Ten Non-comandments

Question 1:

There are very few moments in man's life more magical than the feeling of love and trust from a disciple towards the master.

It is a relationship not of this world, because it is a ladder to the beyond.

Coming closer to the master certainly gives a new pulsation to the life energy, to your receptivity, to your openness. It gives you a dance, your heart starts singing a song. It is a moment of rejoicing.

It is the same moment as when a river comes to the ocean, dancing, to disappear into the ocean -- but the disappearance is only from the side of those who are standing on the bank. To the river itself, it is becoming bigger, vaster, oceanic.

Coming closer to the master is a way of becoming a master -- and what can be more rejoicing, more joyful?

There are many kinds of love, but the love that exists between the master and the disciple is the purest: unpolluted by any expectations, by any demands, by any conditions. The master accepts you as you are, with no desire to make something else of you. You love the master because he gives you, for the first time in your life, in all your relationships, freedom to be yourself -- without fear, without guilt.

Your experience is natural.

It has happened to every disciple, it is a cosmic experience.

But it cannot happen if you are only a student. If you have come here only to learn, to accumulate knowledge, then this kind of miracle is not possible.

If you have come here to expand your consciousness, to make your being more integral, then you have not come to increase your knowledge but to be reborn. You have come to become a child again; you have come to get back the purity, the fragrance, the beauty of your innocence.

I am not a teacher, and this is not a place where knowledge is important. I am just a presence to inspire in you that which is dormant, to allow you to recognize yourself.

I am not here to impose any religion on you. I am here to make you completely weightless -- without religion, without ideology -- just a profound silence, a serenity, a depth, a height that goes to the stars.

This is a place of a master, and the function of this place is magic -- not ordinary magic, but magic that creates Gautam Buddhas.

And naturally, when you are coming out of your darkness towards the light of becoming a Gautam Buddha, it is impossible not to be thrilled, not to be ecstatic, not to be in a dance.

If you are alive, stars will be born out of you, flowers will be blossoming in you. But if you are dead, as most of the people on the earth are, then nothing will happen to you -- nothing happens to the dead.

There is a beautiful story in Mahavira's life.

Mahavira went to Vasali, one of the great cities of those days. In Vasali there was a great thief. He had only one young son whom he was training in his art. He said to him, "Listen, you are free to do everything, but don't go close to that man Mahavira. I am a master thief, but I also avoid him, because that man is dangerous. Something magical surrounds him, and once you are caught in it there is no way out. So remember, go everywhere else, but avoid the campus where Mahavira is staying."

The son was very obedient. He avoided Mahavira's campus for many days, but the temptation was natural.... Here is a man who his father fears so much that just to be close to him seems to be dangerous.... It is worth testing.

So one day he went just a little closer to the campus -- not inside the grove where Mahavira was staying with his ten thousand disciples, but outside the grove. And he heard only one sentence. Mahavira was saying that in paradise, the angels and the female angels are tremendously beautiful, but just one thing is wrong: their feet are pointing in the opposite direction. The angels are going one way, but their feet are going in the opposite direction.

Being afraid that his father might come to know, the boy escaped. But he thought, "There was no danger there, and Mahavira was just telling a fictitious story."

But that very night he and his father were both caught stealing. It was impossible to get any information from the father; hence, the king said, "Don't bother about the father, concentrate on the son. There is a possibility that we may be able to find out all the information that we need."

And the strategy was that he was given intoxicating drugs, so he slept for hours, completely unconscious. He was taken to the most beautiful room in the palace, and all the beautiful girls were serving him, bringing food, drinks. As he came back to consciousness, he thought, "My God, I am dead. I am in paradise. This is the paradise that fellow Mahavira was describing, and the girls are really beautiful. Everything is great."

But then he looked at their feet, and immediately he understood that there was some conspiracy -- "This is not paradise, because their feet are just like our feet."

The women tried in every way to persuade him, "You are dead and you are in paradise."

And they were saying, "This is just the reception. Before you enter the permanent paradise, you have to tell everything about your life. This is the rule. Everything will be written, recorded, and then you will enter permanent paradise."

They wanted him to confess all the sins that he and his father had been committing, all the thefts, murders, and things for which they had never been caught. But now he would simply smile.

He said, "Forget all about it; I have heard from Mahavira himself. Your feet have given me the clue that this is the palace of the king. And this is a strategy. Tell your king to try to befool somebody else. I am a disciple of Mahavira."

They said, "Strange. When did you become the disciple of Mahavira?"

He said, "Just passing by I heard one sentence, and that one sentence has saved me today."

And because there was no proof, finally they had to be released.

He told his father, "I am not going to listen to you at all. If I had not disobeyed you and had not listened to Mahavira, we would both be hanging on the gallows. Just one sentence -- and that too, a small part of a story -- has saved me. I am going to the man.

His magic has caught me."

He became a great disciple of Mahavira.

He said, "You have saved me. Now give me a new life, because I don't want just to be saved and continue to be a thief and a murderer. It was good that I was caught, a discontinuity has happened. You start my life from scratch; accept me as a child."

Coming to the master is coming in search of your innocence, in search of your lost childhood, in search of your originality... in search of your individuality, in search of freedom.

Question 2:

It will not be so easy.

First, you don't know the name of the rabbi. His name was Hillel. He is the most famous Jewish philosopher, and he certainly condensed the whole philosophy of Judaism into a single sentence.

The incident is true. He was asked to stand on one foot and answer in the shortest way what the essence of Judaism is. And what he said is beautiful, but not without flaw. He said: Do unto others what you would like to be done to you by them. This is the essential Judaism, the rest is commentary. All great scriptures of the Jews, the TORAH, the TALMUD... all are just commentaries on the single, small, seedlike statement: Do unto others what you would like to be done to you by them.

As far as Judaism is concerned, no Jewish thinker has raised any suspicion about it.

Neither has any non-Jewish philosopher raised any question about it.

But I am more concerned with human reality than just with philosophical arguments.

And looking at human reality, the statement is not correct -- because my taste and your taste may be different.

To do unto others what you would like to be done to you by them can be right only if everybody's taste is the same. And that is not the case.

For example, somebody is a masochist; he likes to be beaten, he likes to be tortured. Now what should he do with you, torture you? According to the principle, he should beat you, he should torture you, because that's what he wants you to do to him.

Perhaps Hillel or the Jewish philosophers were not aware that there are people who love to be tortured and there are people who love to torture.

It is the latest contemporary psychological insight that there are sadists who like to torture, and there are masochists who like to be tortured; hence, it is said that the best couple in the world is if by chance a sadist and a masochist get married. Then they are living in paradise, because one wants to be tortured and the other wants to torture. Both are enjoying.

But it is very difficult. No astrologer thinks about it, no parents think about it. In fact, whether somebody is a sadist or a masochist is not considered at all when people are thinking about marriage. Before you fall in love, remember the first basic inquiry: if you are a sadist, then find a masochist; if you are a masochist, find a sadist.

The best places to find such people are the offices of psychoanalysts. Just sit outside there; you will find all kinds of people.

But this statement will not be applicable.

And you want to know if somebody asks you about my philosophical standpoint.... It is not going to be that easy, because I see man as a multi-dimensional being. You will be able to state it standing on one foot, there is no need for sentences, but you will have to state ten non-commandments.

The first: freedom.

The second: uniqueness of individuality.

The third: love.

The fourth: meditation.

The fifth: non-seriousness.

The sixth: playfulness.

The seventh: creativity.

The eighth: sensitivity.

The ninth: gratefulness.

Tenth: a feeling of the mysterious.

These ten non-commandments constitute my basic attitude towards reality, towards man's freedom from all kinds of spiritual slavery.

Question 3:

It certainly has changed your life. You have become a flute to the divine -- because if it was a projection of the ego, the ego would not have allowed you to ask the question.

And the ego never becomes a vehicle, a medium, a flute. It is not a hollow bamboo. The ego is very solid, does not allow itself to be used by higher forces. It can exist only in the very mundane world.

To allow the higher forces means you are entering into the sacred, going beyond the mundane. The ego cannot go outside the mundane world. And its very fabric is to praise itself, to brag about itself even when it is not valid.

For example, a poetry descends in you but the ego grabs it and proclaims to the whole world that "I have written it."

No great poetry has been written by any ego; nothing great can come out of it. The great comes only when the ego gives way, when it is not obstructing, when it is absent, on leave.

It is said about Rabindranath that whenever he would be writing, he would close his door and inform the house that unless he opens the door, nobody is allowed even to knock on it.

It was a big family. Rabindranath's grandfather was given the title of raja by the British government, although he was not a king -- but he was so rich and he had so much land that he could have purchased a few maharajas. His family was very big; almost one hundred members were living in the palace.

And it was a very strange family. Rabindranath has written in his memoirs, "We have seen strangers coming into the family as guests and then never leaving. And my grandfather was such that he would say, `It does not matter. He must be some distant relative. Perhaps we have forgotten, he has forgotten, but destiny has brought us together.

Let him live here.'" So the family went on growing. Anybody could come and say, "I am related to you, a far off, distant relation." And he was received not only as a guest, but... once he entered the house it was against the culture to ask him, "When are you going to leave?" It was not asked.

It is not the culture of Bombay. In Bombay, the first thing people ask is, "When are you going to leave?" You have not even settled in the chair, your luggage is still in the taxi, and they are asking when you are going to leave -- because tickets have to be advance- booked.

Those were different days, and a different kind of people.

So nobody ever asked when you were going to leave. And why should one leave? -- living in the palace of a king, living like kings... every need was fulfilled.

So a man used to go with a bell, all over the palace, announcing that nobody is to disturb Rabindranath. And all his brothers, his mother, father, grandfather, they were all concerned while he was inside his room -- sometimes it would be three days, four days, and he has not eaten, he has not come out.

They asked him, "What is the matter? You can come out, you can eat, you can go back again. Nobody is going to prevent you, nobody is even going to ask you any question."

He said, "It is not a problem for me to come out. The problem is that when something is descending in me, if I leave the room just to take a shower or just to drink a cup of tea, the process stops. And it is not in my hands to start it again. Then I don't know when it will start again; it is something falling upon me, falling through me. I am just a passage. I don't want anybody to disturb me because I don't want to disturb the process."

Every great poet, painter, singer, dancer has been aware of the fact that he has been great only in the moments when he has not been. It is not a contradiction.

The greatest dancer of this age was Nijinsky. He went mad because he was born in the West; in the East, he would have become a Gautam Buddha. In the West there was no background to explain what was happening to him, and it was a weird experience -- while dancing... once in a while when he would forget himself completely, would become so much absorbed in the dance that there was only the dance and no dancer -- he would jump so high that it was against gravitation. No scientist had any explanation. Man cannot jump that high, it is simply not possible.

And that was not the whole story.

When he would come back down... anything when falling, the gravitation of the earth pulls it forcibly. But when Nijinsky would be coming back down, he would come so slowly... just like a dead leaf falling from the tree, moving slowly, or like a feather. That was even more difficult to explain.

And when people asked him, "What you do?" he said, "Whenever I try to do it, it never happens. Finally I give up, and then one day suddenly it happens -- but it happens only when I am not, when I am not the doer. It is something of the beyond."

So don't be worried.

If you are feeling silent, peaceful, loving... these are not the ways of the ego. The ego cannot feel silent, the ego cannot feel peaceful, the ego cannot feel loving.

Your meditation has ripened.

You have come to a maturity.

Rejoice, and be grateful.

Existence is very compassionate. If we are ready to open our hearts without holding anything back, then immense treasures become available to us.

In the beginning such doubts may arise: "Perhaps it is ego." Don't give a place to such doubts.

Remember: ego can create misery, ego can create anguish, ego can create hate, ego can create jealousy. Ego can never become a vehicle for the divine, it can never become the passage for the beyond.

Question 4:

One compromises because one is not certain about one's truth, one is not certain about one's own experience.

The moment you have experienced something, it is impossible to compromise. There is no possibility at all. You compromise only because your idea is only a mind thing, a borrowed thought. You don't know whether it is right or wrong, so even if half proves to be right, it is not a bad bargain.

There is an ancient story in Egypt. Two women came to the court of the king with a small child. They contended -- both of them -- that, "The child belongs to me, he is my child."

And each woman was persistent -- "The child is mine."

The king had to decide, and it was very difficult -- how to decide? The husbands of both women had died in war, in the service of the king.

Finally he asked his master, an old wise man. The master came and he said, "It is very simple. Bring the child."

The child was brought to the master, who asked the king to cut him in two, and give half to each woman. "What is the problem? They both say the child is theirs. There being no other evidence, no witness, justice demands that the child should be divided into two."

The king was shocked. He said, "What are you saying?"

But before the king could say anything more, the master drew the king's sword out of its sheath. And one woman ran forward and said, "No! Give the child to the other; he is not mine."

The master gave the child to the woman who had run forward and said he was not hers.

The king said, "What is happening? I don't understand. The woman is saying the child is not hers."

The master said, "Only the mother couldn't stand to see the child cut in two. The other woman is withstanding it perfectly well, without any difficulty -- if the child is cut in two, it is cut, there is no harm, it is not her child. She is ready to compromise, even if half a dead child is given to her. But the other woman is not ready to compromise -- either the whole child or no child."

When you have a truth, you are almost like a mother -- you have given birth to an experience. Either you would like to have it total, or you would not like to have it at all.

But you cannot be ready to cut it in two, because any living experience cut in two becomes dead.

All compromises are dead.

Nobody in the whole history of man who has known anything about truth has ever compromised. Rather, he has been ready to die for it.

It happened with al-Hillaj Mansoor. His master Junnaid loved him very much -- he was a man worthy to be loved -- and he tried to persuade him for years, "In your room you can shout Ana'l hag -- `I am God' -- but don't do that in the streets. You know that the people are fanatic, I also know the fact."

But al-Hillaj said, "You only know the fact. I have experienced it. You have compromised with the society, you are a respected teacher. I don't want any respectability, but I will not hide my truth. Truth is like fire, you cannot hide it. I have to shout it from the housetops."

And in a Mohammedan country -- where fanaticism is the rule, not the exception -- he was immediately caught, and brought before the caliph because "This is against our religion; there is only one God, and he is in the heavens. You are just a mortal being.

Even Mohammed has not said, `I am God.' He simply says, `I am the messenger of God.'

And you are saying that you are God. Are you mad? Either stop it, or death is the only punishment for it."

al-Hillaj said, "Death is accepted, but I cannot compromise on this point. It is my experience, I am god. And I say you are also god -- but your god is asleep and my god is awake."

Junnaid again came into the jail to persuade him, "This is foolish. You are such a beautiful young man, with a great future. You can become a great teacher. I know that what you are saying is right, but can't you compromise?"

al-Hillaj said, "With all honor I want to say to you, you don't know. That's why you have compromised. You have heard -- I have seen. You have read -- I have been. Death does not matter, but compromise is simply out of the question."

And the day he was crucified, thousands of people came to throw stones, to condemn him. Junnaid also came; he loved him, he was his student, and he knew that he had immense possibilities of growth. And he had understood perfectly well that he himself was only knowledgeable, and al-Hillaj had experienced.

But this is how compromise works.

Everybody was throwing stones -- not to throw a stone was to risk that people may think, "This man is in favor of al-Hillaj." So he brought a roseflower so that when so many people in the crowd are throwing stones he could throw the roseflower; people will see that he has thrown something, but who knows that he has thrown the roseflower?

The mind of compromise... nobody should suspect that he has not thrown a stone. So he is compromising on two grounds: one with the people, that he has thrown a stone... and he is compromising with al-Hillaj also. Because al-Hillaj must be looking out for Junnaid, to see whether he has come or not, and it would be very cowardly not to go.

al-Hillaj was smiling when stones were showering on him, hurting him, and blood was flowing all over the body. But when the roseflower of Junnaid hit him, he started crying.

Tears came to his eyes.

Somebody asked, "What happened? So many stones and you continued to smile, and somebody has thrown a roseflower and tears have come to your eyes."

al-Hillaj said, "Yes, because the people who are throwing stones don't know me. And the person who has thrown the roseflower knows me, knows my truth. But he is a coward, and I am ashamed that I have been a student of this man. Stones don't matter. But this roseflower has hit me hard."

Compromise simply means you are on uncertain ground.

Rather than compromising, find grounding, roots, individuality. Find a sincerity of feeling, the support of your heart. Then whatever the consequence, it does not matter.

The man who knows, knows perfectly well that no harm is possible. You can kill him, but you cannot harm him.

And the man who does not know is always trembling, always worried. In that worrying and trembling, that anguish, he goes on compromising with everybody -- just to be safe, not to be harmed.

But what are you trying to save? You don't have anything to save.

Those who have something to save don't compromise.

A man like Socrates is given an opportunity by the judges, that if he leaves Athens... he can live outside of Athens and in this way he can avoid the death penalty. Anybody would suggest that "This is a simple compromise, you can just live outside the boundary lines of Athens" -- because in those days in Greece there were only city-states; every city was a state. Just outside the boundary you were outside the state. He could have lived almost in the suburbs.

But men like Socrates are impossible.

He said, "I would rather die than escape. And anyway, I am old. How long I am going to live? And if the most cultured city of these days cannot tolerate me, who is going to tolerate me? It is better to die in Athens than anywhere else -- at least I have the consolation that I am being killed by the most cultured people."

The judges were really trying hard somehow to save him, because he had not committed any crime. It was just that the mob wanted him to be killed -- he was corrupting the youth.

Now, anybody who brings new thoughts to the world can be blamed because he is corrupting the youth -- because he is bound to be against the old ideas, he is bound to fight against the old. You can call it corruption: "He is corrupting our tradition, our religion, our culture."

The judges said, "We have another suggestion: you can live in Athens, but stop talking about truth."

Socrates says, "You are asking me to do the impossible. I will speak about truth and truth alone until my last breath. Do you want me to start speaking lies? Do you want me not to speak at all? -- that too is a lie, because I know the truth and I am not speaking it, and the lie is spreading in people's minds. No, I will be here, and I will speak the truth. It is up to you -- you can kill me. But no compromise on any ground."

Try to find your individuality, your integrity, and make the effort of not compromising.

Because the more you compromise, the less you are an individual. You are only a cog in the wheel, just a part in the vast mechanism, just a small part of the mob -- not an individual in your own beauty, in your own right.

I am absolutely against compromise. Death is far more beautiful than a life of compromise.

Question 5:

Jews have never been able to forgive themselves for crucifying Jesus for the simple reason that he was their best boy.

They could not conceive that he would create the greatest and the richest international company. Almost half of the population of the world is Christian.

And he certainly created this whole big show out of two pieces of wood -- that's how the cross is made. I never call Christianity `Christianity' -- I call it `crossianity' because it is really based on the cross. The findings seem to be perfectly true.

And he created a company that has lasted for two thousand years and is still growing.

And the commodity that he produces is invisible.

As far as salesmanship is concerned, Jesus is the best salesman ever. His commodity is not great. Christianity is not a great religion, it is very primitive and third class. But he managed to sell the product to almost half of the world.

And because the product is invisible, it is very difficult to decide its quality.

I have heard that in a New York shop they were selling invisible hairpins for women, and women were certainly excited -- invisible hairpins! And they were charging a lot for nothing. One woman opened the box -- of course invisible pins you cannot see -- and she asked the salesman, "Are you sure that there are invisible hairpins in it?"

He said, "Don't be worried. We have been out of stock for almost three months, but they are still selling -- so we have stopped purchasing, because there is no point. They are invisible -- we cannot see them, you cannot see them, nobody can see them. And people are purchasing them, standing in queues for invisible pins."

God is an invisible commodity which you cannot see. Not for a few months, but for eternity it has been out of stock. Heaven and hell... all invisible things -- and Jesus managed to create a bogus religion on these things like god, heaven and hell.

The religion has nothing in it.

One can argue against Gautam Buddha. At least there is something in it -- you may agree, you may not agree.

But Christianity has nothing in it -- you cannot even argue against it, it is simply baseless.

It is a great hypocrisy. The pope, the archbishops, the bishops, the cardinals and the priests -- none of them have experienced anything; none of them have ever said that they have experienced anything. And they are millions in number, and they are converting others to their religion.

They don't know anything of what religion is.

Perhaps that's why they have such a great appeal for all the idiots. The mediocre mind does not want to experience or even at least to be intelligently convinced. It simply wants to believe, the cheapest thing in the world.

Christianity provides belief. You believe and you are saved.

And who are these saviors?

Just the other day, Neelam brought news from a monastery in Europe. It is an old monastery, and now it is divided in two parts. Half of the monks have declared that they are homosexuals -- so they are worshipping separately and they have occupied almost half the grounds and the church.

And you should not think that the other half are celibate; most probably they are not courageous enough to say what the other brothers have said.

When I was in America, in Texas the government passed a law against homosexuality.

Now, Texas is a backward state in America: homosexuality becomes illegal, criminal, and one million people protested against the law. If there are one million homosexuals in Texas, what about California?

In parliament in Holland they discussed why they have not allowed me entry into Holland. And the minister concerned said strange things... but nobody in parliament raised the question: "What nonsense are you talking?"

One can understand.... He said it was because I have been speaking against the pope. To speak against the pope is not a crime -- in no country's constitution, and in no country's law is it a crime to speak against the pope.

But it can be understood.

Secondly he said that I have been speaking against Mother Teresa.

But are these crimes?

And thirdly -- the most important -- is that I have been speaking against homosexuality.

Has the whole of Holland gone homosexual? Then change the name from Holland to `Homosexual-land' -- because in parliament nobody raised the simple question that "This is nonsense; we are not homosexuals." They may be Catholics, they may believe in the pope...

Christianity teaches celibacy, and celibacy is unnatural.

It creates homosexuals, lesbians.

And finally it has brought the disease AIDS, which is another name for death -- because there is no medicine, no medical cure for it.

The pope who served just before this pope was a world-famous homosexual. Before becoming a pope, he was the archbishop of Milan, and all of Milan laughed because he was continuously moving around with his boyfriend. When he became the pope, he took his boyfriend also to the Vatican; he became his secretary. And everybody knew -- the whole of Milan knew, the whole Vatican knew, but nobody raised the question.

It seems Christianity has created the most unintelligent people in the world.

I have heard: a man and woman were making love in their bed, and suddenly a car drove into the garage. The woman said to the man, "Wake up, wake up! My husband is coming, it is certainly his car. Just get in the closet."

So the man jumped into the closet.

The husband came in; he had come just for half an hour because he was on his way to some other duty. And the man inside the closet heard a small voice... somebody said, "It is very dark in here."

He said, "My God, who is there? Keep quiet!"

The voice said, "Give me something." So the man gave him fifteen dollars.

The voice said, "I am going to scream."

He said, "You seem to be a very strange fellow," and he gave him fifteen dollars more.

The voice said, "No! It is so dark!" So the man gave him all he had, fifty dollars. He said, "This is all I have; now you do whatever you want to do -- whether it is dark or not, screaming or not, I don't have anything more."

The next day, the boy said to his mother, "I want to purchase a bicycle."

The mother said, "Bicycle? But a bicycle costs fifty dollars at least."

He said, "Don't be worried, I have got it."

She said, "Where did you get it from?"

About that he remained silent.

The mother said, "You will have to tell me where you got it from. Have you stolen it?"

He said, "No, I have not stolen it. And I am not going to say where it came from. But it is certain that I have not stolen it, and my source of getting it is absolutely moral."

Mother said, "You first go to the church and confess to the priest. If you cannot tell me, you tell the priest where you got the money."

So he went to the confession booth, and the priest came. The boy said, "It is very dark in here."

And the priest said, "You sonofabitch! Don't start it again!"

Beyond Enlightenment