The sound of truth: "Aha!"

Question 1:

No. I must have answered more than twelve thousand questions, but they are not all the questions that are being asked.

There are questions which are merely of the head. Your head is already full of too much garbage.

I don't want to be unkind to you, I don't want to burden your mind more. I want to unburden it, so I choose the question which helps your mind to unburden itself.

There are questions which are concerned with your conditionings, beliefs. I am against all beliefs as such. I cannot support any belief, for the simple reason that it is a belief. I want my people not to believe, but to know. And the way to know means you have to drop your beliefs.

There are questions which are only out of curiosity. They don't deserve to be answered. This is a mystery school; people are deeply interested in a quest - they are not just curious. I cannot waste my people's time for a single person's curiosity. Curiosity is something like an itching in the head.

You can scratch your head yourself, I need not bother about it.

In fact, you yourself are not sincere. You have asked just by the way. You are not thirsty; your question is not out of a longing. It does not show any appetite, it shows only childishness - the way children ask questions, about each and every thing. If you can just be patient, within a minute they forget all about it, they start asking other questions.

I have seen people who ask out of curiosity, and if you answer them, by the time you answer them there are other curiosities coming in their mind. They don't listen even to your answer. You are not even finished with the answer, and a totally new question, which has no relevance to the first, is put before you - as if they are not in search of anything. But just seeing things, the monkey mind becomes curious.

My people here are not to waste time. Time is very precious for those who are on the quest; each moment may prove of tremendous importance.

There are questions which are not even questions; they are, on the contrary, answers. Now, I don't know how to answer an answer. Those people are full of knowledge. They know the answer already; all that they want is support from me for their answer.

If you know, you know. No support is needed. If you do not know, then accept it; then you can be helped. But I cannot play this stupid game in which you go on bragging that you know, and still you are asking. What is the point of asking, if you know?

I never asked anybody any question after I arrived at my very being. Since then I only have answers; all questions have disappeared. I have not even asked for anybody's support. Authentic experience needs no evidence, no support, no argument, no witnesses. It is borrowed knowledge - from the scriptures, from the priests - that you are carrying, thinking that you know. You want me to support it so that it becomes more certain.

But remember one thing: knowing is absolutely certain, there is no greater certainty than that. And not knowing - you may gather the whole world's affidavit for it, but it will still remain not knowing. It will not help that the whole world supports it, you will know that you are ignorant.

There are questions which are so stupid that I don't want to expose the stupidity of somebody who is present here. I respect you, I have immense love for you - and when I see a stupid question, I simply feel it is better not to talk about it, because I will have to hammer your stupidity.

Just a few days ago, one man asked, "Next time you ask the sannyasins to raise their hands for something to show their trust, their love, I am going to stand against you."

Now, what the hell are you doing here? If this is your mind, that you want to stand against me - not even knowing about what, but you are certain that you will be against it, and you will stand against it - then certainly you are in a wrong place. You should not be here.

Should I answer such questions? Are they questions? They don't show even intelligence. In the first place, what will be the situation in the future in which I will ask your support? He is not concerned about the subject on which the support will be asked; he is more interested in standing against me.

So why don't you stand, without me asking? Just stand up! Where is that idiot? You don't need any subject, you simply want to stand against me. So just stand up, and remain standing the whole discourse, to your heart's content.

But I wonder what you are doing here if you are so much against me. Don't you know the county road? Just pack your luggage and be on the county road; it goes directly to hell. I don't want such people to be here, part of the commune. I am trying to create a synchronicity, a great energy of love that surrounds the whole commune. But this type of person will be a hindrance. And he has no courage either!

So many questions of this kind - do you want me to answer them? They just go where they belong - down the drain.

There are questions which are esoteric. Esoteric means bullshit. Now, I am not interested in bulls, and I don't answer that kind of question. I am a very realistic person; I don't want to give you any illusions, hallucinations of spirituality. But there are people who cannot live without hallucinations.

They need some illusions; reality is difficult for them.

Illusions create a kind of buffer between them and the real. The reality will shatter their egos; these buffers save their egos, their ideologies, theologies. And it feels great that you are in contact with mediums who are directly connected to God. Soon you will become a medium; it is just a question of apprenticeship.

So people ask me about mediums - whether they are true or not. There is no God, so how can mediums be true? They are just exploiting gullible people. But you are fifty percent responsible for the whole thing. If they are exploiting, you are willing to be exploited. In fact, if nobody is ready to exploit you, you start feeling uneasy. You need some parasites.

So there are mediums, there are people who have direct relationship with spirits. There are people in whom spirits descend, and they answer your questions. And all this goes on around the earth, and this has nothing to do with spirituality. Spirituality is a very real science. These people are preventing many from reaching to the real, because they are giving substitutes for the real.

I have heard of a small boy who was going with his grandmother to a spiritual session where a few old women used to sit in darkness, and then the spirit would descend on one of them. The boy was very interested, because he wanted his grandfather's spirit to descend. So he asked beforehand, "Please let there be no misunderstanding: everybody should ask for my grandfather who has been dead for two years; ask that his spirit should descend."

Lights were put off. Those old ladies were sitting in silence.... One old lady, who was the leader of the group, started swaying, and the grandmother of the child nudged the child and said, "Your grandfather has come - you can ask any question."

He asked, "Grandpa, are you there?" and a voice came, "Yes."

The boy laughed, he said, "So, after all, you are not dead yet? And we all have been thinking that you have been dead for two years. But I will not be convinced unless you tell me something which only I and you know."

Now, this was a difficult question for the old lady. She had no idea what this boy and his grandfather knew and nobody else knew. Suddenly, the swaying stopped, and she said, "The spirit has gone."

The boy said, "But this is strange. We have so many secrets between us - he loved me so much, I loved him so much. He could have mentioned anything that only I and he knew. I cannot believe that this was my grandfather. You can deceive my grandmother but you cannot deceive me; just swaying does not mean anything."

Even a small child, if he is intelligent, can see this is all a hocus-pocus game that goes on in the names of mediums, messengers. There are so many questions concerning such esoteric matters....

Spirituality has nothing to do with any esotericism. Spirituality is very pragmatic, very realistic - and that is my whole effort here.

All the religions have created a split between the real and the spiritual - this world and that world, body and soul, matter and spirit. Nobody has yet recognized that this division in existence is the basis of all schizophrenia in humanity.

Every person is split, he is not one. To be split is to be sick, and to be one and whole is to be healthy and holy. I am against the split. I want you to know that your body is your visible spirit, and your spirit is your invisible body. The universe that you can see is the visible body of existence, and the universe that you can only feel - the beauty of a flower, the blissfulness of silence, the ecstasy of one's own being - that is the invisible part of the universe. They are one, there is no dividing line anywhere. Certainly they are not opposed to each other.

It is so simple to understand that your body and your soul are not opposed to each other; otherwise, how can they live together? How can they live in such harmony?

But religions had to make the split; their whole business was dependent on the split: God is separate from existence, the soul is separate from the body. That opens the doors to all kinds of exploitation in the name of religion, because then they can say, "Your body is dragging you towards hell, and unless you fight with your body, its nature, its instincts, its hunger, its sensuality, its sexuality - everything that makes up your body - unless you conquer it, you will not enter into the kingdom of God. Only pure souls who have transcended their bodies enter there."

Naturally, millions of people have been torturing their bodies to attain spirituality. All that they attain is stupidity. The more they torture their body, the more unintelligent they become, because the body gives everything needed for their intelligence. And if they start fighting the body, those resources stop flowing towards their intelligence.

I have never come across a single so-called saint in my life - and I have seen thousands - who had any gleam of intelligence in his eyes, who had any aura of beauty around him; who had any magnetism that made you feel pulled towards him. On the contrary: in India, there are Jaina saints....

Because they are against the body, perhaps their religion is the most antilife religion. They don't take a bath, they don't wash their teeth, because that is all serving the devil, decorating the devil.

They stink, because they have not taken a bath for years. Their perspiration has gathered on their body in layers - dust and perspiration. And they live naked, so the whole body is available to the dust. They don't wash their mouth. You cannot talk to them sitting closely, because every word that they speak comes as a shock: their breath is unbearable.

But they are respected immensely because they have been torturing their body. They have lost the balance of their body completely. Because they eat only one time a day, naturally they eat too much - to make up for the two other times. So their bellies become too big, and the rest of the body becomes thin. Rather than becoming beautiful, they become ugly. And this is thought to be a great attainment.

A really spiritual person will live life as an art, will create a deep harmony between the body and the consciousness. And this is the greatest art there is. His life will be a joy to see. And he will be fragrant, for the sheer reason that there is no split in his being. The very unity makes him organic; the wound of division is healed.

So people who go on asking questions about how to control the body, how to control sex, how to control this, how to control that, don't understand me at all.

I am not for control, I am all for understanding. Understanding brings its own balance; it is not control, you live in sheer balance. Nobody is controlling - neither is the body controlling the soul, nor is the soul controlling the body. They have merged, and a new entity, the organic unity, has arisen in you.

I have called that unity Zorba the Buddha, for the simple reason that Zorba lived according to the body, forgetting the spiritual needs; Buddha lived according to the spiritual needs, forgetting the body. Both are incomplete - they have to be bridged. In each man, in each woman, they have to be bridged. There has not to be any conflict, but a deep musical unity.

And when I say this, I say it from my own experience. There is no question of any conflict. I have lived in a tremendous togetherness, and I have not found any problem. On the contrary, I have found every solution.

The people who are splitting you are your enemies. But they have to do it, because without splitting you, they cannot make you miserable. And unless you are miserable you cannot become customers of churches, of synagogues, of temples, of mosques.

If you are blissful on your own, why should you go to a church? Are you mad? If you are really in a dance within yourself, why should you bother about any priest, any mediator? You are directly connected with existence. No agent, no mediator is needed at all.

For religions to exist, man has to live in misery, has to be in continuous anguish, suffering, guilt.

These are the necessities that make him a Christian, a Mohammedan, a Hindu; otherwise, you will be simply a human being who is utterly fulfilled. You will not become part of any organized ideology.

You will know your own truth, you will not live on borrowed knowledge.

So forgive me, I do not answer all the questions. I answer only questions which are going to help you in your individual growth towards freedom and ultimate truth. Everything else is meaningless.

You have to be careful in asking, because I have unnecessarily to go through your questions. That's why sometimes I am late, because after my bath I just go through the questions. Coming here in the car, I go through the questions.

Don't ask foolish things; they simply make me come late, and I hate to come late! To make so many people wait, hurts me. I am not a politician.

It is a ground rule for politicians never to arrive in time, because if you arrive in time that means you are not very much engaged, occupied, overburdened. So even if the politician has nothing to do, he will make people wait. That proves his importance.

I am not a politician. I don't have to prove my importance to anybody. I am not important at all. I enjoy being just my own simple self.

So please, don't bother me by asking questions which have no relevance to me, to this gathering of mystics. Be careful.

Question 2:

The religions have made much fuss about repentance. Jesus goes on repeating again and again to his people, "Repent, repent, because the kingdom of God is close! Repent, because the day of judgment is coming close!"

First, religions make you feel guilty; otherwise, repentance would not have any relevance. You looked at a beautiful woman passing by, and there was a longing in you, your heart started beating faster. But you are married and the father of half a dozen children; moreover, you are a Christian.

It does not suit you. You start feeling guilty; you have not done anything, but you start feeling guilty.

Now, how to get rid of this guilt? You are feeling guilty towards your wife, so you will have to bring ice cream - that is repentance. And the wife also understands it, that you must have done something wrong; otherwise, why ice cream? You have to bring toys to the children - that is repentance.

But this is not enough. You have to go to the priest to confess that a beautiful woman was passing, and you had a sexual desire arise in you: "It is not right. Ask God's forgiveness on my behalf." Now you will be at ease. But you have not done anything, and you are unnecessarily wasting money on ice cream, toys, going to the priest - and becoming a victim of the priest, because now you will be always under his power.

The Catholic religion has more power over its people than any other religion, for the simple reason that everybody has to confess their sins. Naturally, the priest knows so much about everyone... you cannot leave the fold - he can expose you.

Confession is being used to keep you in bondage; you cannot leave the fold. The idea given to you is that this is how you repent, but the reality is that in most of the cases you are not committing any sin.

To look at a beautiful woman and feel your heart beating faster is absolutely right, it is according to nature. It is respectful to the woman. In a better, more human society where all these dead religions are finished, you would rather go to the woman and thank her for her beauty, to be grateful that she is.

You don't feel guilty when you see a beautiful roseflower, you don't feel guilty when you see a beautiful sunset. Then why should you feel guilty when you see a beautiful woman or a man?

Beauty is not sin. It should be respected. And in a more intelligent, understanding, human world, the woman will accept your compliment with gratitude. You are not doing any harm.

Most of your sins are not sins at all. A few perhaps are mistakes, but not sins.

In my way of life, the word "sin" does not exist. You will be surprised to know that the original root from where the word "sin" comes, means forgetfulness. That's great, that's what it should mean.

You were not aware, you forgot, you committed a mistake.

The idea of sin is invented by the priests to suppress you, subjugate you, humiliate you, destroy your dignity. But forgetfulness is understandable. You can do something without being aware of what you are doing; later on you become alert that you have done something wrong. Then the best way is not to go to the priest, but to go to the person to whom you have done the wrong. What business has the priest in it? And what business has God in it? The person whom you have harmed in any way - you should go to him, to ask his forgiveness. That will be beautiful, and that will bring people together.

You will be surprised that in Thailand there is a small tribe of very primitive people who, even if in their dreams they harm somebody.... For example, if they beat somebody in their dreams, the first thing in the morning they have to go to that person and ask his forgiveness because, even though it was a dream, there must have been some desire somewhere which created the dream.

They tell him, "I have not hurt you, and I am not going to ever hurt you. I have never been even aware that there is a desire to hurt you, but there must have been because dreams are part of reality. They just don't come from nowhere."

And you will be surprised to know that that small tribe is the most peaceful tribe in the whole world:

no fight, no rape, no murder, no suicide. And for thousands of years they have been following the same way. Slowly slowly they have stopped dreaming too. They have become so innocent that even in the unconscious there are no longer any desires to be violent, to be a rapist, to torture somebody, to kill somebody.

In thousands of years, continually going to the man and asking for his forgiveness - and he is amazed, because he knows of nothing that you have done to him. But it brings you closer to him - he hugs you, he says, "There is nothing to be worried about, it was only a dream."

But you insist, "It does not matter that it was only a dream, it was my dream. I am involved in it, and unless you forgive me I will suffer."

If a man like Sigmund Freud had gone to Thailand to these people, he would have been amazed that his psychoanalysis is of no use. They don't have any dreams, you cannot psychoanalyze them.

Once in a while somebody may have a dream, but they have found a way to get rid of even a slight unconscious desire.

There is no question of sin in your life. You can, at the most, commit a mistake; you can do something which you never wanted to do, and then there is heaviness on your heart. Then do something to undo what you have committed. Going to the priest is simply idiotic. Whatever you have done, undo it - that is the only real repentance - and not for any motive.

"Repent, because the day of judgment is very close by." If it was not very close by, then...? Then there is no hurry; go on committing sin. When it comes close by, you can repent. And it is not close by, because two thousand years have passed, and Jesus was simply telling a lie when he said, "The day of judgment is very close by, so repent." He was creating fear in people, that "if you don't repent, then on the day of judgment you will be punished. It is better that, before that, you repent. Go to the priest, confess, get rid of it."

But if you can get rid of your so-called sins so easily, by every Sunday going to the priest, do you understand the implications of it? It means for the next week you are again free to commit sins and do anything you want, because all that you have to do is to go again to the priest.

Hindus have an even simpler method. Every year go to the Ganges, have a good bath, and all your sins are washed away. Why make such small installments - one week? Why not one year? And if you cannot manage once a year, then every twelve years there is a special fair in Allahabad - perhaps the biggest gathering of people in the whole world, millions of people. Whatever you have done in twelve years, by taking a bath in the Ganges on that day you are clean, free to do the same things again; at least for another twelve years there is no problem.

I am reminded of an incident in Ramakrishna's life. He was very simple, uneducated, but a man of tremendous insight. A man came to him and said, "I am going to the Ganges - it is the twelfth year - and I want your blessings. And is it true that all sins that you have done are washed away?"

Ramakrishna was not my type. He said, "Yes, it is true. All sins are washed out while you take a dip in the Ganges."

The man gave a great sigh of relief. He said, "Then it is good. If you say so, then it is perfect."

Ramakrishna said, "But I have not finished, I have to say something more. Have you seen those big trees on the bank of the Ganges?"

He said, "Yes."

Ramakrishna said, "That is the trouble: when you take the dip in the Ganges your sins jump out and sit on the trees, and they wait for you. How long can you remain in the water? The Ganges is really great and it does purify, but how long...? Finally, you will have to come out, and the moment you come out - those sins are sitting on the trees, they jump on you. And sometimes it happens that somebody else's sins also jump on you - just for a change they enjoy it. Those trees are full of sins.

So you can go, but beware of the trees."

The man said, "This is very difficult. How long can I remain in the water? Finally I have to come out, and I have to pass under those trees."

Ramakrishna said, "I can't help you with that. That's why I don't go - what is the point?"

All religions have found strategies, first to make you feel guilty, then to give you a simple method so that you can be free of guilt.

I am not teaching you a religion. I simply want to tell you the truth. If you have done something wrong, go to the person. Be humble, ask his forgiveness. Only he can forgive you, nobody else - neither the Ganges nor God.

And remember, that is the meaning of the word "sin": forgetfulness. So now, don't forget again and do the same; otherwise, your asking forgiveness becomes meaningless. Now be careful, be alert, be conscious; and don't do the same thing again. That is true repentance. Once you made the mistake - it was just a mistake. To err is human, there is nothing to be worried about.

And to forgive is divine, so if somebody comes to you and says that he has committed a mistake against you, don't miss the opportunity of tasting something of the divine. Or, when you have committed some mistake and you go to somebody else to be forgiven, you are giving him a great chance to have some taste of the divine. It is good for both of you. By forgiving, he tastes something which is impossible to explain; it can only be called divine, godliness. And you also will feel something tremendously beautiful: humbleness, egolessness.

But remember not to commit the mistake again. It should become a decision in you; then you are really repentant. It has nothing to do with God, it has nothing to do with any priest; it has something to do with your own psychology.

Question 3:

Aha!

Okay?