Chapter 9
[A sannyasin says he has trouble knowing what country to identify with for his parents are Pakistani, his upbringing English.]
It should not be a problem - you should be happy that you are neither. There is no need for anyone to identify with India or with England; those identifications are all pathological. An Englishman is naturally less than a man and an Indian is less than human. Just be a human being! This whole earth is yours, there is no need to identify with anything. Why become confined to small territories?
why be confined by politics? - because these are political boundaries. The earth is undivided. India and Pakistan and England and Germany exist only on maps, and those maps are created by the politicians, the power-mad people. Why should you become part of any politics? - there is no need.
Claim the whole heritage of the earth. It is your earth. Be a planetary being rather than a national.
Forget about India and England, think of the whole globe. Think of each and everyone as brothers and sisters; they are!
When you are an Indian you are against others. You have to be, otherwise how will you define your Indianhood? You are against China, against Pakistan and against this and against that; all identifications are basically against. When you are for something, you are against something else naturally. Don't be for and against - just be. Drop that worry, it is just pointless. There are better things to think about. You don't ask, 'With what disease should I identify myself - tuberculosis or cancer?' You don't ask that; these are tuberculosis and cancer.
In a better world there will be no countries, in a higher world there will be no more any religions. To be human is enough, and one has even to go beyond that one day; then one becomes divine. Then even this earth is too small to contain you, then stars are also yours, this whole universe is yours.
And when one becomes universal, one has arrived. Think of vastness, think of infinity. Drop all this nonsense from your mind. There is no need to think about it, it is not worth thinking about.
I will help you: you will get out of this!
[A sannyasin, who makes jewellery, says that she has been putting all her energy into her work, but sometimes it seems pointless. She feels alone and stuck, that she is not blossoming in love.]
You have to understand two or three things.... One: your work is going absolutely well. Very few people around here are so deeply and so passionately into their work as you are. I am very happy with you and with your work. But this idea, when you finish something and it is complete, that it is pointless, happens to every creator. It should not happen if the creator is also aware; otherwise it will happen to every creator.
It is said about Gibbon, that when he finished his history of the world.... It had been thirty years' work; day/night, year in, year out, he was working and working and working; he had only four hours of sleep and twenty hours of work each day. When it was finished, he wept. His wife could not believe it, his disciples could not believe it.
They said, 'Why are you weeping?' Everybody was happy that the work was complete, the greatest record of history was complete. But he was crying, 'Now what will I do? I am finished!' And he died within three years; there was nothing else to do. He had always been a young man; the day his work finished he became old. It happens to every creator: a painter is so passionately in his painting that when it is finished he suddenly feels, 'Now what? why did I do it?'
Great awareness is needed to see that the joy of painting is in painting itself. There is no result - the end and the means are not separate. If you are enjoying a certain thing, that is the point of it; don't ask for any other thing. What more do you need? While you were doing something - carving something, painting something, sculpting something - you were lost in it. That was your joy, your meditation. You were in god! You were out of the mind; that was your satori. But when it is finished naturally you come back to the mind and the mind starts asking, 'What is the point?' So the question arises out of the mind and the work arises out of the no-mind. There are two different levels: the no- mind works and the mind creates questions; the mind is very clever in creating misery. Something is finished and the mind says, 'So what? Now it is finished, and you were so passionately into it. What have you attained?'
The attainment is in the very process. You have grown through it; that is the attainment. You have become deeper through it; that is the attainment. You have come closer to the centre of your being; that is the attainment. If you are aware, this feeling of pointlessness will disappear.
And the second thing: You have certain fixed ideas about love, that it should happen with a certain person, so you become very very narrow in your choice. One should be in love with love. With whom-it happens should not be so important as that it happens. But down the ages we have been taught that one should be very obsessed with persons.
Now you have chosen [someone], and [he] is a very totally different type of person. His love lasts only one day, two days, three days; at the most three days - that is his longest love affair. But that is how he is!
But then you... this is your choice; don't choose such people! How can he be forced into a permanent marriage? he cannot be, because that will be ugly for him and he cannot be part of it. He enjoys
only casual relationships. If he is enjoying... And he is perfectly okay. He never brings any problems so I think he is perfectly okay! (laughter) So why disturb him?
So when it happens with him it is good; otherwise you need not be so obsessed. Don't be too personal in love, become a little more impersonal. It is as when you cannot find the fruit that you like every day you don't go on a fast, you find something else! If you like oranges and they are not available then you like bananas. It's okay.
[She replies: Yes, but I do get obsessed with oranges!... ]
It has to be broken. Mm, it has to be broken... and this is the place it can be broken, nowhere else can it be broken so easily. Start moving out of it. Some effort is needed, that's all, otherwise old habits persist. Some effort is needed to pull yourself out of it and to see the point, that you are unnecessarily creating suffering for yourself. Unless you enjoy suffering... then there is no problem.
If you enjoy it... then you can enjoy. But if you don't, then start moving. These are masochistic ideas.
And my feeling is that many people enjoy being martyrs.
... Just start moving a little, take some initiative, and it will be gone. Your work is going perfectly well.
If your love energy also starts moving impersonally you will be the happiest person here! You can be the happiest person, there is no reason to be miserable, but some work is needed. And the work for you is to start moving with as many people as possible for three months. Be more floating.