Be in it; don't be of it

The first question:

Question 1:

Prem Pramod, so at last a ray of light has entered into your darkness - an insight, a glimpse. Now don't lose track of it! It is very difficult to get it and very easy to lose it. In fact, the mind and its ways are so old that soon you start suspecting whether the glimpse was true or you had only imagined it.

And the mind tries to convince you that it was sheer imagination, that you projected it, that it was just an idea. Maybe you became hypnotized by the situation. Maybe you became overwhelmed by so many people in such joy, in such ecstasy. Maybe you were touched by the flood of energy around you. Soon the mind will start creating doubts.

Go on remembering. These insights are rare.

Yes, Pramod, that's exactly what my teaching is: Be in the world, in all its absurdities, in all its nonsense, noise, and yet remain cool, aloof, detached. Be IN it, but don't be OF it.

Let it happen all around you - there is no need to escape from it, there is nowhere to escape. And even if you escape somewhere, that is not going to transform your being; your mind will remain the same. The best way is to use the opportunity of the world.

The world is an opportunity, a great opportunity, a tremendously valuable gift of God.

It is a teaching device. Be in it and yet so far away, so transcendental, that nothing of it reaches to the core of your being. Only your circumference is touched by it, but your center remains aloof.

Be the center of the cyclone: that's exactly my teaching. The world IS a tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing. But it is very easy to get caught into the net, because the fool is not only outside, the fool is also inside. Your mind is part of the tale told by an idiot and your mind would like to find some meaning it it - whereas none exists. The mind cannot remain without finding some meaning; if it cannot find, it invents it. Otherwise it feels empty, it feels something is missing.

There is no meaning in the world; all meaning is in the very center of your being. The world is simply noise, there is no music. Music is in the deepest recesses of your being - and that music has to be heard in all the noise of the world. Then the noise of the world functions as a backdrop, a background; it becomes a context. You can hear the inner music more clearly because of the noise. Then the noise is no longer a disturbance, rather a help.

That's why I don't teach renunciation: I teach rejoicing.

The second question:

Question 2:

Avinash, don't be worried! The blood of a nonsannyasin is not going to disturb Prem Chinmaya. Blood is blood; it is neither sannyasin nor nonsannyasin - and it is not thicker than water.

Yes, there are stories which create worry....

Because of his rare blood type, Gaffney was selected to be the donor for an English king who had been seriously ill.

The first transfusion helped enormously. A second brought the stricken monarch back to consciousness.

The third was in progress when the king jumped up in bed and shouted, "The hell with the King of England!"

But these are only stories - blood cannot do that!

And Prem Chinmaya is faring well: he is going very steadily in his consciousness. The body is weak, but the spirit is not weak. The flesh is weak, but the spirit is very strong.

In fact, his illness has been a great blessing to him. He has learned more from his sickness than from anything else. He has become more and more silent, accepting, unfearing. Even if death comes now he will be able to receive it, welcome it as a guest.

I am tremendously happy with him! When seven, eight years ago he had come to me, he was suffering from the same disease, but his fear was greater than the disease.

The body has to go one day; nobody can live here forever. What excuse one chooses to go is a private affair. One can choose cancer, one can choose tuberculosis, one can choose heart attack; and there are a thousand and one alternatives available. But those are all excuses. The basic thing is that one cannot live here for long; it is not our home.

We have to go in search of the home, and only those who can go silently, joyously, can find it; otherwise, you will immediately find yourself in another womb, back into the world. Unless you learn the lesson, you will be thrown back again and again into the world.

Eight years ago when he had come to me, the thing that was more disturbing was not the illness but his fear of death. All these eight years he has lived with death... it can happen any moment. But slowly slowly, as his meditation has deepened, as his love has deepened, as he has understood more and more that death is part of life - you cannot deny it, and in denying it you will be denying life itself - he has become more accepting. A great suchness has descended upon him, and that is significant - more significant than life, more significant than death.

He will die one day, but now I am not worried about his death. He knows now how to die, he has learned the knack of it. Death will not be just an end but a great beginning for him. He will not be drowned by death; he will ride on it, he will go victorious.

Hence there is no need to worry about him. And any blood will do. Blood is blood; it goes only into the body, it does not affect your soul.

But these ideas have existed for centuries: your food affects your soul, your clothes affect your soul.... These are all nonsense ideas! They affect you only if you are identified - but then anything will affect you. If you are not identified, nothing affects you; you remain untouched. And that's the great experience: to feel untouched amidst all turmoil.

And I am tremendously happy with Prem Chinmaya: he has proved himself. And it is possible that because of his understanding, his life has been lengthened. Even doctors are a little puzzled how he is continuing; by all ordinary rules he should not be here anymore.

Amritam, our doctor, has also asked a question: How does Chinmaya go on pulling himself?

The reason is, he is no longer interested in pulling, that's why he goes on pulling himself. If death comes this moment, he will accept it. Because of this, death has become irrelevant. He has become absolutely free of the anxiety. It is anxiety that kills more; it is deep down anxiety that becomes destructive. Because he is no longer in anguish, he may live a few more years, he may live long.

But whether he lives or not is no longer of any importance. The important thing has happened. If he lives he will live with a cool heart; if he dies he will die with a cool heart. He has learned the lesson.

Rejoice with him! Learn from him - because everybody has to encounter his death sooner or later. And one can never be certain: you may be perfectly healthy, and tomorrow death may take you away. So health is no guarantee.

In fact, it happens more often that a perfectly healthy person dies more quickly than an ill person. Because the healthy person has no way of coping with illness, any illness can prove fatal. But a person who has lived long with illness becomes adjusted to it, he can cope with it; he knows the ways of death. The healthy person knows nothing, so it often happens that the healthy person will die with the first stroke and the unhealthy person may live long. His body has become seasoned, has become more tolerant of diseases.

But remember, that is not the point at all. Whether Chinmaya lives a few years or not has no meaning anymore. If he lives, good; if he goes, he can go with joy in his heart, because his life has not been meaningless, his life has not been futile.

The first flowers have started blossoming.

The third question:

Question 3:

Sargam, why are you worried about God? What wrong has he done to you? Why can't you forgive him and forget him? Why remain so concerned about God? Be concerned more with life, with existence, and you will know God! In its right moment, life itself becomes luminous, existence itself becomes divine. It all depends on your inner clarity.

If you can see clearly, ONLY God is. No proof is needed. If you can't see clearly, then no proof is going to be of any help.

There have been philosophers arguing for and against God for centuries, at least for five thousand years, with no conclusion in sight. They have not been able to come to any conclusion. Five thousand years of constant speculation, thinking, argument, logic, and what is the result? What is the outcome? It has all been an exercise in futility! And you still go on asking about proofs.

Proofs have been supplied, but they can be argued against, they can be disproved.

Faults can be found in them for the simple reason that God is not an object which can be proved by logic. God is your subjectivity which is beyond logic, beyond thinking, beyond mind.

God is not a thing but an experience. And how can you prove the experience? Can you prove the experience of love? Nobody has been able to prove that love exists, nobody can prove that beauty exists. Nobody can prove anything really valuable. It may be truth, it may be love, it may be bliss, it may be beauty; they are all beyond proofs or disproofs. Nobody can disprove either.

And God is the culmination of all the great values, the essential core of beauty, love, truth, bliss. God is the essential core of all these values; these values cannot be proved.

How can you prove the essence of them? He is just a perfume - not even the flower but just the fragrance.

But why does this desire arise? The desire arises because your mind says, "Unless God is proved there is no need to waste time for God or in meditation or in prayer." It is mind's strategy to keep you away from meditation, from prayer.

There is no need for God! If you want to meditate you can meditate without God.

Buddha meditated without God; he had no belief in God. Mahavira meditated and became enlightened without any idea of God. God is not a necessity, God can be disposed of! But when Buddha attained to meditation he became a god. Mahavira became a god himself.

That's how it happens: you meditate and YOU will become a god, you will discover godliness in your own being. And that is the beginning of discovery. Then you start discovering it in others. Then slowly slowly, the whole existence is full of God, overflooded with God.

But ask for the proof first and you will miss the whole journey. Then the mind says, "First prove, then meditate." The mind has played a trick on you, the mind has befooled you. And it looks logical: before you start any inquiry, let it be proved. If God is, then meditation is significant; otherwise why are you meditating? If God is, then prayer is significant; if there is no God, then prayer is futile.

I say to you: whether there is a God or not, prayer is significant. Prayer does not change God - prayer changes you! Prayer has nothing to do with God; it has everything to do with you. The praying person becomes a totally different kind of person. Meditation has nothing to do with God, but meditation transforms you.

These are alchemical ways of transforming your interiority. And when your interiority is changed, is full of light and clarity, you will be able to see.

God can be seen but cannot be proved. Only small things can be proved, only things which are worthless can be proved. Be free of this desire for proof. It is a stupid desire.

Mary and Bob were in their upper berth on the train to Niagara Falls, and she kept repeating, "Bobby, I just can't believe that we are really married!"

From the lower berth bellowed a sleepy voice, "For Chrissake, Bobby, convince her - we wanna get to sleep!"

Yes, of such things you can be convinced, but nothing higher, nothing deeper, nothing really valuable.

You ask me, Sargam, "Can you convince me about the existence of God?"

And what else do you think I am doing here? I am not arguing for God, I am not directly trying to prove the existence of God; but in an indirect way I am creating the right situation, the right milieu, the right context, where God can become available to you. That's what is going on here. I don't talk much about God because there is no need.

I talk about love, about meditation, about awareness, about mindfulness, and I talk about a thousand and one things. They all are significant in the sense that they will create the right atmosphere, the right climate for God to happen.

I am trying to create a buddhafield: a certain space in which you can grow into gods.

My effort is not to give you a belief in God; my effort is to give you an experience of God. And belief is of no value because hidden behind belief there is always doubt. Only experience is of real help, because in experience there is no doubt left.

When YOU know, only then you know. I can silence you through logic, I can make you convinced through logical argumentation, but that conviction will be only intellectual - somebody else may destroy it. If somebody else can argue in a better way against God, you will be at a loss; your whole belief system will collapse. But nobody can argue against your experience. If you have known, then the whole world can say there is no God, but still you know that there is God. And only such existential conviction is of any value.

Beliefs are for fools; the wise ones seek experience. Hence, please don't ask that I should convince you, that I should give proofs for God's existence. That is not my function. I am not here to convert you to a particular ideology. I am here to transform you to a totally new existence, a new way of life, a new way of vision.

God is not there somewhere outside you; hence science is never going to discover God.

God is your inner nature. You will have to dive within. You will have to encounter your own self. You will have to go on seeking and searching in your consciousness. And when you have reached to the center of your consciousness... the revelation!

The fourth question:

Question 4:

Chaitanya Kabir, I would like to give you much more! But the real cannot be given in words. The real can be conveyed only through gestures, through silence, through presence. And sometimes even silence is not adequate enough; even presence, at the ultimate peaks, fails. The ultimate cannot be given in any possible way.

I go on talking to you, but it is not that which I would like to say. That which I would like to say to you cannot be spoken, and that which can be said is not really the thing that I would like to say to you. It is the ancient dilemma, the dilemma of the mystic. He knows, but he cannot say it; and whatsoever he says is not what he knows.

Lao Tzu says: The tao cannot be said, and if you say it, it is no more tao. Read instead of tao, "dhamma," and it becomes the statement of Buddha. Read instead of tao, "truth," and it becomes a statement of Socrates. The truth cannot be said - it is so vast! - but efforts have to be made. In those very efforts, a few people who are vulnerable, open, intelligent, may be able to have a little glimpse - a faraway glimpse, of course - but that glimpse will become a seed in them and will start growing.

And what I have to say to you is inexhaustible, hence I can go on speaking. For these five years I have been speaking nonstop, and yet I have not said anything - not even a single word has been said! Hence I can go on speaking, because it can never be said.

One can ask, "Then why speak at all?" There is a reason to it: I have caught so many of you through speaking! If I was just sitting silently here, yes, a few people would have been here, but very few, because silence is a difficult phenomenon, the most difficult to understand. It needs tremendous intelligence; not only intelligence, it needs a certain silence in you too. Then only, two silences can commune. And the world does not teach you to be silent; it teaches you words, language.

I have to use words and language so that you become caught in the net. Once you are caught and cannot escape, then you will have to listen to my silence too. And once you have understood my words, you will start feeling the silence that surrounds those words. Those words are born out of silence; they carry something of silence in them, some fragrance around them.

But what I have been saying to you is only the most rudimentary; it is for the beginners.

As you grow in understanding, as your silence deepens, my contact with you will be more and more of silence. Even while I am speaking, you will listen to the intervals between the words and you will read between the lines. You will not be so much concerned with the words, but with the wordless. You will be more concerned with the origin of it all.

Two hippies were crossing the Atlantic by steamship. They were out on deck, looking at the ocean, and one said, "Man, look at all that water out there!"

"Yeah, man," the second, farther-out cat replied. "And just think, like that is only the top of it."

Only the superficial, the surface, can be talked about; the depths remain hidden. But the surface can become an invitation.

Chaitanya Kabir, my words are only invitations - invitations towards my being, invitations towards my presence. Hence, those who come here and remain nonsannyasins are bound to go empty-handed. They will accumulate a few words, they will become a little more knowledgeable; philosophically they will become a little enriched, but their being will remain the same. They will know more but they will not be more. Unless you become committed, unless you become involved, unless you risk all that you have, you will remain concerned only with the words.

The deeper your commitment, the greater is the possibility of moving towards the depths, because to move towards the depths is possible only when you are ready to die - die as an ego, die as a person.

And that's exactly what transpires between the master and the disciple: the master is no more an ego; the disciple also slowly slowly becomes a non-ego, a nonentity, a nobody... and then they merge and meet, then they melt into each other.

I have chosen a flag for the new commune. The flag is of two colors: white and orange.

The white represents the master, the orange represents the disciple. And the flag has a full moon on it as a symbol. The full moon represents enlightenment. Enlightenment is light, but not like the sun; it is not hot, it is cool - it is like the moon.

Enlightenment is not masculine but feminine, because enlightenment is a gift from God.

You cannot be aggressive about it, you have to be just receptive, available, open, like a womb; hence the moon. And the moon is half red and half white; that represents the meeting and merger of the master and the disciple. The master is in the disciple, hence the moon is half red; and the disciple is in the master.

The master and disciple are not two. When they become one, when it is no longer a dialogue, when there is no question of I and thou, when the I and thou disappear into one unity, then silence is understood, then presence is understood. And then inexhaustible sources open up for you. Then you are moving into the ocean, the river is falling into the ocean.

These words are only invitations. Come along with me! These words are just to prepare you so that you can take a jump into the ocean. It needs guts, it needs daring, because jumping into the ocean means disappearing as you have known yourself up to now, losing your old identity. It is a loss in the beginning - but not really, because the river loses itself as a river but becomes the ocean. It is a gain.

The disciple losing himself in the master becomes a master; he attains to his true identity. And the master is only a door: from the master he moves into God himself.

That's why in the East, the master is conceived of as a god. That is very difficult for non- Easterners to understand, why the master is conceived of as a god... because he is the door into the divine.

Chaitanya Kabir, I can understand your wonder. You say, "Ah rarest one, how is it that you give so much?"

But from my side I am not giving you so much, for two reasons. One is that you have to be prepared before you can be given. You can be given only as much as you can accept, digest. You can be given only that much which can become your blood, bones and marrow; more than that will cause indigestion, which will not be helpful to you but will be harmful.

And I would like to give you much more, but in the very nature of things it cannot be given. I am utterly helpless. I can shout, I can go on calling to you, "Come closer!"...

because if you come closer, slowly slowly, my energy field will start vibrating with YOUR energy field. And when my heart and your heart are pulsating with the same beat, in the same rhythm, then the real communion has started.

But it is happening, slowly slowly. A few of you are coming closer, dropping your egos.

A few of you are becoming more and more silent. A few of you are daring the ultimate, are getting ready to take a jump into the ocean from where no return is possible. Things are happening, but they take time.

And such an energy field has not existed for centuries; so many things have to be worked out from ABC. Such an energy field existed while Buddha was here. Such an energy field existed with Bodhidharma in China. Such an energy field existed with Zarathustra in Iran. Such an energy field existed with Jesus in Jerusalem. But for centuries this phenomenon has disappeared from the world, and man has become too much worldly, too much interested in trivia, in the superficial, in the meaningless. Even if he goes to God, he goes for meaningless things. He does not go for inner transformation, he does not go to die and to be reborn.

You are here to die and to be reborn. Much is happening... much more is going to happen. As you become more and more ready, I will be showering more and more.

And it is inexhaustible because it is not mine, it has nothing to do with me. I am just a vehicle, a hollow bamboo. I am simply available to existence: whatsoever song it wants to sing through me, I am ready to sing it. I am simply a medium.

Use this opportunity as much as you can, because such doors open only once in a while and it is very easy to miss them. For stupid things one can miss them, and you can rationalize your stupidity easily.

Beware, be watchful....

The fifth question:

Question 5:

Prabhudasi, there is a difference between the male mind and the female mind; their functioning is different. They are polar opposites - never forget that. Spiritually they are exactly the same, but physiologically they are poles apart; they function in different ways.

For example, man is more physical than woman, man is more extrovert than woman.

The woman is more psychological and more introvert. That's why there are so many magazines like PLAYBOY with nude women on their covers and pictures of nude women inside - and millions of copies are sold. So much pornography exists all over the world, but it is all a male idea. The woman is not as much interested in the nude man as man is interested in the nude woman.

When a man and a woman are in deep, loving embrace, the woman immediately closes her eyes. Kiss a woman, and she closes her eyes. But the man watches himself kissing the woman, watches the woman kissed, watches her reactions, watches continuously whether she is getting an orgasm or not. He remains more or less an outsider, a spectator. He is more interested in watching than in BEING in it.

The woman simply closes her eyes. She is less concerned with the man and what is happening to him; she is more concerned with her inner being, what is happening there.

Hence, women are not interested in pornography; their real interest is in their inner processes. These differences are so great that they make for different life-styles.

Prabhudasi, you are right: modern research has certainly found a very strange-looking fact. But it is not really strange. Men are happier being married than not because when they are not married they simply feel lonely. When they are married, even if the marriage is miserable, it is better than to be lonely; at least there is something to keep you occupied. Misery also keeps you occupied and man always wants to remain occupied - something on the outside so that he need not go in, so he can keep his eyes open.

The woman is not so interested in the outside, so when a woman is unmarried she feels more alone than lonely. And she can enjoy her aloneness better than a man because she is more inner-directed - she is more selfish, in a way. I am using the word with a very positive meaning: she is selfish, she is self-centered. The man is other-centered; he is constantly thinking of others.

The woman is thinking more about herself. At the most, she remains interested in the neighborhood - who is fooling around with whom. She is not much concerned about Vietnam or Iran. She simply feels a little puzzled about why men are so much interested in Vietnam. What have you to do with Vietnam? It is so far away, why be bothered about it?

I have not come across a single woman who has asked me about proofs for God. It is so far away! No woman has asked me whether heaven really exists, is hell a reality? She is not concerned about these things. She is more concerned with things that are close to her; she is more concerned with her clothes than with God.

And man thinks all these feminine interests as stupid: when there are such great subjects, the woman is concerned about her clothes! She will not discuss communism and Karl Marx, Mao and Mahatma Gandhi. She, at the most, can listen to all these things out of politeness. Her interest is about where you got your sari, the texture of your clothes, and who is looking beautiful. She is concerned with that which is close; her concern is for herself.

Hence, she can remain alone in a more healthy way than man; he feels very lonely. If he can't get his morning newspaper he starts freaking out! He has to know what is happening in the whole world. He can't be alone. Even in his aloneness he will create some imaginary beings - God, angels - and imaginary problems: How many angels can stand on the point of a needle? And he will be really into the problem; he will waste his whole life counting the angels, and he will argue to no end! The woman simply laughs. The woman deep down knows boys are just boys - let them talk nonsense!

They call it philosophy, theology - they are very skillful in giving great names to stupid things.

That's why man will commit suicide if he is lonely. Marriage is a must for him; he needs a woman for many things. First, she gives him a grounding - the woman is very earthly, earth-bound. In all the mythologies of the world she has been represented by the earth. The woman gives him roots into the earth; otherwise, without a woman, he is just without earth, without roots; hanging in the air. The woman gives him a nest, the woman becomes a home for him. Without the woman he is homeless, a vagabond, driftwood.

Still, there is going to be conflict, there is going to be misery, there is going to be constant nagging... it is inevitable because they are such polar opposites; their interests never meet. Hence the woman has to nag, otherwise the man will never fulfill HER desires - and the man has to concede. Slowly slowly, if the man is intelligent enough, he becomes henpecked.

Only very stupid and stubborn people never become henpecked. A little intelligence and the man understands it: that it is better to listen to whatsoever she says and follow it. Otherwise twenty-four hours a day she will be after you. She will not leave you any rest. It is better to do whatsoever she is saying and be finished with it, so you can read your newspaper!

All that nagging and all that misery can be tolerated because the woman fulfills a certain very deep need: she makes you earth-bound and she takes care of your body.

She is not much concerned about your soul - that she leaves for you to think about - but she nourishes your body. She nourishes, she cares, she loves; she makes you feel loved, needed - she gives you a deep contentment. Without her, you simply don't know who you are. Without her you are always a lost child. She mothers you.

Hence it happens that married men are happier than unmarried men. It should not be so, because the unmarried man has no problems. The married man has problems, so logically it seems very strange that the married person should be happier than the unmarried. But life does not follow logic; life has its own strange ways. The unmarried man is without roots, without nourishment, without warmth. He is cold, living in a cold world; he goes on shrinking and dying. The woman gives warmth, gives life, makes him feel at home, helps him to remain together. Without the woman he starts falling apart.

But the woman can be more happy alone than married, because she can make herself rooted without the man; the man is not such a great need. She can be more independent than the man - she IS more independent.

Just because the woman is more independent, down the ages man has tried to make her dependent in other ways - economically, socially. Naturally, she is more independent and that hurts the man and his ego, so he has tried to make her dependent in some way; artificial dependence has been created for her. Economically she has been paralyzed, she has to depend on man. This is a consolation for man: if he depends on her, she also depends on him. It is a compensation and a consolation.

Politically, socially, she has been thrown out of the society; she has been forced to remain in the home so that man can feel that "I am not the only one dependent, she is also dependent on me." This is a psychological strategy of the ego, of the male ego.

Otherwise, if the woman is given total freedom - economic, social, political - man will look really poor compared to her.

In matriarchal societies, man IS poor. There are a few tribes still existing on the earth which are matriarchal, where woman rules; the women are stronger, more confident of themselves, and men are weaklings.

Certainly the woman is stronger than man in many ways. She lives longer than man, five years longer than man. If man's average lifespan is seventy, then woman's will be seventy-five. She lives five years longer than man - why? She must have more resistance. And after giving birth to ten, twelve children.... Just think of a man giving birth to ten, twelve children - he will be finished long before! Just carry one child in your womb for nine months and you will commit suicide! Or if that is difficult, just try to bring up a child - and either you will kill the child or you will commit suicide.

The woman has great resistance, great tolerance of things. The woman is more balanced; physiologically, chemically, she is more balanced. That's why she looks more beautiful - her beauty has roots in her physiological balance.

It is like this: if people are created from two cells, one from the mother and one from the father - each cell consisting of twenty-four smaller parts - then man has two cells, one consisting of the full twenty-four while the other contains less. And the woman has two cells, both consisting of the full twenty-four, equally. The woman is more balanced.

Man has an inner imbalance, hence goes berserk more easily, goes mad very easily. Any woman can drive any man mad, it is such a simple phenomenon! Women are ill less than men; men are ill more, they suffer more illnesses. One hundred fifteen boys are born for each hundred girls, and by the time they reach the age of marriage, fifteen boys have disappeared. By the marrying age there are one hundred girls to one hundred boys. Nature also gives birth to fifteen more boys knowing perfectly well that fifteen are going to die sooner or later. So by the time the boys and girls come to the marriageable age, the proportion will be the same.

Unmarried women are more at ease with themselves. If politically and economically they were not prevented, they would like, they would love to remain unmarried.

Maybe that is one of the reasons why man has made them so helpless politically, socially and economically, so that they HAVE to decide for marriage; otherwise many women would like to remain unmarried. Even if they would like to become mothers they would like to become mothers without marriage. Yes, there is a great need to be a mother in a woman, but there is no great need to be a wife.

Men's needs are more physiological; women's needs are more psychological. Hence the woman always feels as if she is exploited in marriage. And her feeling is true, because man's interest is sexual and the woman's interest is far more total; it is not just sexual.

Sex may be a part in that totality. But man's interest is basically sexual; everything else is just decorative, it is not essential. He is continuously interested in sex.... The simple reason is that their sexualities are very different.

Man has a local sexuality; his sex is confined to the genital organs, it is not spread all over his body. The woman is totally sexual, her whole body is sexual; it is not genital.

Hence a woman needs longer foreplay before she can go really into lovemaking.

And the man is always in a hurry; his love is nothing but a hit-and-run affair! The woman is not even warmed up, and the man is getting dressed and going away! The man is finished. His sexuality is genital. The woman is more total; her whole body has a deep sexuality in it. Unless her whole body becomes involved she can't have orgasmic experience. And if she can't have orgasmic experiences she becomes disinterested in sex. So wives are disinterested in sex. Man's whole interest is in sex.

The young executive greeted his attractive secretary warmly as he entered the office.

"Good morning, Marge," he said, tossing his briefcase on his desk. "I had a dream about you last night."

Flattered, but wishing to appear aloof, she casually inquired, "Ah, did you?"

"No," her boss replied. "I woke up too soon."

Their understanding is different. The woman always feels cheated, used, as if she is a machine. She feels used as a means; it is humiliating. Hence marriage is very humiliating to the woman. It seems only a permanent kind of prostitution, nothing else.

She feels as if she has been sold forever. And in the bargain what does she get? A repetitive life, with no creativity, with no joy, with no exploration; a slavery, a constant slavery and the constant humiliation of being used as a means.

Of course, if more married women commit suicide that is natural; more married women go mad, that is natural.

Lester was continuously nervous and tense, so he went to see his doctor. He was greeted by the lovely, red-headed nurse, and he told her his problem.

She said, "That's easy to fix." And she took him into a little room, relieved his tension and said, "That will be ten dollars, please."

A few weeks later he was nervous and tense again, went back to the doctor, and the doctor examined him and gave him a prescription for tranquilizers and said, "That will be five dollars."

"If it's all the same to you, Doc, I would just as soon have the ten-dollar treatment."

For men, sex is not a spiritual phenomenon but only a physiological release. For women it is a spiritual phenomenon. Hence the woman always feels offended; unless love happens as part of a great spiritual experience she is unable to cooperate in it. Yes, she can be part of it in a cold way. It is because of this situation that millions of women have completely forgotten what orgasm means; they have become frozen. It is due to man's nonunderstanding about the difference.

Each man and each woman needs a great education about it - that they are different; their physiologies are different, their psychologies are different. And they have to understand each other's psychology, each other's physiology. They have to be taught.

Each university should help the students to understand each other's biology, spirituality. But nothing is being taught.

Sex is taboo: don't talk about it. People act as if we are born with all the knowledge needed. That is sheer nonsense! You may be able to produce children, that's possible, but that is not enough.

Sex has a far deeper significance. It is not only for reproduction; it has a multidimensional quality to it. It is also fun, it is play, it is prayer, it is meditation, it is religion, it is spirituality. Sex has the whole spectrum; it is the whole rainbow, all the colors from the lowest to the highest.

A great education is needed so that man can understand the woman and can help her to move towards orgasmic peaks, and the woman can understand the man and can help him.

Marriage right now is based on ignorance, and it has been so for centuries. All knowledge about sex has been repressed. It has been discovered again and again, but it has been repressed again and again by the moralists, by the puritans, by the priests, by the politicians, because they don't want you to become orgasmically blissful.

There is a danger for the politicians and the priests: if people are orgasmically blissful they won't go to the churches and to the temples because they will know a far higher and deeper form of prayer in their own lives. And if people are orgasmically blissful they won't follow stupid leaders into war. They will love life so deeply, they will not be so ready to be killed or to kill. Their respect for life will be so tremendous, their joy of life will be such, that they will feel grateful to God. They will not be in such a hurry to throw away life at any stupid excuse: Mohammedans fighting Hindus, Hindus fighting Mohammedans, killing each other.

The politicians and the priests both are agreed upon one thing: don't allow people to have orgasmic joy; otherwise they will no longer be slaves. It will become impossible to manipulate them; it will become impossible to reduce them to sub-human, mechanical persons. They will have a spirituality of their own and they will have such a rich life, they will not be ready to lose it so easily.

These priests and politicians have created such a repressive society and such a repressed man that the whole humanity is ill and abnormal.

Charlie entered the airline ticket office, and the girl behind the counter was as magnificently endowed with feminine equipment as any girl he could ever remember seeing. She was wearing a low-cut dress and bending low over the notations she was making. He stared at her.

She looked up and said, "What can I do for you, sir?"

Charlie heard his own breath hissing in his ears like steam, but tried to master the situation. He did, after all, need two tickets to Pittsburgh.

He finally spoke. "Oh, give me two pickets to...."

The whole humanity is boiling within. People are so afraid, they are just somehow managing to keep their faces together. Charlie's statement: "Give me two pickets to..." is not really complete. The complete sentence will be: "Give me two pickets to Tittsburgh."

That is left out because the joke has been compiled by a man who must have been afraid himself. It is not a complete joke. "Tickets to Pittsburgh" becomes "pickets to Tittsburgh" - and this happens to almost everybody.

Such an abnormal situation is created by centuries of repression. People don't talk about sex clearly - they don't talk about sex at all. Even if they talk, they talk in roundabout ways, they talk diplomatically.

Mr. Ginsburg was walking home from the shop when he ran into Mrs. Cohen who said, "Mr. Ginsburg, your business is open."

He said, "You must be wrong. I just closed it."

Then he ran into Mrs. Goldberg who also said, "Mr. Ginsburg, your business is open."

Again he denied it.

When he got home his wife told him his fly was open and then he understood. So he called Mrs. Cohen on the telephone and said, "Mrs. Cohen, when you told me my business was open, tell me, was the salesman in or out?"

Enough for today.

The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 7