Gods in Exile

Question 1:

NOBODY HAS PREPARED THE WAY FOR ME, and neither am I preparing the way for anybody. This has to be understood.

There are four possibilities. One, the oldest and the most used, is what happened in Jesus' case. John the Baptist prepared the way; the disciple preceded the Master. It has its benefits, but it has its own limitations and defects also - bound to be so. When the disciple precedes the Master he will create limitations which belong to him and the Master will have to function within those limitations. It has its benefits because when the Master comes he will not be worried about preparing the ground - the ground will be ready; he can immediately start sowing the seeds - but the ground will be ready according to the disciple. It cannot be according to the Master, so he will have to function under limitations.

That's what created the whole trouble in Jesus' story.

John the Baptist is a different type of man from Jesus, a very fiery man, almost in flames - and always in flames. He uses a language which fits him, but which can never fit Jesus. Jesus is very silent, very peaceful. John the Baptist is not that type of man.

He is a prophet, Jesus is a messiah, and the difference between a prophet and a messiah is great. A prophet is a religious man, deeply religious, but functioning like a politician: using the language of revolution, using a very violent language - arousing the hearts and beings of men, stirring them. A prophet is like an earthquake. A messiah is very soothing, silent like a Himalayan valley - lazy, sleepy. You can rest in a messiah. With a prophet, you will always be on the go.

Because of this, John the Baptist used the terminology of politics: revolution, the kingdom of God. And even that 'kingdom' has to be taken by force. It has to be, in fact. attacked. He was misunderstood because whenever you use the language of the outside world for the inner world, you are bound to be misunderstood.

The politicians became afraid: "About what kingdom is this man talking? about what revolution? What does he mean by saying that the kingdom has to be taken by force?"

John the Baptist is very impatient. He wants immediate change; he cannot wait.

He created the atmosphere in which Jesus had to function. John the Baptist died in imprisonment. he was beheaded by the rulers - he was absolutely misunderstood - but nobody was at fault: he himself was.

But because of him.... And Jesus was to follow him, Jesus was a disciple of his own disciple. He was initiated by John the Baptist because John the Baptist preceded him. He became linked. Then he had to use the same terminology. It was almost certain that he would be misunderstood.

John the Baptist died in prison, beheaded. Jesus died on the cross - killed, murdered. John the Baptist was also talking about the kingdom of God. Of course he was not aggressive, but the very terminology appeared political. He was a very innocent man, nothing to do with politics.

But John the Baptist helped in a way. Jesus could work because all the disciples of John the Baptist were ready to receive him, he was not a stranger. John the Baptist had created a small opening, a small clearance in the wilderness of humanity. When he came he was received; there was a home ready for him - a few people receptive to him. That would not have been possible if he had come alone without a predecessor. But the home was made by John the Baptist and the disciples whom he attracted were attracted by him. That created the trouble.

This is the oldest format: the Master is preceded by a disciple who functions as a predecessor and prepares the ground. Because of its defects and limitations, there has been another, the opposite.

Ramakrishna is succeeded by Vivekanand; he is not preceded by anybody. The Master comes first, then the disciple follows. This has its own benefits because the Master creates the whole climate, the Master creates the whole possibility of growth - how the thing is to go. He gives language, pattern, direction, dimension.

But there are defects because the Master is infinite and when the disciple comes he is very finite. Then the disciple has to choose, because he cannot move in all directions. The Master may be showing all the directions, he may be leading you towards infinity, but when the disciple comes he has to choose, he has to select, and then he forces his own pattern on it.

Ramakrishna was succeeded by Vivekanand. Ramakrishna is one of the greatest flowerings that has ever happened; Vivekanand is the prophet. Ramakrishna is the messiah, but Vivekanand set the whole trend. Vivekanand's own inclinations were extrovert, not introvert. His own inclinations were more towards social reformation, political change. He was more interested in bringing riches to the people, destroying poverty and hunger and starvation. He turned the whole trend around.

The Ramakrishna Mission is not true to Ramakrishna; the Ramakrishna Mission is true to Vivekanand. Now the Ramakrishna Mission functions as a social service. Wherever there is famine, they are there to serve people. Whenever there is an earthquake, they are there to serve people. Whenever there is flood - and there is no lack of these things in India - they are there. They are good servants, but Ramakrishna's inward revolution has completely disappeared into the desert land of Vivekanand.

Ramakrishna functioned more freely than Jesus because there was no pattern for him. He lived more spontaneously than Jesus. There was no confinement anywhere; all the directions were open to him. He could fly just like a bird in the sky, no limitations existed. But then comes the disciple. He organizes it. He organizes, of course, in his own way.

Both ways have their benefits, both have their defects. Then there is a third possibility which has never been used before. Krishnamurti is the first in the world to have used the third possibility. The third possibility is to deny both: the predecessors and the successors both. It is negative.

Krishnamurti's method is VIA NEGATIVA. So first he denied those who prepared the ground for him, That was the only way to get out of the limitations.

He denied the whole Theosophical Movement: Annie Besant, Leadbetter - they were the people who prepared the whole ground and they worked hard for Krishnamurti. They were the John the Baptists for him. They created a vast opportunity in the world for him, but then he looked, when he was ready, and he saw the defects and the limitations: that the same would be the case as happened with Jesus. He simply denied. He denied that they created a ground or that there was any need to create the ground.

While denying them he was aware that he had to deny his messiahship also - because if he said that he is the messiah then he could deny the predecessors, but the successors would follow. Then the same trouble would be there as it had been with Ramakrishna. So he denied: "There is nobody who has preceded me and there is nobody who is going to succeed me." He denied Leadbetter, Annie Besant and the Theosophical Movement, and for his whole life he has been denying that anybody is going to become his heir or successor.

This has its own beauty, but its problems also. You may be free, very free, absolutely free - because there is no limitation on either side, before or after - but your freedom is in negativity. You don't create. Your freedom comes to no fulfillment, it is futile - you don't help. It is as if somebody is so conscious about not falling ill - he continuously works and remains aware not to fall ill - that he forgets that sometimes you have to enjoy the health also. Otherwise you may not fall ill but the very awareness that "one should not fall ill and must remain aware" becomes an illness of a sort.

Krishnamurti is so much alert about it - that no bondage should be created anywhere, no fetters should be created anywhere - that he worked hard, but couldn't help anybody. It was beautiful for himself, but it has not been beneficial for humanity. He is a free man, but his freedom is his alone. That freedom could not become a taste in thousands and thousands of throats; it could not create an urge. He has remained a pinnacle of freedom, but no bridge exists. You can look at him - he is like a beautiful painting or beautiful poetry - but nothing can be done about it, it doesn't change you. He has broken all the bridges. This is the third possibility - never tried before. He is the first to try it.

I have tried the fourth. That has also never been tried. The fourth is that half of my life I have worked myself as John the Baptist, and now half of my life I will function as a Christ. That is the fourth possibility: to prepare the ground and to sow it also, to sow the seeds.

There are problems about it also; it is impossible to find a way which has no problems. It has its own benefits, it has its own defects. The benefit is that I am both, so I am, in a way, totally free. Whatsoever I have done in my first step I have done knowing perfectly well what the second step is going to be. John the Baptist in me was perfectly aware of the Christ who was going to follow, they were in a deep harmony. They are one person; there is no problem about it. So John the Baptist in me could not create any limitations for the Jesus to follow - a total freedom.

And no Vivekanand is going to follow me. I am my own Vivekanand and I am my own John the Baptist, so nobody can put a limitation on me when I am gone.

And I am positive: if Krishnamurti is VIA NEGATIVA, I am VIA POSITIVA. I have accepted both the roles and I have a certain freedom even Krishnamurti cannot have. He has to always deny, and denial in itself becomes a worry, a deep anxiety. I have nothing to deny; I just have to say yes to the total.

But there are problems, and the greatest problem is that I will always be contradictory. Whatsoever John the Baptist has said, the Christ in me has to contradict it. I will always be contradictory.

For many years I was moving around, reaching to every person, whomsoever had any capacity to grow. Nobody ever thought that someday the wanderer in me would simply sit in his closed room and would not even come out of the room - contradictory! For years I was talking in terms of revolution: of course, John the Baptist has to talk that way. Then suddenly I stopped talking about revolution, the society, the welfare of humanity; I forgot all about it. Now only the individual exists.

Contradictory. If you look you can find two currents parallel, and the first current has been continuously contradicted by the other current. For those many years the Acharya, the John the Baptist, was doing one thing. Now the Bhagwan, something totally different, is doing a very contradictory thing.

It will be impossible later on to decide whether this man was one or two. And I suspect that somebody is going to suspect someday that this man was two, because the contradictions are so naked and there is no way to resolve them. This is the trouble with me - but somebody had to try the fourth and I am happy that I tried it. On this earth everything has its own problem, so you cannot escape from the problem. From somewhere or other the problem will enter, so it is only a question of choice - whatsoever fits you.

This fits me perfectly. To be free to contradict is a great phenomenon because then I am not worried at all about what I say. I don't keep any accounts, I need not be worried about what I said yesterday. I can contradict: this is a great freedom.

And if you love me I know that you will find somewhere deep within me that the contradictions are already resolved. But that will happen only to those who trust, that will happen only to those who come closer and closer to me. All the contradiction is on the surface: deep down within me they are already resolved because I am one.

I functioned as John the Baptist; now I will function as Christ. So nobody has preceded me, nobody is going to succeed me. I am a perfect circle.

Question 2:

Joy is not allowed; you are preconditioned against joy. From the very childhood you have been taught that if you are happy then something is wrong - unhappy, everything is good. If you are miserable nobody is worried about it, but if you are too happy, everybody is worried about you. You must have done something wrong.

Whenever a child is happy the parents start looking for the cause: he must have done some mischief or something. Why is he so happy? - the parents are not happy. They have a deep jealousy towards the child because he is happy. They may not be aware of it, but they are jealous. It is easy to tolerate somebody else's misery, but it is almost impossible to tolerate anybody else's happiness.

I was reading an anecdote. A very religious father was bringing up his son as perfectly as possible. One day when they were going to church he gave the boy two coins: one, a one rupee coin; another, a one paise coin. He also gave him the choice that whatsoever he thought was right he could put in the donation plate in the church. He could choose the rupee or the paise.

Of course the father believed and hoped that he would put the rupee in the church plate. He had been brought up in such a way - he could be expected to, relied upon.

The father waited. After church he was very curious to know what happened. He asked the boy, "What did you do?"

The boy admitted that he had donated the one paise coin and kept the rupee for himself.

The father couldn't believe it. He said, "Why? Why did you do this? - we have always been inculcating great principles in you."

The boy said, "You ask why. I will tell you the reason. The priest in church talked right before. In his sermon he said, 'God loveth a cheerful donator.' I could donate the one paise coin cheerfully - not the one rupee!"

God loveth the cheerful giver. I am absolutely in agreement with the boy: what you do is not the question; you are religious if you can do it cheerfully. It may be a one paise coin - it doesn't matter. It is immaterial because the real coin that you are giving is your cheerfulness.

But from the very beginning every child is taught not to be so cheerful. To be cheerful is to be childish. To be cheerful is to be natural, but not civilized; to be cheerful is somehow primitive, not cultured. So you have been brought up not to be cheerful and whatsoever you have ever enjoyed was condemned again and again. If you enjoyed just running and shouting around the house, somebody was bound to be there saying,"Stop that nonsense! I am reading the newspaper!"- as if the newspaper is something very valuable.

A child shouting and running is a more beautiful sight than any newspaper. And the child cannot understand: "Why do I have to stop? Why can't you stop your newspaper reading?" The child cannot understand: "What is wrong in my being happy and running?"

"Stop!" - the whole cheerfulness is suppressed, the child becomes serious. Now he sits in a corner unhappy. The energy needs movement: the child is energy, he delights in energy. He wants to move shout and scream. He is full of energy he wants to overflow, but whatsoever he does is wrong. Either the mother is saying, "Keep quiet," or the father, or the servant, or the brother, or the neighbors.

Everybody seems to be against his flowing energy.

One day it happened: Mulla Nasrudin's wife was very angry. Her small boy was making too much of a nuisance, creating too much nuisance. Finally she was exhausted and she ran after him - she wanted to thrash him well - but he escaped, escaped upstairs, and hid himself under a bed. She tried hard, but she couldn't get him out. And she was a very fat woman, she couldn't get underneath, so she said, "Wait, let your father come."

When Mulla Nasrudin came, she told the whole story. He said, "Don't be worried; leave to me. I will go and put him right."

So he went upstairs, walked very quietly, looked under the bed and he was surprised - surprised the way the boy greeted him. The boy said, "Hello, Dad - is she after you also?!"

Everybody is after him. The overflowing energy is looked at as a nuisance. And that is DELIGHT for the child. He doesn't ask much; he simply asks a little freedom to be happy and to be himself. But that is not allowed.

"It is time to go to sleep!" When he doesn't feel like going to sleep, it is time. He has to force himself. And how can you force sleep - have you ever thought about it? Sleep is nothing voluntary, how can you force it? He turns in his bed - unhappy, miserable - and cannot think how to bring on sleep. But it is time; it has to be brought or it is against the rules.

And then in the morning when he wants to sleep a little longer - then he has to get up. When he wants to eat something, it is not allowed; when he doesn't want to eat something, it is forced. This goes on and on. By and by the child comes to understand one thing: that whatsoever is cheerful for him has something wrong about it. Whatsoever makes him happy is wrong, and whatsoever makes him sad and serious is right and good and accepted.

That's the problem. You ask, "Why do I feel hesitation in enjoying anything? " Because your parents, your society, are still after you.

If you are really with me, drop all that nonsense that has been forced on you.

There is only one religion in the world and that religion is to be happy.

Everything else is immaterial and irrelevant. If you are happy, you are right; if you are unhappy, you are wrong.

Every day it happens, people come to me - the wife comes or the husband comes and the wife says she is very unhappy because the husband is doing something wrong. I always tell such people that if the husband is doing something wrong, let him be unhappy. "Why are you unhappy? The wrong itself will lead him towards unhappiness - why are you worried?"

But the wife says, "But he is not unhappy. He goes to the pub and he enjoys. He is not unhappy at all."

Then I say, "Something is wrong with you, not with him. Unhappiness is the indicator. You change yourself; forget about him. If he is happy, he is right."

I tell you, if you can go happily to a pub, that is better than going unhappily to a temple - because finally one comes to discover that happiness is the temple. So what you do is not the question - -what quality do you bring to it while doing it?

Be happy and you are virtuous; be unhappy and you are committing what religious people have called sin. You must have heard them say that the sinner will suffer some day in the future, in some future life, and the saint will be happy somewhere in the future, in a future life. I say that is absolutely wrong. The saint is happy here and now, and the sinner is unhappy. Life does not wait for so long; it is immediate.

So if you feel yourself unhappy, you have been doing something wrong with yourself. If you cannot enjoy - if some hesitation comes in, if you feel afraid, guilty - it means somewhere by the corner the shadows of your parents are still lurking.

You may be enjoying, or trying to enjoy, ice cream, but deep in the unconscious the shadow of the mother or the father is lurking. "This is wrong. Don't eat too much, this is going to harm you." So you are eating, but the hesitation is there.

The hesitation means that the contradiction is there.

Try to understand your hesitation and drop it. And this is one of the most unbelievable phenomena: that if you drop the hesitation it may come to pass that you stop eating too much ice cream automatically (because eating too much may be part of it). Because they have denied it, they have created a certain attraction in it. Every denial brings attraction. They have said, "Don't eat it," and that has created a hypnotic, a magnetic, attraction to eat it.

If you stop having any hesitations, you drop all the parental voices, all the upbringing that you have been forced to go through. You may suddenly see the ice cream as just an ordinary thing. Sometimes one can enjoy it, but it is not a food. It has no nutritious value - it may even be harmful. But then you understand. If it is harmful you understand it, you don't eat it. And you can always eat it sometimes, sometimes even harmful things are not so harmful.

Once in a while you can enjoy it, but there is no obsession to eat it too much. That obsession is part of the repression.

Drop hesitations. People come to me and they say they want to love, they hesitate; they want to meditate, but they hesitate; they would like to dance, but they hesitate. If this hesitation is there and you go on feeding it, you will miss your whole life. It is time: drop it! And nothing else is to be done: just become aware that this is just the way you have been brought up, that's all.

Consciously it can be dropped; it is not your being. It is just in your brain, it is just an idea which has been forced upon you. It has become a long habit - and a very dangerous habit at that because if you can't enjoy, then what is this life for?

And these people who cannot enjoy anything (love, life, food, a beautiful scene, a sunset, a morning, beautiful clothes, a good bath - small things, ordinary things), if you cannot enjoy this things, and there are people who cannot enjoy anything: they become interested in God. They are the most impossible people; they can never reach to God. God enjoys these trees, otherwise why does He go on creating them? He is not fed up at all, not at all. For millennia He has been working on trees and flowers and birds, and He goes on listening.He goes on replacing: new beings, new earths, new planets. He is really very, very colorful!

Look at life, watch it, and you will see the heart of God - how it is.

People who are very up-tight, unable to enjoy anything, unable to relax, incapable even of enjoying a good sleep, they are the very few people who become interested in God. And they become interested for the wrong reasons.

They think that because life is useless, futile, they have to seek and search God.

Their God is against life remember.

Gurdjieff used to say, :I have searched into every religion, into every church, mosque and temple, and I have found that the God of the religious people is against life." And how can God be against life? If He is against, then there is no reason why life should exist or should be allowed to exist. So if your God is against life, in fact, deep down, you are against the real God. You are following a Godot, not a God.

God is the very fulfillment of life, God is the very fragrance of life, God is the total organic unity of life. God is not some thing that exists like a dead rock, God is not static. God is a dynamic phenomenon. God does not exist, It happens When you are ready, It happens. Don't think that God exists somewhere and you will find a way to reach Him. No, there is nowhere, and there is no God existing somewhere waiting for you.

God is something that happens to you when you are ready. When you are ready, when the sadness has disappeared and you can dance, when the heaviness has disappeared and you can sing, when the heavy weight of conditioning is no more on your heart and you can flow - God happens. God is not a thing that exists; It is something that happens. It is a dynamic, organic unity.

And when God happens, everything happens: the trees, the stars, the rivers. And to me, to be capable of enjoying is the door. Serious people have never been known to have reached Him. Seriousness is the barrier - the wrong attitude.

Anything that makes you serious is irreligious. Don't go to a church that makes you serious.

It happened once:A woman purchased a parrot, but by the time she reached home she was very much puzzled, worried. She had paid a good price for it; the parrot was beautiful. Everything was good, only one thing was very dangerous - once in a while the parrot would say loudly, "I am a very wicked woman." This was something!

The woman lived alone. And she was a very religious woman - otherwise why live alone? She was a very serious woman, and this parrot would say again and again - and even passers-by would hear and listen - and the parrot would say, "I am a very, very wicked woman."

She went to the vicar because he was the only source of her wisdom and knowledge and information. She said, "This is very bad, and I am puzzled about what to do. The parrot is beautiful and everything is good except this."

The vicar said, "Don`t be worried. I have two very religious parrots. Look!" - one was in his cage tolling the bell and another was praying in his cage. Very religious people - "You bring your parrot. Good company always helps. Leave your parrot for a few days here with these religious people, and later on you can take your parrot back."

The woman liked the idea. She agreed brought the parrot, and the vicar introduced the parrot to his parrots. But before he could say anything, the parrot said, "I am a very, very wicked woman."

The vicar was also nonplussed - what to do? In that moment the parrot who was praying stopped praying and said to the other parrot, "You fool! Stop tolling the bell, our prayers are fulfilled." They were praying for a woman! "Stop tolling the bell; the prayer is answered!".

In fact whenever you see somebody praying, suspect something has gone wrong.

They are praying for a woman, praying for money; praying for something, praying for happiness. A really happy person does not pray. Happiness is his prayer, and there cannot be a higher or a greater prayer than just to be happy.

A happy person does not know anything about god, does not know anything about prayer. His happiness is his God, his happiness is his prayer-he is fulfilled.

Be happy and you will be religious: happiness is the goal.

I am a hedonist, and as far as I see it, all those who have known have always been hedonists, whatsoever they say. A Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna - all hedonists. God is the ultimate in hedonism, He is the peakest peak of being happy.

Drop all the conditioning that you carry with you. And don't try to condemn your parents because that won't help. You are a victim of there conditioning, but what could they have done? They where victims of there on conditionings of their parents, so it is a long succession. Nobody is responsible, so don't feel angry that your parents destroyed you. They couldn't help it. If you understand, you will feel pity for them. They were destroyed by their parents, and their parents were destroyed by somebody else, and it has always been going on. It is a succession, a chain.

You simply get out of it. There is no point in condemning anybody and there is no point in being angry - an angry young man and this and that. There is no point. That is again a foolishness. Once you are sad, then you become angry.

That is as bad as sadness. Just look at the whole thing and get out of it. Simply slip out of it without making any noise. That's what I call rebellion.

The revolutionary gets angry. He says the education has to be changed, he says the society has to be changed, he says a new type of parent is needed in the world. Then only will everybody be happy. But who will do this? The doers are always in the same mess, so who will be the help? "Create a new education" - but who will create it? The teachers have to be taught first. And the revolutionaries are just as much a part of this nonsense as the reactionaries, so who will bring the revolution? The hope is futile.

There is only one hope: you can bring light to your being. And it is available immediately, there is nothing to it. Have you ever seen a snake slipping out of his old skin? - it is just like that. You simply slip out of it: forgive and forget.

Don't be angry against your parents; they themselves were victims. Feel pity for them.

Don't be angry against the society, it could not have been otherwise. But one thing is possible: you can slip out right now. Start being happy from this very moment. Everything is available - only a deep attitudinal change is needed: that from now on you will look at happiness as the good and misery as the sin.

Question 3:

When you leave, if you don't leave yourself here, if you take your 'I' with you, then whatsoever has happened will become a memory. Then whatsoever has happened will be left behind. If you want to carry it with you, then you cannot carry yourself within. The choice is open: either leave yourself here, then whatsoever has happened will be carried within you; or take yourself back home, then whatsoever has happened will be left here. The choice is yours.

If you can drop the ego, then whatsoever is happening is real. But if you cannot drop the ego, then it is going to become a memory, and it will create more trouble for you because the memory will become a haunting. You have had a glimpse, and now it is lost. You will be more miserable than ever. You know that it exists, but now you have lost the track. You know it is somewhere: now you cannot simply say that it doesn't exist; that argument won't help. Now you cannot easily become an atheist and say there is no God and there is no meditation and there is no inner core to human beings - you cannot say that.

You have tasted it. Now the taste will surround you, haunt you, will call you.

The choice is yours. You can drop your 'I' with me, and the vision that has happened will become part of your reality. It will be integrated in your organic unity, it will be crystallized. But you cannot have both, you can have only one, so before you leave, please make certain that you are leaving your 'I' with me. Make certain that your surrender is real and total, make certain that you are really surrendered. Then wherever you are, you are close to me.

It is because of your surrender that you are close to me, it is not a question of physical space. Surrendered, you are close to me - you may be on another planet. Not surrendered, you may be just sitting close to me - you are far away.

Question 4:

For every growth the opposite is needed because the opposite creates the tension.

Without the opposite, things relax into death. This is one of the most fundamental things in life.

Love cannot exist without the law; the law is the opposite. The law is the non- spontaneous, the mechanical; love is the spontaneous, the non-mechanical. Love is uncaused; law is within cause and effect. Love is individual; law is social. Can you exist without the society? Without the society you will not be born. You need a mother, a father, you need a family to grow in, you need a society to thrive in.

Without a society you cannot exist.

But remember, if you just become a part of society, you have already moved into non-existence again. Without the society you cannot exist, and you cannot exist just as a member of the society either. Jesus says, "Man cannot live by bread alone." Do you think it means you can live without bread? Man cannot live by bread alone - true, absolutely true - but can man live without bread? No, that too is not possible. Man needs bread. It is necessary, but not enough. It simply gives you a base, but it doesn't give you a jump, a flight. It is a jumping board.

Don't get stuck at that.

Jesus says: "The Sabbath is created for man, not man for the Sabbath." The law is needed because the society is needed. The law is the bread. But if there is only law - if you exist as a member of the society, a law-abiding member of the society, and nothing else exists in you which is beyond law - then you exist in vain; then you exist "just by bread alone". Then you eat well, you sleep well, and nothing else happens.

It is good to eat well, but not enough - something of the unknown is needed.

Something from the invisible is needed to penetrate you; the romance of the unknown is needed. Without it you will be a syllogism of logic but you will not be a poetry. Without it you may be quite right, but just 'quite right' - no romance, no poetry, no dance.

Love is the mysterious, the law is the non-mysterious. The law helps you to be in the world; love gives you the reason to be. The law gives you the cause to be, and love gives you the reason to be. The law gives you the base; love becomes the home, the house.

And remember one thing: that the base can exist without the house, but the house cannot exist without the base. The lower can exist without the higher, the higher cannot exist without the lower. A man can exist with just bread - he will not have anything worth having, he will not have any reason to exist - but he can exist; he can just vegetate. But even a great lover cannot exist without bread:

even Jesus or Buddha cannot exist without bread. They have found the celestial home of love, but they cannot exist without bread.

The lower is, in a way, independent of the higher. The higher is dependent, in a way, on the lower. But this is so. And it seems simple, it is easy. You make a temple.... What we call in India the kalash, the golden cap of the temple, cannot exist without the whole temple there. If you remove the temple, the kalash - the golden cap - will fall down. It cannot exist without the temple. Of course, the temple can exist without the cap; there is no problem about it.

Just think: a man is hungry - can he dance? Dance is impossible. The man is starving, he cannot even think. He cannot imagine what dance means. He may have known it in the past, but he will not even be able to believe that he has known it. It seems impossible, it seems almost nonexistential. It cannot exist in a starved body - how can you think of a dance descending? But think of another man who is well fed and without any dance. There is no trouble - you can vegetate.

The higher is not a must, it is a freedom. If you want, you grow in it; if you don't want, there is nobody forcing you to grow in it. The lower is a need, it is not your choice. It has to be fulfilled.

Law is anti-love. If you are too lawful, you will not be able to love anybody - because the very quality of love is spontaneity. It comes from the blue, it can disappear in the blue. It has no reason, no cause here. It happens like a miracle, it is magical. Why it happens, how it happens, nobody knows. It cannot be manipulated: it is anti-law, it is anti-gravitation, it is anti-science, it is anti-logic.

It is against all logic and against all law.

Love cannot be proved in any lab, and love cannot be proved by any logic. If you try to prove it by logic, you will come to know that there is nothing like love, love is impossible. It cannot exist - but it exists! Even great scientists fall in love.

They cannot prove it in their labs, they cannot argue for it, but they also fall in love. Even an Einstein falls in love.

Love makes everybody humble. Even Einstein - so proud of his logic, argument, science - suddenly falls in love one day: an ordinary woman - Frau Einstein.

Suddenly his whole science disappeared and he started believing in the impossible. Even in his later life he used to shrug his shoulders: "It happens, but if you ask me as a scientist I cannot vouch for it. But it happens - if you ask me as a man."

In his last days he said, "If love exists, then God must also exist. If one impossible is possible, then why not the other?" He died as a deeply humble and religious man.

Somebody asked him, "If you are born again, what would you like to be?"

He said, "Not a scientist again. I would rather be a plumber."

What is he saying? He is saying that he has seen the falsity of all logic and he has seen the futility of all scientific argument.What he is saying that he has seen through and through that cause and effect maybe the base, but they are not the pinnacles. The real temple the real mystery of life, moves through love, prayer, happiness - all impossibles. If you think of them you cannot believe, but if you allow them to happen then a great trust and a great grace arises in you.

Moses is the law. The society cannot exist without Moses, he is a must. The society cannot afford to lose him; the society would be a chaos without a Moses.

He is absolutely needed, he is the very foundation. BUT JESUS IS LOVE. Moses is needed, is necessary, but not enough. If Moses alone rules the world, the world will be not worth living.

Jesus. A breeze from the unknown -nobody knows from where it comes, nobody knows where it goes. A penetration of eternity into time -the entry of the mysterious into the known.

Jesus cannot come without Moses, remember. Moses will be needed. He is the bread, but the bread has nothing of romance in it. The wine -that is the romance, the poetry, the dance, the celebration, the joy, the ecstasy.

Yes, Moses cannot exist without Jesus... Jesus cannot exist without Moses. That's why Jesus says again and again, "I have come to fulfil, not to destroy." Moses was just a foundation. Jesus raises the temple of God in it.

Moses is the absolutely right citizen, the good man. Jesus is not so good.

Sometimes one suspects whether he is good or bad; he confuses. He moves with drunkards, he stays with a prostitute. No, never... you cannot conceive of Moses doing that. Moses is an absolutely right man, but thats where he misses something: the beauty, the freedom. He always moves on the right track, he is a railway line. Jesus is like a river. He changes -sometimes left, sometimes right, sometimes he changes the path completely.

Moses is absolutely believable; Jesus not so. Sometimes one suspects whether this man is right or wrong. That was the problem for the Jews. They had lived on the bread of Moses, they had followed Moses and his Ten Commandments, and now this man comes and says, "I am the fulfillment of all that has preceded me," and, "I have come not to destroy, but to fulfill." But what type of fulfillment is this? He does not look like Moses at all.

He has no condemnation of the bad. He says, "Judge ye not! " Moses is a great judge, and Jesus says, "Judge ye not, so that ye may not be judged." Moses says, "Don't do evil," and Jesus says, "Resist not the evil" - very confusing. He must have created great chaos. Wherever he moved he must have brought confusion and conflict to people's minds, he must have created anxiety. That's why they took revenge and killed him; it is absolutely logical.

Buddha was not killed in India, Mahavir was not killed - sometimes a few stones were thrown or things like that, but they were not killed, crucified. They never confused the mind so much as Jesus. They had something of the Moses in them, and Jesus has nothing of the Moses in him. Mahavir has much of the Moses in him. He has something of the law and something of love, both.

Jesus is pure love. That's why he was crucified. He had to be crucified - such pure love cannot be tolerated, such pure grace is impossible to bear; the very presence is intolerable because it hurts. The very presence of Jesus throws you in confusion, and the only way to protect yourself and defend yourself is to kill this man, destroy this man.

By destroying Jesus the people tried to live with Moses and law alone, and not be bothered by love. The day Jesus was crucified, it was nothing but an indication that the ordinary mind would like to live without love. Love was crucified, not Jesus. He is just symbolic.

There are many complications. Jews have always been puzzled about why this man Jesus influenced the whole world so much and he could not influence the Jews at all. Jews are great scholars, their rabbis are great pundits, and they have been trying to prove that Jesus did not say a single new word, that all that he said is written in Jewish scriptures. Then why has this man become the very axis of humanity? What happened? - it seems unbelievable.

They are right in a way: Jesus has not said a single word that cannot be found in the sayings of old rabbis. No, he has not said a single new word. But that is not where he is unique, he is unique in the way he has said it - not the word, but the way he has asserted it. In the Old Testament you come again and again across the expression: "The Lord hath said...." But that is not characteristic of Jesus.

Whenever he says this, he says, "I say unto you..." - not, "The Lord...." He is the Lord. The Old Testament says: "The Lord says this"; Jesus says, "I say unto you."

The old rabbis stammer, Jesus speaks; the old rabbis have a borrowed glory, Jesus has his own. The old rabbis speak FROM authority; Jesus with authority - and that is a great difference.

It is said that once the enemies of Jesus sent a man to catch hold of him and bring him to the temple. He was teaching near the temple and a crowd had gathered.

The man went there to catch hold of him, to imprison him, but the crowd was big and he had to enter the crowd to reach the man - it took time. While he was penetrating the crowd, he had to hear what this man was saying. Then he stopped, he forgot that for which he had come. Then it became impossible to imprison this man. He came back.

The enemies asked, "Why have you come back? Why have you not caught hold of him?"

He said, "I was going to, but his words fell in my ear. And I tell you, no man has ever spoken like this man! The very quality, the authority, the power that he speaks with, overpowered me. I was hypnotized: it became impossible to catch hold of this man."

Jesus is love. Love has authority of its own, it is not borrowed. The old rabbis and the Old Testament people are like the moon - the borrowed light. Jesus is the sun; he has his own light. Love has its own authority; law never has its own authority. The authority is from Moses, Manu, Marx; the authority is from the scripture, the tradition, the convention. The authority is always of the old, it is never fresh and new.

Love is anti-law. But if you have love, you can be lawful also; there is no problem in it. But then you are more than the law; you have something of love within you.

You live in the society, you have to follow the rules. They are just like: 'keep to the left' or 'keep to the right' - nothing ultimate about them; just rules to keep the traffic in control, otherwise it will be almost impossible to move. Good as far as it goes, but don't think of yourself that because you always keep to the left you have attained something. Of course it is good as far as it goes, but nothing much - what have you attained? The traffic will be convenient, that's all - but what have you attained?

All morality, all law, is good as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Love is needed. Love is a sort of madness: illogical, irrational.

Question 5:

Neither - but the one who is watching both, the one who has asked the question.

You are neither a seven-year-old nor a seventy-year-old. Oldness is irrelevant to you, age does not belong to you. You are eternal - neither the child, nor the young man, nor the old man.

Always fall back to the witness, go deeper and deeper into witnessing. Never allow any other identification to settle: of the child or the adult - no. All identifications are bondages.

Total freedom is not in identification; total freedom is in non-identification with each and every thing. Someday, when all identifications are broken and they fall down - like clothes drop - and you are absolutely nude in your freedom, then you will know who you are.

You are gods in exile. Only by witnessing will you remember who you are. Then all misery disappears, all poverty disappears. You are the very kingdom of God.

Question 6:

It is from Anand Bodhisattva. If not, then, Bodhisattva, how could you be a sannyasin?

I love creeps. They are good people. Everybody is accepted, I make no conditions, because I don't look at how you look. I am not bothered by your appearance. I look at you, and you are gods in exile - maybe sometimes with dirty clothes, sometimes with an unwashed face, but still a god.

Sometimes you look like a creep, but you are not. Because I can see you deep within your reality, I accept you totally. Whatsoever you pretend to be, you cannot deceive me. These are all pretensions. You may be deceived by your own pretension; I am not deceived. I look direct and immediate; I look into you. And I always find the fresh, the eternal, the beautiful: truth and grace - divinity. You are sovereigns....