The man of compassion has to lie

Question 1:

Compassion knows no conditions. It can do anything, it knows no right and no wrong. Compassion can lie to help you. In fact, in your sleep you can only understand lies, you cannot understand the truth.

Many things are involved. First, the experience of enlightenment, awakening, illumination, happens when there is no mind present. Enlightenment is a no-mind experience. Words are not there, language is not there. In fact, you are not there either. It is such a silence, so profound and infinite, it cannot be expressed without lying.

The moment the truth is said, it is no longer true. Just the process of saying it makes it a lie. To bring the wordless experience into words is to change the very quality of the experience.

So in fact, anything that is great - if it has been experienced at any time, by any individual - out of sheer necessity that person has to use lies to speak of it. But the lie of the awakened one is far more true than the truth of the sleeping one.

I am reminded of a small anecdote.... A man went to a nearby big city. His children had asked, "Bring us this, bring us that," and he had promised that he would. But by the time he had returned home, his house was on fire. There was a great crowd around, and they were all concerned about the children who were inside.

The crowd told him, "We have been shouting, 'The house is on fire, and there is still time - you can get out.' But they are enjoying the whole scene, they are not aware of the danger. Now you are here, somehow bring them out."

He had forgotten to bring the toys, the trains, the cars and the dolls that the children had asked him to bring. He went to the only door which was not yet burning, but it was locked from inside. He knocked on the door. He tried to tell them, to explain that the house is on fire. They said, "We are enjoying it so much. It is so beautiful!"

The man was shocked. He said, "Forget about what you are enjoying. I have brought your cars, your trains, your dolls" - and he had not brought anything. The moment they heard about their toys, they opened the door and ran out. Then he could explain to them why he had to lie. "Forgive me, I could not manage time enough to find your things; next time I will bring them. But forgive me for saying a lie to you - because that was the only way to save you; you would not come out."

Do you think this lie is a sin? And this is about an ordinary man and his children. What about me and my children? It does not matter to me whether I lie or not, because it makes no difference to my consciousness anymore, it is just a game. But to you, it matters immensely.

I can go on telling the truth - nobody among you is going to understand, and nobody among you is going to be benefited by it. It will pass over your heads. Hence I said the man of compassion has to lie. The lie is only a device to wake you up. Once you are awakened I can say to you, "I am sorry that I had to say so many lies to you." And I am absolutely certain you are going to forgive me.

As far as the outside world is concerned - for me you are my world, there is no outside world - they should take care of themselves. I am existing for you, not for them. If they get disturbed or confused, so far so good. Perhaps out of their disturbance and confusion they may start becoming curious about what is going on. Many of you have come here out of such curiosity, and then you got caught, and you have not been able to leave.

So I never take the outside world into consideration. Let them sleep. But if they get disturbed, if they get hostile, it is good; then a certain relationship between me and them begins. Enmity is a relationship just as friendship is. In fact, enmity is far deeper and stronger than any friendship.

I am doing it absolutely knowingly. I want to shock the outside world. Perhaps that is the only hope for them, perhaps the shock will create an opening for them. They may come here hostile, as enemies, but about that there is no problem. We have this buddhafield of love, singing, dancing, rejoicing. All their hostility and opposition will be simply gone. The moment they see you and me, they are finished.

So don't take it seriously. You are afraid that I am creating difficulty for you sannyasins. Of course, I am continuously creating difficulties. What else can I do? You go on falling asleep again and again! I have to create difficulties because only in difficulties can you remain awake. Once you learn the beauty, the ecstasy of being awake, then certainly there will be no need to give you shocks unnecessarily.

So, don't be worried about that. If you go into the outside world, people will be hostile to you, but you have to be compassionate to them. Let hostility and compassion stand facing each other. It is one of the fundamental laws of life that compassion cannot be defeated by hostility. Compassion simply changes the hostile person. So don't be worried that you will be facing hostility. Be concerned about compassion, love. Just start looking into people's eyes with grace. That will disturb them more - and I want to disturb them!

There was a man in Gautam Buddha's time whose name was Angulimal. He had taken a vow to cut off one thousand heads, and to take one finger from each dead person and make a garland of one thousand fingers. Angulimal means the man with the garland of one thousand fingers.

He was a ferocious man. People stopped going close to him. The road that passed by the hill where he was staying was no longer being used. He had already cut off nine hundred and ninety-nine heads; he was waiting for only one more. The road that passed by his hill was utterly empty, nobody was coming. And then Buddha came to pass. That road was the shortcut, but people were going the long way around, just to avoid Angulimal. Naturally, Buddha took the shortcut.

His disciples said, "Bhagwan, you don't know what you are doing! Haven't you heard about that madman, Angulimal? It is better to go the long, roundabout way, rather than to take the shortcut."

But people like Gautam Buddha never turn back. He said, "I cannot turn back, now even more than before. If I had not known about Angulimal, perhaps I might have taken the other road. That poor fellow is waiting for only one head! My work is done; I have known all that can be known, I have experienced all that can be experienced. Now there is no reason for me.... If I can be of some service to that poor man, it will be good."

He went. Angulimal saw him. Buddha's disciples, who were always clambering around him, by and by started creating a distance between him and themselves. If he was caught, at least they could escape. Angulimal saw Gautam Buddha coming. Even that dangerous man, who had murdered nine hundred and ninety-nine people already, felt for the first time that he also had a heart. Gautam Buddha was looking so innocent, so childlike and so beautiful in the early morning sun.

Angulimal shouted, "You please turn back, because only one head is missing! Perhaps you are a stranger... but looking at you, something in me says 'Let this man go - there are many idiots, I can cut off their heads.' Even if my mother comes here, I will cut off her head! But you please go back.

Don't come close to me - I am dangerous! Do you see my sword? It is waiting for the last head."

Gautam Buddha continued. He stepped off the road and started moving into the mountains, closer to Angulimal.

Angulimal said, "It seems you are more mad than me. Why are you going on and on and on?"

Buddha said, "Angulimal, I stopped going anywhere a long time ago. I am not going anywhere, it is you who are." Angulimal was standing there - Buddha was walking!

Angulimal said, "Certainly you are mad. You are walking, moving, and you say you have stopped a long time ago. I am standing, and you say, 'You are moving.'"

Buddha said, "Just try to understand. Your mind is moving, thinking. My mind is silent, there is no movement. And you will not get a better head. It is really a joy to fulfill your vow. Prepare your sword."

Angulimal could not understand what kind of man he was. He was in a great shock; he had never come across such a man! He was ashamed of himself for the first time in his life. He could not look at Buddha eye to eye, because those eyes were radiating compassion, love, grace, joy, blissfulness, ecstasy - things that he had never known, but the fragrance was reaching him.

He said again to Buddha, "You please go, sir. I don't want to kill you. You are unnecessarily insisting that I do something that I don't want to do." But Buddha went on coming closer and closer. And finally he was standing before Angulimal.

Angulimal said, "I used to think I was a stubborn man - you are a thousandfold more stubborn. Now I cannot help you, I have to cut your head."

Buddha said, "It is an old tradition and convention to fulfill the last wish of a person who is going to die, and I have a very small wish. You fulfill it and then kill me."

He said, "What is your wish? Even if it is the biggest thing, I will manage it for you."

Buddha said, "No, it is a very small thing. Just cut off a branch of the tree under which you are standing."

Angulimal said, "What kind of thing are you asking? But okay, if that is your wish." With his sword he cut off a branch.

Buddha said, "Now, put it back. Let it be part of the tree again. Let it blossom again."

Angulimal said, "That is impossible. How can I join it with the tree?"

Buddha said, "If you cannot even join a small branch to the tree, do you see the implications of it?

Any child could have broken that branch off the tree, and you are a strong man - you have not done a great job. You can cut off my head, but can you manage to give me life again? And if you cannot create, what right have you to destroy?"

There was a moment of silence. The sword fell from Angulimal's hands. He threw away that garland of nine hundred and ninety-nine fingers, and fell at Buddha's feet. He said, "I never thought about it, that destroying something - any mediocre person, any coward, any idiot can do that. The real genius is creative - you are right. Please accept me as your disciple."

Buddha initiated him.

He came back to the town. Even the king, Prasenjita, when he heard that Angulimal had become a sannyasin of Gautam Buddha.... He was a lover of Gautam Buddha, but he was afraid to go there because that man Angulimal could not be trusted, he could do anything any moment. But he wanted to see the man; he was so famous all around - hearing his name, even kings used to tremble.

He came, he touched Buddha's feet and asked, "I have heard that Angulimal has also become your initiate."

Buddha said, "Yes, he is sitting by my side."

Prasenjita became so afraid, he pulled out his sword. Buddha said, "Now it is not needed, put it back in the sheath. The Angulimal that you used to know is dead; this is a totally new man who cannot harm anybody. Don't be afraid."

And that very day when Angulimal went to beg in the city, the same cowards who had stopped even going on the road that passed nearby Angulimal's place locked their doors, stood on their terraces with large piles of rocks, and started throwing rocks at the poor man.

He fell down; blood was flowing from all over his body. Buddha was informed, and he came. Just a few more minutes and Angulimal would be gone. Buddha said to him, "Remember one thing, that this act of yours - that you have not in any way reacted to the hostility of the people - is enough.

You are dying as a truly awakened man." Smiling, touching Buddha's feet, Angulimal died.

Don't be afraid of people's hostility. Just be aware of your compassion, your love, and nothing is going to be wrong.

As far as I am concerned, out of necessity I will have to create devices. I will have to tell you things which can wake you up. They may not be true, because the truth, in the first place, is inexpressible.

In the second place, even if somehow one manages to express it, it never reaches the sleeping person.

The sleeping person is living in lies, that is the language he understands. And if I have to make you understand me, I am going to do everything possible - telling lies included - because the goal of lying is not to lie, it is just to wake you up.

Question 2:

The first thing to be understood is that I am not speaking only of men. Whenever I am speaking, I am speaking to you all. In fact, there are more women here than men.

Drop that idea from your mind that I make any distinction between man and woman. You seem to be part of that stupid movement called women's liberation. Here there is no need for any women's liberation. Here the situation is totally opposite - the men are afraid of the women. They are writing letters to me, "How can we be liberated?"

In my commune there is no need to make any distinction. And this is the same stupidity - man used to think for centuries that he is higher, he is better, he has more intelligence. Now the woman starts the same idiotic game. I won't allow it.

Creativity is not concerned whether you are man or woman. If you feel to be creative, do it. But don't think that you are going to give creativity something higher, something that man has failed to do.

Why always go on putting dividing lines between man and woman? The truth is that every man carries a woman within him, and every woman carries a man within her. And it is bound to be so, because whether you are man or woman, you are created by one man, one woman. They have contributed to you half and half. Your father and your mother both are alive in you. It is only a question of which side of the coin is facing up and which side is underneath.

That's why it is so easy for Leeladhar to change a man into a woman, or a woman into a man, because the basic reality is similar - just a little bit of difference which makes no difference. Even a plastic surgeon can do it, you don't need a spiritual surgeon for it.

Certainly, it will be a better art if both men and women are creating from their different angles. But the way you say it, you don't understand creativity at all. You say creativity can be out of love; painting, sculpture and dancing need not be conquered. But the possibility is ninety-nine percent that love is so fulfilling you will not bother to paint. You will not bother to waste your time in making a statue.

Love is so fulfilling that who cares about writing poetry? Poetry is written by people who have missed the train. Now they are somehow consoling themselves by writing poetry about love - love they do not know.

It is very difficult to be creative out of love. Yes, a different kind of creativity will be there. If you love a man, perhaps your kitchen will become the field of your creativity. You would like your man to have the best food. You would like the man to have the best clothes. Just look at my clothes! This is creativity out of love.

Rarely is it possible for a woman who loves, to be bothered about painting, poetry, dancing, et cetera. It is really man's inferiority complex - that he cannot love so deeply, that he cannot give birth to a child - that makes him have to find some substitutes to compete with the woman. He creates painting, he creates sculpture, he creates architecture, he creates the landscape for a garden. He wants to feel that he can also create.

It is basically coming out of his inferiority. He can see the woman and her immense power of creating life. He creates a dead statue - howsoever beautiful it is, it is dead.

Whoever has asked the question seems to be against men, and any woman who is against men is herself becoming something unnatural. Being against men, she is becoming a man herself.

Psychologically she is now feeling inferior because the man can paint and create music and dance.

Naturally, she will have to stop giving birth to children so her own creativity can be directed towards these things: painting, poetry, music.

But I would like you to know you that will be a loser. You are competing with man, and you need not compete; you are already superior. You need not write poetry, you are poetry. Your love is your music. Your heart throbbing with your lover is your dance!

But if you want to create poetry, music and dance, you will have to deprive yourself of love. You will have to be in the same space where man is: feeling inferior and then finding substitutes for creativity.

That is ugly. I cannot give my support to it. The woman is the superior sex; she need not prove it.

Why does man have to conquer? - because he is in a difficulty. Be compassionate to man, he is in a great difficulty. He has to reach the peak of the Everest, he has to go to the moon - all stupid things, because what are you going to do on Everest? You will not find even a Coca-Cola there. And what are you going to do on the moon? Life is almost impossible on the moon, because there is not enough oxygen, and water is not available at all.

The one person who has walked on the moon was walking with all kinds of gadgets, carrying many things, oxygen and other emergency things. And he was covered completely so he would not get any infection that might exist on the moon. Now do you want to live like that, covered with a plastic bag, carrying oxygen and other things? What kind of life will that be? And for how long? It is okay for half an hour to have a walk on it and come back home. The man on the moon must have looked silly. It is a dead planet, you cannot live on it.

It is a strange world the politicians have created. They want to destroy a living earth, a living planet which has everything life needs. And they want to go to the moon, a dead planet which can provide nothing to support you - not a single tree, not a single bird, no animals, no rivers, no oceans. The politicians seem to be really nuts! How much money has been wasted to reach the moon! The same money could have saved Ethiopia.

Man is continuously trying to prove himself superior.

One of my friends, who was also a colleague of mine in the university, told me, "I am in a difficulty and I cannot talk about it to anybody. You are the only one I know who may perhaps understand my situation, and may be of some help."

I said, "What is the problem?"

He said, "The problem is I am in love with a woman who is taller than me. Now, should I marry her even though she is taller?" No man wants to marry a woman who is taller - just out of an inferiority complex; otherwise what is the problem?

I said, "There is no problem. You can always carry a small stool with you, so whenever you want to kiss your woman, stand on the stool. If women can manage with taller men, then why can't a man manage with a taller woman? Just watch women, how they are managing with taller men, and do the same. Perhaps you will have to use shoes with high heels - so use them! People in love say, 'I could die for you' - but you cannot use shoes with high heels so that you can reach your woman?"

He said, "I came to find some solution, and you are making a joke of me."

I said, "No, I am not making a joke."

It is really because of the inferiority complex in man that he has to marry a woman who is not taller than him, that he has to marry a woman who is at least three or four years younger than him. And that is absolutely unscientific.

If you listen to science, everybody should marry a woman who is at least five years older than him because women live longer than men - five years longer than men. Why should you marry a woman five years younger than you? Then you are creating a ten-year distance. You will be dead and your widow will be suffering alone for ten years. The most scientific way will be to marry a woman who is five years older than you, so you can both live together and die together! But man's inferiority is such....

The woman who has asked the question should remember she is already superior. There is no need to prove it, that's why there is no need to conquer anything. But if she feels that she has no desire for children, and she wants to paint and she wants to compose music, it is perfectly good.

In fact, many women should do that, because the earth is so overpopulated. You will be a great help if you divert your creativity from children to paintings, because paintings don't need food. Dancing is perfectly good. Dance as much as you want, it creates no Ethiopia. Write poetry. Because of your poetry, perhaps a few people will have to suffer listening to it, getting bored with it, but that is not much of a problem. They can manage to avoid you.

But if there is no desire to give birth to children, it is absolutely right. Certainly you will have to create something else. Do it, but don't think that your creativity will be higher than that of man. It cannot be, for the simple reason that you are the superior sex, you don't have that inferiority in you which is the incentive for man to put all his life into his painting.

He is competing with your baby! And even if he is a Picasso, he dies in despair. His whole life he tried to paint something, but no painting can be alive, no poetry can be alive. So remember that a woman can create, but most probably her creativity will be just third-rate.

But it is good for the world. We don't want any more population, we want to cut the population to one-fourth of what it is today. So you will be helping a great project. You will be a blessing not giving birth to a child.

But drop the idea that you will be creating something superior out of love. If you really want to create something, don't think of love either, because love is so satisfying, so fulfilling. It is such a miracle, who wants to write poetry?

I have never come across a single lover, man or woman, who has created poetry, who has created paintings, who has created sculptures, for the simple reason that they are so contented. All these creative things need a discontent, a wound which you have to cover up.

I am perfectly happy with your idea. Just do whatever creative endeavor you want to; but remember, you don't have the inferiority complex of man, so you cannot compete with man in any way. You are already in a better position. Man is poor; just have compassion on the poor guy.

Question 3:

Yes. Our communes are the only places in the whole world where you are accepted totally, you are not judged, you are not labeled as a sinner or as a saint, and you are not condemned for your small mistakes. You are accepted in your totality. Those mistakes come with you.

Yes, we would like you to learn from your mistakes, but condemnation is not the way. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn something; but the moment people start condemning you, they destroy your opportunity and they make you stubborn. They force you to commit the same mistake again and again just as a resistance. Your ego is hurt.

It is true that outside my communes the society is run by punishment or by reward. Reduced to the roots, the whole society outside is based on fear and greed. Fear as an ultimate consequence creates the idea of hell; greed, on the other hand, as a logical conclusion creates the idea of heaven.

The moment there is no fear in you and no greed, you will be surprised: hell and heaven have disappeared. They were just projections of your psychology; they disappear the moment you accept yourself - and you can accept yourself only if people around you accept you, if they do not create some guilt in you, do not make you feel unworthy.

In a commune it is so easy to accept yourself, because everybody else is accepting you. Acceptance is the very climate of the commune. And there are great implications in it. If a man accepts himself without any guilt, God will disappear. God is your guilt projected. It was God who condemned Adam and Eve in the first place. It was God who drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden as a punishment, because they had disobeyed. This God seems to be more like Adolf Hitler - no compassion even for his own creation.

And if Adam and Eve disobeyed, the whole responsibility goes to God, because why did he create disobedience in Adam and Eve in the first place?

God begins condemnation, expulsion, punishment - and what a punishment! We do not know when Adam and Eve existed - at least one million years ago, perhaps two million, three million years, or perhaps never. Most probably never. But we are still sinners because four million years ago Adam and Eve disobeyed God.

Do you think it is fair? Even the most fanatic Christian cannot say that it is fair. It is absolutely unfair.

We have not done anything. This is strange, that four million years ago somebody did something, and you are jailed for it, imprisoned, sentenced to death. You don't even know whether these people existed at all. In fact, it is only a story, and the story has been created in almost all the religions, with small differences in the details.

The story has a function - to make you feel guilty from your very birth. You are born in sin - it has nothing to do with your actions. Do you see the unfairness of the idea? You have not done anything, you are just born; but you are born into sin because four million years ago Adam and Eve disobeyed God. He punished them, so the story should be closed. They disobeyed, he punished them - the chapter is closed. But no, it goes on and on.

From the very beginning they start creating guilt in you. For that very purpose the story has been invented. But what purpose does it serve to the outside world? It serves great things. If they can manage to convince you that you are guilty, they have destroyed your individuality from the very beginning. If they go on punishing you for your mistakes, which are human....

You arrive here unprepared for anything; you have not had any rehearsal before your birth. It is natural that when you enter into a new world, with no guidelines given to you by nature, you will commit a few mistakes. Nothing is wrong in committing mistakes, just don't commit them again and again.

Whenever you commit a mistake, it is an opportunity to learn that this door leads to darkness. Knock on some other door. It is through mistakes that a man grows, learns, becomes mature.

In my commune there is no punishment because I accept your mistakes as human, natural. To punish you for something natural and human is to destroy you, your humanity and your natural spontaneity.

Nobody is rewarded, because punishment and reward are together. The reward says, "You have done right. Now go on doing right until you get the Nobel Prize." It is a bribe. It is an effort to mold your life according to the vested interests. The society needs slaves, it does not need independent rebels.

And my commune consists only of independent individuals, rebels. They have gathered together - not that they believe in a certain catechism, not that they believe in a certain dogma.

I don't give you any dogma, any doctrine. You have gathered here because you have found a certain synchronicity with other sannyasins. You are all rebels. Your rebellion joins you together.

Your rebellious spirit is the only hope for the world. Spread it!

If we can make the world know the beauty of the rebellious spirit, then there can be no third world war. Then politicians have to hang themselves; nobody is going to bother about them, they are no longer needed.

Strange... small things have great implications. Punishment and reward is a political strategy. It is a religious exploitation. It is creating slaves on a mass scale - and for centuries they have been doing that. They are still doing it, and because we are no longer part of their ugly game, they are hostile towards us. That is natural. They could destroy a single rebellious man very easily, but they cannot destroy communes of rebellious spirits.

You have the power to take over the whole world spiritually. Politically, I am not interested. But if your rebellion spreads... it has to spread like a wildfire. Your red clothes are symbolic of the fire that you have to go on spreading all around.

And in returning humanity to the slave and giving him back his dignity, his individuality, his freedom of thinking and expression, we are saving this living, beautiful planet from the clutches of the politicians.

The politicians and the priests are the greatest criminals in the whole history of man.

Question 4:

There is much more. There is no end to it! Soon your master will be drinking wine with you. Soon your master will be dancing in the disco. You have got a very unreliable man here. I can do anything - and I am going to!