I have kept my wondering eyes alive

Question 1:

Everything depends on a very simple understanding. The whole idea that children are your possession is wrong. They are born through you but they do not belong to you. You have a past; they have only future. They are not going to live according to you. To live according to you will be almost equivalent to not living at all. They have to live according to themselves -- in freedom, in responsibility, in danger, in challenge. That's how one becomes strong.

Parents down the ages have carried the idea that children belong to them, and that they have to be just carbon copies of them. A carbon copy is not a beautiful thing, and existence does not believe in carbon copies; it rejoices in originality.

Once you understand that your children do not belong to you -- that they belong to existence, you have been just a passage -- you have to be grateful to existence that it has chosen you to be a passage for a few beautiful children. But you are not to interfere in their growth, in their potential. You are not to impose yourself upon them. They are not going to live in the same times, they are not going to face the same problems; they will be part of another world. Don't prepare them for this world, this society, this time, because then you will be creating troubles for them. They will find themselves unfit, unqualified.

You have to help them to grow beyond you; you have to help them not to imitate you.

That is really the duty of the parents -- to help the children not to fall into imitation.

Children are imitative, and naturally, who are they going to imitate? The parents are the closest people. And up to now parents have enjoyed it very much that their children are just like them. The father feels proud because his son is just like him; he should be ashamed that his son is just like him. Then one life is wasted; then his son is not needed -- he was enough. Because of this wrong conception of pride in children imitating you, we have created a society of imitators.

One of the most famous Christian books was written by Kempis: IMITATION OF CHRIST. It is almost second to THE HOLY BIBLE. One great Christian theologian and a world-famous author of many, many treatises, Stanley Jones, used to stay with me whenever he used to come to my city. He was continuously going around the world, and he always kept the book, IMITATION OF CHRIST. Once I told him, "If you really understand, then this book should be burned."

To teach anybody to imitate Christ is to destroy that person. One Christ is enough, more than enough. Many, many Christs carrying their crosses on their shoulders would make a very hilarious scene... and everybody proclaiming himself to be the only begotten son of God!

The word `imitation' has never been condemned, but it should be condemned. The religious founders have been wanting people to imitate them, the parents have been wanting their children to imitate them; the teachers, the professors, the priests -- everybody is wanting children to imitate them. The children become a mass phenomenon; carbon copies of many people... much ado about nothing!

I remember, I must have been seven years old and a friend of my father's who had not seen me, who had not come for seven years... he had gone for a long pilgrimage around the Ganges. Hindus do that -- go around the whole Ganges, both sides. That is thousands of miles, deep in the Himalayas, dangerous valleys, mountains. After seven years he came and he wanted to see me. And he said to my father, "His eyes look like yours," and to my grandfather, "His nose looks like yours," and to my uncle, "His face looks like yours."

I said, "Wait! Does anything look like me? Am I here or not? You are being utterly disrespectful to me." He was shocked. He could not conceive that it would be a disrespect, because this is commonly done, every day, in every home: the child's eyes look like the mother's, his face looks like the father's. And they all feel proud; and nobody bothers about the child, whether anything looks like him or not.

But I made it clear to him, "Just take your words back, because I can say to you that my eyes don't look like my father's. You have another look. And my face does not look like my uncle's -- how can it look...? I have my own eyes and I have my own face, and I am going into the world with my face and with my eyes."

He asked to be forgiven. Later on he told my father, "Your son seems to be dangerous. I have never seen anybody so assertive -- and at this age!"

My father said, "At first we used to feel very embarrassed by the things he did or said, but now we have started feeling proud, because he seems to be right. You are not the first man who has compared my eyes with his -- many others have done that. And he has taken me to the mirror and told me, `Look, they are not the same.' And I have to say to you that they are not the same; he is right."

The whole of humanity has lived in such a wrong way, and for so long, that we have completely forgotten that there can be some other way, that there can be an alternative.

You are here with me. In fact, you should make your children understand that this is a great opportunity for you, to be yourself: "If I was with you there is every possibility that, knowingly unknowingly, I may treat you habitually -- just the old things, behaving the way my parents have behaved with me -- and that would be ugly."

And tell them not to feel angry at me; rather, bring them to me sometimes. Once in a while, when they have holidays, let them come to me. They will understand me more clearly than you, because they are fresher, younger, closer to nature, yet unspoiled. They are not going to be angry at me.

Once they start understanding me, they will be proud of you -- not feeling that they have been abandoned by you, but feeling that they have been given freedom, which is the greatest gift possible in the world. And your children start feeling proud of you, because you are one of the rarest mothers who can give them freedom, and bring them to a man who can help them see how to be free and how to be responsible... how to be oneself.

In this world of imitators, how to be original and authentic? -- because only those few individuals who are themselves feel fulfilled. Others simply live miserably, hoping that tomorrow things will be better; but that tomorrow never comes.

Once your children start understanding something of what I am doing here and why you are here, they will be proud of you. And their being proud of you will immediately erase the feeling of guilt in you.

You are feeling guilty that you have left children alone -- that perhaps this is not right.

According to the old mind, it is not right. According to the old mind everything has to be taught: they are not to be allowed to be themselves; they have to be molded into a certain ideal. This very process of molding is going to kill them. And there are corpses all around the world -- moving, doing things -- but I say that they are corpses because they are not themselves. If they had been given freedom, if they had been given a chance to grow naturally, to be themselves, they would never have been the person they are. And only then would they have been able to find a certain contentment and satisfaction.

You need not feel guilty. Those who are destroying their children, they should feel guilty.

Giving children freedom.... And once in a while you will be going, once in a while you will be with your children and that is a pure gift, to be with them once in a while, because then you can be loving. You have gathered so much love; for so many days you have been far away. There has been so much longing. You will shower upon them your whole love. They will see only your loving being.

Twenty-four hours being with them, every day, year in year out -- you cannot remain loving. You are bound to be angry, you are bound to be jealous; you are bound to be everything that you should not be before your children, and they will learn those things from you.

My whole idea is that parents should meet their children only occasionally, so they can pour out their whole heart, and the children know their mothers and their fathers only as pure love. They don't know that both these persons fight continuously, that they nag, they throw things at each other.

I used to live in a place where everybody was surprised. It was a big apartment house with thin, modern walls. You could hear everything that was going on, on the other side.

You need not go to the movies or any other entertainment, it was available free, and just without any effort -- just lying on your bed and all around things were happening.

The most amazing part was that from every apartment was always coming screams, shouting, fighting, beating, things being thrown, plates being broken. Just from one house there was always heard great laughter. The whole neighborhood was surprised; they seemed to be the ideal couple -- never anything except great laughter was heard from that apartment.

One day, going for a morning walk, I met the man and I asked him, "You are the ideal couple -- not only in this building, but perhaps in the whole world. Nothing else is ever heard except laughter. Can you tell me the secret?"

He said, "Don't ask me. It is better not to ask, not to say anything about it, because I feel like crying."

I said, "I am praising you and you feel like crying?"

He said, "You don't understand at all. The reality is, she throws things at me. When she hits me, she laughs; when she misses, I laugh. But don't tell it to anybody. This arrangement is going well." But the same man, after five years, went to the court -- he wanted a divorce.

The whole neighborhood was surprised. I had never told anybody, because it was such a private thing. Everybody was just amazed, "What happened that they have gone to the court? And, we hear, for divorce!" I was going to the university. I thought that first I should visit them -- the court was just on the way -- so I stopped at the court and went into the court.

The judge was asking, "How long have you been married?"

They said, "For six years."

"So why do you want now to divorce? What has happened?"

He said, "What has happened? She throws things at me."

The judge said, "Recently she has started throwing things at you?"

He said, "No, she has been throwing things from the very first night."

The judge said, "You amaze me. If she has been throwing things from the very first night, then for six years what have you been doing? Why did you not come earlier for a divorce?"

He said, "You don't understand. Now she has become so practiced that she never misses.

It is always she who is laughing. For months I have not laughed; now I cannot tolerate it.

At first it used to be almost fifty-fifty: one time she will laugh, one time I will laugh. It was okay, we were equal. Now it is intolerable -- only she laughs, and I am just standing there like an idiot, with never a chance to laugh."

It is better that the children don't see your ugly faces. If no child comes to know about these ugly faces, his life will be totally different. It will be a life of love, without jealousies, without nagging, without throwing things, because he had no chance to learn these things.

You need not feel guilty; those parents should feel guilty who never leave their children alone. Once in a while go and be with them, and then you can be as totally with them as possible. And once in a while bring them here.

You have to share me with your children.

If you love me, you would like your children also to love me. Don't leave them in anger at me; that is not right. And their love towards me will help you immensely not to feel guilty. It will help the children also to feel that it is good that you are here. They would also like to be here someday -- when their educations are complete, when they are grown up and they are ready to move into life. They would like to learn more about the complexities of existence, the intricacies of life, its delights, and the art of how to achieve it.

Question 2:

There is no problem in it.

If you feel you are a fighter, if you enjoy fighting, not only that, if you are proud of being a fighter -- then relax. Fight totally! Then don't fight your fighting nature. That will be let-go for you.

It is perfectly beautiful to stand before the strongest storm and laugh. Don't feel guilty.

Just try to understand one thing: when I say let-go, I don't mean you have to change anything. I simply mean, whatever you feel you are, just allow it its totality.

Be a fighter with your whole being, and in this totality you will find the melting of the heart. That will be the reward of your being total. You do not need to do anything for it; rewards come on their own. Just be total in anything that you feel you love, that you feel proud of -- just be total in it. Don't create a split. Don't be half and half; don't be partial.

If you are total, one day -- standing against the strongest storm, laughing -- you will suddenly feel your heart melting in the sun. That will come to you as a reward.

Man unnecessarily creates problems. I want you to understand that there are no problems in life except those you create. Just try to see: whatsoever feels good for you is good.

Then go the whole way. Even if the whole world is against it, it doesn't matter. And whether you have gone total and whole will be decided by the reward.

If you start feeling at one point a sudden melting then you know that you have not cheated yourself, that you have been sincere, true. That now is really the point where you can be proud.

Question 3:

That's really a problem -- an unanswerable one too, because I never think of tomorrow, and I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow. I leave it up to tomorrow! I don't burden myself too much. Today is enough unto itself.

Tomorrow I will be there, the problems will be there, the challenges will be there; and I will be available to those challenges, to those problems.

My whole life I have lived this way -- without any predecision, without any commitment for the future, without any promise to myself or to anybody else for the next moment.

And that has given me the most precious gift of life. I have become attuned with existence; knowing not where I am going, I am going joyously.

One thing I know: existence has no goal, and as part of existence I cannot have any goal.

The moment you have a goal, you cut yourself away from existence. Then a small dewdrop is trying to fight against the ocean. Unnecessary is the trouble, meaningless is the struggle.

I never think of the yesterdays.

And I never think of the tomorrows.

That leaves me just a small moment, the present moment -- unburdened, uncluttered, clean, free.

So I don't know the answer to your question. All that has happened in my life... if you try to recapitulate it, you will find certainly a tremendously systematic program -- as if I had planned everything from the very beginning in minute detail. But this is an absolutely wrong idea.

As far as I am concerned, I have never planned anything; I have simply lived, wondering what is going to happen next. I have kept my wondering eyes alive, just like a small child.

Hasya has to plan, Jayesh has to plan, John has to plan -- so they are all suffering from fever, tired. Just look at Jayesh!

But I am simply wondering what is going to happen.

Question 4:

The question has many questions in it.

Firstly, I am not making any effort to give to people freedom from the bondage of their rotten past. It is not my effort, it is simply my joy. I enjoy doing it; hence there is no tension about it, whether I succeed or not. I am not serious -- it is just playfulness. I am free, I have enjoyed it, and out of that joy arises an overflow of energy, spreading on its own accord.

I am just a watcher, not a doer.

Secondly, the world cannot take my freedom. It can try, but its failure is absolutely certain -- for the simple reason that to me freedom is more valuable than my life. I would rather risk my life than choose to lose my freedom; hence nobody can take it. They can kill me, but they cannot kill my spirit, they cannot kill my freedom. They are doing everything in their hands -- they seem to be desperate. And I am joyfully trying to find new ways to reach people. At the most they can take my life, but they cannot take my freedom.

They can take your freedom only when you value your life more than freedom; then your freedom can be taken very easily. Just a threat to your life and your freedom can be taken. But they cannot take my freedom because to me life has no value, and freedom has all value.

To me, freedom is life.

They can destroy my body but they cannot destroy my consciousness.

So there is no question of their taking my freedom. They may be powerful -- they are powerful. All the governments of the world are together against a single individual, and still they cannot take his freedom. And I can say it with absolute certainty that they cannot take my freedom, because I am ready to offer my life at any moment.

Thirdly, you ask, is your compassion as possessive of you as love? No, compassion is not possessive. In love you fall; hence the phrase "falling in love." Have you ever heard of somebody "falling in compassion?" That kind of phrase does not exist in any language.

You rise in compassion.

Compassion does not possess you; neither do you possess compassion.

That is something subtle to be understood. It is easy to understand whether it possesses you or not, but my answer is: compassion does not possess me, neither do I possess it.

Compassion has become my nature. There is no duality of the possessor and the possessed. So it is a very different situation from love.

It is not in my hands to stop being compassionate, because I am not separate from it. In either case, whether you possess something or something possesses you, the duality remains.

But in compassion the duality disappears.

You are it, there is nobody else; so you can simply be it.

There is no other way of being.

Question 5:

The question is not of being my sannyasin, the question is of being A sannyasin.

To be my sannyasin certainly needs a certain commitment, a certain surrender. And I do not want you to be surrendered to me, or to be committed to me. I want you to be surrendered to nature, committed to existence. You need not be my sannyasin, you have just to be A sannyasin -- and that's the only way of being my sannyasin.

It is not a direct phenomenon -- that directly you commit yourself and surrender to existence. But the deeper you surrender to existence, life, nature, the more loving, the more understanding, the more insightful you become; and that insight will bring you closer to me. You will find in me, indirectly, the state of total surrender, total trust.

Don't be worried that you don't have that total trust now. Even if you have a little bit of trust, that is enough to begin with. Just open the bank account; you need not have millions to open the bank account with. With the smallest trust you can start the journey, and as the journey grows deeper, the trust grows deeper. Soon you will find yourself surrounded with only trust.

That moment you will feel you are my sannyasin.

Those who have come directly to me can betray. Those who have come indirectly to me cannot betray, because even before coming to me they had already tasted something of the beyond, and to betray is impossible. But there have been many sannyasins who have come directly to me. They started their commitment, their trust, towards me as a beginning. That is not a right beginning, because that means there is a certain belief. They don't know me, they can't know me -- and still they have believed.

There is danger because the doubt is there; the doubt can any day take over their belief.

But the authentic sannyasins, the real ones, have come to me in a very indirect way. It is very difficult for you to find out who has come in what way, because it is something inner that you cannot see. But the people who have come slowly, trying to understand me, step by step, moving towards being natural, authentic, sincere... suddenly one day they find they are related to me. Strange -- they had never tried for it, they had not made any effort. It is a discovery.

So sannyas to me has to be a discovery.

Then you cannot lose it; it is your own discovery.

Don't be worried that your trust is partial -- that's enough, that much will do. You want to learn swimming... you need not jump into the deep water immediately; otherwise there is a danger you will get scared for your whole life. You will never come close to water again.

There is a Sufi story that Mulla Nasruddin wanted to learn swimming. But as he went close to the river with the teacher who was going to teach him, he slipped and fell into the river -- and it was a deep river. He was saved by the teacher, but he went a few times under the water; and as he was taken out, he took his shoes and ran away.

The teacher said, "Where are you going? You have come to learn swimming."

He said, "Now, first I will learn swimming and then I will come near the water; otherwise I am not going to come near the water -- it is too dangerous. First I will learn swimming."

But where is he going to learn swimming? You cannot learn swimming in your bedroom.

There is no other way... but unfortunately he entered the river from the wrong end. The teacher would have taken him to where the water was shallow, and slowly would have encouraged him to go towards deeper waters. As he would have become more proficient, the teacher would have encouraged him to go farther and farther.

Just a little trust is enough.

In the beginning you cannot hope to have total trust. That's how we start making impossible demands upon ourselves, and then we cannot fulfill them. Guilt arises, a condemnation of oneself arises, a rejection: "I am not worthy...." But all these things are unnecessary.

And this has happened all over the world. Everybody is feeling unworthy because he aspired in the very beginning to find the end. Naturally it was impossible -- he could not reach it -- and that stopped him even starting the journey again.

I used to live with one of my professors, in the same house. I was living alone and he felt that, looking at the condition of my cottage... he said, "It will be better you come and start living with me" -- because I had my bed just near the door, so that I could simply jump into bed, jump out of it... I never used to enter the house, because who is going to clean it?

When he saw this situation he said, "I have never seen such a way of living." Just in front of me was my bathroom; that much space was all that I used to move in -- from the bed to the bathroom. All my books were around the bed so I could pick up any book that I needed, and whenever the bed became too dirty I simply used to put the light off -- then everything looks the same!

He said, "This is not good. My wife will take take care of you; you come with me. And we don't have any children." He was an old man -- he was just like my father. He said, "I won't let you live here. I had never thought that you are living in this way. You have invented an absolutely new way of life -- that you put the light off if you see that it is too dirty".

So I went to live in his house. He was an atheist; he did not believe in God. And he was interested in me because he thought I was also an atheist -- because he had heard me speaking in the university and other places, declaring that there is no God. So he thought we were both atheists.

But on the way I made it plain to him, "You may be under a wrong impression. I am not an atheist."

He said, "What! And you declare everywhere that there is no God."

I said, "Yes, I declare there is no God. That's why I cannot be a theist; a God is needed to be a theist -- to believe in it. But a God is needed also to be an atheist -- not to believe in it. And there is no God, so I don't fall into any category."

He said, "My God! So you don't fall into any category?" I said, "No."

I lived with him for a few months, and the more I tried to understand him, the more I came to the conclusion -- a very strange conclusion, which proved right about many other atheists I had met during my life -- that this man had been a great theist in his past life, and because he failed to find God he reversed his position to the other extreme.

Otherwise it is unexplainable that atheists should waste so much time in denying God.

When there is no God, why bother about it? And they write books and pamphlets, and they make associations. They have their own philosophy, and they are more argumentative than theists. Almost all the time, the whole time, whoever they meet, sooner or later the conversation turns to atheism, that there is no God.

This insistence, this wastage on something negative simply means they are taking revenge with themselves. They have been theists.

I came to the conclusion because I started hypnotizing this old man. I told him, "This is my logical conclusion, but I want to know exactly where you were in your past life -- in what belief, in what religion." He was excited to know about it, so he was willing.

Unless someone is willing you cannot hypnotize him. The art of hypnosis needs a very intelligent man and a very willing man. You cannot hypnotize an idiot -- that is an impossibility. You can hypnotize only very few people who are very intelligent, sharply intelligent, and yet ready to go on an inner journey, willingly. You cannot force... they have simply to go with you.

Living with him, slowly, slowly I persuaded him. And he became a good medium for hypnosis. His wife was the judge -- I used to tell her to sit there and to see the situation, because this man would not remember when he woke up, and he would deny what I said.

She had to be my witness. That man was a very great theist, lived his whole life worshipping God, renounced his family, did all kinds of ascetic disciplines. And he failed, as he was bound to, because there is no God to achieve. That failure turned the whole pendulum of his consciousness to the other extreme and now he was revengeful -- unknowingly, unconsciously. And when I woke him up and told him, he would deny it:

"No, I have never been a theist and I don't believe in a past life."

I said, "I have a witness -- your wife -- that you can regress, under hypnosis, back into your past life." And I did it dozens of times, and it was always the same result: without any exception he was a great theist. He had turned against himself because he had wasted one life.

I said to him, "Now you are wasting another life. That's why I say I don't belong to any category. I don't want to waste my life for God -- this way or that."

To me, man has in him the highest potential of existence and consciousness. If he explores it he will reach to a state of godliness -- not of God, but only of godliness.

But don't be worried that you are starting with a small amount of trust; that much is enough. To begin with, anything is enough, Just the desire to go on a pilgrimage is enough. And don't be bothered that you have to be my sannyasin; just be a sannyasin.

Just be a seeker of truth. And perhaps somewhere on the way I will be meeting you.

I will tell you one Sufi story: A man is going in search of truth. As he comes out of his city, he finds an old man sitting under a tree. The young man does not know where to go in search of truth. He has heard that one has to go somewhere in search of truth, one has to go on a pilgrimage -- but where? Roads go to all sides. Which road is the road?

Seeing the old man sitting under the tree, he thought: perhaps this man is old enough; he must know which road leads to truth. And he asked the man. He said, "Yes I know the road. Follow the right and go on until you come to a certain tree" -- he described the tree in detail, its leaves, its fruit -- "and you will find under it a very old man... just to give you an example, something like me but thirty years older. This is the man who is going to be your guide."

The man was very happy. He thanked the old man and rushed towards the way he had shown him. For thirty years he was wandering and wandering, and the tree never came and the old man never came. He was getting tired, and he himself was getting old, and he said, "What nonsense!"

Finally he decided, "It is better to go back home... enough is enough! Thirty years I have wasted in searching truth, and I have not even met the old man who is going to be my guide. And God knows, when the guide meets me, what kind of guidance it will be and how long it will take. It seems to be too complicated; it is better to go home. I was running a good business. I destroyed the business and unnecessarily got into trouble hearing this word `truth' again and again."

He came back. Again he passed the tree -- and he was shocked! This was the tree the old man had described. And he looked under the tree and the old man was there -- the same old man, thirty years older and exactly the same as the description in every way. He said, "My God! Then why did you waste my thirty years?"

He said, "I wasted your thirty years -- or you wasted my thirty years? At that time you were not ripe enough to be guided, because I gave all the guidance and you didn't even look at the tree -- and I was describing it in minute detail. I was describing your guide in minute detail, and you did not look at me, to see that I am describing myself. You were in such a hurry; you were too young. But nothing is wasted. I was, waiting, knowing that one day you will come back, one day you will recognize this tree, one day you will recognize this old man, that I am your guide!"

The young man said, "This seems to be a strange business."

The story is immensely significant. You have a little trust. Don't be worried, go to the right... This time not under a tree, this time on a beautiful chair, you will find an old man -- someone looking similar to me.

But that will be the right time for you to become my sannyasin. Right now just be a sannyasin; don't be greedy!