The world is where the work is

Question 1:

It has certainly taken on a new significance, a new turn.

I always wanted my people to be in the world, occasionally coming to me, being with me, refreshing themselves, then going back again to the world -- because the world has to be changed. We are not the ones who renounce the world.

All the religions have been teaching, "Renounce the world."

I teach you, transform the world.

Renouncing it is sheer cowardice, and by renouncing it, nothing significant happens -- the world goes on living, producing new generations in the old pattern. And the persons who have renounced the world -- they also don't go through a transformation, for a simple reason that they lose all opportunities where they can test whether they are growing or not. You can sit in the Himalayas for a half a century and you will feel silent, but that silence is not yours; it belongs to the Himalayas. Everything is silent, eternally silent, and there is nobody to disturb you.

Just to get out of the situations where you get disturbed does not mean that you are attaining peacefulness; it simply means you are running away from situations where you are certain that your peace will be disturbed. Renouncing the world has never been my idea; it was always to change it.

Millions of people are suffering, and suffering for stupid reasons. It is absolutely inhuman to turn your back on it and move to the mountains or to the deserts to live peacefully there. That peace is very cheap, very superficial; it has almost no meaning.

Just come back to the world and it will be disturbed, it will be shattered into pieces. And that will be immensely significant to awaken you, that what you have been thinking of as peace, silence, has been just a dream which is shattered by the reality, just as a mirror is shattered when hit by a rock... and it is shattered forever. That mirror you cannot put together again, and all those years that you were enjoying the idea that you have attained peace have gone down the drain.

So my idea has always been: come to me to rejoice, come to me for a holiday. Come to me for pure joy. Be filled with the fragrance, be filled with my presence, then take it back into the world. There is the real test: whether it remains with you or not. If you want to keep it, spread it, share it, and it will grow within you. But whenever you feel somewhere stuck, not growing, I am available -- come back to me, be with me. When you feel the clarity again, go back to the world.

If you start living with me you will be a loser on two counts. One: you will by and by start taking me for granted -- which is a great loss, because I will be available to you. It is dangerous, because the more I am available to you, the less you will become available to me.

I have lived for almost twenty years in Jabalpur in India; it has one of the most beautiful spots in the world. For two to three miles continuously a beautiful river, Narmada, flows between two mountains of marble... just three miles of pure white marble on both sides, high mountains. And the river is deep. On a full-moon night, when the moon comes in the middle and you can see those rocks also reflected into the waters, it creates almost a magical world. I don't think there is anything in the world which can be compared to that magic. It is simply unimaginable.

I insisted again and again to my professor, Doctor S.K. Saxena... I had loved him very much because he was the only teacher I came across who never treated me as a student.

We argued, we fought on small points, and if he was wrong he was always ready to accept it, and he was grateful.

He had a Ph.D. from America -- he lived his whole life in America, and taught as a professor of Indian philosophy there. Just at the end, he wanted to go back to his own country. He had been searching for someone who could translate his doctoral thesis into Hindi, but he never came across a man who could. And his thesis was really of great significance; just a literal translation would not have done. It needed someone with a deep understanding. The subject matter of the thesis was, "The evolution of consciousness in the East." It was one of the most difficult subjects, very elusive, but he had managed, worked hard, and had come to certain very significant conclusions.

He asked me -- I was only a student -- to translate it. I said, "You should ask some professor, at least someone qualified."

He said, "I have seen many professors, many qualified people; they can translate only literally. And I trust you. Arguing with you I have come to the conclusion that this is the man who can translate it."

It took me two months continuously -- my whole holiday one summer. It was hard work.

And it was harder because there were faults, there were mistakes, and I could not tolerate them. So I pointed out to him, "These are mistakes; out of your seven conclusions, three are wrong, and if it was in my hands I would take your doctorate back. The people who have given you a doctorate know nothing about consciousness."

He said, "I was afraid of this!"

But I said to him, "I have translated it; just in the footnotes I have made my comments where you have gone wrong, why you have gone wrong. Perhaps anybody would have gone wrong. Just as a scholar it was bound to happen, this mistake. I am not a scholar."

I gave the thesis to him and I said, "You look at it, and you tell me how you feel."

He hugged me and told me, "You have done such a tremendous job that I feel ashamed. It looks like my book is a translation and your book is the original! And I am not going to publish it because that would destroy my whole reputation. You have also made comments which I agree with -- you are right and my examiners were wrong. I was wrong, my examiners were wrong."

So he kept the translated thesis with him and never allowed anyone to see it, never allowed anyone to publish it.

I said, "You wasted my two months unnecessarily!" I said, "Just to compensate, now you have to come with me to Jabalpur." It was one hundred miles from the university where he was professor, to the marble rocks. "I would not let you die without seeing it."

But he said, "Howsoever beautiful it is, I have seen the whole world" -- he had been a world traveler -- "I have seen everything that is worth seeing. What can be there?"

I said, "I cannot describe... you just come with me." And I took him there. He was asking again and again, when we were moving in the boat, "Do you call this the most beautiful place?"

I said, "You just wait. We have not entered into it yet." And then suddenly the boat entered into the world of marble, the mountains of marble. And in the full-moon night they were just so pure, so virgin-pure, and their reflections... The old man had tears in his eyes. He said, "If you had not insisted, I would have missed something in my life. Just take the boat close to the mountains, because I would like to touch then. It looks so illusory! Without touching I cannot believe that what I am seeing is real."

I told the boatman to come close to the mountains. He touched the mountains, and he said, "Now I can leave -- they are real! But for three miles continuously...!"

This man wrote beautifully, spoke beautifully, but still was miserable. And I said, "Neither your writings mean anything, nor your speeches mean anything. To me what is significant is whether you have been able to drop all the causes of misery. You are so miserable that you drink, just to forget. You are so miserable that you smoke, just to forget. You gamble, just to forget."

Now, this world is not to be renounced. There are beautiful people, there are immensely capable people; they just have never come across a person who could have triggered a process of mutation in their life. So my idea has always been: come to me whenever you start feeling, "Perhaps I am living in an illusion." Then come and just touch me. Let yourself be showered by my presence, my love, so that you can regain confidence, courage, and you can go back to the world.

But the world is where the work is.

This is a mystery school.

We prepare people to send them to change the world.

That was from the very beginning my idea of a commune, but because I was silent and in isolation, things went not according to my idea. The commune, rather than becoming a refreshing place, a place for holiday, became just another world of work, of hierarchy, of bureaucracy. All those things that we wanted to change evolved in the commune itself.

So my new phase of work will be that there will be a mystery school. It will live like a commune, but the people will be changing. People will be coming whenever they can manage, whenever they need. There will be a certain number of people who will be permanent, to take care of all the visitors. But the commune will be a continuous pilgrimage place -- where you learn something, where you drink something, and go back to the world.

We are not the renouncers -- we are the revolutionaries.

We want to change the whole world.

And in changing the world, you will change yourself. You cannot change anything else unless you go through the change simultaneously.

So on one count it was a loss that if you were staying with me continuously... you are human, and it is a human mistake that one starts taking things for granted. I am available.

I told you about this beautiful spot because in Jabalpur there are thousands of people who have not seen it. It is only thirteen miles away, and I have asked those people -- professors, doctors, engineers -- "Just go and see!"

And they say, "We can see it anytime. It is there; it is not going to go away."

In the second world war it happened that suddenly, when Adolf Hitler declared that he was going to bomb the Tower of London, thousands of people rushed to see it. They had been living in London their whole life; they were born there. They were passing the Tower every day on the way to their job -- going to the office, coming back home, it was there. People were coming from faraway places to see it, but they were taking it for granted: it is there, so what is the hurry?

It is absolutely certain that thousands of people have been born in London and died in London without seeing the tower. I know about Jabalpur; thousands of people must have died... It is always there, but you are not always there.

As far as the relationship with me is concerned, neither you are forever nor am I forever.

But you can take it for granted, and by and by a fog surrounds your mind. Rather than my presence there is a fog -- which separates you, not connects you.

This was the most disastrous thing that was happening in the commune. People were with me, but they had created a fog around themselves. Seen from the outside, physically they were close, but spiritually they had gone far away.

Secondly, when five thousand or ten thousand people start living in a commune, their whole orientation, why they have come there, changes without their knowledge. They had come there to meditate, to be with me, to be as much as possible open and available to my experience... to enjoy, to relax, to sing, to dance, to be ecstatic. They had all come for that.

But when ten thousand people have to live together, you have to make houses, you have to make roads, you have to prepare food, you have to prepare clothes; a thousand and one things are needed, they go on taking all your time. Slowly, slowly you completely forget the real reason you had come. You go on getting into other things, and the original intention is completely forgotten.

This time I am working in a totally different way, so these two things can be avoided.

To me, I always want to be just a holiday.

To me, I always want to mean nothing but ecstasy, music, dance.

It is good to be only for a few days with me and then go into the world. Take the music, take the ecstasy with you, spread it, and whenever you feel thirsty, come back again.

So it will be a world school of mysticism where people will be coming and going, taking the message to all the nooks and corners of the world. And I don't want you to be in any way associated with anything... road-making, making houses, and creating a dam -- all that is just damned foolery!

I simply want you to remember me as a flower, a fragrance, a flame, a light; associate me with these things. That is going to be the purpose of the new mystery school. I would like to call it the mystery school rather than a commune, because that name has become associated with the commune we had.

I am not in any way thinking that the disappearance of that commune has been a loss. Not at all -- because the way it was functioning, it was a non-ending rut. You would have needed new roads, because new houses were to be built, then new roads would have had to be connected. You would have needed more restaurants, bigger restaurants; you would have needed more clothes... and finally, you were going to have to produce. You would have had to make factories and other productive directions -- because how long can five thousand people live only on donations? Friends can support for a time being, but not forever.

So soon you would have completely forgotten that you are separate from the world. In fact you would have been in more difficulty, because in the other world somebody else takes care of the roads, somebody else takes care of the post office, and somebody else takes care of other things. You have just to work five hours, six hours. In the commune you were working for twelve hours, sometimes fourteen hours; even then the work was unending.

So the resources that were helping the commune were going to be soon exhausted; the commune was going to collapse. I was telling the people who were in power in the commune, "The commune will collapse, because how long can you live on other people's support? And if you become productive -- you open factories and you start making things -- then why bother? All these things are being done everywhere else."

This time, from the very beginning, only a small nucleus of people who are absolutely necessary to run the mystery school will be living with me. Everybody else will be a guest for a few days, a few weeks, a few months... as much as he can manage. But his being here with me will be all relaxation, meditation, so he can be rejuvenated. And then he can go back. The whole world is there to work on.

This way we will avoid the most basic thing -- that he does not take me for granted. And the second thing -- that he does not forget his basic intention in coming to me.

Question 2:

It all depends on you -- not on my name, not on my face on your locket, but on your heart.

If you are talking about me with deep love, with trust, with reverence, your heart creates a certain milieu. If you are talking not just from the mind but from the very innermost core of your being, it can happen: you can feel as if rosewater has been sprinkled... a great cleanliness, a great freshness, a fragrance. But they are not contained in my name or in my photograph; those are just instrumental. The reality that is created is by your heart.

There are people who are against me, who are saying my name continually, and they will never feel that rosewater has been sprinkled.

The archbishop in Greece has some source of information! As I was arrested, and the whole population of Saint Nicholas was at the airport to show their support to me, alone, with his half a dozen old, almost dead women, he was ringing the bell of victory -- that God had won over the devil, that I was sent specially from hell to destroy God's land, His church, His morality. It depends! To him it may be that my name may give him such electric shocks that he will think that this man must be evil.

Just a few days before, when I was here in the ministry of interior, there were many people -- a great crowd. Nobody recognized me because they were all people either from this country or from Argentina or Brazil where I have never been. But as I was being taken in, one woman immediately pulled back her three children and whispered to them, "Don't touch him!" She must have been either English or American, afraid that if you touch him, and if he is really the devil or comes from hell, it is going to be disastrous.

So it all depends on you.

But it was good that you were mentioning me when Anna Freud, Sigmund Freud's youngest daughter, was dying, and she heard about me with deep love and reverence from you. And she was not an orthodox woman. She was really representative of Sigmund Freud -- the same quality of mind, the same sharpness, the same fearless intelligence to cut through all nonsense, superstitions. She was one of the most significant women of this century -- and sensitive, alert.

I hope that what you felt, she also may have felt a little bit. At the moment of death, nothing could have been a greater gift to her -- and she deserved it.

Question 3:

In fact, to use these two words together shows a deep misunderstanding.

"Honest truth" implies that there can be dishonest truth.

Truth is enough.

Honesty is a very ordinary quality that comes as a shadow of truth, with many other qualities. There is something immensely important about truth. But remember, never use the words honest truth. That means you have a suspicion: deep down you yourself are not convinced of the truthfulness of truth. To substitute, to compensate, you add honesty to it.

Nothing can be added to truth.

Truth is always pure, nude, alone.

And there is great beauty, because truth is the very essence of life, existence, nature.

Except for man, nobody lies. A rosebush cannot lie. It has to produce roses; it cannot produce marigolds -- it cannot deceive. It is not possible for it to be other than it is.

Except for man, the whole existence lives in truth.

Truth is the religion of the whole of existence -- except man.

And the moment a man also decides to become part of existence, truth becomes his religion. It is the glorious moment.

When I say that except for man everything is living truth -- the ocean, the clouds, the stars, the stones, the flowers -- that everything is nothing but truthfulness, nothing but just itself, with no mask, and only man is capable of deceiving others, of deceiving himself -- it has to be remembered that this is a great opportunity. It has not to be condemned, it has to be praised, because even if a rosebush or a lotus wants to lie, it cannot. Its truth is not freedom; its truth is a bondage. It cannot go beyond the boundaries.

Man has the prerogative, the privilege of being untrue. That means man has the freedom to choose. If he chooses to be truthful, he is not choosing bondage, he is choosing truth and freedom. Freedom is his privilege. In the whole of existence, nobody else has freedom.

But there are dangers when you have opportunities. When you have freedom, you can go wrong. No rose can go wrong, no rock can go wrong. You can go wrong; hence a deep awareness of each act, of each thought, of each feeling, has to penetrate you.

To me that is what is the meaning of a seeker of truth.

Only man needs to seek it; everybody has already got it, but the glory of freedom is not there. You have to seek it, and find it. And in that very seeking and finding you are glorious, you are the very crown of existence.

But truth is enough.

Don't burden it with honesty or anything else.

Question 4:

There is no need: just be what you can be.

Allow yourself to blossom.

Enjoy in glory -- and that will be thankfulness enough.

Anybody who blossoms close to me has already shown his gratitude. Saying it would be profane. Saying it would destroy the beauty of the unsaid, the silent.

If you have really come to a point when you want to say thank you to me, then don't say it; I will understand it. By saying it, you will be bringing down something from a very high level.

You will be surprised to know that in India, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, perhaps the oldest, you rarely hear anybody thanking somebody else. No child will thank his parents; no parents will thank their child. In the West that is part of your formal training: on each occasion say, "Thank you."

I was thinking about the difference, why it has not developed in this old civilization. And I understand... what I said, that is the reason. If you are really thankful, then saying it is useless, because you cannot put your heart into it. And if you are not thankful, then why unnecessarily destroy a beautiful word?

And to make it a formality means you are making it an unconscious part of your behavior. So just as somebody presents you with a cup of coffee and you say thank you, if somebody brings enlightenment to your consciousness, are you going to use the same words? It is absolutely impossible to use those same words; they have become so formal.

You say them without even thinking about it. You simply say them like a robot.

It is a good question, to ask me how to say thank you to me, because there must be a great feeling of gratitude, but all words seem to be meaningless. Thankfulness, gratefulness -- they all seem to be too small. What has happened to you is so vast.

My suggestion is: you need not give me any thank you. I will take it myself.

It will be so apparent through your eyes and through your face, but there will be no need to say it. I will simply understand it from there.