The Great Doubt

The first question:

SILENCE IS GREAT DEATH, THE GREATEST THAT one can pass through. The ordinary death is nothing compared to it, because in the ordinary death you still carry the seed of being reborn. The ordinary death is not real death. One dies really in silence - that is utter death. Hence the fear. Zen calls it 'The Great Death'.

Why call it death? - because when you are silent, you are not. You ARE only when you are noisy; you ARE only when the mind is full of garbage; you ARE only when mind is mad. In madness you ARE: in health you disappear.

Neurosis is very substantially needed for the ego to exist. Once the neurosis is gone, the chattering mind disappeared, you are not. Not that nothing is; something is, but you cannot identify yourself with that something. Something unknown, never known before, never even dreamed about, something utterly unfamiliar, something very disconnected from you, discontinuous with you - hence the fear.

In silence you commit suicide. That's what sannyas is all about.

In India we have the same word for death and for ultimate meditation - SAMADHI. Samadhi has two meanings: death and the ultimate attainment of super-consciousness. Very significant, indicates two aspects of that ultimate silence. On one hand you die - as you have always been you will never be again. That old man simply evaporates.It is not modified, it is not continuous in any way. It has nothing to do with the new consciousness that arises in you. The new is ABSOLUTELY new.

So on one hand you die, on the other hand a new kind of life, the life of egolessness, starts. That is not the life of humility, remember. Egolessness has nothing to do with humility or humbleness.

Humbleness, humility, are again the ways of the same ego, subtle ways. A REALLY egoless man is neither arrogant nor humble. If you find somebody humble, then he is just standing upside down; it is the same ego doing SHIRSHASAN - headstand.

Arrogance can become humbleness. But when the ego disappears, it simply disappears leaving no trace behind - not even of humbleness. Hence the fear. One trembles to take the jump. It is committing suicide.

You ask: WHY SHOULD SILENCE BE THREATENING?

One: it is a death. Second: all that you know about your mind, all that you know about yourself, all that you are identified with, has been given to you by the society. It is borrowed. Your identity is borrowed. You don't know who you are; you only know what others say that you are. In silence, all those opinions will disappear. In silence you will come naked, without any clothes, to your utter loneliness. I call it utter because there is NO why to change it. You can go on playing games of being together with people, but deep down you remain alone. Aloneness is something which cannot be corrupted, it is our very nature.

You can create many illusions around yourself, and you can create safeties and securities, bank balance and love affairs and friendships and families - I'm not against them. All is good if you know that it is a game. Play it as well as you can, but never be befooled by it. Underneath you remain alone. That aloneness is not changed by your relationships - not even love changes your aloneness.

So when you are silent, your whole world disappears. Not only do you disappear, your whole world disappears. Your whole world consists of words, opinions, ideas, thoughts. Your whole world consists of language.

Christians are right when they say, "In the beginning is the Word." In the end, too, is the word. The day the word ends, you have entered again into the source. Language is social; mind is a social product. You are not social: you are individual. And all our security is with society. So the moment you are silent, you start feeling great insecurity arising. You don't know even who you are; you start trembling - a great nervousness.

In Zen they call it 'The Great Doubt'. It comes to everybody when they reach closer to satori: a great moment of doubt - because the old is disappearing and the new you cannot even see. All that you have believed in is no more valid, and nothing is yet clear as to what is going to substitute it. You are left in limbo. In that trembling, anguish, anxiety, great doubt, you would like to go back; you would like to cling to the shore that you have left.

But there is no way to go back! Once you have come to the moment of Great Doubt, there is no way to go back. You can only go ahead. Remember this basic dictum of human growth. growth of consciousness: that there is no way ever to go back. Whatsoever you have known, you have known as there is no way to make it unknown again. Wherever you have arrived you have arrived; you cannot escape from it. The only way goes ahead.

All growth points are points of no return. So you can be troubled, you can remain in anguish, you can go crazy, but there is no way to go back. The Master is needed at the moment of the Great Doubt, because there you will be very helpless. You will become again like a small child, helpless.

The child was perfectly okay in the womb, there was no problem for the child. The child was absolutely secure, comfortable. Never again in his life will he be so secure and so comfortable.

Those nine months in the womb were the last thing in luxury - no worry, no responsibility; all warmth, floating, relaxing; not even the effort to breathe for oneself - the mother was doing all.

Then suddenly the child comes out of the womb after nine months. He is absolutely helpless. He will need a mother. He would like to go back to the womb, but that's not possible; that is not possible in the very nature of things. You have left that home, you cannot go back. You will have to seek your home somewhere further ahead. You will have to create a home and warmth and everything again.

The mother will be needed, otherwise the human child will die.

Exactly that is the function of the Master; exactly, precisely that is the function of the Master. When you come to the Great Doubt, you are leaving one womb - the womb that you had created with society, with people, in relationship, you are leaving that womb. You are entering into silence. You are getting into another dimension: the non-linguistic, the non-verbal, the no-mind dimension. You will again become like a child, very helpless - even more so, because the child's helplessness was more physical and your helpless will be more of the spiritual. It will be deeper - the deepest possible.

You will need somebody to give you courage, to push you ahead, to seduce you to move forward, to allure you, to promise you a thousand and one things....

Once you have passed the moment of Great Doubt, the silence is no longer threatening; then it is the very benediction. then it is SATCHITANANDA - then it is truth, consciousness, bliss. There is nothing higher than it. But BEFORE it, before the last barrier falls down, before you leave your clinging to the past, you will feel almost as if uprooted, as if a tree is being uprooted from its soil where it has become very, very comfortable - a child is being uprooted from the womb. Exactly the same is going to happen... hence, you feel silence as threatening.

But one has to go through it. It is only through the fire of silence that you become purified gold. It is only through the fire of silence that mind burns and no-mind becomes a flame in you. It is a blessing if you understand. On one hand it is a crucifixion, on the other hand it is a resurrection.

The second question:

WHETHER YOU FEEL SUPERIOR OR INFERIOR or equal, the mind remains the same. You still go on thinking in comparison and the misery will continue. You can think yourself superior - the moment you think yourself superior you are creating possibilities to feel inferior, because somebody somewhere is going to be ahead of you in some way or other. If you think yourself inferior, you are creating the possibilities to feel superior - in some way, somebody is going to be behind you.

We are standing in a queue, and the queue is not linear: it is a circle. Somebody is always ahead of you and somebody is always behind you. Then naturally the idea arises - because superiority and inferiority bring ego and misery - why not feel equal? And you think you are asking for a radical change? No, not at all. To feel equal is the same trap; it is based on the same criterion, the same measurement. Why equal? If you feel equal, you will feel superior, you will feel inferior too. Equality is the SAME measurement, is the same coin; nothing is being changed.

I will not help you to feel equal because that is not changing your illness. It is simply making it comfortable, making it a little more normal, bringing it to normal proportions from the neurotic. But the normal is just as neurotic as the neurotic. It is lukewarm neurosis.

What I would like to see, what I would like you to see is.... Start feeling that there is no possibility of comparison between you and anybody else. Each individual is so unique. I am not saying you are unique - don't misunderstand me. I am saying EACH individual is unique; comparison is not possible. We can compare two beings only if they are not unique, if they are similar; but we are not similar.

A Jesus is a Jesus and a Buddha is a Buddha. Sometimes a Buddhist comes to me and he asks, "Who is greater - Jesus or Buddha? Who is greater - Krishna or Christ? Who is greater - Mahavir or Mohammed?" We go on using our neurotic criteria even for Buddhas - "Who is greater?" Can't you see a simple fact, that Buddha has never been repeated again? Never will there anybody like Gautam the Buddha, and never has there been anybody since. He is just unique, he is alone. How can you compare? Mohammed is so different, so unique in his own way. So is Christ. How can you compare?

And I'm not saying that these great souls, Buddha and Christ and Krishna, are unique. I'm saying each individual is unique. God creates only unique individuals. God never repeats. He does not believe in carbon copies. He only believes in the original.

And it is not only so with man! Animals are unique - you cannot find two cats exactly the same. They have their individuality. you cannot find two ASHOKA trees the same - they have their individuality.

You cannot find two leaves exactly the same, or two pebbles on this big earth exactly the same - they have their individuality. The individuality is so deep in existence.

Individuality is the very signature of God.

So to think inferior, to think superior, and then to fall into another trap of thinking equal is just irrelevant to the truth of life. The truth is that we are unique - you are you, I am me, and there is no way to compare. Comparison has to disappear.

Once comparison disappears, compassion arises. Once com-parison disappears, you start seeing the tremendous beauty of people all around. Then each existence is so unique, is so utterly precious.

A single roseflower - it has never been before and it will never be again - don't miss it! Dance with it, sing with it, be with it. It is only for the moment. This morning it has bloomed, by the evening it will be gone and gone forever!

The woman you are in love with has never been on the earth will never been on the earth and will never be again. In fact, the woman that you love is one in the morning, another in the afternoon, and by the night she has changed utterly. It is not only that individuals are individuals, but each single moment has an individuality. you cannot compare even that. You cannot compare your woman in the morning with the woman in the night - much water has flowed down the Ganges since then.

The flower in the morning was one thing - with the rising sun, with birds singing, with clouds moving in the sky. And the flower in the night is another thing - with stars, the sun disappeared, the darkness all around. It is a totally different thing! Each single moment is also unique. The uniqueness of life is multi-dimensional. Individuals are unique, their single moments are unique.

Once you start seeing this uniqueness of existence, then all these foolish ideas of feeling superior, inferior, equal, this and that, disappear. You are not equal either! How can you be equal? If you CAN be equal, then why can't you be superior? and why can't you be inferior? If equality is allowed, then superiority, inferiority, all come from the backdoor. Then you cannot avoid them.

This I call reverence for life. Respect for life helps you to drop all these foolish ideas. It is the ego that needs the idea of equality, superiority, inferiority - these are the props. Without these the ego cannot exist. Withdraw the props and ego falls flat on the ground and disappears.

The third question:

IF YOU ASK HOW, YOU ASK A WRONG QUESTION. The how brings the chatter in; the how, the technique, brings the future in. The how brings the methodology and the mind in. So it is not a question of HOW DO WE REACH THE STATE OF BLESSEDNESS WHEN THE MIND IS EMPTY OF CHATTER DEFENSES, PLANS AND GAMES, AND GOD IS? It is not a question of how, it is not a question of technology at all.

Meditation is not a technique.

Once you ask how, you bring ALL that you want to drop. How means it cannot happen right now; the how will need time - tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, this life or after this life. Because the Hindus created so many techniques for meditation, they had to suppose many lives; it was a necessary corollary. One life was not enough to do Patanjali's Yoga. Many more lives were required; it was a basic requirement - because it is impossible to conceive of a man doing so many techniques in one life. You need more time. And when you need more time, you need more mind.

Time and mind are not two things. Mind exists with time. Time is exactly what mind is!

Ask the how and you have brought future in. Ask the how and you have brought postponement.

Ask the how and you say, "It cannot be done right now; first I have to prepare and get trained and disciplined and all that, and then I will do it." And then what will you do, and who will do it? Who will be trained by the how? - the mind itself will be trained. The mind will become skillful, the mind will become very efficient. The mind can become so efficient that it can even pretend that the no-mind has arrived. The mind can manage a kind of stillness and can deceive you that this is what samadhi is.

A stillness that is brought by any technique.... Those techniques can be of many kinds: they can be chemical, they can be drugs; or they can be concerned with your physiology, they can be hormonal; or they can be through breathing - but that too is chemistry. You can change your inner balance of oxygen and carbon-dioxide and you will find changes happening. You can practise certain postures of the body and that will change your mind too, because mind and body are not two; you are psychosomatic. You are one - these are two aspects of the same coin, they affect each other.

When you ask how you are bringing in the whole jargon of technique, yoga, mind and all kinds of games. The real understanding does not need any technique; understanding is enough unto itself.

And who will do these techniques? - the mind will do. And if mind is the doer, you cannot get out of the mind. The more the mind becomes a doer, the more strengthened it is. To get out of the mind you cannot take the help of the mind. No, not at all.

YOU ASK: HOW DO WE REACH THE SATE OF BLESSEDNESS...?

And secondly: it is not something which you have to reach. It is already there, it is already the case - it has happened! It is not somewhere far away that you have to reach. It is not a goal! God is not A GOAL! The moment you make God a goal, you create desire. And from desire God is far away.

God is not a goal. It is not something that has to be achieved. It is something that is present there, and you are keeping your eyes shut. It is something that is already there, and you are avoiding! It is not a question of how to reach God; the only question is how not to AVOID, how not to escape, how not to go on pretending that you don't know that God is - how to be just open.

That which is... one can be open to it, or one can be closed to it. And the best way to remain closed to that which is, is to remain in the future - somewhere, a faraway goal, distant, in the Himalayas, or somewhere in the seventh heaven, in the skies. It is so far away that you can go on desiring. And with desiring the chatter will exist, the defences will exist, plans and games will exist.

So two things: There is no how in real religion; Zen knows no how. And second: the essential religion knows that God is already the case. There is not even an inch's distinction between you and God. Even to say that God is close is not right, not exactly right - because closeness, after all, shows a certain distance; closeness is distance. God is not close - God is you: you are God.

We are already in it just as the fish is in the ocean - we are in it. Kabir has said: "I laugh very much when I see the fish thirsty in the ocean." We ARE in it. God is... or call it blessedness, or call it samadhi, or you name it... is the ocean in which we are existing. It surrounds us within and without.

Only it is.

If you start working for the how you start forcing the mind to stop chattering. That can be done; many tricks have been invented down the ages, shortcuts. Transcendental Meditation will do. You can repeat a mantra continuously. If you repeat a mantra it creates a sort of lullaby, it creates a kind of sleep. Beautiful and nice! and I am not against it, because sleep is as much a spiritual activity as any other. A good sleep is very good, but it has nothing to do with samadhi.

If you repeat a single word constantly... any word will do; it need not be a very, very traditionally worshipped sound: AUM, RAM, ALLAH - any word will do. You can repeat your own name and that will do. Just the whole thing is: repeat it fast so there is no gap between two repetitions - RAMRAM - there should not be any gap between the two, so that in the gap nothing can enter. Make the gap smaller and smaller. Let Rams overlap each other, go fast, go madly into it. Go on repeating. It will create a lullaby. The mind will be shut forcibly, because the mind cannot do two things together. If you are repeating a mantra then the mind cannot think; that is not possible - for the mind to do two things. If you think, you will forget the mantra. If you do the mantra, you will forget thinking. But mantra itself is a kind of thinking - and a very stupid kind at that. You are thinking it may be valuable, but mantra is very stupid.

The East has suffered very much from the mantra; it turned the whole Eastern consciousness very stupid. That's why the East is not so creative - not so creative in art, not so creative in science, not so creative in anything - a kind of dullness, a kind of stupor. And you can see it. A man who has been doing a mantra for a few years, you can see around him a kind of stupidity. You can go around India and you will find many mahatmas who are simply stupid. But their stupidity is worshipped.

They have managed one thing: somehow they have forced the mind to be silent; ANYHOW they have forced the mind to be silent.

They have been trying to force the mind into silence through fasting. If you don't give enough food, by and by energy becomes less and less. And when the energy is superfluous, only then does it move into the head, otherwise not - because the head is a luxury in your body. First other organs have to be taken care of. If there is a conflict between the heart and the head, the body will give to the heart first; the head can wait - the head is not so essential. If there is a kind of conflict between the stomach and the head, the stomach will get the energy first; the head can wait.

So whenever you give less energy than is needed by your body, than your body needs to consume, naturally the head will not get enough energy. Hence, fasting became one of the tricks down the ages: Fast! Don't give enough energy to the body! When the body is not getting enough, the mind will not get it. When the mind is not getting, there will be no thoughts. But this kind of state is a NEGATIVE stillness, it is not positive. It is not alive, it is not vibrant with the unknown; it is just dull and dead. The man has no energy. The man is really impotent - DON'T call it BRAHMACHARYA!

Don't call it celibacy. If you fast too much, sex energy will disappear; a kind a celibacy will appear - which is false! because it is simply a lack of energy.

And the same way it happens in the head. If the energy is not enough, the mind will not function. But non-functioning of the mind is not the thing! The mind SHOULD function perfectly, should hum like a perfect car, and still should not spin and weave unnecessary thoughts. The mind should remain alive and creative, and yet should be capable of moving into silence when-ever it wants to. That's mastery. When you want to think, you can think; when you don't want to think, you can go into non-thinking. A real Master is one who can do both.

There are two kinds of slaves in the world: the ordinary man who cannot go into non-thinking, who constantly thinks - he is a slave of the mind. Then there is another kind who forces the mind into not thinking by depriving it of energy, aliveness, opportunity, challenge, struggle - deprives it of all possibilities. But then this man cannot think. If some situation arises he will be simply dumb. I am not for this dumbness. Then what to do?

MY WHOLE APPROACH IS NON-TECHNICAL. You have to watch your chattering. Don't be in a hurry to stop it, just watch it. Watch all the defenses that are there. Don't be judgemental, don't say they are not needed. And don't stop playing games - go on playing, but become more and more watchful. Bring a new consciousness which goes on watching everything that is happening to you - inside and outside. You are playing a game? - play it. Nothing is wrong in the game. Play it perfectly, skillfully, become a good actor, but deep down remain alert. Know perfectly well that you are playing - a mirrorlike reflectiveness inside.

Let the mind chatter... you be watchful. It is not going to be easy; mantra is easy. It is going to be arduous, it is going to be hard, because you will forget again and again. The chattering mind is so much that you will be lost into it again and again. But nothing to be worried about. The moment you remember, come back, again start looking at it.

And don't feel guilt that you missed, and don't feel con-demned, and don't start feeling frustrated.

This is natural. For lives together we have trained the mind to think. Now you will have to watch this whole mechanism functioning as you have trained it.

Watching, parallel to the mind something new arises in you. Remember it: parallel to the mind the witnessing arises in you. That witnessing has no chattering in it. It is something HIGHER than the mind. When you repeat a mantra you are using the mind. Nothing parallel arises in you; you are simply forcing the mind. When you watch, something higher than the mind arises - a watcher on the hills. You are sitting on the top of a hill and you can watch the whole valley. You are not against the valley; the valley is perfectly beautiful as it is - but you are beyond it.

Let it be repeated: The watcher has nothing to do with the mind. The watcher is something new; the watcher is a new growth in your being. It is not mind forced to be still, it is not mind disciplined to be still. It is something new, an invitation to something new, which is hiding inside you and you have not invited before. Invite the watcher.

First it will be very shy, naturally. Sometimes it will come and again it will disappear. But even if it comes for single moments, those moments are of tremendous value. Even in twenty-four hours, if you can become a watcher for a single moment - enough that will do - that will do the miracle. By and by, that watching will start getting rooted in you. Mind will continue on its own plane. There is no need to bother with it. It is perfectly good as it is. Don't be against the poor mind; it has been a great help to you. Without it, you would not have survived. It is the mind that has helped you to survive up to now - it is a survival measure.

If in the East, particularly in India, you find it so ugly - poverty, starvation - can't you see the reason? India has not developed the mind, which is a survival measure. It has been against it, too much against it, very antagonistic towards the mind. And the ultimate result is an ugly society, starving people, poor.

This should not be so. There is no need. Mind can be used, it can be one of the most intricate mysteries of God. I am not against anything, not even against mind. It has to be used in its own way, it has its own plane. Just YOU have to grow above it! You have to find something which is higher than the mind in you. And then you start sitting on that top and from there you watch the mind.

You become a great master! When you want that the mind should stop, because you would like to listen to the birds and not to the chattering, you simply say to the mind, "Keep quiet! That's enough.

Halt!"... and it halts.

It will be difficult for you right now to understand what I am saying. Exactly like that! You simply say "Halt!" and it halts. You say "Stop!" and it stops. The master has come, the servant listens. DON'T FIGHT with the servant - bring the master in! The very PRESENCE of the master, and the servant immediately understands.

The witness is the master. You invoke the witness, you invite the witness, you search for the witness, you discover the witness in you. Don't become too much entangled with the mind, otherwise your whole energy will be pouring into that fight, and that becomes a constant inner war. And whenever a person is in conflict with himself.... It may be sex that he is in conflict with, it may be thought that he is in conflict with, but WHENEVER you are in conflict with yourself, you are a schizophrenic, you are split in two. And constantly at war with yourself, you are dissipating your energy. It is NOT going to create something new in you, it will simply dissipate you; it will simply make you weaker and weaker and weaker.

I am not in favour of making you weak, so don't fight with the mind. Rise above the mind! There is something which is already there in you, non functioning. Start its functioning. That is what Zen people call the opening of the third eye. It is there, potentially it is there. Even physiologists agree that there is something in the head which is not functioning. And it is a mystery, because why should nature create it?

Nature creates something only when it is needed. There is something in the head, in the brain, which is not functioning. A major part, a very major part is non-functioning. When you bring the witness in, that part starts functioning.

Our situation is like this - it happened:

A primitive tribe came across an aeroplane - a small air-craft in the Second World War left by the soldiers. They could not understand what use it could be put to. They knew only bullock-carts, so they used it as a bullock-cart, with four bullocks. And they enjoyed it very much - it was a beautiful vehicle!

Then somebody with a more intelligent mind started looking inside it - there were so many gadgets - and he started thinking, "This cannot be just a bullock-cart because these gadgets are not needed for the bullock-cart." So he started fooling around, and one day, he just accidentally stumbled upon...

and the engine started purring. So they started using it as a truck.

Then somebody else one day was fooling around with it - because for a truck, also, so many things are not needed - and only then, one day, they discovered that it could fly.

That is exactly the case with the human being: we have been using it as a bullock-cart. Don't fight with the bullock-cart: there are other gadgets - look for them. You can use it as a truck, but there is no need to be stuck there. You can use it as a flying machine. It can go to the utmost peak of existence.

So fight is not my way. Befriend the mind! Watch it with great friendliness, like a mother watches her own child. Watch the mind with great friendliness, with great love and compassion. It is YOUR machine! Don't be angry with it. Don't be foolish and don't fight with a mechanism.

HOW DO WE REACH THE STATE OF BLESSEDNESS WHEN THE MIND IS EMPTY OF CHATTER, DEFENSES, PLANS AND GAMES, AND GOD IS?

Whenever you are alert about it, the mind stops chattering. The mind is very, very respectful about awareness. That is the secret.

You sometimes try! The mind is chattering - do one small thing - the mind is chattering, you cannot go to sleep, you cannot do anything and it is constantly running there like a mad dog. You just do one thing: you sit silently in the chair, relax your body, and say to the mind, "Okay - now I will listen. Tell me what you want to say." And for a single moment you will be surprised - the chattering stops. The moment you say, "I will listen. Okay...." It will be only for a single moment, but you know the secret.

What happened when you said, "I will listen"? - you became aware. And mind is very respectful towards awareness. Wherever awareness is, the master is - and the slave simply follows.

Yes, soon the mind will start chattering, but then you can watch. The MOMENT YOU lose that listening attitude, the mind will start chattering. If the listening attitude continues, the mind will not chatter. So a miracle happens when you watch: by and by the mind stops chattering of its own accord. And when mind stops of its own accord, there is great beauty, there is great life, radiant, vibrating, pulsating. It is not a dull state.

Buddha is not a dull man. Buddha is not a stupid man. Bud&a is not negatively silent - Buddha is absolutely positively silent. The silence is not just the absence of thoughts - the silence is the presence of awareness.

The fourth question:

ART DEPENDS ON YOU. If you are pathological, your art will be pathological. If you are enlightened, your art will be enlightened. The art carries your quality.

If you go to Ajanta, Ellora or Khajuraho, you will find a totally different kind of art. If you listen to classical music, you will find a different quality of art. If you listen to modern music, a different kind of art will be found there. If you see Picasso's paintings, they ARE pathological. Something is ill - something is ill in Picasso and something is ill in the world that Picasso is going to represent in those works of art.

Never keep a Picasso painting in your bedroom, otherwise you will have nightmares. It is very representative of this society. The society is ill, neurotic, but the art depends on you. The art does not descend out of the blue, it comes through the artist, it brings the artist. It makes the artist visible to the world - that's what art is. That which is hidden in your heart, you bring it into a painting, sculpture, song, dance. You make it available. You open your heart.

But you can open only that which is there. The dance of a Nijinsky cannot be the dance of a Meera. And the philosophy of Nietszche cannot be the philosophy of a Buddha. It is BOUND to be diametrically opposite.

The pathological art comes out of inner conflict, tension, ego need. It relaxes you like any catharsis relaxes you. If you are angry and you shout and you hit - even if you hit a pillow - that helps. You feel relaxed. Now there are schools in the West which think mad people can be helped through art - therapy through art. And they are right. If a mad person is given painting to do, if he simply paints, it is going to help, because whatsoever he paints will dissipate his madness. It will come out, it will be thrown out. He will feel unburdened and clean.

But ninety-nine percent of art is like that. It is certain that if Picasso is not allowed to paint, he will go mad. It is certain that if Van Gogh is not allowed to paint he will go mad. He did finally.

Art out of madness, art out of neurosis, art out of pathology, is not real art. Gurdjieff used to divide art into two kinds. He used to call this kind of art subjective, and another kind - the Taj Mahal, or Khajuraho - objective, because when you have painted, your work is finished but the painting will live. If you have put in the painting a certain pattern of neurosis, whoever will see the painting and think about the painting and look at the painting will have the feeling of the same kind of illness arising in him - the same nausea, the same sickness. The painting will become a mandala; it will become a yantra. That's how in the East we have used paintings: as yantras.

A pattern can be created so that if you look at it, it gives silence. A pattern can be created so that if you look at it, it makes you tense. The objective art, Gurdjieff says, is the art which leads people towards silence, towards blissfulness, towards inner harmony, towards grace. And the art that leads people towards pathology, neurosis, perversion, is not really art. You can call it art, but that is a misnomer.

Art has nothing to do directly with enlightenment, but enlightenment has much to do with art. When many enlightened people exist in the world, they create a different kind of world, they create different kinds of things, naturally. Zen art has a quality of its own. Watching a Zen painting you become meditative; watching a Zen painting you are transported into another world. Listening to an ancient song like Bhagavad Gita, just listening - even if you don't understand, even if you don't know the language, the Sanskrit language - just listening, just the tonality of it, just the timbre of it, just the music, the melody of it, and suddenly you feel great silence arising in you, flowers showering inside you, something opening, something blossoming.

The world needs enlightened art. But that cannot be managed by teaching people how to create more art. That can be managed only if people start moving towards their inner core of being.

Whenever somebody arrives at his innermost core, he is bound to express it. Every enlightened experience is bound to bloom into a thousand and one lotuses. When Buddha became silent, when Buddha arrived home, when he knew who he is, he started speaking - his words are his expression.

When Meera arrived, she started dancing - her dance is her expression.

EACH enlightened person w8ill find a way to express that which has happened to him, because is PART of that happening that it has to be expressed. You cannot hold it, it overflows. But to different enlightened persons it will happen in different way. Buddha never danced; that was not his way, that was not HIS thing. He never sang, he never composed poetry - that was not his thing! But if you watched deeply, the way he walks is poetry, the way he sits is poetry, the way he gestures is dance.

Even while sitting under his Bodhi Tree, unmoving, there is a great dance inside. Those who have eyes, they will be able to see it. This is his way of expressing.

So different people arriving will express differently. Somebody may become a painter and somebody may become a singer - it depends! It depends on what potentiality you are carrying. Your enlightenment will become a rider on that potentiality and will be expressed through it.

But the basic thing is not art - the basic thing is samadhi. Let there be samadhi first, and then whatsoever you are capable of giving to the world, will be given. Whatsoever you are capable of sharing, will be shared. And there will be no ego arising because you have painted, because you have sung, because you danced - there will be no ego arising. And there will be no motive in it.

There will be no tension behind it. If nobody comes to listen to you, you will not miss. You will remain like a flower, blooming in the deep, dark forest - nobody passes by, but the fragrance goes on being released to the winds. It does not matter.

The artist hankers to express. To an enlightened person expression is natural, like breathing; there is no hankering. The artist is continuously fighting to pave his way; the artist is motivated; hence, he lives in great tension. It is not just accidental that artists suffer more than anybody else from mind diseases - too much tension. They have to create, and they have to compete, and they have to prove, and they have to leave a signature in the world - all ego efforts.

An enlightened person lives without any motive. He simply enjoys it the way it is, and whatsoever happens is good. He is blessed and he goes on blessing. If somebody receives it, good; if nobody comes to receive it, that too is good.

The fifth question:

FIRST: WHAT lS WRONG IN BEING WILD? I don't see anything wrong in being wild. To be too much civilized may be dangerous - a little wildness is good. And in a better world, with more understanding about human nature, we will keep a balance between civilization and wildness.

We have become very lopsided: we have become just civilized. When you become too much civilized you become plastic. The wild roseflower has a beauty - may not be so permanent as the plastic flower, by the evening it may be gone, gone forever, it was only for the moment, but still it is alive. Look at the wild animals - they have something - don't you feel jealous? Don't you feel a radiancy, an aliveness, God more solidly present in them than in you?

So first, I don't see anything wrong in being wild. If your wildness is not destructive to anybody, it is perfectly religious. If your wildness is just your expression of your freedom and it is not in interference with anybody else's freedom, if it is not a trespass on anybody else's life, liberty, it's perfectly good.

In a RIGHT world people should be allowed all kinds of wildness, with only one condition: that their wildness should not be violent to anybody else. They should be given total freedom. Civilization only has to be negative, it should not be positive. The function of the police and the state has to be negative, it should not be positive. It should not tell you what you should do, it should only tell you what you should not do, that's all. Because we live in a society you cannot be absolutely wild, there are other people. You have to be careful about them too. They are careful about you, they are making compromises for your happiness, you have to make a few compromises for their happiness.

But that's all.

The society, the state, the law, should be negative. They should only pinpoint a few things: that which interferes with other people's lives and happiness should not be done. And everything else should be left open.

Second thing: Eros is the root of all that is beautiful in the world. The flowers bloom because of eros, and the cuckoos cry because of eros, and the birds dance and sing because of eros. And all that is great and all that is beautiful is because of eros - even samadhi is the ultimate flowering of the energy called eros. God is very erotic. You can see it all around, no proof is needed. The whole existence is erotic.

And the day man started thinking against eros, man started falling into a kind of abnormality. Since then man has not been normal. And because eros has been crushed, repressed, man has become more and more destructive - because creation comes out of eros. Children are born out of eros, so are paintings, so are songs, so is SAMADHI!

Once you are repressive towards eros, afraid of eros, once you don't worship the god of eros, then what are you going to do? ALL creativity is closed you become destructive - then wars, vio-lence, aggression, competition, money mania, power politics - they all arise. Man has suffered much because of this stupid attitude about eros. It has given all kinds of perversions.

Somebody is after money. Can't you see the perversion? - money has become the god. He does not love a woman, he loves money instead. Somebody loves his car, and somebody loves power, respectability. These are perversions of eros, and these are the really dangerous people. They should not be there. Genghis Khan and Tamerlaine and Alexander and Adolf Hitler and Stalin and Mao - these are the really dangerous people. These are the people who are destructive. Their joy is destruction. And whenever creative energy is not allowed to have its own say, it turns sour, it becomes bitter, it becomes poisonous.

Man has not suffered from eros, no, not at all. Man has suffered from anti-eros. When you are anti-eros, THANATOS - death - becomes your god. Death is worshipped. Money is dead, so is politics, so is ego - all dead things become very, very important. And you worship these dead idols.

You ask me: IF MAN'S EROTIC INSTINCTS WERE LIBERATED, WOULD THEY NOT RUN WILD?

Maybe, if they were immediately given total freedom, for the time being they may run wild. But that will be only transitory - and the reason is not in eros. The reason will be because for centuries it has been repressed. It is as if a person has been starved for many years. Then you suddenly give him all freedom - you give him the key to the kitchen. Yes, he is going to be wild for a little while, but what is wrong in it? For a few days he is going to eat too much, but only for a few days. He will become obsessively attached to food. He will drink, eat and dream and desire only food and food - only food will float in his mind. But the reason is not hunger: the reason is that you have been starving him.

Yes, that's right. And the priests and the popes and the SHANKARACHARYAS they go on saying that eros cannot be given freedom, otherwise people will become just will. But the reason is not in eros, the reason is in the popes. THEY are the sole cause. They have starved humanity for so long, they have crippled humanity for so long - and there is a reason why they have crippled the human eros.

If you want to make human beings slaves, the only way is to destroy their eros. A man whose eros is fully alive is a master. A man whose eros is fully flowering does not bother about anything. He will not be ready to go to any war, to any foolish Vietnam or Korea or anywhere. A man who is really in love with life and enjoying it will not bother about becoming the president or the prime minister of a country. The man who is really living his eros will not even go to the church or to the temple, because he has found the real temple of God. Love is his prayer. Then where will these priests be, and the politicians, and the warmongers, and the people who depend on your obsessions? Your energies have to be destroyed, you have to be set in such a way that you start moving in wrong directions. And a person whose eros has been killed becomes very weak.

That's what you do. Have you not seen a bull and an ox? What is the difference? The erotic freedom of the bull has been destroyed, he becomes an ox. An ox is a poor specimen. A bull is something alive, something divine. In India we worship the bull as divine. He is the bodyguard of Shiva - the bull. Not an ox, remember. An ox would have been far better, more manageable - but the bull....

Why? The bull is so erotic, such a perfect eros; and such beauty exists with the bull. And look at an ox pulling a bullock-cart - a slave. If you want people to be slaves, destroy their eros, pervert their erotic instinct. That's why it has been done up to now.

In the future, eros has to become the religion. Love should be the worship, and the only god that can really be God is eros - because eros is creativity, and we call God the creator.

What is happening to the modern man? What has happened in the past too?

You can only be happy when your eros is fulfilled. But there are a thousand and one barriers and it is never fulfilled. You are put in wrong directions, and you strive hard. One day you become a great rich man, and you wait and wait for that day when you will be the richest man in the world, and one day you become! But then suddenly you feel there is no joy arising out of it. You were waiting in vain. You were moving in a direction where there was no possibility for any joy.

Joy is very simple. If you allow life to flow through you in a natural way, joy is a natural phenomenon.

It is spontaneity. It does not wait at the end of your journey - it is here, it is now.

I have heard an anecdote:

An elderly lady was sitting in her rocking chair knitting, her Persian cat reclining at her feet. Suddenly a fairy appeared and asked the old lady if there was anything she wished.

"Yes," was the reply, "I would like to be a young woman again."

The fairy waved her wand - and there she stood, a lovely girl of eighteen! "Now," asked the fairy, "is there any other wish you would like granted?"

"Oh, yes, I would like a handsome young man."

Turning to the cat, the fairy waved her wand, in its place rose a fine looking youth.

He looked sadly at the girl and sighed, "Now aren't you sorry you took me to the vet?"

That's what is happening - humanity is castrated. So you can have money but you will not have joy.

You can have power but you will not have joy; you can have respectability but you will not have joy.

Joy arises out of eros.

And the last thing I would like to tell you: It is only through eros that eros is transcended, never otherwise. It is only through eros that one day you transcend it. ANYTHING THAT HAS BEEN LIVED TOTALLY IS ALWAYS TRANSCENDED. Hangups simply mean that you have not lived something totally. So people WHO have not lived their eros, have been afraid, will remain confined to it. Their sex will become cerebral. It may disappear from their bodies but it will remain in their heads - which is not a right place for it!

People who have lived their sexual lives naturally, with no inhibition and no taboo, one day come to a point where it simply disappears - not through fight, but through understanding. A transcendence comes, and that is BRAHMACHARYA.

BRAHMACHARYA IS the ultimate fragrance of eros. It is NOT against eros; it is the ultimate fragrance of eros. It is the subtlest eros. One is so much in tune with one's erotic energy that the man does not need the woman and the woman does not need the man. One is so enough unto oneself, one has discovered one's own inner woman by and by. Looking into many women's eyes, one has come to feel one's own inner woman. Looking into many other men's eyes, being with many men, going deep into their being, looking into their mirror, finding oneself, one has found one's inner man.

And remember, man is both woman and man; woman is both man and woman. We carry both inside. There comes a point where our inner woman and inner man meet. In Tantra we call it YOGA NADHA.

You must have seen a tremendously significant statue of Shiva, ARDHARNARISHWAR - half is man and half is woman. Shiva is depicted half as man and half as woman. That is the ultimate meeting, the real orgasm, the cosmic orgasm. When it has happened one becomes a BRAHMACHARIN, one attains to real celibacy. That is ultimate virginity: no need for the other; the need for the other has disappeared.

The sixth question:

There are three ways. One is the most usual and the most superficial - through the words. It is very fragmentary, and there is more possibility of misunderstanding me than understanding me.

Language is not adequate. There are things which go beyond it. But that is the usual. That's what we have been trained for - we understand only words.

And we know that when I use a word and you hear it, you hear the word but you don't hear my meaning. My meaning is left behind. The word goes like an empty shell and you put your meaning into it. Meaning will be yours.

So that is not the right way. To begin with, okay, but to cling to it is not going to lead you anywhere very deep.

The young vicar and his bride had just undressed and were ready to taste the fruits of love. But before the bride could clamber into the marital bed, he suggested they should kneel down together to pray for strength and guidance.

"Just pray for strength," said the bride, "I'll do the rest."

Meaning comes through you. Meaning is always put by you. Listen to this:

The vicar, out for a Sunday afternoon stroll, saw a little boy playing with something in the gutter.

Coming closer, he saw that it was a little bottle of clear liquid, labelled 'Sulphuric Acid - H2S04 "You shouldn't be playing with that!" said the vicar. "Give it to me."

"No!" said the little boy. "Get lost! Bleahhhhhhh!" and he stuck out his tongue.

"Tut, tut!" said the vicar. "Children nowadays! Now, give me that nasty stuff like a good boy!"

"No!" said the little boy.

"I know," said the vicar. "I'll get you something nice to play with." And he went home and brought back a bottle of holy water. "This is holy water," he told the little boy. "It has miraculous powers. I'll trade it to you for that bottle you've got, hmmmm?"

"No," said the little boy. "That water isn't holy anyway, it is just stupid old water!"

"Oh, no, it isn't!" said the vicar. "I'll tell you how wonderful it is - why, just the other day I put some of this water on a lady's tummy, and she passed a baby!"

"That's nothing!" scoffed the little boy. "Why, just the other day, I put some of this on a dog's bollocks, and he passed a motorcycle! "

The meaning comes through you, so don't be too much attached to the words. I may have used them, but they become yours. The moment you accumulate them, they are yours.

The second layer is: Not to listen to the words, but to listen to the gestures. Not to listen to the language, but to the gaps - between the lines. Not to listen to what I am saying only, but to feel me - through love, through trust. So the first layer is of the head. The second layer is of the heart. The first layer is of thinking, reason, argument; the second layer is of feeling, emotion. The second is far better than the first - but still, just better, not the ultimate. Because even feeling is all interpretation just like thinking is all interpretation - on a different level, but still an interpretation. You will interpret.

Feel me - that's what sannyas is all about, a gesture from your side that you would like to be with me, that you would like to be intimate with me, that you will not defend yourself, that you will be vulnerable to me, that you trust me, that one thing you are ready to do - that is, you will not protect yourself against me. Sannyas is a surrender. You leave yourself unprotected, unsafe, vulnerable. I can harm you - that's the risk! That risk has to be taken; that's why courage is needed.

When you are with a Master.... If you can find a Master with whom you can fall in love, then you will be able to understand the message better than through logic, reason, argumentation. But even that is not the ultimate.

The ultimate is through being. First through thinking, second is feeling, third is being. That is the ultimate, what in the East we call SATSANG - to be just in the presence of a Master, just to be.

Bayazid was with his Master for twelve years - just sitting by the side! Somebody asked Bayazid, "What has the Master been teaching to you?"

And Bayazid said, "He teaches nothing. He simply says: 'Sit quietly. Be silent. Just be around.' And just being around him I have arrived."

There is a pulsation of being too. Just as there is a thought pulsation, a feeling pulsation, so there is a being pulsation. And the CLEAREST perception is of the being.

You start with the head, naturally, but don't get stuck there. Move towards love. If your head helps you towards love, you have used it rightly. Then don't get stuck with the feeling, don't get stuck there.

If you use your heart for your being, you have used it rightly. Then just be here. There is nothing to say and there is nothing to hear. There is something to know, but nothing to say, nothing to hear.

There is something to be absorbed - to be. There is something to fall en rapport with.

And the last question:

Thank you