Only One Exists

The first question:

YES, SHEELA - EVEN YOU. But when I say religion is simple, I don't mean in the sense of easy. I mean in the sense of uncomplicated. Life is uncomplicated, existence is not complex. All complexity is brought into it by the mind. Thinking is complex; how can non-thinking be complex? When there is not a thought left in the mind, how can it be other than simple? When the mirror is absolutely empty, what complexity can be there?

Religion is simple, not in the sense of easy but in the sense of uncomplicated. Philosophy is complex, very complex. But religion comes to the simple heart; it is not a mind effort, it is not philosophizing.

In fact, the philosopher finds it very difficult, almost impossible, to become religious. The more intellectual you are, the more difficult. But the difficulty comes from you. You bring the difficulty. You have a very very difficult mind, so your mind is reflected in reality. You bring the disease.

The birds and the trees and the sun and the moon - everything is absolutely simple. If you are simple, suddenly there is a meeting: the simple meets with the simple. The complex cannot meet with the simple, the complex can meet only with the complex. So if you are simple, suddenly everything is simple. Everything is just an open secret available to everybody.

You ask:

But the word 'understand' is not right. Religion cannot be understood - that's how complexity comes in. Religion can be lived but not understood. That's how you bring the complex mind in. If you start trying to understand, the very effort to understand will make it impossible to understand.

A centipede was walking - one hundred legs - and a small rabbit was hiding in a bush. And the rabbit asked, "Uncle, I am always perplexed how you manage - one hundred legs? - which one first, which one second, which one third, and so on and so forth? And you never get puzzled? I would like to understand. You tell me something about it."

And the centipede had never felt any puzzle before. He had been walking and walking. He had, in fact, never looked down. He had never counted his legs. For the first time he started to understand it. He became paralyzed, he fell down. He started crying and he said to the rabbit, "You fool! You have destroyed my simplicity! Now it will never be possible for me to walk rightly!"

The mind has entered. To walk is simple, but how do you manage? In fact you don't manage, God manages. Understanding means you start trying to manage. How do you breathe? Have you ever watched it? Forget the centipede - how do you breathe? How do you manage? - such a complex process of taking air in, then analyzing air into its elements, then just choosing the oxygen throwing the carbon dioxide out: then the oxygen going into your blood, purifying the blood, again coming back to the lungs, bringing all the rubbish from the blood circulation, throwing it out again - how do you manage? And you manage it even when you are fast asleep.

God manages, the whole manages. How do you transform bread into blood? And you have been doing that perfectly well - at least, up to now you have been doing that. I don't know about tomorrow.

How have you been capable of managing such a mystery?

You have heard about the miracles of Jesus, that he turned stones into bread - that's nothing. You turn bread into blood every day. To turn stone into bread is not that difficult; to turn dead bread into alive blood is far more difficult, a far greater miracle. And you do it EVERY moment! Once you have swallowed you forget all about it; God takes care of it. When I say "God takes care of it," I mean nobody is taking care of it - the whole.

So if you bring this word 'understanding' then there will be complexity. You can live, you can be religious - please stop understanding!

Zen people have a special way of saying the same thing. They say: A reddish yellow cow passes by a window. The head and horns and the four legs go past. Why does NOT the tail too?

The tail is stuck - that seems to be very strange. The whole cow has passed - head, horns and four legs - everything has passed; just the small tail is caught somewhere and cannot pass through.

Zen says you are suffering from this same tail.

What is this tail that remains behind?

Dogen says:

In this world, The cow's tail, that should come Out from the window, Always remains behind Unless we pull it like mad.

The cow's tail is all that we cannot understand, and yet we try to understand. The cow's tail is the effort to comprehend the incomprehensible. The cow's tail is the effort to demystify existence.

That's what you mean when you say 'understand'. What do you mean by the word 'understand'? - demystifying existence, making existence a clear thing, a syllogism. And it is not a syllogism, it is a song; you cannot reduce it to a syllogism. It is not a problem of arithmetic, it is not even a riddle - it is a KOAN. There is no solution to it. It is a mystery, it cannot be solved.

The whole is incomprehensible. When you try to comprehend it, the tail grows, and then you are caught. It is intellect - which is a small tail. You can pass into God very easily, but the tail will stick.

Horns, head, legs, everything will pass into God VERY easily, there is no problem about it. But the tail inside you, wagging in the head, that will remain stuck behind. It won't allow you to go. That's why heady people find it very difficult to enter into religion. People of the heart easily enter on the path.

It is the desire to comprehend the incomprehensible; it is the desire to demystify the ultimate mystery.

The ultimate belongs to the whole, and a part of it - the intellect - wants to understand it. The whole can be understood by the whole, not by the part. The like can be understood by the like. Intellect is a VERY small part, a very tiny part, but pretending to be the dictator.

Intellect has become very dictatorial. It says: "First, I have to understand everything. If I don't understand, then it is not. If God is not understood by me, then God cannot be. God can exist only if I allow. Love can be only if I allow." If something is mysterious, the intellect says, "No, it is not." It is better to say "It is not" than to accept the mystery and lose your control and your dictatorial grip on existence. The intellect is the ego - this is the tail, very small, but gets caught.

So, Sheela, don't grow a tail. If you have a rail, then it will be difficult to get into religion. And I have not seen the tail in Sheela up to now, unless she is hiding it somewhere.

The intellect can solve every problem, except THE problem. The intellect has answers for everything except for God, except for life, except for the total. There it suddenly falls very short; there it is impotent. Before the omnipotent the intellect is impotent.

So if you don't want to understand, there is no problem - YOU WILL understand. If you WANT to understand, you will miss. Let me repeat it: if you don't want to understand, you WILL understand - it is simple. If you want to understand, it is very complex, you will miss it.

The second question:

I DON'T SEE ANY DARKNESS ANYWHERE. Only you are keeping your eyes closed; the darkness exists not. It is your creation. The sun is everywhere, the light is everywhere, it is full noontide. But you go on clutching your eyes shut, you go on keeping your eyes shut - hence the darkness. Now, nobody can force your eyes to open. There are a few things you will have to do yourself.

If you want to sneeze, you will have to sneeze - I cannot do that for you. If you want to blow your nose, you will have do it yourself - I cannot do that for you. There are a few things you will have to do for yourself. This is one of the most fundamental things in life, and it is good that you have to do it yourself. Otherwise, even in your freedom you will be a slave. If I bring you out of your darkness, or anybody else, that light won't he much of a light. You will be imprisoned in that light - you have not come of your own accord, you have not flowered of your own accord.

Have you not watched sometimes? Small children try to open a bud forcefully. The bud CAN be opened. but then it is not a flower. Even when it is open it is not a flower; something is missing; something of great significance is missing. The soul is missing. The flower has soul when it flowers on its own, then it has life. When you force it, you destroy it. All that is beautiful in life can only HAPPEN, it cannot be done.

There is a very beautiful anecdote about a Zen Master, Joshu:

One day, Joshu fell down in the snow and called out, "Help me up! Help me up!"

A disciple of Joshu came along and lay down beside him.

Joshu laughed, got up, and said to the disciple, "Right! Perfectly right! That's what I am doing to you too."

Joshu has fallen in the snow, and he shouts, "Help me up! Help me up!" Now there is no NEED! If you have fallen, you can get up; if you can fall, you can get up. The same energy that makes you fall can make you get up. The person who CANNOT get up, cannot even fall. The same energy that takes you astray can bring you home. The person who cannot come home cannot be astray either, because ENERGY IS needed.

The same energy that makes you a sinner can make you a saint. In fact, to be a sinner is more complex, more difficult, more arduous. To be a saint is not so complex, so arduous. And to be religious is not arduous at all. It is the same energy! You are keeping your eyes shut and you are investing much energy in keeping them shut. The same energy that is keeping them shut, relaxed, will help them open.

The disciple is a real disciple. He understands Joshu perfectly well. He knows that he has created a situation, he has fallen knowingly. Maybe the disciple was passing and Joshu has fallen - it is a situation - and he calls, "Help me up! Help me up!" And the disciple comes and lies down by his side himself. He does not help him at all. What is he doing?

He is not trying to help him at all, he's simply sympathizing. He is saying, "What can be done? Okay, I am your disciple, I will lie by your side. What else can I do?"

A Master sympathizes with you, he has compassion. What else can he do? He cannot hold your hand - a real Master will not - because to hold your hand is to keep you always dependent. To bring you out forcibly is to keep you inside still. The moment the Master leaves your hand you will go back to your old world, to your old mind. It was not yet finished, it was still clinging inside you.

A real Master helps without helping. Try to see the point - a real Master helps without helping. His help is very indirect, he never comes immediately to help you. He comes in very subtle ways. He surrounds you like a very fragile breeze, not like a strong wind. He surrounds you like an aura, invisible. He helps you, certainly, but never against you. He helps you only as far as you are ready to go, never a step more. He never pushes you violently, because anything done violently will be lost sooner or later.

That which you have not grown of your own accord you will lose. You cannot possess that which you have not grown in your being of your own accord. You become the possessor only of your own growth. I can even give you the truth, and you will throw it, because you will not recognize it. I can force you awake, but you will fall asleep the moment I am gone, and you will curse me and you will be angry at me, because you were still enjoying your dreams. You were enjoying sweet dreams, and here comes a man and wakes you up.

Sometimes you have observed it yourself. You have to catch a train early - five o'clock or four o'clock in the morning - and you tell somebody to wake you up at four o'clock, and he does. And you are angry! And you don't like the idea at all, and it is YOUR idea. And you feel as if he is your enemy.

I have heard about Immanuel Kant, one German philosopher, that he was very addicted to time. He almost moved like the hand of a clock, exactly on time, everything - not a minute here, not a minute there. Early, five o'clock in the morning, he used to get up his whole life. He had a servant; the servant had to drag him out of his bed, sometimes even beat him - he had given that much power to the servant. He told him, "Even if you have to beat me, you beat! And I will give you a good fight, but you HAVE to wake me! Don't listen to what I say early in the morning. I will scold you and shout at you, and I will threaten you that I will fire you today, but you don't bother. Whatsoever I say, you go on listening, but you drag me out."

He became so much dependent on this servant, that the servant almost became the master and the master became the servant. Sometimes the servant would leave him. He tried to find many servants but nobody would suit, because how to beat your master early at five o'clock? Even if says, "Beat me!" the servant would be afraid. The old servant had to be brought again and again.

But how does it happen? You may be enjoying a good, cozy dream; it is cold, and it is so cozy and warm under the blanket. Yes, you had decided before that you would get up, but now...? You feel like turning again and falling into sleep.

Nobody can be awakened before his time, and SHOULD NOT BE.

And there is no problem, just try to understand WHY YOU KEEP YOUR EYES CLOSED. Rather than asking me to force them open, try to understand why you keep them closed. Try to understand what dreams you have still to dream. Have you not dreamed enough? Have you not dreamed really more than enough? For millions of lives you have been dreaming. Nothing have you achieved out of all that dreaming. You remain empty, hollow. Still you go on filling yourself, stuffing yourself with new dreams, with new desires, with new ambitions. There is every possibility that now you are dreaming about enlightenment, hence you have asked the question of me.

You have dreamed many dreams. Now a new dream has arisen in your mind - to become a Buddha, to attain enlightenment. This is again a dream! If you have really finished with all your dreaming, then who is keeping you asleep? Open your eyes! In fact, there will be no need even to open your eyes. Once you have understood that you have dreamed all the dreams possible, eyes will open!

There will be no need even to open them, because there will be nobody closing them.

Just look at my fist: if I have to keep my fist as a fist, I have to keep holding it, clenching it. The moment I drop holding, it starts opening of its own accord. To be open is natural, to be closed is unnatural. To remain closed you have to put much energy into it. To open, NO energy is needed.

This is something very strange: to remain miserable you need to put much energy into it. To remain happy, you don't need any energy at all. Happiness is free, free of cost; misery you need to earn.

If you want to be miserable, much effort will be needed to remain miserable. It is such an unnatural state. A fist is an unnatural thing; the open hand is a natural thing. The open hand needs no energy, otherwise you will be very tired - the whole day the hand is open, by the evening you will feel dead tired. You will say, "The whole day I had to keep my hand open and I am feeling very tired." One day keep your fist closed the whole day, and by the evening you will feel really tired. The hand open is natural.

An open heart is a natural phenomenon; an open being is just natural. A closed being is a very unnatural thing, very artificial; you have to put all your energy into it. This is my observation of thousands of people: that they give their whole energy to keeping themselves miserable. To remain in hell is a great investment. It is not easy, it is very difficult. You need to be very strong to be in hell very stubborn, adamant. This word 'adamant' is good; it comes from 'diamond'. You have to be as hard as a diamond, only then can you remain in hell. Otherwise nobody is barring your path. You relax and you enter into heaven - relaxation is the door.

You say: I AM GROPING IN DARKNESS. Relax. And the moment you relax your eyes start opening, just as a bud opens and becomes a flower, just as a fist no more kept as a fist starts opening and becomes the open hand.

I am not here to force it. I am here to make it clear to you how it happens. I can talk about the process of it, I cannot do it for you. Understood, it will happen. Don't hope in wrong directions. I don't promise you anything. I simply promise one thing: that whatsoever has happened to me, I will make it obvious to you. Then you have to follow.

Buddha has said: Buddhas only indicate the path, but you have to go, you have to follow the path.

The third question:

Who has told you that after being enlightened meditation is necessary? Meditation remains, but it is not necessary - it becomes natural. Before enlightenment it is necessary, after enlightenment it is just like breathing. it is, there. It is natural, it is spontaneous.

Enlightenment means exactly that: when meditation has become natural. You are meditative - not that you sit sometimes in meditation, not that you have a few hours of meditation every day - your whole time is meditative You move in meditation, you walk in meditation, you sit in meditation, you eat in meditation, you love in meditation, you do your businesses in meditation. Your whole life becomes surrounded by a new kind of energy. It is not NECESSARY, it is simply natural.

Parinirvana has sent me a small anecdote - is relevant to this question.

There was a man sitting on a small planet. Every day at six o'clock he ordered fondly for the sun to rise and the sun rose. And at six o'clock he ordered 'set' and the sun set. After a while, the sun knew her lesson and from then on the man was only sitting there and watching.

Nobody has learned any lesson. Even without ordering the sun would have arisen at six o'clock.

If you simply go on living silently, even meditation is not needed; even before enlightenment it is not needed. If you go on living a healthy, heartful life - not much worried about the past and not much desirous of the future - if you just go on living the life moment to moment as it comes, even BEFORE enlightenment meditation is not necessary. The meditation will start happening. Just as the sun rises in the morning, you need not order it; and in the evening the sun sets, you need not order it.

The man was ordering every day at six o'clock for the sun to rise and every evening at six o'clock to set. And then after a few days he thought, "Now the sun must have learned the lesson " So he sat silently, watched, and the sun rose! and he watched, and the sun set! So the man was very happy, his work was done - the sun had learned the lesson.

All meditations are like that. Life itself is continuously moving towards meditation, no other extra effort is needed. Extra effort is needed because your life is not moving at all, because you have been taught utterly nonsensical notions. Because of those wrong notions you have created many blocks in yourself, and life is no more flowing, you are no more a river - you have become dirty, closed ponds. Hence, meditation is needed.

Meditation is needed because you have become unnatural. If you live a natural life... and by 'natural"

I mean: live the moment as it is - don't try to put any should on it, don't try to transform it into anything else. Just accept the moment as it is. When angry, be angry and accept it; and don't create an ideal of not being angry. And when the anger has passed, don't repent. There is nothing to repent about - it was so! When in love, love, and don't think how love should be. Don't consult love manuals, just let love flow naturally.

I have heard about a great warrior in Japan, a samurai, a very famous swordsman:

One night when he came tired after the whole day's fight in the fields and he was just going to fall into bed, he saw a rat. And the rat was looking at him ferociously! The samurai tried to kill the rat with his sword. He was one of the best swordsmen known, but somehow he missed. He hit many times, he broke his sword, and he could not kill the rat. He became really afraid: "The rat seems to be very mysterious. This is no ordinary rat!" He started, perspiring - he had never perspired. He had been a fighter his whole life and now a rat had defeated him.

He ran out, asked his wife what to do. The wife said, "You are a fool! You need not kill a rat. Have you ever heard of anybody killing a rat by a sword? You just take our cat inside." And the cat was brought inside. It was no ordinary cat, it was the great warrior's cat. She was also trained in many things; she was one of the most famous rat-catchers.

She came with all her art, with all her skill. She tried, but the rat was really extraordinary. He jumped exactly into her eyes! And the cat escaped out. She had never seen such a rat - attacking the cat?!

And she was also trembling like the warrior.

The warrior said, "This is too much!"

Then the king's cat was called. She was a master cat, very well-known all over the country; of course, she was the king's cat. The king's cat came and she was also defeated by the rat. She went in, tried hard, used all her skill, but the rat was just too much.

Then the king's cat suggested a cat she knew who was not famous at all. "You have tried with famous cats, now you try with an ordinary one... just ordinary, plain ordinary."

The warrior said, "But what can a plain, ordinary cat do?"

The king's cat said, "You just try. I know this cat. She is so ordinary, she does not know a thing. The whole day she sleeps. But there is one thing about her: cats know, the whole country's cats know that she is very mysterious. The mysterious thing is that she knows nothing about rats, rat-catching, the art, the technique, the methodology, the philosophy - she knows nothing; she has never been to any school or college or university. She is a plain, ordinary cat, but rats are so afraid of her!

Wherever she sleeps... no rat ever enters that house! Just her presence is enough. And she goes on sleeping, and nobody knows when she kills and how she kills.

"Once I went to that cat and I asked, 'What is your art?' She simply looked at me, and she had no words to say, and she closed her eyes and went to sleep. And I woke her again and asked, 'What is your art?"

"She said, 'I don't know. I am a cat, that's enough. A cat is a cat and IS MEANT to catch a rat. What art? What nonsense are you talking about?""

The cat was brought, and the samurai was not very hopeful because she was really very ordinary, just like any vagabond cat.

She came in, and without any skill she simply went in, caught hold of the rat and brought it out.

All the cats gathered together and asked her, "What is your art?"

And she said,

"I don't know any art. I am a cat! Is not that enough?"

That's what I mean by being natural. Meditation will happen if you are natural - even before enlightenment. Meditation is your natural blooming; meditation is not something like an art, skill, performance. No, not at all. You need not go to any school to learn it. But you have been spoiled.

Rats have been around you too much, and you have become afraid of the rats - not only afraid, you have started learning how to catch these rats. You have become very skillful, artificial; you know the know-how and that is your trouble. Your knowledge is your trouble.

Otherwise there is no need! Kabir never meditated - went on spinning his things and became enlightened. What happened? A natural man, doing his thing with total heart, absorbed in doing his thing - attained.

So remember, you have to learn meditation because you have learned a few wrong things. To destroy that wrong learning you will need learning. It is as if you have got a thorn in your foot and you need another thorn to take it out. The other thorn is as much a thorn as the first one, but it helps.

Meditation is just like a thorn, because you have become artificial and that artificiality has gone deep into your being. Meditation takes it out; it is medicinal.

Do you know? - 'medicine' and 'meditation' come from the same root. It is medicinal. When somebody is ill we give him medicine. Do you think medicine gives him health? Then you are wrong. Medicine simply destroys his illness. No medicine has yet been invented which can give you health. Health is beyond medicine, and beyond meditation too. The medicine simply destroys the disease. Once the disease is destroyed, once the thorn has been taken out, your inner health starts blooming again.

Only the artificial has to be destroyed. Naturally, for the artificial, something artificial is needed. To destroy something false you will need another thing which is false. You cannot destroy the false by the real, they will not meet. How can you destroy the false by the real? So ALL techniques of meditation are as fictitious as your other fictions - all fictitious! They help, they certainly help; they help you out of your fiction. But the day you are out of your fictions, suddenly you realize, "Meditation was not even necessary before I became enlightened." It had become necessary because of the society, because of the conditionings, because of too many teachings, because you had lost your nature, your Tao.

So there is no question of "After enlightenment, how is meditation necessary?" Not at all. One forgets what meditation is, because one knows no moments of non-meditation at all. One lives in meditation, one's life is meditation.

But sometimes it has happened: you will sometimes find a Buddha also sitting with closed eyes.

You will sometimes find a Meera still worshipping Krishna. So the problem arises in the mind: "What is Buddha doing?"

It is known about Christ that many times he would tell his disciples, "You wait here and I will go into the mountains to meditate." What is Jesus doing when he says he is going to meditate? He need not meditate at all. What does he want to go there for? He simply wants to get rid of the crowd. That meditation is just a trick. He simply wants to be alone. Tired.... Tired of the enemies and tired of the friends. Tired of those who are against him and tired of those who are his followers. Tired, simply tired.

It is almost like a doctor who has been working the whole day in the hospital with ill people, a thousand and one kinds of illness, and he wants to go home and rest. It is like that.

A Jesus or a Buddha is continuously with ill people, because there are only ill people left in the world. He also needs a little rest.

What should Buddha meditate for? But sometimes he sits with closed eyes under the Bo tree - still, after Buddhahood. Just wants a few moments purely for himself. That beauty of aloneness, that benediction of aloneness - for a few seconds he wants to forget all the troubles of all kinds of people, that's all. Again he is fresh, again the energy is flowing, again he is ready - again to help people, again to invite people, again to provoke people.

Long ago in China, Zen Master Obaku, who had reached the highest peak of spiritual attainment, was yet seen constantly worshipping the Buddha with great devotion.

Struck by a doubt, a disciple asked, "Are you asking something of the Buddha, or seeking something concerned with the truth?"

The Master replied, "I have nothing to ask of the Buddha or to seek about the truth."

The disciple asked again, "Then why do you worship?"

The Master said, "I simply worship."

Now this is a strange statement. He says, "I simply worship." It is pure gratitude. It has nothing to do with meditation, prayer. He is not there to ask anything - all is already given. Now, when ALL is already given, you feel a tremendous gratitude - such gratitude that you cannot pay anything back; you don't have anything. You can serve your father in his old age and in some way you can pay for all that he has done for you when you were a child. You can respect your mother, look after her in her old age, and pay her in some way. But what can you do for a Master? Because all the coins that you know are of this world - he has given you something of the other world, and you don't have any coins of the other world. What will you do with a Master? Utterly helpless, you cannot show your gratitude in any other way.

Obaku is right, he says, "I simply worship. I have nothing to ask the Buddha any more. He has already given me, but how can I forget him?"

My own feeling is that Obaku, wherever he is, must be worshipping still. It is eternal gratitude.

Another disciple of Buddha, Manjusri, became enlightened. When he became enlightened, Buddha said to him, "Now you go away from me. Now you have the word yourself. The message has become alive in you. Go and spread it!"

So Manjusri had to go, but with tears in his eyes. Somebody asked, "Why are you crying? You have become enlightened yourself, so what is this clinging to Buddha?"

He said, "Who is clinging to Buddha? But just to see him, just to be close to him, just to be near him, and just to bow down whenever one passes him.... I was passing him almost one thousand times a day, and each time I was bowing. What else can I do? Now I will be far away."

So somebody reported to Buddha that Manjusri was crying. Buddha called him and he said, "You can bow down from anywhere." And it is said Manjusri lived for twenty years, but every day - morning, evening, afternoon, whenever he had time, he would bow down in the direction Buddha was moving.

Wherever Buddha was moving he would bow down.

His disciples would say, "You are a Buddha now in your own right! Why do you go on doing this thing?"

And he would say, "How can I stop doing it? It has become so natural."

It is simple gratitude, for no reason at all. There are a few things which are done for no reason at all. Not all things are done for reasons only. It is impossible not to thank your Master even when you have become enlightened.

A monk asked Hyakujo Yekai, another Zen Master, "What is the most miraculous event in the world?"

Hyakujo answered, "I sit here all by myself. This is the most miraculous event in the world. I SIT HERE ALL BY MYSELF."

But this is meditation! this is prayer, this is worship! Call it anything you want to call it, but this is the only thing after enlightenment: "I sit here all by myself."

The fifth question:

THERE IS NO MISUNDERSTANDING BETWEEN A Buddha and a Christ, no misunderstanding between a Mahavir and a Krishna, no misunderstanding between a Zarathustra and a Mohammed.

These are religious people.

There is misunderstanding between Mohammedans and Hindus and Jains and Christians, but these are not religious people. These are just pseudo-religious; they believe they are religious but they are not religious. How can there he misunderstanding when religion has arisen in your heart? Religion makes you so free of all kinds OF opinions. How can there be any misunderstanding? You can misunderstand when you carry an opinion in your mind. When all opinions have been dropped and the mind has attained to silence, how can there be any conflict, misunderstanding?

A Buddha sitting, and by his side a Christ sitting there be any argument? No possibility. How can two silences argue? Yes, if YOU are sitting by the side of a Buddha there is the possibility of every kind of argument. But Buddha sitting by the side of Christ, there is no question of argumentation.

They have nothing to propose, they have nothing to state. They will look into each other's eyes and will see the infinity - two mirrors facing each other will reflect each other in millionfold ways, but nothing else will arise.

But with people who think they are religious and are not there are misunderstandings; they are understandable. If they are not, that will be mysterious, because we speak in languages.

Islam has one language, Christianity has another language, and misunderstanding is bound to be there because those languages are very different - the metaphors are different, the symbology is different.

For example, no Buddhist uses the word 'God'. Christians use the word 'God'; that is the very center of their whole religion Now, there is bound to be misunderstanding. Christians think Buddhists are atheists, and Buddhists think Christians are just anthropomorphic - thinking of God in man's image, just projections. But this happens in ordinary day-to-day life also. Even when you speak the same language, you are misunderstood.

Language is not a very good vehicle for communication. Listen to a few stories.

The first divorce case in Calcutta had some funny sidelights. The attorney for the complainant put his client on the stand and asked him, "Now, as I understand it, every night when you returned from work, instead of having your wife alone and waiting for you, you found a different man hiding in the closet?"

"Yes, that's right."

"And this, of course, caused you untold anguish and unhappiness, did it not?"

"Of course it did," came the hurt reply. "I never had any room to hang up my clothes""

People have their own ways of understanding. Words have their own meanings for each person.

ALL language is very, very personal.

A husband brings home a monkey and two rabbits to the one room in which he and his wife live.

She looks dismayed. "What will they eat?"

"The same food as we do," says the husband.

"Where will they sleep?"

"At the foot of the bed."

"What about the smell?" she protests.

"They'll get used to it," he answered, "as I did."

You watch it, and you will find these misunderstandings everywhere. Morning till evening, you watch, and you will find a thousand and one places where people speaking the same language and talking about the ordinary reality go on misunderstanding each other, go on making words mean something very personal.

The farm woman boarded the bus with nine children and refused to pay fares for any of them.

"These three are seven," she said, "these three are five, and these three are two years old."

The bus driver looked at her in astonishment. "You mean to tell me you get three every time?"

"Shucks, no. Sometimes we don't get any."

Language conveys and yet does not convey. What to say about the other reality - which nobody knows, and about which those who know keep silent? Those who know go on saying that nothing can be said about it. But for the people who have not known, some maps have to be drawn, some words have to he created, some structures have to be made, some guidelines have to be given.

Those guidelines are what Hinduism is, Islam is, Christianity is. Different people have drawn them in different ways.

For example, if five persons are sent into a forest to describe the forest and they come back, do you think they will bring the same message and the same picture from the same forest? No, the painter will bring a painting, and the poet will bring a song. And the biologist will bring something else, the chemist something else again, and the woodcutter still something else again. And they will all be coming from the same forest, they will be visiting the same place, maybe together. But, still, when they bring their message it will be different.

Buddha and Mohammed and Christ enter into the same purity, into the same luminosity, but when they come back Bud&a speaks in his way - a king's son has his own ways of speaking. Christ speaks in his own way - a carpenter's son has his own way of speaking. They are utterly different.

A carpenter's son has to speak the carpenter's language. That's why Jesus' language is very very earthly and very powerful.

Buddha's language is very abstract; only a few people can understand Buddha's language - very sophisticated, very cultured, very educated. Jesus is uneducated, never been to any school, knows only the way people, ordinary people talk in ordinary life. But that's the beauty of his language - very forceful. The more cultured language becomes, the more far away it is from life. It can be understood only by great scholars. But Jesus' language can be understood by any - a labourer, a farmer, a fisherman. Hence Christianity's appeal all over the world for all the poor people.

Rich people don't become interested in Christianity. Rich people can have their own sophistication.

With somebody else. Buddha is beautiful.

And you see, the miracle is happening! In the East where people are poor, people are becoming Christians. In the West where people have become rich, they are becoming Buddhists. Buddha is becoming more important than Christ in America. Sooner or later, America will belong to Buddha, not to Christ, because now people have come to a cultured state where Buddha's language is more appealing.

In India Buddhism has disappeared! India lost that class; India became poor. When Buddha walked on this earth, twenty-five centuries ago, India was the most rich, affluent country in the world - the golden bird. The country was very very cultured. Many universities were functioning, many colleges, many schools. And to talk about philosophy was a very common thing.

It is said that when Shankara entered a town to have a discussion with Mandan Mishra, he inquired at the well outside the town, "How will I know where the house of Mandan Mishra is?" - the philosopher whom he was going to challenge to a debate.

And the girls on the well giggled and laughed. They said, "You don't worry, you go - wherever you find parrots reciting the Upanishads you will know this is Mandan Mishra's house."

And that was actually the case. Even parrots were reciting sutras from the Upanishads. Even the gate guard talked in such a refined way that Shankara was a little puzzled, became a little afraid.

And when they discussed, Mandan Mishra's wife, Bharti, presided over the discussion. Even women were tremendously cultured, educated. His wife presided over these two philosophers' discussion.

Things were totally different - then Buddhism flowered. Now things are very much down. The appeal of Buddhism cannot be very deep today in India. Christianity is more appealing. Christ speaks the language of the proletariat.

Have you not watched many things happening in the world? Communism is a by-product of Christianity. Nothing like communism has happened in India. Great religions were born - Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism - but nothing like communism happened out of them. They lived in the skies.

Communism happened through Christianity - it is a poor man's religion.

But in America, Christianity is losing ground. The moment you become very rich, the moment you start feeling great things and start thinking great ideas, and great music appeals to you and great dance and great art, naturally Buddha becomes important again. Hence the appeal of Zen.

People speak THEIR language and they understand THEIR language. Different religions speak different languages on different planes. They speak about the One, they speak about the same, but the speakers are different. And when the hearers catch hold of those words from Buddha, Christ, Mahavir, they can't see the similarity. They are so dissimilar - the language is so different that they cannot see the unity in it. That's why there is much misunderstanding. There is no way to create understanding without becoming religious yourself.

If you meditate, if you become silent, if you attain a few glimpses of no-mind, all misunderstanding will disappear. Suddenly you will see all is one, only one exists - in millions of forms - but only one exists.

The sixth question:

Who is not tired? You think you are alone? And do you think your wife is not tired of you? Wives are tired of husbands husbands are tired of wives. But even if you change your wife nothing will change.

You will become tired of another woman, that's all. If you change your husband, nothing will change; you will become tired of another husband. Yes, for a few days there will be a thrill, there will be a sensation of the new, of the novel. But the new finally becomes old, and the moment anything new becomes old you become tired.

So there are three layers of this tiredness: one, you become tired of your wife but you are not tired of woman. Second layer: you become so tired of so many wives that you become tired of woman. But you are still not tired of the mind that goes on hankering for the new. The third layer: you become so tired of changing so many times to the new and again it becomes old that you become tired of the mind. And when you become tired of the mind, then the moment of great discovery has arrived.

Otherwise, you can change very easily. Why go on getting tired of a wife? Get tired of somebody else. Even changing miseries helps a little. You will be in another misery, but at least it will be new, and for a few days there will be hope. For a few days you will think, "Now things are going to be good again." But the honeymoon will be over faster than the first honeymoon, because now you have become more understanding. If the first honeymoon was for three weeks, the second will be of two weeks, and the third will be one week, and so on and so forth.

Try to see the mind. The mind is in constant hankering for the new. And it cannot be satisfied because everything new automatically becomes old. So wherever you are you will always be dissatisfied. Why not get tired of this mind itself?

It happens in many ways but we don't watch it. Up to now in the history of man people were forced to live with one woman, with one man. They were tired of husbands and they were tired of wives, but they were not tired of women and not tired of men. Buddha became tired of women because he had many women available - and the best. There was no further go. He become tired of all women, he became tired of women as such.

That's what is happening in America today. People are changing like anything - it is a fashion. Just as you change the model of your car every year or every six months, you change your wife or your husband. But then what is happening, do you know? People are getting tired of woman herself, of man himself. And then a very strange thing is happening: people are turning gay - homosexuals, lesbians.

Where will it land? When man becomes tired of woman as such there are two possibilities. If he moves in the right direction he will become tired of mind, and will start moving in meditations, prayer, religion. If he moves in the wrong direction he will become tired of women and will become interested in men - will become homosexual.

Homosexuality is on the increase in the West. And then one day you will become tired of homosexuality too. Then move towards animals - that people have done. And then...? Then there is only one thing left: create machines and make love to machines. That, too, people are doing and people have done. There are plastic women available in America. You can make love to a plastic woman. And when you make love she behaves almost as if she is real. Her nipples become erect - a plastic thing, but managed mechanically. Maybe you have to plug it in.

This is moving into wrong directions, from one wrong to another wrong. This is not going to lead anywhere. And the ultimate end is suicide. One day you become so tired of everything that you commit suicide. That too is happening. Many more people are committing suicide today than ever before. And you will be surprised: more in the West, less in the East. It should not be so - the East is so poor, so much in suffering - if people commit suicide here, that looks logical. But people are not committing suicide here; people are committing suicide in the West where affluence has happened, where everything is available.

But BECAUSE everything is available, people have got ted up with everything! When things are not available you can hope. When things are available, hope disappears. Now there is no hope. You have the best car. the best yacht, the best woman, the best man, the best house - another house in the hills, another on the sea beach. Now what to do? Where to go? Suddenly you feel tired of the whole thing, of the whole business of life. Commit suicide! Life seems meaningless.

This is a wrong direction. And the situation is such that you can move rightly too. If you move rightly you become a sannyasin; if you move wrongly, you become a suicide. Sannyas and suicide both come out of the same situation. Sannyas means seeing into this mind: that it gets tired of everything, so why not get tired of it and drop it? Why not drop the SOURCE itself? Why go on carrying the source? Drop the source itself! Cut the root! That's what meditation is all about.

But I don't know whether you really want to cut the root, or whether you want to change your wife. If you want to change your wife, I have a suggestion.

I have heard about a company "Homebreakers Limited". I have seen an advertisement, I will read it to you:

Dear Friend:

This chain was started in the hope of bringing happiness to all tired businessmen. Unlike most chains, it does not require money. Simply send a copy of this to five male friends, then bundle up your wife and send her to the fellow whose name heads the list. When your name reaches the top of the list, you will receive 15,186 women and some should be corkers. Have faith. Don't break the chain. One man broke it and got his wife back.

If you REALLY are interested in changing your life into a different dimension of joy, of non-boredom, then changing the wife won't help; You will get another woman. They come in all shapes and sizes - but the reality is the same! They look different from far away, and so is the case with men, remember.

They look different from far away. The closer you come, the less difference. The more close, the more difference has gone. The day the woman is yours, suddenly you say, "She is after all a woman,"

and "He is after all a man."

This you have been doing for many millions of lives. This is what we call in India the wheel of life and death - the wheel of desire. And you know it! You have known it in many ways. You were hankering for a car and now the car is in your porch, and the day it arrives in your porch, suddenly all joy is gone. What to do now? Yes, it is there. One day, two days, three days, you enjoy the thrill of the new, then it becomes old. Then find another car. But you never find the mind that goes on creating trouble for you - the source of all anguish.

The mind is never satisfied with that which is. This is the source of discontent. The mind is always asking for that which is not. Look at the absurdity. The mind always asks for THAT WHICH IS NOT, and is always dissatisfied with THAT WHICH IS. Now, how can you be happy with this mind?

Wherever you are you will be unhappy. Unhappiness follows mind like a shadow.

So rather than going on changing things, see into the whole phenomenon of it. And if you really want to change, drop this mind. And with the dropping of the mind, each moment is such a joy and such a contentment.

Yes, it will be very very difficult for you to believe, but let me say it, let it be on record: If you drop the mind you will be simply surprised, you are again in love - even with your own wife. With the mind dropped, one becomes love. It is not a question of wife, husband, this and that. One is simply love, one flows in love. No more will she be your wife, certainly; no more will you be her husband. These are ugly things, these should not happen in a better world.

With a better consciousness these things should disappear. To reduce a woman to a wife is ugly! It is immoral! To reduce a man to a husband is ugly and immoral. This is confining, this is defining.

This is making a phenomenon very limited. A woman is a mystery, so is a man. Don't call her YOUR wife; she is not yours. And she is not a wife. A wife is a function! That is not her totality; she is many more things. She is not finished by being a wife. She may be a painter, she may be a singer, she may be a dancer. She may be a thousand and one things! Why call her just a wife? 'Wife' is just a function.

You also are not just a husband. You are many more things. 'Husband' is just a function, and a very ugly word at that. You call the farmers, their farming, 'husbandry'. Why? 'Husband' comes from 'husbandry'. In old times people used to think that man is the farmer and woman is the field - very ugly words. So man is farming in the field of woman.

You are not the farmer, she is not the field; otherwise, the farmer becomes the owner and the field becomes the property. Then you can sell your property. That's what people have done down the ages - the woman has been thought of as property. Woman is not property, and if you reduce woman to property she will take revenge. And they have taken, and they have taken very perfectly!

If you reduce a woman to being just a property, she will reduce you to being just a hen-pecked servant, not even a husband. That's what she has done. Your so-called brave men are brave only outside; when they come home they are just like tiny mice!

Somebody was saying to Mulla Nasruddin, "Why are you so afraid of your wife?" because he was leaving the party early. It was not early, it was midnight, but others were staying and dancing and drinking and doing things and he wanted to leave. Somebody said, "Why do you want to leave the party so early? Why are you so afraid of your wife? Are you a man or a mouse?"

And Mulla said, "I am a man - because my wife is afraid of mice!"

That's how things have happened. They have taken a subtle revenge. Of course, their way is very feminine; they have not taken revenge directly. Women function in a very subtle way - indirectly.

They call you master - SWAMI - they touch your feet, and you know perfectly well and everybody knows who is the master and who is touching the feet.

This is an ugly state of affairs. If you get tired, it is natural. Get out of it. But I'm not saying leave your wife. Drop the idea that she is your wife, and drop the idea that you are her husband. Be friends - that's MORE than enough! And be meditative, drop the mind. And suddenly you will see life has started flowing again.

The sixth question:

ONE WHO THINKS THAT HE IS CLEVER IS A FOOL. But I don't know about your brother-in-law, what he thinks. This is about you. He may be thinking that you are a fool, then you are both in the same boat. Brothers-in-law are.

Never think about the other as a fool. That shows intelligence, when you don't think about the other as a fool. Nobody is. There are different expressions of intelligence, yes; but nobody is a fool.

Maybe the way the other's intelligence functions is different from yours.

Somebody is very intelligent in mathematics, and somebody is very intelligent in poetry. Now, the man who is intelligent in mathematics, thinks the poet is a fool. And in a way he is right, because in mathematics the man is not very intelligent. But the poet thinks the mathematician is a fool. In a way he is also right, because the mathematician cannot compose two lines of poetry - so what kind of intelligence is this, just calculation, calculation? Create something! - that shows intelligence.

People ARE intelligent in different, different ways. I have never come across a fool. And if you come across a fool, just try to find out: he must have somewhere some kind of intelligence which is not yet known by you. Sometimes a very very foolish person has his own intelligence.

I used to know, when I was a student in the university, a man who lived outside the university campus, and was thought to be very foolish, stupid - a perfect idiot. He was SO idiotic, that if you gave him a ten-rupee note and one single ANNA, he would take the anna and reject the note. I became friendly with him, just in the search, because I wanted to see - there must be some intelligence in this man too.

When I became friendly, after many many months I inquired, "Why, can't you see that this is a ten- rupee note somebody is giving you? And you choose a one anna piece and you reject the ten-rupee note?"

He said, "Am I a fool? If I receive the ten-rupee note then nobody will offer ever! Finished with one ten-rupee note - and this is my business! People offer me, and they enjoy. Let them enjoy! I always choose the smaller coin. Am I a fool?"

And I understood. He was a very intelligent man. Now he was fooling the whole campus, even professors. Very intelligent people would go just to have a joke: "How foolish he is!"

Intelligence has different ways of asserting itself. Never think for a single moment that anybody can be a fool - because only God exists, so how can anybody be a fool? And if you are too much interested in the word itself, then think only that you are fool - that will lead you towards more wisdom.

The last question:

Because they are. It is not a question of my opinion - they are, because politics is an ego trip and religion is dropping of the ego. The politician cannot be religious, and the religious person cannot be a politician.

It is absolutely so, it is categorically so. The politician is always trying to have more power. For what? - to enhance his ego, to show to the world that "I am somebody." And the religious person has dropped that whole stupid business. HE KNOWS HE IS SOMEBODY, so what is the point of saying or showing to anybody? He KNOWS! The politician pretends; the religious person knows.

He has come inside his own being, and he has known the King of kings - the Master of masters there. So what is the POINT now? Striving for a bigger chair and a higher post - what is the point?

You cannot make him higher than he has known himself inside.

If you make Buddha the president of India, that won't help. That will not increase him, that will decrease him. Buddha won't be a Buddha then, he will be a very ordinary man.

A religious man has come to see his own infinite treasure, so he does not long for any power trip. It may be the money trip or the power trip or the prestige trip, but they are all politics. There are only two directions in life: religion and politics. And either you are in one or you are in the other. If you are not a religious man then you are, by necessity, a politician. You may not be actually in politics, but you are a politician. And politics can assert itself in many ways. You may be a politician with your wife: you are the dominator and she is the dominated. Or you may be a politician with your children:

you are the dictator and they have to follow your orders, they have to be obedient to you. Or you may be a politician in your office: you are the boss and everyone has to be a slave. Or you may be thinking of gathering much money so you come to the top through money, but the idea is the same.

Or, you may even be renouncing the world just to think that you come at the top of all the mahatmas - you become the greatest mahatma. But it is again the same: you are a politician.

If you renounce the world, if you become naked and move on the streets with the idea that "Now no saint can compete with me. Now, I have come to the top!" you are a politician. Maybe a naked politician, a religious politician, if you want it to be said that way, but a politician is a politician!

I have heard:

Nikita Khrushchev went to his tailor with a bolt of expensive cloth especially woven for him. He asked the tailor to make up a three-piece suit. After measuring the portly, vodka-guzzling Red czar, the tailor said he would not have enough cloth for a vest.

Khrushchev grumpily decided against ordering the suit and took the cloth with him on a visit to Belgrade. There he tried a Yugoslav tailor who measured him and found he could make a stylish suit including a vest. Khrushchev, puzzled, asked why the Russian tailor could not cut the cloth to make a vest.

"In Moscow you are a bigger man than you are here," the Belgrade tailor replied.

"In Moscow you are a bigger man than here... in Belgrade, who bothers about you?"

Your presidents are great men when they are in power. When they are not in power, then? Your prime ministers are great when they are in power. When they are not in power, then? Then the same dogs who used to wag their tails, start barking - the SAME dogs, the same people.

You can find it: the same dogs who have been wagging their tails around Indira now are barking at her. The dogs are the same. They have just changed a little. Mm? - rather than wagging their tails, they bark. Now they are wagging their tails at Morarji. But beware, Morarji, these are the same people! Sooner or later they will bark at you. This goes on. This drama goes on.

Richard Nixon's tapes have revealed a lot about the man we never knew. Here is a conversation that was supposed to have taken place with Bob Haldeman.

"Bob, I realize that some day I'm going to pass on," said the former President to his aide. "I would like you to find a nice burial place for me."

Two weeks later, Haldeman returned and said, "Mr. President, I have found just the spot. It is on a hill overlooking a beautiful stream. And the sun hits it during the day almost as if you were being spotlighted."

"Sounds good," said Nixon. "How much?"

"Four hundred thousand dollars."

"What? Four hundred thousand dollars!" cried Nixon. "I'm only gonna be there three days!"

Just like Jesus! Every politician, when he is in power, thinks that he is God. Says Nixon, "I'm only gonna be there three days! And for three days, four hundred thousand dollars? Foolish! This is too much."

Power gives you the feeling that you are great. But this feeling comes only to the person who is not great. Power is needed only by the not-greats. If you are really great - and by really great I mean if you have come home inside yourself, if you have come in tune with your being - then no need to add anything to you. You are already there. And then, suddenly, it is not that you are great and others are not great. The moment you know you are great, the whole existence becomes great - even a dog is a god then.

Buddha is reported to have said: "When I became enlightened, the whole existence became enlightened. Everything became enlightened the same moment!" That is the vision of a really great man. The really great man sees only gods and goddesses around. Everywhere existence is great for him.

So there are two types of greatness: one type, the political type - you become great by making others small. This is an ugly kind, ill kind, neurotic. Then there is another kind of greatness: you become great, and suddenly the whole existence becomes great. With you, everything becomes divine. That is religion. And they don't meet, and they can't meet.