Bhagwan: Perfectly at Ease, Totally at Home

The first question

Question 1:

Chaitanya Keerti,

There are many things to be understood. It is one of the ancientmost reactions of people, it is not anything new. It happened with Krishna, with Moses, with Christ, with Mahavira, with Buddha, with Mohammed, with Al-Hillaj Mansur. It has been happening all along, as far back as one can see.

People live in misery and they cannot accept anybody who is not miserable just like themselves. To accept that somebody has become blissful is humiliating to them; it wounds their ego. They would like a Jesus, a Buddha, a Krishna, not to be at all, because the height of that Everest suddenly makes them aware of where they are.

It is said that camels don't want to go near mountains, they are very much against mountains.

Perhaps that's why they live in the deserts where they are the mountains.

It is easier for people to live in misery knowing that this is how life is, because everybody else is also miserable just like them. But to see somebody flowering, and they are only thorns, to see somebody fragrant, and they are only stinking, to see somebody enlightened, and they are nothing but a dark night of the soul, makes them feel really miserable; it multiplies their misery. The only way is to deny it, to reject it, to say that something like Christ-consciousness, Buddhahood, is not possible at all.

So it is not only with me that they are reacting that way; that is their old tradition, they have always done the same thing. They live in misery and misery is always negative, remember it as one of the most fundamental laws of life.

Misery is an indication of a negative mind; negativity creates misery. You can see the misery, you cannot see their negativity. Misery is visible, it is the circumference, but the centre is always no, negativity. Bliss happens with yes: the centre is yes, then on the circumference there is bliss. Bliss is visible, but the yes is invisible.

Sol had a dairy farm in the country where he bred beautiful golden Guernsey cows and also the lovely black and white Holsteins.

One day Jake, a friend from the city, came to visit and suggested, "So, why don't you cross-breed your cows? There is a fortune to be made in cross-breeding."

Sol thought it sounded like a good idea. "What have I got to lose?" he mused. So he tried it.

Some time later the friend came back to visit. "How did the experiment go?" he asked Sol.

"Well," answered Sol, "I did like you said. I cross-bred the golden Guernsey with the Holstein, and what I got I called a Goldstein. But nobody wanted to buy it!"

"Why was that?" queried Jake.

"Why? Because," answered Sol, "when a customer looked over all the other cows, each of them said, "Moo-oo!" But when the man came over to my Goldstein, she eyed him and said, "Nuu-uu!""

This "nuu" is very deep in people's hearts, a vast no - no to everything that surpasses them, that is transcendental to their consciousness, no to everything that they have not been able to achieve, no to all the stars, no to the sky, no to all possibilities, potentials, no to every mirror because every mirror makes them feel very sad - they look so ugly.

One sannyasin was saying to another sannyasin, "Bobo is sure ugly!"

The other sannyasin said, "Yeah, he even looks worse than his passport photo!"

Hearing this, I told Krishna Bharti, my photographer, to take another photo of poor Bobo and make it as beautiful as possible. And I waited and waited, and K.B. never turned up with the photo, so I enquired again. I said, "K.B., what happened? How did that picture of ugly Bobo turn out?" He said, "What can I do? I tried my best, but Champa, our darkroom lady, never developed it. She was afraid to be alone with it in the darkroom!"

There are problems! When you have an ugly face it is better to avoid the mirrors. Without the mirrors you can go on believing how beautiful you are. Without the mirrors there is no trouble; the mirror immediately creates the trouble. Suddenly you can see that this is how you look, and naturally the first reaction is to destroy the mirror; it is easier than transforming your face - that is a hard task, arduous, uphill.

People crucified Jesus; that is destroying a mirror. They poisoned Socrates; that is destroying a mirror. They murdered Al-Hillaj; that is destroying a mirror. Once the mirror is destroyed they can again relapse into that dream that they are beautiful; there is nothing to disturb their idea.

Chaitanya Keerti, the second thing to remember is that "Bhagwan" does not mean God at all; that's a strange misunderstanding. It is understandable if people from the West take them as synonymous, but even Indian fools do the same. It seems fools have the same quality all over the world! Wise men may differ, but fools are in absolute agreement with each other.

"Bhagwan" does not mean God, Bhagwan simply means the Blessed One. Hence we have called Buddha Bhagwan, although he does not believe in any God. If "Bhagwan" means God, then Buddha cannot be called Bhagwan. It is so clear! He does not believe in the existence of God and still we have called him Bhagwan. In front of him, for forty-two years continuously, people were calling him Bhagwan. He never objected for the simple reason that the word "Bhagwan" is not synonymous with the word "God".

We have called Mahavira and all the twenty-four teerthankaras of the Jainas Bhagwan, and the Jainas are atheists: they don't believe in God, they don't believe in any creator. Why have we called the teerthankaras Bhagwan? - for the simple reason that they have attained to the ultimate bliss, they are the Blessed Ones.

"God" means creator, one who has made the world. Certainly I am not God. I don't take any responsibility for making this world - not me!

A professor was about to set out on an expedition to Africa and the Near East and he needed an assistant. So he put an advertisement in the newspaper requesting a man who spoke foreign languages, loved to travel, was able to use a gun, and so on through a long list of qualifications. It was a pretty rare man who could fit his demanding specifications, and there were no responses to the advertisement.

But at the end of a week I appeared before him. He was a little bewildered, puzzled, but still interviewed me. "Do you like to travel?" asked the professor.

"Me?" I said to him. "I hate travelling! Boats make me seasick, planes I wouldn't get on, and trains are the worst of all."

"But you are a linguist," continued the professor. "I presume you speak Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish..."

"Who, me?" I interrupted the professor. "I know nothing but my own mother tongue."

"Well, can you use a gun?" the professor insisted. "Me? I cannot even carry a gun!" "Well," the exasperated professor exploded, "then what did you come here for?"

"I saw your ad," I said to him, "and I just came to tell you that on me you shouldn't rely!"

You can exclude me! I am not responsible at all for creating this world and I don't think there is anybody who will take the responsibility. I am as much an atheist as Mahavira, as Buddha, as Lao Tzu. I don't believe in any God who has created the world. The world is a self-creative process; no creator is needed. The world is creativity. There is no division between the creator and the created; there is no need at all for a God.

But "Bhagwan" is a totally different dimension; it has nothing to do with creating the world. "Bhagwan"

means your ultimate state of bliss.

Now, these people...

-Chaitanya Keerti, you ask: WHY DO PEOPLE CRITICIZE YOU AS SELF-STYLED AND A SELF- APPOINTED GOD?

Nobody else can be a witness to my inner bliss. If I have a headache only I know about it; nobody else can know it. When the headache disappears, I have- to declare that it has disappeared; nobody else can declare it. Do you think a committee is needed to decide whether I have a headache or not?

Do you think that a vote is needed - that the country has to vote on it whether I have a headache or not? Only I can declare whether I have come home or not; no committee can do it, no vote can decide it. It is an absolutely individual affair. It is nobody else's business at all. If I do not have a headache, shouldn't I declare that I don't need any aspirins anymore?

That's all that I have done by declaring that I am a Bhagwan: that all the headaches have disappeared, that there is no anxiety in me, no anguish, no desire, no longing for anything, that I am perfectly at ease, relaxed with existence, totally at home.

And these people go on criticizing me for being a self-styled Bhagwan... But so was Krishna! Now Hindus don't criticize Krishna. Who appointed Krishna? He himself declared it!

The Upanishadic seers declared it themselves. Do you think there was a committee to appoint them:

"Yes, this man can declare, "Aham brahmasmi, I am the ultimate truth""?

Who appointed Jesus Christ? Do you think that a committee of the great rabbis of Jerusalem decided, voted in favour of it, that Jesus was the only-begotten son of God, that he was Christ?

They were against his declaration. They thought he was a charlatan, that he was a deceiver, and they punished him for that.

Who declared Buddha to be a God? It is such simple arithmetic! Do you think ignorant people can declare Gautam Siddhartha a Buddha? Do you think blind people can decide about a man, whether he has eyes or not? How can the blind decide? They themselves don't have eyes so how can they see whether anybody else has eyes or not?

It has always been a self-styled phenomenon. One has to declare oneself; nobody else can do it. It cannot be done on my behalf by anybody else. So I say it again that I am Bhagwan. But Bhagwan does not mean God - or, if you love the word "God", then Bhagwan simply means godliness.

Obviously, when you have become absolutely blissful, that blissfulness is divine, it is godly. There is nothing more godly than blissfulness because out of that blissfulness many flowers blossom: love, freedom, deathlessness. It becomes the source of all the values, of all that is good. It is the summum bonum, the ultimate good.

So, Chaitanya Keerti, let those blind people go on criticizing - it makes no difference. They are simply trying to console themselves that they are not missing anything. They cannot accept the Buddha, the Christ, they cannot accept me: for the simple reason that to accept me means accepting a challenge, a great challenge, accepting me means that now you have to start working upon yourself.

Then you cannot take life for granted anymore. Then your life has to go through a radical change, a revolution! You have to be born anew.

The easier way is to deny it, to say, "This man is deceiving us!" This is very simple - anybody can do it. And by denying that anybody has attained to godliness, blissfulness, ultimate freedom, truth, you can again relapse into your sleep, you can again fall back into your unconsciousness.

People don't really want to be religious; their religion is only formal, it does not mean anything - it is a Sunday religion. They go to the church, they go to the temple, they go to the mosque - it is respectable, and they are good meeting places. Churches are like clubs, very formal; they don't change anything in you, but they give you a good feeling about yourself, that you are religious.

The people who go to the churches, to the temples, to the synagogues, are going for absolutely wrong reasons. What are their reasons for going there? They are going there to pray to God to grant them some of their wishes, so that some of their desires will be fulfilled. They have tried hard and they are not succeeding, and they would like God to do some miracles for them.

Here is an English public schoolgirl's prayer:

"Holy Mary, I believe

that without sin

thou didst conceive.

Now I pray

in my believing

that I may sin

without conceiving."

They are going there in search of some miracles, they are not interested in discovering the truth.

But, yes, they are immensely interested in beautiful lies, consolations, confirmations that they are good, that whatsoever they are and wherever they are is perfectly right. And the priests have been doing this business: first they create guilt in you and then they console you. Guilt makes you go to the churches, to the temples, because you feel uneasy, and then the priest consoles you, helps you.

He has created the wound in the first place and then he puts ointment on your wound and you feel very good.

But to be with Jesus or to be with Zarathustra or to be with Mohammed is to be with fire. You will be consumed! You will have to die! Unless you die you cannot be reborn. The only way to be reborn is to first die; resurrection first is not possible. First crucifixion, then follows resurrection. And who wants to be crucified? To be with me is crucifixion!

And for the people who are afraid of me their only method of protecting themselves from coming to me is to deny me, to say, "There is nothing to go there for," to create a wall. That's why they are so much against me, criticizing.

Just the other day I received a letter from Indore. One of my sannyasins, Gautama, has written:

"The Shankaracharya of Puri, one of the topmost Hindu priests, has been in the city and he has been condemning you like anything." And Gautama has asked me why in the same breath he was saying both things: He was saying that the whole existence is divine, that each particle of the earth is divine, that each leaf is divine - all is divine, because whatsoever exists is divine - but this man, Bhagwan Rajneesh, is not! So he asked me, "Why, except t. you, are animals divine, dogs divine, mosquitoes divine bedbugs divine, and you are the only exception?"

That is a rare compliment! In this vast universe I am the only exception, the most extraordinary man, of course!

But these fools will not even see what they are saying. They are simply repeating the scriptures, and because the scriptures, particularly the Hindu scriptures, say that everything is divine, they are saying it parrot-like, not knowing what they are saying, and then in the same breath they go on criticizing me.

I know this man, Niranjan Devateerth, Shankaracharya of Puri. Once we were on the same stage.

Just seeing me, he became so angry, almost insane. He stood up and said, "We cannot both sit on the same stage!"

Somehow the organizers controlled him, persuaded him. And when I spoke, in the middle of it he stood up and said, "I cannot tolerate this anymore! It is too much! It is against our tradition!"

I told him, "We are not here to talk about tradition, we are here to talk about truth! And truth and tradition are two different things, in fact, two diametrically opposite things. Truth is never traditional and tradition is never true. Tradition belongs to the crowd and truth belongs to individual inquirers."

The Indian crowd particularly is formally very religious and informally very irreligious. The Indian mind has a schizophrenic quality: on the surface very holy and deep inside very unholy. It is bound to be so because of the thousands of years of repression, the repression of everything that is natural.

So whenever an Indian drops his mask even his original face is not beautiful, it is distorted. He moves from one extreme to the other extreme. This is the way of the mob psychology everywhere, but more so in India.

The first night, Shapiro was shown to his place for dinner and found himself sharing a table with a well-dressed Frenchman. When Shapiro arrived, the Frenchman rose, bowed, and declared, "Bon appetit!"

Shapiro replied, "Shapiro!"

This same ritual took place at every meal. On the last day of the trip Shapiro happened to run into the purser and took advantage of the encounter to tell him what a pleasant table companion Mr Bon Appetit had been.

"Oh, Mr Shapiro," said the purser, "Bon Appetit is not his name, that's just French for "I wish you a hearty appetite"!"

"Is that so?" said Shapiro. He couldn't wait to rectify the situation. That evening at dinner, before his companion could do a thing, Shapiro stood up, bowed ceremoniously, and declared, "Bon appetit!"

Whereupon the Frenchman rose and replied, "Shapiro!"

That's how it goes! The blind man is going to fall either on this side or on that side. Everybody is blind, and to live with eyes in the country of the blind is really very strange.

And that's what the Buddhas have been doing for thousands of years. They are the greatest strangers, the greatest foreigners in the world, for the simple reason that they are at home with existence but they are foreign to the mob psychology. The mob psychology is bound to be against them. And the strange thing is, whatsoever they are doing they are doing for these people, but these people react in tremendous anger, they become enraged. Just the presence of a Buddha is enough to make people go crazy; they become murderous. They cannot tolerate the presence of a Buddha.

Just the other day I heard in the newspapers that the same man who had thrown a dagger in order to kill me is now organizing a long march from Kholapur, a ten-day march - it will start from Kholapur and end near the "gateless gate" of our ashram, in protest against me, so that the ashram should be closed and I should be thrown out of the country.

Why do these people go berserk? There is some fundamental reason behind it. If I am right then they are all wrong, and of course they are millions and I am alone. If it is to be decided democratically then the votes will decide that they are right, but this is not something that can be decided democratically.

I declare that I am a self-styled Bhagwan, because nobody else can style a Bhagwan. I am self- appointed because nobody else can appoint me; that's why nobody else can disappoint me either!

And the strange thing is that all I am doing here is to help these fools, to help these blind people to gain a little insight into things.

When I say I am divine I am really saying you are divine. This is a challenge, it is a provocation!

When I say I am divine I am saying to you, "Look! A very ordinary man like me is divine, so you being so extraordinary can easily be divine! There is no problem in it - just accept the challenge! A little search and you can find your reality."

Mrs Markowitz was anxious because it was the first day her little boy was going to leave her and go to school. She tried hard to appear calm, but she couldn't hide the concern in her voice as she talked to her son that morning.

"So, my bubeleh, today you"re starting to get grown up, you"re going off to school, eh? And, bubeleh, you"ll be a good boy, do whatever the teacher tells you to, yes? Now, you"ll get nicely dressed up in your new suit, bubeleh, and you"ll play at recess with the other children, but you won't mess up your new suit, will you, my bubeleh? And, bubeleh, you"ll come right home after school, okay?"

"Yes, Mama," said the little boy, and he went off to school.

All day Mrs Markowitz sat waiting and worrying. At three o"clock she was at the door waiting for her boy.

"So, my bubeleh, how was your first day at school? What did you learn? Tell your mama everything!"

"Well," said the boy, "I learned one thing. I learned that my name is not "bubeleh", it is Irving!"

You are not what you think you are, bubeleh! Your name is Irving! That's what I am doing here, trying to remind you, "Bubeleh, this is not your name. Your name is Bhagwan." But you get angry.

Strange, bubeleh!

The second question

Question 2:

Almasto,

Are you mad or something? Why are you after these poor light bulbs? And never give this idea to the gay guys, because as far as screwing is concerned whatsoever they do will be wrong - they will always do it wrong! So have mercy on the poor light bulbs!

And can't you think of any other question? Where are we going to find so many sockets for so many light bulbs? You go on producing light bulbs and I have to produce sockets for you... There has to be an end to everything.

Now you have come across this great idea, "How many gay guys are needed...?" They are not needed at all!

The third question

Question 3:

Anand Amana,

That I can do.

An Italian immigrant with a distinct accent was bragging about his three children. "My first-a bambino, he's a doctor. He's-a one of the best-a in his field. He make-a the fifty thousand-a dollars per year.

My second bambino is-a a lawyer and he make-a the seventy-five thousand-a dollars per year. My third-a boy, he's-a my finest-a boy. He's a sports-a mechanic-a!"

"What," enquired his friend, "is a "sports-a mechanic-a"?"

"He's-a person that-a fixes the football-a games, the basketball-a games, and all-a the other sports-a games!"

Get it or not? If you cannot get it right now, think about it in the middle of the night and suddenly you will start laughing. Then you will get it! It takes a little time.

An Italian spent his annual holidays in Brazil. When he returned home his friend asked him, "So, Mario, how was the sex life in Brazil?" "Mamma mia!" exclaimed Mario. "Big-a confusion... the male neighbours mixing with-a the female neighbours, bosses with-a secretaries, women with-a women, men with-a men... how it-a hurts-a!"

Now it is even more difficult! You will have to meditate!

The last question

Question 4:

Alfred,

The first thing to remember is that I am not a moralist, I am not a puritan, but I have certainly some aesthetic sense. To me beauty is higher than virtue, any virtue. Beauty is higher than good, than truth.

In the East we have this trinity: satyam, shivam, sunderam. Satyam means truth, shivam means good, and sunderam means beautiful. The beautiful is the highest. First you encounter satyam, the true, then shivam, the good, and then sunderam, the beautiful.

The beautiful to me is the most significant phenomenon, so I will not allow anything ugly to happen in my commune. In this Buddhafield everybody has to learn to be a little more aesthetic.

So I am not telling you to behave, I am only telling you to be a little more aware, a little more intelligent.

Two very devout Catholic women, Signora Brambilla and Signora Rossi, are chatting.

"I'm-a really in trouble," moans Brambilla. "My apartment has-a got-a only two tiny rooms and-a there lives-a me and my seven children. And-a I'm-a sure that I'm-a pregnant again. Dio mio, what a disaster!"

Signora Rossi looks at her very surprised and says, "I have-a only two-a children and that's-a plenty!

I don't-a want-a no more! Why don't-a you do-a something about it?" "What's-a there to do?" cried Signora Brambilla. "The Pope has-a forbidden the pill!" "The pill, yes-a!" replied Signora Rossi. "But I always crush-a it into a little powder!" Yes, that much intelligence is needed. If the pill is forbidden, crush it into powder.

Alfred, all that I require is a little bit of intelligence. Ugliness is unintelligence, beauty is intelligence.

I don't want you to behave, but I want you to be more alert.

And certainly nobody is going to throw anybody out, but that's the language Indians understand; they don't understand any other language. Since that day nothing like that has happened again and it will not happen. Nobody is going to throw anybody out - that is not my way. I am not a person who can be angry at all, but I can pretend to be angry, I can act angry! I know which language is understood and I use that language.

Two fellows went duck hunting. One told his new-found friend that he was known to snore at night, and if he did hear him snoring to simply get up and shake him.

Shortly after they turned out the lights, his buddy went over to his bunk and kissed him on the cheek.

There was no snoring that night.

Today I have jokes which are a little difficult!

People are unconscious; they need to be hit exactly on the head, then a little bit of consciousness comes to them.

A crew was unloading a tanker of highly explosive chemicals when it exploded. Two men were killed and half a dozen were knocked unconscious. As the ambulance attendants were carrying one of the men on a stretcher, he regained consciousness. Just as he did, his hands fell over the side of the stretcher. Feeling nothing but air, he let out a great moan and said, "Oh, my God! I haven't even hit ground yet!" The lady of the house called to the maid downstairs, "Has the milkman come yet?" "No, Ma"am, but he's already startin" to breathe heavy!" So, Alfred, don't be too afraid! Nobody is going to throw you out, and if something ugly comes up in you we have many groups here. Those groups are meant for you to be as ugly in as you can be; those groups are for catharsis. But not in the commune, not in Buddha Hall, otherwise you can see there are guards sitting all around - just try to cough, Alfred!