Not faith, but fear

UNGAN REMAINED WITH YAKUSAN FOR SOME TIME, THEN ONE DAY DECIDED TO LEAVE: HE EXPLAINED TO YAKUSAN THAT HE HAD MADE A VOW TO STAY WITH HYAKUJO. YAKUSAN AGREED, AND UNGAN SET OFF DOWN THE MOUNTAIN, DOGO ACCOMPANYING HIM A LITTLE WAY, AND THEN RETURNING TO YAKUSAN, WHO ASKED, "DID YOU SEE YOUR BROTHER OFF?"

"YES, I DID," REPLIED DOGO, AND THEN ADDED, "IS IT ALRIGHT FOR MY BROTHER TO LEAVE YOU?"

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO ASK SUCH A THING," SAID YAKUSAN. "WE HAVE BEEN VERY INTIMATE FOR SUCH A LONG TIME -- WE CAN DO OR SAY WHATSOEVER WE WOULD LIKE TO. SO THERE IS NOTHING FOR YOU TO ASK ME."

"NO, OSHO," SAID DOGO. "YOUR WORD CAN BECOME A REFERENCE FOR THE FUTURE, SO PLEASE SAY SOMETHING."

"OKAY, I WILL SAY ONE THING," REPLIED YAKUSAN. "THE EYES ARE ALRIGHT, ONLY THE DISCIPLINE IS LACKING."

HEARING THIS, DOGO IMMEDIATELY LEFT THE MONASTERY IN PURSUIT OF HIS BROTHER. WHEN HE CAUGHT UP WITH HIM THE FOLLOWING DAY, DOGO TOLD UNGAN WHAT YAKUSAN HAD SAID. THE TWO BROTHERS TURNED AROUND AND WENT BACK TO YAKUSAN, AND REMAINED WITH HIM TILL HIS DEATH.

Friends, One of the would-be sannyasins, Graeme McIntyre, has left his body in deep meditation in this Gautama the Buddha Auditorium, amongst other meditators, in deep peace and silence. He had expressed his desire to become a sannyasin that very evening.

Sannyas does not need to be an outward thing, just the longing for it is enough. He died as a sannyasin because there was deep longing for sannyas.

He was doing a therapy group. After the group he said to the leader, "I would like to remain here my whole life." He will be here now his whole life -- and not only this life, but for eternity.

This place, this space that you are creating by your meditations, is the right space in which to live, love, laugh, and it is also the right space in which to leave the body and go into the beyond, disappear into the ultimate existence.

It is a moment of rejoicing. So tomorrow, when you say goodbye to him on a funeral pyre, rejoice, and dance, and celebrate. Such a death is rare. Very few human beings are so blessed.

And when the funeral pyre's flames start moving upwards, remember why in this country for thousands of years we have chosen not to bury the dead, but to give them to fire.

There is a special reason for it.

Fire is the only thing you know which does not allow any gravitation. It always goes upwards. The fire is a symbol of your spirituality; it always goes upwards. No gravitation can pull it down.

Secondly, when you have lived in your body for so many years there arises naturally a certain attachment to the body. The body is prone to be attracted by gravitation. But when the consciousness sees the body burning -- with the body burning, all your attachments with the body, all your prisons that have taken you to many bodies in many lives, start disappearing. One feels a tremendous freedom rising with the flames towards the sky.

And you know ... You see flames, and soon they disappear. They are visible only for a few moments, then they become invisible. Fire is a great symbol of purification, of detachment, of rising vertically towards the ultimate space which is our home.

We come from there, and we go back there.

Now, Christianity ...

Christianity is a vast propaganda. They say they are defending the truth, but truth needs no defense, it is self-evident. It needs no propaganda. Lies need to be defended, lies need to be propagated, but not truth. Truth shines almost like a sunrise, you don't have to declare it.

And saying that they are defending the truth ... I will give you a few examples from their own theological history which make it clear what they are defending.

The French scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest and a scientist of world fame, who was working in China in search of the Peking man. It was thought that somewhere in China the "missing link" of Charles Darwin was to be found, because China is one of the most ancient countries.

Charles Darwin's problem was that there was no interconnecting link between the chimpanzee, or the ape, or the gorilla, and man. The distance is too great, there must be one more step in between. De Chardin was searching for that missing step in Peking, and he had found a fifty-thousand-year-old skeleton of a man.

The pope asked him not to report it to the scientists: "Don't write it in any paper, and don't publish anything that you have found till your death." This is defense of truth. His researches, which have now been published after his death, show that the earth and the universe are not only six thousand years old; even man is at least fifty thousand years old, according to the Peking man, which scientists have agreed is at least fifty thousand years old.

The snow of the Himalayas on the Chinese border has saved the man almost as he would have died. Covered with snow, he has remained frozen as he was fifty thousand years ago. This disturbs the Christian idea that the world was created six thousand years ago.

Teilhard de Chardin's mouth was locked, he was not allowed to teach in any Christian college or university. This is defending the truth? I am very much surprised that de Chardin listened to all these idiots of the Vatican.

That is why Christians go on insisting that obedience is the greatest virtue. He was programmed from his very childhood to obey; disobedience is the original sin. So, although he was a great scientist, his whole upbringing, continuous conditioning and programming, had made him a coward, a slave. He was a genius in his mind, but the conditioning had gone deeper into his unconscious, and he obeyed the Vatican's orders literally.

He did not say anything to anybody; he continued to work, and he did not publish any paper during his life, he did not publish any book on it in his lifetime. The books now published bring tears to anybody who can understand what a great man, a great genius, has been repressed his whole life by the church. He could not see his own research published.

The whole of Christianity lives in a paranoia that if anybody finds some truth, then what is going to happen to their lies that they go on propagating?

One of the most important theologians, Rudolf Bultman of the University of Marburg, one of the most famous and esteemed of twentieth-century biblical scholars, stated, "We can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources showed no interest in either, and are, moreover, fragmentary and often legendary."

But he must have become immediately afraid, because the church had been burning people, killing people. He immediately wrote underneath -- that shows how programming works -- after writing this he immediately wrote, "That does not disturb my faith. I still believe in Jesus Christ as the only begotten son of God, and I have absolute faith in the church of Jesus." And he could not even see the contradiction. But the fear must have taken over; he contradicted himself immediately.

On the one hand he is saying, "We know nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus." If you don't know anything of the personality of Jesus, how can you have faith? in whom? It is not faith, it is fear. It is fear of the church, it is fear of the pope, it is fear of the whole of Christianity. They will kill you, as they have killed many.

The Vatican has an underground library of thousands of scriptures which they have burned, saving only one copy. Nobody is allowed to enter, except the pope and the cardinals, to see all the evidence, all the proofs which go against Christianity. The public is not allowed to know what the truth is. And these people, Jesuits, are claiming that Christianity defends truth!

If it defends truth, it should open the underground library in the Vatican to all the scholars who want to study there, and Christianity will evaporate without leaving a single trace on the human consciousness. It is ninety-nine percent myth, invented, propagated, but it has a great propaganda machine, and it has a militant church. It has almost half of humanity converted to Christianity.

It is a strange thing, but I want to tell it to you: after the death of Jesus Christ, three hundred years after, it was through voting that the Christian priests decided that he was a divine personality -- by voting. And who were these people who were voting? They knew nothing of divineness.

This has never happened anywhere else. Mahavira was never elected as a tirthankara, Buddha was not elected by the masses as an awakened man. Poor Jesus not only suffered on the cross, he has suffered more from his own self-styled so-called representatives.

What would have happened if the vote had been against his divinity? Is religion a political affair? And people who had no experience of godliness were voting and deciding by vote, three hundred years later, that he was a divine personality. This was decided in the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. Jesus was declared divine by a vote of the Council of Nicea. The nature of his divinity was also decided by vote. This is the ugliest thing you can think of.

Truth does not need votes. It is self-luminous.

Hermann Samuel Remarius, a professor at Hamburg in the eighteenth century, wrote that "Jesus was a failed Jewish revolutionary whose body was removed from its tomb by his disciples."

I am not saying that, it is said by a Christian professor who has looked into the sources, the original sources, and found that he was a "failed Jewish revolutionary"; he had nothing to do with Christianity.

Christianity is a fiction. Jesus had never even heard the name Christianity. It has been imposed on him, he was not the founder of Christianity. Who exactly was the founder of Christianity? One thing is certain, Jesus was not. He never thought about founding a religion, he was simply telling the Jews, "I am your last prophet." He died on the cross as a Jew.

Then who founded Christianity?

You can find Buddhism in the teachings of Gautam Buddha; he was the founder. You can find in the teachings of Mahavira that he was the founder of Jainism. You can find in the teachings of Lao Tzu that he was the founder of Taoism. But it is a very strange thing about Christianity: the founder had no idea at all, was not interested in creating a new religion.

The man who founded it -- you will not believe it -- was the Emperor Constantine. The church knows it, but does not allow the public to know it.

Emperor Constantine of Rome, who headed the Council of Nicea, died as a Christian, but he was baptized only on his deathbed. His whole life he was the high priest of the Sun God religion, which was why he changed the sabbath from Saturday, which was Jesus' sabbath day, to Sunday. Jews still have their sabbath on Saturday, and Jesus also had lived his whole life believing in the sabbath on Saturday. How did it become Sunday?

It was Constantine, who was a worshipper of the Sun God. Sunday represents the sun; the followers of the sun have always believed that Sunday is a holy day.

It was Constantine who was actually the founder of Christianity. He was the decisive factor in the Council of Nicea. It was under his pressure -- because he was the emperor of Rome -- that the priests voted for the divine personality of Jesus. He made Jesus a divine person. It was his creation, his invention.

He also changed Jesus' birthday from January sixth to December twenty-fifth, the day of the solar rebirth. The twenty-fifth of December, which is celebrated all over the world, is not Jesus' birthday. The whole idea of Christmas is bogus.

Jesus was born on January sixth, but under Constantine's influence and power, it was changed to December twenty-fifth, the day of the solar rebirth. It is thought by the sun worshippers that the sun was born on the twenty-fifth of December. The whole of Christianity is living in utter darkness. Their Christmas is bogus -- and the church knows it perfectly well but won't allow people to know about it.

This is called defending the truth.

I call it defending lies.

Constantine saw Jesus as a failed messiah, with himself as the real messiah -- and his view was ratified by the famous Christian bishop, Eusebius of Caesarea, who said, "It is as if the religion of Abraham is at last fulfilled, not in Jesus, but in Constantine."

Constantine imposed himself as the real last prophet for whom the Jews had been waiting. Of course, the Jews could not crucify the emperor of Rome. And the Christians wanted some royal support; otherwise they were being crucified everywhere. They found a shelter in Constantine, but it was a bargain, purely business. They accepted that Jesus was a failed messiah, and that Constantine was the real messiah.

But this is not told to the public! Christians are not aware of it. All these scriptures are hidden under the Vatican.

I say unto you that Christianity is one of the most untruthful religions in the world. It is a disease, a sickness, a pathology, a poison. It has not been helpful to humanity in finding the truth in any sense. It has been trying to propagate lies so continuously that they have almost become truth.

You must have all celebrated Christmas. Have you ever thought that this is not the birth of Jesus? You never remember Jesus on the sixth of January ....

I have been thinking that we should start here a celebration for poor Jesus on the sixth of January every year. That is defending the truth. So please remind me when the sixth of January comes, because I have no sense of time at all. I don't know what day it is today, and I don't care. So when the sixth of January comes, please remind me. We will celebrate. At least after two thousand years Jesus will have a real birthday celebration!

The Bible says, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." I also teach you no judgment, but that does not mean what the Bible says. "Judge ye not" -- but there is a reason for not judging -- "so that ye be not judged." It is pure business.

When I say don't judge, you are not going to be rewarded for it. In the very act of not judging you are rewarded: such peace ...

People who are judgmental are grumpy, always have grudges against everybody, nobody seems to be right. They go on looking at the negative side of everybody, the darker side.

They may look at a rosebush but they will not look at the roses, they will count the thorns.

I say to you: Don't judge, because you don't know yourself, so how can you know anybody else? And every judgment is about a certain action. A man may have stolen something, and you judge that man as a thief. The whole man is judged, his whole life is judged by a single act. You don't go deeper into the act. The man may be dying of starvation, his mother may be dying of starvation -- and if he has stolen a little food from people who are suffering from being overweight, he has helped them.

Don't judge people by their actions. Actions are momentary, life is long. You judge the whole life of a person -- "That man is a thief, that man is a murderer" -- and not only do you judge, but your courts, which are thought to be just, go on judging people by small actions. Those small actions may have been done for a certain purpose. Nobody looks at the purpose, nobody looks at the cause.

I am reminded of Lao Tzu ....

The emperor of China wanted the most wise man to be the chief justice of the supreme court of China. People suggested Lao Tzu's name. It was absolutely right, there was no disagreement about it in his court, and Lao Tzu was called.

Lao Tzu came in his own way. He used to ride on a buffalo -- which is a very rare thing.

People ride on horses, and people ride on elephants, but a buffalo ...? But he loved his buffalo; it carried him from one place to another, and it gave him nourishment. No horse can do that.

And buffalos are so silent -- and Lao Tzu was in immense love with silence -- they don't chatter. They are so contented, they don't have any grudge against existence.

He came into the court riding on his buffalo. The emperor was shocked, but they had invited him, and they were well-mannered, well-educated people, so they ignored the buffalo.

The emperor asked Lao Tzu, "I want you to be the chief justice of the supreme court of China."

Lao Tzu said, "You are choosing a wrong person."

The emperor said, "Why?"

"Because," Lao Tzu said, "I will be really just."

The emperor said, "That is the very function. Don't say no to your own emperor."

Lao Tzu said, "Okay, but it won't last long -- perhaps one day." And it lasted only one day.

The first case was about a thief who had stolen money from the richest man in China. The man was so rich that even the emperor used to borrow money from him.

Lao Tzu listened to the whole case and gave his judgment: "Six months jail for both the rich man and the thief."

The rich man said, "What?! My money is stolen and you are sending me to jail?"

Lao Tzu said, "I am looking at the whole thing as deeply as possible. This thief is a secondary criminal, you are the primary criminal. You have collected all the money of the capital, you have deprived millions of people of money. Even if he had not stolen from you, you needed punishment. And I will not call this poor man a thief; he was simply distributing wealth to those to whom it belongs. You are a bloodsucker, a parasite!"

The rich man said, "I want to see the emperor before you send me to jail."

He went to the emperor and he said, "Listen, this man is absolutely absurd and dangerous. He is sending me to jail for six months."

The emperor said, "You are being judged? You have not done anything wrong."

He said, "I told that man, but he is telling me that 'You have been exploiting the money of the poor. Where will they get money? Except by stealing there seems to be no way!'

So he calls me a primary criminal, and the thief only a by-product.

"I warn you, if I go to jail, it will not be long before you will be coming to jail too, because you have been committing murders, you have been raping women, you have been collecting all the beautiful women of the country into your palace. This man has to be immediately removed from his post."

The emperor understood. He said, "He was saying himself that he would not last more than one day. Even the full day is not ended, this is just the first case!"

Lao Tzu was given his freedom and told, "You are right. You go on your buffalo wherever you want to go." He was a man of tremendous consideration, of in-depth exploration of everything.

Don't judge anybody superficially. You don't have the means to enter into anybody's act, because the action comes from his unconscious. You have not explored your own unconscious, how can you enter into somebody else's unconscious? And who are you to judge anybody?

But Christianity's statement is different. It is saying to you that if you want not to be judged by God on the day of judgment, then don't judge anybody else. This is simple bargaining, business.

Truth is not a business.

The morality that Christianity preaches is always motivated, and wherever there is motivation, there is no morality.

The church says that a righteous man can judge others because he is without sin. Who is the righteous man? If you look you will not find a single person who is without sin, because everything that is joyful and that is pleasant, that you love, is called sin.

The righteous person is one who has never committed any sin, who has never looked at a woman with loving eyes, who has never lied -- and the whole church is lying. Even the pope is lying. Who is righteous? You will not find anyone.

According to the Christian ideology, you are all sinners. You are carrying the same sin that Adam and Eve committed. That is their dogma, I am not talking on my own. It is their dogma that Adam and Eve committed the original sin by disobeying God, and because the same blood is flowing in all humanity around the world, you partake of, and you have to be responsible for, the original sin of Adam and Eve.

You are their sons and daughters, and you are born out of sin. Except Jesus, nobody is born without sin. But I don't consider that Jesus was born without sin. In fact, in the birth of Jesus even God has become a sinner.

The Holy Ghost, they say, is one with God, is not separate. And it is the Holy Ghost who made the poor Mary pregnant. God himself has become a sinner; it does not make Jesus born out of virtue. Because God is raping a woman who is somebody's wife without her consent, Jesus simply becomes a bastard, and God becomes a sinner.

So the whole of humanity is born out of sin, the original sin that Adam and Eve committed. And God has become a sinner from the very beginning. First he murdered Lilith, then he committed rape on Mary. Even God is not qualified to be present on the judgment day. Only the righteous can judge.

Who is righteous?

But Christian theologians are very clever in finding ways. Just a few days ago, the third man in the Church of England ... The first is the archbishop of England, then there is the second most senior man; then comes the third man, who can possibly someday become the archbishop of England, because only one man is in between him and the top, and he is young enough ....

He has come out with the statement that, "Taking the vow of celibacy does not include homosexuality." You can be celibate and you can be homosexual; it simply prevents you from heterosexuality. A new definition! They have to find such a definition, because almost fifty percent of Christian monks are homosexuals. The remaining ones may be masturbating, but nobody, unless he is born impotent, can be celibate by nature.

These people go on teaching unnatural things. And when people cannot cope with unnaturalness, and they are drawn to their nature, it becomes sin. Then they have to be condemned to hellfire. To be natural is a sin, according to Christianity -- and according to other religions too. To be unnatural and abnormal -- to be perverted -- is to be saintly.

Now this bishop, who has a high post in England, with every possibility that he will become the archbishop of England ... England has its own church, so the archbishop of England has the same position as the pope. Now he is saying that homosexuality is allowed, no scripture prevents it.

I could not believe my eyes! I could not believe my ears! What is this man saying?

The Old Testament has the story of two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. God destroyed both the cities completely, just like Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been destroyed. What was the reason? -- because they were all becoming homosexuals. Bestiality, masturbation, all kinds of perversions were prevailing in both the cities.

God told them, "If you remain so perverted, I am going to destroy you." And he destroyed both the cities, which were great cities in those days.

If God is still alive, which I doubt, then he should destroy all the Christian monks immediately. This is the right moment to finish with Christian monks, because they are making the whole earth a Sodom, a Gomorrah. All their monasteries are nothing but sexual perversion.

And that is true about other religions also. They are all against nature and being natural.

You are forcing people to unnecessarily feel guilty.

Mahatma Gandhi was very much influenced by Christianity and was thinking to become a Christian himself; at least three times he was on the verge of being converted. In his ashram, even to eat tastefully is a sin. You are enjoying taste? -- you have to eat without tasting. Now, that is possible only if the taste buds on your tongue are removed surgically. If the taste buds are there, they are beyond your control, they will taste. The sweet will be sweet and the bitter will be bitter. You cannot do anything about it, they are not under the control of your mind. You can only pretend.

So all the religions -- particularly Christianity -- force everybody to be hypocrites, to pretend. No taste, no love, no appreciation of your own body and its wisdom. Your body is doing a tremendous service for you for seventy, eighty, or a hundred years -- and you are not even grateful. All the religions treat the body as the enemy, so torture it. Torturing is virtue.

Rejoicing in your body, in its health, in its youth, in its old age, rejoicing in your body even in death, is what I teach.

Christianity is basically masochistic -- torture your body. The more you torture your body the greater saint you are. And there are idiots everywhere available -- they are the majority in the world -- who start doing all kinds of stupid things just to become saints. It does not need any education, it does not need any culture, any civilization, any intelligence, any genius. Any idiot can become a saint.

My own understanding is that only idiots become saints. A man of intelligence cannot become a saint, because to be a saint you have to go against nature, against the body, against yourself. It is very strange that God has given you all these tendencies -- of love, of taste, of laughter. Who is the criminal?

If anybody is a criminal, it is God. Why has he implanted taste buds? While he was creating man he should have removed sexuality, he should have removed taste buds. In fact, there was no question of removing them, he should not have created them. Just visualize God making Adam: he should not have made his genitals -- and he was making his genitals with such joy!

But every religion wants to castrate you, and particularly Christianity castrates people.

What are they doing in Mount Athos, where no kind of woman is allowed? A hen, a dog, a female horse, a female baby six months old -- nobody is allowed.

One American woman tried to break the one-thousand-year-old rule of the Mount Athos monastery and enter. She dressed like a man, she cut her hair and arranged everything perfectly. But she was caught red-handed, because women walk differently from men, so just at the gate she was caught.

A woman cannot walk like a man, and the reason for it is the womb. Man has no womb.

That womb makes a difference in your walk. She had not thought about it. She had done everything, but she had not thought about the walk, and those people are watching continually that no woman ever enters.

The monastery is guarded; it has its own government, it has its own police. It is a sovereign nation. When the woman was caught she was jailed for six months. It is their law that if any woman tries to enter and is caught she will have to be punished.

Now, after that woman's effort, everybody who wants to go into Athos, man or woman, first has to enter into the office outside the monastery and has to be stripped naked, to be looked at from every side, to see whether he is man or woman -- and nobody will say that those who are looking at naked people are voyeurs, homosexuals, enjoying the naked bodies of other men. Of course no woman has dared since then, but now it has become a rule that anybody who enters Mount Athos first has to be inspected naked by the guards.

Unless they are certified to be a man, nobody can enter. Such fear ... I call it castration.

And do you see the difference?

Have you seen the beauty of a bull? -- so proud, such grandeur, he looks so majestic, and after castration he becomes the bullock. The same bull becomes a bullock. The bullock looks sad, shrunken, all pride and dignity gone. He is a slave; now he can be used for pulling carts.

You cannot put a bull to pull a cart; you are not a match for a bull. He will not remain on the road, he will go anywhere he wants -- and if by chance he comes across a girlfriend the cart will be thrown by the side of the road. First things first! You may have multiple fractures -- and he will be enjoying making love to his girlfriend.

Bulls are not used for bullock carts -- but what a difference it creates, just castrating them, just destroying their sexual energy. The bullock is a sad affair.

Christianity and all other religions are part of the conspiracy to make man castrated. They have destroyed all the dignity of man. They have given only guilt and sin. Hence I call Christianity the deadliest poison.

The Bible says, "We know at the end we shall have life eternal." This has been the justification for sacrifice and suffering: you can sacrifice a human being in the name of God because he will have life eternal. Don't be worried, you are not destroying him, his spirit. Because he is sacrificed in the name of God he will enter into paradise.

So sacrifice is supported in the name of the eternal life that you will get after death. And suffering also is supported: it is only a question of a few moments; your life of seventy years is nothing but a few moments compared to the eternity of existence. Suffer patiently.

Patience is one of the pillars of Christianity, and patience is against all rebellion, all revolution, all change. Patience is the opium which drugs people into deep coma. They move like robots. They have forgotten that they are being exploited, their blood sucked.

They allow it.

The Bible says you should not change or make an effort to change anything, because God has made everything perfect as it is. This is the ultimate utterance against revolution, change, evolution, improvement in the conditions of the poor, of the sick.

Scientists say man can live at least three hundred years if care is taken. If his body is taken care of, not tortured, not undernourished, not fasting, not overeating -- if the body is given scientific care it can live three hundred years very easily. And that does not seem to be incorrect, because there are people in a few places who live one hundred and eighty years.

In Russia there are a few aboriginal tribes where you will find one hundred and fifty years is an ordinary thing. Thousands of people have passed one hundred and fifty, and even after one hundred and fifty they are young, they are working people -- in the fields, in the orchards, chopping wood, carrying water from the well -- perfectly healthy. And there are a few people in Russia who have passed the age of one hundred and eighty.

So science seems to be perfectly right: if sufficient care is taken, life can last three hundred years. Just think of Albert Einstein living three hundred years! Science would have benefited immensely; miracles would have happened.

But fate is strange: by the time a man becomes experienced, death overtakes him and the experienced man is replaced by a baby, absolutely inexperienced. Now you start from the beginning again -- ABC -- and by the time the baby reaches to the point where it can contribute something to humanity, to the world, to the beautification of it, death overtakes the man.

But Christianity will not allow it.

It does not allow birth control, even seeing clearly that if the population goes on growing the whole of humanity is going to suffer utter starvation, and billions of people will die within the coming ten years. Without any third world war people will be dying on their own.

But Christianity goes on insisting, because the Bible says, "Multiply. Have as many children as you can." And because God creates life, Christianity's argument is, "You should not stop the birth of a child."

But do you see the contradiction?

Killing is allowed, sacrifice is allowed, because nothing is dying. You will have an eternal life in paradise. So what is the problem? -- if a child is stopped, he will have eternal life or may move to another womb. If the spirit does not die when you kill a man as a sacrifice, why should the spirit die by birth control methods? In fact, the spirit would not enter into the womb at all.

But don't change anything, that is the fundamental motto of Christianity -- and that means death to humanity, death to this beautiful planet.

Christianity is the most out-of-date religion. All its assumptions are absurd.

For example, the myth is that Mary was assumed into heaven alive, she never died. Jesus ascended into heaven and then he assumed Mary there. In life he was misbehaving with his mother -- calling her "that woman" -- and suddenly he becomes very compassionate when he ascends alive to heaven. He takes his mother also alive into heaven.

What happened to his five brothers and sisters? And what happened to poor Joseph, his father? If he was able to take his mother into heaven, why not take ... what happened to the twelve apostles?

That Jesus ascended to heaven alive and Mary also is as absurd as the Mohammedan concept. But Mohammed did a far better miracle; he ascended to heaven alive with his horse, both alive. Strange! What will the horse be doing amongst the saints? He must be dying to come back to earth.

De Chardin said to the Vatican, "Why am I not allowed to publish my work? It is based on scientific principles and will contribute much to clear many fallacies which are prevalent in the scientific world." He told the Vatican that it must refashion its Christology to resolve the conflicts with science.

Rome responded that his diagnosis did not coincide with the ideas currently accepted in the eternal city -- Rome they call the eternal city -- and because his ideas do not coincide with Christianity and its Bible, unless he makes his Christology coincide with the Christian ideology and theology, he will not be allowed to publish his papers while he is alive.

These people have been killing truth for thousands of years.

De Chardin commented, hearing this, "Since then, as we all know, the religious schizophrenia from which we suffer has constantly grown more marked."

A kind of split in the scientists who have been brought up as Christians is bound to happen. All scientists brought up as Christians will suffer from schizophrenia, they will have a split personality. One side has faith in God, faith in the virgin birth of Jesus, faith in the infallibility of the pope -- knowing perfectly well that all this is nonsense, but their minds are split.

Science says one thing, Christianity says just the contradictory thing, and they have to cope with both. They become two persons. So in the scientific lab they will be scientists and in the church they will be Christians. You don't know how ....

Schizophrenia is cutting a human being in two parts -- a constant wound which knows no healing. The whole of humanity suffers from schizophrenia and all kinds of mental sicknesses because of these teachings which cannot go on changing with the changing world of knowledge; which are stuck somewhere and are stubbornly against moving from there; which are carrying corpses of the past and will not listen to the living sources.

Man has to get rid of all religions, including Christianity, otherwise he will never be wholesome, he will never be one, and he will never know the joys of life and the blessings and the benediction. He will never know the truth.

If these religions go on living they are going to drive the whole of humanity insane. They have pushed everybody to the very verge of insanity.

It is time to get rid of Christianity -- and all so-called religions which are different versions of the same stupidity.

Man needs absolute freedom from the past. Only then can he live in the moment responsibly, and only then can he create a new future, a better future than the ugly past, for the coming humanity -- a superman, a better man than the pygmies of the past who were just slaves and nothing else.

The sutra:

-- his old master Hyakujo, who had allowed him to go to Yakusan when he asked.

Because he had allowed him without any hesitation, Ungan became more grateful to the old master than he had ever been before.

Freedom is the very air, the very climate of Zen. The master is not a chain on your feet, the master is not handcuffs on your hands. A master is not a prison.

A master is not like the Catholic monastery of Mount Athos, which is nothing but a prison. There is no other prison like Mount Athos, because with a prison you go in and you can get out. But in Mount Athos, once you go in as a monk, only your dead body will come out. You are committing for your whole life, now there is no question of change.

This is the greatest prison in the world, where you enter alive and leave only when you are dead. This they call loyalty. This they call commitment. But in actual practice this is slavery -- pure spiritual slavery.

Because Hyakujo had allowed him when he asked that he wanted sometime to visit his brother Dogo, and Dogo's master Yakusan, his respect and reverence for Hyakujo had grown.

He lived for a few years with Yakusan, then he said, "Now I would like to go back to my old master."

YAKUSAN AGREED, AND UNGAN SET OFF DOWN THE MOUNTAIN, DOGO ACCOMPANYING HIM A LITTLE WAY, AND THEN RETURNING TO YAKUSAN, WHO ASKED, "DID YOU SEE YOUR BROTHER OFF?"

"YES, I DID," REPLIED DOGO, AND THEN ADDED, "IS IT ALRIGHT FOR MY BROTHER TO LEAVE YOU?"

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO ASK SUCH A THING," SAID YAKUSAN. "WE HAVE BEEN VERY INTIMATE FOR SUCH A LONG TIME -- WE CAN DO OR SAY WHATSOEVER WE WOULD LIKE TO."

Love gives freedom, intimacy gives freedom.

Yakusan said, "We have lived in such deep intimacy for so long that he is free to say anything, and if he wants to go back to the old master, he is absolutely free. SO THERE IS NOTHING FOR YOU TO ASK ME."

"NO, OSHO," Dogo said, with deep love and gratitude. "YOUR WORD CAN BECOME A REFERENCE FOR THE FUTURE, SO PLEASE SAY SOMETHING."

"OKAY, I WILL SAY ONE THING," REPLIED YAKUSAN. "THE EYES ARE ALRIGHT -- your brother Ungan has attained to a clarity of vision -- THE EYES ARE ALRIGHT, ONLY THE DISCIPLINE IS LACKING -- but he is not consistent in deepening whatever he has gained."

In Zen, 'discipline' means simply, "Don't stop anywhere, go on deepening, because your depth is infinite. Go on climbing, because your height is also infinite. You are the whole existence."

So his eyes are clear, he has attained to a clarity of vision, but he has stopped there. He should go on and on and on, in both directions, upwards and downwards. One has to reach to one's roots and one has to reach to one's flowers. When you have both the flowers and the roots, you are complete.

His vision is clear, but he thinks perhaps this is the end of the journey. He can stop for an overnight stay, but in the morning you have to go again. Existence is so vast ....

You will come to many stopping places where you will think, "This must be the end, what can be more? Such bliss, such joy, such ecstasy, what can be more than this?" But you don't know. Just go on and you will find there is something more.

Once you have learned the art of not staying anywhere ... Unless you reach to the very end of the road, you have to continue the discipline of meditation.

Yakusan said, "THE EYES ARE ALRIGHT, ONLY THE DISCIPLINE IS LACKING."

HEARING THIS, DOGO IMMEDIATELY LEFT THE MONASTERY IN PURSUIT OF HIS BROTHER. WHEN HE CAUGHT UP WITH HIM THE FOLLOWING DAY, DOGO TOLD UNGAN WHAT YAKUSAN HAD SAID. THE TWO BROTHERS TURNED AROUND AND WENT BACK TO YAKUSAN, AND REMAINED WITH HIM TILL HIS DEATH.

You have to see the point, that Ungan did not argue at all. When Dogo told him what Yakusan had said -- that "Your eyes are alright, but discipline is lacking" -- because his clarity was alright, he did not argue. He immediately understood the point. He could see that Yakusan was right.

So there was not even a dialogue, there was not even an effort on the part of Dogo to convince him, or on the part of Ungan to refute it. Not a single word was said. The moment Dogo told him what the master, Yakusan, had said, he saw it immediately. That's what he said: "His eyes are alright, his vision is clear. He has found the door beyond the mind, but he is just standing there. He is not moving."

The no-mind is the whole of existence. Just crossing the boundary of the mind you will have clarity, space, open sky -- but don't stop there. You have to open your wings and fly into the eternity of existence.

He immediately turned around, with Dogo, his brother, and they remained with Yakusan until his death.

This will give you some taste of Zen. It is not an argument, it is not a conversion. It is seeing things through and through, straightforward.

Basho wrote:

THOUGH MY SHANKS ARE THIN I GO WHERE FLOWERS BLOSSOM, YOSHINO MOUNTAIN.

This Yoshino Mountain seems to be a constant reference in many haikus of many Zen poets. In Japan, it seems, Yoshino Mountain has the most tremendous variety of flowers.

I know one place in the Himalayas called the Valley of the Flowers. No man has ever reached there, it is almost impossible. It is thousands of feet deep. You can only look into that deep valley from thousands of feet above. Even looking seems to be dangerous, because the slope is steep, and the snow has never melted on the mountains surrounding the valley. When one person is looking, another person has to hold him by his waist, it is so dangerous. Just a small breeze and you may be gone, shattered completely, not to be found again.

But I have been to the Valley of the Flowers. You can only see from thousands and thousands of feet above, standing there, tremendous kinds of flowers down in the valley.

You cannot find those flowers anywhere else. I could not manage to figure out what even a single flower was -- just rare, absolutely rare.

Perhaps Yoshino in Japan has flowers of such a rare variety of color, fragrance, that Basho says, THOUGH MY SHANKS ARE THIN, I GO WHERE FLOWERS BLOSSOM, YOSHINO MOUNTAIN.

But this is only symbolic.

What is he saying? "Although my legs are fragile, I will go anywhere in the inner space where flowers blossom. Even if it means climbing Yoshino Mountain, or it may mean diving deep into the Pacific Ocean -- if flowers blossom there, I am going there. I am not concerned with my fragile body because inside, the body does not go; only your consciousness, which has no legs, which is not a material phenomenon."

But if you decide that you will reach to the point at the very center of your being -- the Valley of the Flowers -- you will find tremendous color, psychedelic flowers, fragrance that you have never known before.

Basho says, "Don't stop before it, whatever happens. Risk everything and go to the place where flowers blossom." It is not about the outside world.

Zen is not much interested in the ordinary flowers which fade within hours. Its interest is in the eternal flowers which never fade. You have them deep in the valley of flowers, at the very center of your being.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked one question:

Maneesha, there is great scholarship but no authenticity. People are translating Zen books, people are commenting on Zen books, but there is not a single Zen master in the West who knows the truth. All their commentaries and all their talk about Zen are intellectual.

They are fed up with Christianity and they are in search of something fresh and new, and they have found in Zen fresh insights, but their approach remains Western, the approach of intellect. Their approach remains Socratic, Aristotelian. They are beautiful people, but their Zen is only a mind phenomenon, they have not experienced it. It is not their own truth, they have borrowed it from different sources.

It will take some time. As America goes on declining, once it is no more significant, just like England ... It used to be said that in the British empire, the sun never sets -- and it was true. The British empire was all around the globe, so somewhere or other the sun was always rising. Now the situation is totally different. Even in England the sun never rises!

So it needs the Western ego to be shattered completely, then perhaps they may start looking behind the mind.

I hope that day comes soon.

It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

guiseppe comes downstairs after his wedding night and is greeted by his old friend, Giovanni.

"Hey-a, guiseppe!" shouts Giovanni. "How-a many times-a last-a night?"

"Three-a times!" exclaims guiseppe, doing up his trousers.

"Wow!" shouts Giovanni. "Fantastico!"

The next morning, when guiseppe comes down the stairs, Giovanni is waiting.

"Hey-a, guiseppe!" shouts Giovanni. "How-a many times-a last-a night?"

guiseppe holds up five fingers .... "Five-a times!" he announces proudly.

"Wow!" shouts Giovanni. "Magnifico!"

The following morning, Giovanni is standing at the foot of the stairs when Guiseppe comes down.

"Hey-a, guiseppe!" cries Giovanni. "How-a many times-a last-a night?"

guiseppe holds up eight fingers proudly. "Eight-a times!" he says.

"Eight-a times?" screams Giovanni. "You have to tell-a me, how-a you do it eight-a times!"

"It is-a simple!" says guiseppe, pushing his hips backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, and counting, "One-a, two-a, three-a ...!"

It is Easter Sunday in the White House private chapel, and George Bush has invited the TV preacher Jimmy Bakker for a special sermon. The entire White House staff is forced to attend the service, as Jimmy Bakker gives them all a hellfire and damnation speech about the wages of sin.

When it comes time for the collection plate to be passed around, Jimmy Bakker is amazed to see a one hundred dollar bill lying amongst the nickels and dimes.

"Praise the Lord!" shouts preacher Bakker. "Will the person who put in this one hundred dollar note please stand up and choose three hymns!"

"Goody!" cries Reginald, President Bush's private secretary, jumping to his feet and pointing to three big secret service agents. "I choose him, him and him!"

A new Cadillac pope-mobile is delivered to the door of the Vatican. Cardinal Catsass, Pope the Polack's personal secretary, arranges to take the old Polack for a ride in it.

With Catsass at the wheel, and Pope the Polack mounted behind him, so that he can wave to people, the pope-mobile goes hurtling out of the Vatican gates. They drive all over Rome and then set off into the Italian countryside.

As soon as they are out of town, the pope-mobile's engine suddenly starts spluttering and coughing, and then dies.

Catsass pulls the car to the side of the road, stops and gets out. He lifts up the bonnet and stares at the engine blankly. Then he reaches over and tries to pull out one of the spark- plugs, burning his fingers on the hot engine.

"Goddam son-of-a-bitch Cadillac!" shouts Catsass. "These cars always screw up!"

"Now, my son!" cautions the shocked Polack pope from his perch in the back. "That kind of language is certainly not going to start the car! Perhaps a little prayer would help!"

"A prayer?" cries Catsass. "You don't believe in that mumbo-jumbo, do you?"

"Well, bitch," replies the pope, "with you as the mechanic, we have to try something!"

So the two idiots kneel down by the front bumper, the pope kisses the tire and mumbles a short prayer. Then Catsass jumps behind the steering wheel and turns the key.

The car starts at once.

"Holy shit!" cries Pope the Polack, in shock. "The fucking prayer worked!"

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat) (gibberish) Nivedano ...

(drumbeat) Be silent ...

Close your eyes ... and feel your bodies to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to look inwards.

Gather your whole life energy, your total consciousness, and with an immense urgency, as if this is going to be your last moment on the earth, rush towards the center of your being.

Faster and faster, deeper and deeper ...

The closer you come to your center, a great silence descends over you. Blossoms of peace, blossoms of love, blossoms of serenity and blossoms of blissfulness start growing all around your center of being.

As you reach to the very center, you are no more yourself the way you have known yourself. For the first time you encounter your authentic nature.

In the East, we have called this authentic nature the buddha, the awakened one.

Everybody is born with a birthright to be a buddha. This moment, Gautama the Buddha Auditorium is full of ten thousand buddhas.

You are the most blessed people on the earth in this moment. Centered, a great ecstasy arises from your very sources, a kind of divine drunkenness.

Only one thing has to be remembered, and that is the very quality the buddha is made of.

Buddha used to call it remembering, sammasati. I call it witnessing, to be more correct.

Witness that you are not the body ...

Witness that you are not the mind ...

Witness that, except being a witness, you are nobody else, just a pure witness, a mirror which reflects.

To make the witnessing deeper, Nivedano ...

(drumbeat) Relax ...

Let go, but continue to be a witness.

As your witnessing deepens the silence grows, the serenity grows, the peace becomes so deep, so fathomless.

You are going through a transformation.

You have lived your life horizontally, concerned with the trivia of day-to-day life. In meditation your horizontal line becomes a vertical line. When you are vertical you start moving upwards -- more and more blossoms come on the Yoshino Mountain; and you start also simultaneously growing in depth -- almost as deep as the Pacific Ocean.

Growing upwards and downwards simultaneously is the only miracle I know of, because this miracle makes you part of eternity. You are no longer mortal, immortality is your home. The whole existence is your home. The cosmos, infinite and eternal, is your ultimate home.

To be a buddha is a beginning.

To be a buddha is going beyond the mind. But then the journey starts ... and the journey knows no end. Every step takes you into more majesty, into more splendor, into more truth, into more beauty, into more godliness.

Collect all these experiences before Nivedano calls you back. You have to bring them to the surface, to the circumference of your life. You are not just to experience them, you have to share them too.

Know the arithmetic of the inner world. The more you share, the more you have. The less you share, the less you have.

In your day-to-day life, in your ordinary activities, in your gestures, in your words, in your silences, in your songs, in your dances, share -- share unconditionally your buddha, your awareness, your witnessing, your blissfulness. Share your ecstasy and it will go on growing, growing, growing ... new blossoms, new fragrances.

Meditation opens the door of all the mysteries of existence, of all the secrets of existence.

Meditation is the master key which opens all the locks, and existence becomes an open book for you.

And secondly, remember to persuade the buddha to come with you. It is your nature.

There is no reason why buddha should not come with you. He has been waiting to be persuaded, he has been waiting to be welcomed. He has been waiting for you to be receptive. He will come behind you and he will start expressing in your actions his grace, his truth, his clarity, his awareness, his light, his love.

First he will be behind you. Soon you will find yourself behind him. That day will be the great day of your enlightenment.

Nivedano ...

(drumbeat) Come back ... but come back as a buddha.

Come back with silence, with grace, and sit down for a few moments just to remember where you have been, to what space you have touched, on what golden path you have followed, and look whether the buddha is behind you or not.

He is coming every day, inch by inch, closer to you.

I can see it in your faces, I can see it in your eyes, I can see it in the silence that surrounds you. I can see it in your grace, in your ageless faces.

Time has stopped, mind has stopped, you are just a being of utter silence, purity, innocence, and you are just here and now.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.