails. And it is always true, true to the moment.

Question 8

I am not here to fulfill anybody's prophecy. And why should I? It may be Padmasambhava's trip, but why should he force his trip on me? I am here to be myself. I am not a prophet, and I am not here to deliver somebody from their sins. I am not here to bring an age of religion. All these things are mediocre and stupid.

I enjoy myself. If you want to enjoy yourself you can share my delight, that's all.

To me, life is not a very serious affair. Prophets take life very seriously. Saints are innocent! Prophets? -- always dangerous. Buddha is not a prophet; in fact India has not produced prophets. Prophets are a particular phenomenon of Judaism.

Saints we have produced -- millions -but they are innocent people. Like flowers you delight in -- not of much use. Prophets are in fact politicians in religion. They are to change the whole world; they have a mission to fulfill and do this and that.

I have no mission; I am not a missionary. I would like a world without missionaries and without prophets, so that people can be left to live their own lives. Prophets never allow. They are always after you -- with judgement. They are always after you -- with ideas to be followed, comparison. They are always there to throw you in hell or award you by heaven.

I have nothing -- no hell to throw you in and no heaven to give you -- just a delight of being. And that is possible, simply possible. If you allow it to happen it is possible.

To me, life is not a serious affair. In fact life is nothing but a gossip in the eternity of existence, a gossip. I am gossiping here; you are listening, that's all. If you enjoy you are here. If I enjoy I am here. If it becomes difficult to enjoy each other, we separate -- no other bondage.

And I don't allow anybody -- he may even be a Padmasambhava -- to lay his trap on me.