The taste of peace

Question 1:

It has never happened. Man has never found peace exciting. It seems that the way man is, war certainly will remain exciting, because the peace that you know is not the real peace; it is the peace of a cemetery, not the peace of this mandir! No war is going on, everything is silent - do you think it is flat?

The new man will know this peace twenty-four hours round the clock, waking or sleeping. And the peace that is not only absence of war but a positive flowering within you, a positive wordless song within you, is totally different.

Up to now man has known peace, but that peace was only preparation for war. History can be divided into two parts: the period when people are fighting, and the period when people are exhausted, tired, ruined, preparing for another war from scratch. War or preparation for war: these are the only two periods human history has known up to now.

Peace has never been known, because peace is something which the individual has to create. War is something which the crowd, the nation, the politician, the ideologies, the churches create. Peace, each individual has to create. It will be far better to say that he has to discover it, because it has not to be created, it is already there inside you.

But you are surrounded so much by the mind and its turmoil, you never come to hear the still, small voice within you. And if you cannot hear even the still, small voice within you, how can you taste peace - which is beyond that voice - where you simply exist? There is no thought in the mind, no emotion in the heart. In that nothingness you come to know, for the first time, the taste of peace.

I am saying it from my own experience. For thirty-two years I have been in that peace, and I have not found it for a single moment flat. It is always opening new doors, new dimensions, new depths.

When for the first time you know your inner peace, you think, "This is the end." Soon you have to change this idea, because the peace goes on growing. And the day comes when you understand that there is no end, the peace is going to become as vast as the universe itself - and the universe has no limits.

You must be feeling flat when you are not passing through some drama or trauma, because in your life what have you got? If there is nothing going on: a fight, a love affair, a marriage, a divorce, fighting for an election or going bankrupt - if all these things are not going on around you, naturally you feel flat. It seems nothing is happening, time has stopped; you feel dead.

It is a well-established fact that whenever there is war in the world, wherever it is, people look more happy, excited. They wake up early in the morning waiting for the newspaper to come. What is happening? What has happened last night? They cannot wait, they want to know it immediately.

People are carrying their transistors glued to their ears not to miss a single bit of information. Life is no longer flat, there is excitement, because every moment something new is happening - victory or defeat, something is happening. You can look forward to some news. When there is no war, then tomorrow's newspaper will be carrying exactly the same as today's news.

I used to live in a place... just in front of my house lived the family of a doctor. The doctor was thought to be a little crazy; still, he was a good doctor. People used to come to him, knowing perfectly well that he was a little crazy - but as far as his profession was concerned he was perfectly sane. He used to come every day in the early morning to my house, to read all the newspapers and magazines available there. He would come and ask for the latest newspaper.

One day I gave him a newspaper of the same date but from the year before. And he enjoyed it, he loved it. He said he had never expected these things to happen, because they didn't seem to be connected with yesterday's newspaper.

I said, "Now that I know that, every day you will be excited."

He said, "But how did you do it?"

I said, "This newspaper is one year old."

He said, "My God! If reading old newspapers makes you so excited, why have you been keeping it a secret from me? Sometimes I used to wonder why you go on collecting old newspapers, magazines.

Now I know! Now I don't care whether today's newspaper comes or not. There are so many piled up in your room. I can pull one out from anywhere, and it will be exciting."

People are excited with something that is unexpected. Politicians rule over you because they provide excitement. Wars have been condemned for centuries but nobody listens, because everybody knows that a long peace will be so flat - people will start committing suicide, there is nothing happening.

Just think of one year... no news happens. You just go on waiting and waiting and waiting. Then finally you decide to create news yourself: you commit suicide or you murder somebody. Something has to be done to break this peace.

In one of the dramas of an existentialist philosopher, a man is brought before the court because he has killed a stranger, someone whom he had never known before. He had not even seen the man's face. The man was sitting on the beach looking at the sea, and this fellow came from behind with a big dagger and pushed it into his back.

He had never seen that man before; he did not even see him while he was murdering him. What could be the cause? - because that stranger was absolutely innocent.

The man was, of course, caught and presented before a court. The judge was also puzzled. He inquired of a few witnesses, "Is this man mad?"

They said, "No. In our neighborhood, this is the most rational and sane man." The judge was trying to find out something in his past which could make some sense of this act which he had done.

One man said, "I remember one thing, that when his mother died, it was Sunday morning, and we were both sitting in the garden. He said, 'I knew that old bitch was going to spoil my beautiful holy day. Now, couldn't she have died on Friday, or Tuesday, or Monday? Why on Sunday? I was ready to go boating on the lake, and I have to cancel my whole program.'"

The neighbor said, "That day I thought this man was strange. His mother dies and he says, 'That woman died purposely on Sunday. She was always making efforts to spoil all my happiness. Even in death she continued her old habit.'"

Another witness said, "When all the proceedings for the funeral were over, this man immediately rushed to the house of his girlfriend, and they went to see a movie. In the morning, the mother dies; by the evening, he is at a movie with his girlfriend."

A third witness said, "That is nothing, because after the movie, he was drinking and dancing! His behavior has always been a little bizarre."

The magistrate asked the man himself, "Do you have any explanation for these things?"

He said, "For everything that I have done I have explanations. My mother dies on Sunday morning:

my Sunday, my plan to go to the lake is spoiled - is it wrong to say it clearly, rather than repress it?

And anyway whether I say it or not, my mother is dead, so what difference does it make?

"And certainly I was angry. She could have died... there are seven days in the week - why choose Sunday especially? And she knew, because the previous night I had told her, 'Tomorrow morning I am going to the lake.' And I am absolutely certain she died on purpose because she was the only one who knew that I was going to the lake in the morning. And as I was preparing to leave, she died.

You think I have to give an explanation, or does that dead woman have to give an explanation?"

The magistrate said, "Okay. About that nothing can be done; your mother is dead, she cannot be asked. It may have been just a coincidence. But does it look right to you that in the morning your mother dies and in the evening you go to a movie? And in the night you are found in a nightclub drinking, dancing - do you think it looks right?"

He said, "Absolutely right. Because now, whenever I go to a movie it will be after my mother's death.

Do you mean that for the rest of life I cannot go to a movie? Whenever I go to the nightclub and drink and dance, it will be after my mother's death. Do you want me to commit suicide because now I cannot enjoy anything - it is after my mother's death? And what difference does it make whether her death was ten hours ago or ten days ago, or ten years ago?"

There was great silence in the court. The man looked rational, what he was saying was meaningful.

"Now everything I am going to do is going to be after my mother's death! What do you want me to do? Should I also die with my mother because now there is no point in living any longer; will I be a criminal if I live? If I laugh, somebody will say, 'What? You are laughing, and your mother is dead?"

And the time factor... can you tell me what is the demarcation line? Ten hours, twelve hours, ten days, twelve days, ten years, twelve years? And what is the criterion to decide that now it is all right to dance and drink - now let my mother be dead.

"I thought that if I am to love, I have to accept the fact that my mother is dead; and then there is no point in wasting time. Moreover I had purchased those two tickets already. Wasting those two tickets over a dead person, I don't think is sane."

The magistrate said, "Drop all these things. You just tell me exactly why you killed that man on the sea beach. You had never known him, he had never done any harm to you. You were not even aware whom you were killing."

The man said, "It is very simple. My life was going very flat. I used to think, 'Once my mother is gone there will be peace.' But once she had gone everything became flat. I would come home drunk in the middle of the night and nobody was there to nag me and instruct me as to what time to come home, what to do and what not to do. Life became flat, and I wanted some excitement. And I got it.

Does it matter whom I killed?"

He said, "When I pushed the dagger into the man's back, and a fountain of blood came out, for the first time in years I was excited: what was happening? Something new! I have never seen a fountain coming out of a man's back. Red blood! Yes, I do not know who the man was, I have no enmity with him. I have not killed him for any reason except for my own excitement. And I got it, and since then life has been very exciting.

"I escaped, and the police chased me; finally I was caught, then I was jailed. Things started moving!

And now I am standing in the court listening to all these idiots who are my neighbors. And it gives me great joy to contradict what they are saying. And you are sitting there looking so silly, and these people are saying, 'Your Honor."

"It is hilarious, I have never enjoyed life so much! And I am already tremendously excited waiting for the judgment, to see whether I am released, whether I am sent to a mental hospital, or I am sentenced to death, or twenty years' imprisonment. There are so many alternatives in my mind."

This man is you.

People are doing all kinds of things just to feel excited. And when the whole world becomes dull, starts feeling stale, flat, some politician comes as a savior to you, an Adolf Hitler. Many people in the world are waiting for another Adolf Hitler - life is becoming flat. That man made the five years from Date: Fri, 1940 to 1945 tremendously exciting. I don't think there has ever been such a long period so full of excitement for the whole world. Adolf Hitler should be given as many Nobel Prizes as possible for making the whole world alive, thriving, their hearts beating faster. They are still waiting.

I received - I could never have conceived it - I received a letter from the American Nazi party. Can you think that in America there is a Nazi party? I got the letter from the president of the party, and he was very angry, "Because," he said, "you have been continually speaking against Adolf Hitler; and it hurts our religious feelings." Even I was excited! This is really great: "religious feelings"?

And later on his letter said, "Perhaps you do not know that he was the reincarnation of the Old Testament prophet, Elijah. Soon he will come to deliver humanity from all misery and suffering."

I can understand this man, his party. Their lives have become flat, they are ready even to make Adolf Hitler a religious prophet. They are ready to do anything, but excitement is needed. After each ten or fifteen years the flatness becomes so thick in everybody's mind that a war becomes a certainty.

Any excuse will do.

Forty years have passed since the second world war. This is the longest period. The credit does not go to you, the credit goes to the nuclear weapons, because both the parties which are capable of fighting, the Soviet Union and America, are afraid. They know perfectly well nobody is going to win, that everybody is going to be finished forever. The whole of life on the earth is going to disappear.

It does not matter who starts the war, the other party will start only ten minutes later. So anybody can start, it does not matter. The other party will be only ten minutes late, and in ten minutes you cannot be victorious. You can destroy a few cities, but you cannot be victorious. Your missiles are aiming at Moscow; their missiles are aiming at New York, Washington, San Francisco - just a push-button game.

They are frozen out of fear, that's why forty years have passed. And I know that unless the war begins accidentally, the third world war is almost impossible. It is very close, any moment it can happen, but it will be just an accident: some technological defect, some scientist getting nagged too much by his wife, some politician losing his power, his grip, some country wanting to have the attention of the whole world, some crackpot somewhere. There are so many crackpots, and most of them are in politics.

Pots without cracks don't go into politics; they have other, useful things to do. A crackpot is of no use.

That's why politics is the only profession in the world where no qualification is needed. Everybody is perfectly qualified.

Now there is so much power in the hands of the politicians that they themselves are afraid. They would like to win the war, but it is impossible; both the parties are equally balanced. And the war is not going to be between two countries; nuclear weapons will spread it all over the world. Perhaps within twenty-four hours all life on earth will disappear. This is frightening. That's why the war has not happened, and perhaps may not happen. But it is always very close; anything can go wrong.

I was just talking to one journalist, and I was saying to him that you should not depend on machines.

And now the whole war game is not between man and man - that is out of date - the whole war game is between technological nuclear weapons. Even the missiles which will carry the weapons will not have any pilots with them, there is no need. The missile itself can be programmed where to go, where to drop the bomb.

I was saying to him that man has become so dependent on technological machines that anything can go wrong any moment. And when I said this, the electricity went off! The journalist had nothing to say anymore. The proof was there! I said, "Now we can move onto another subject. This is finished."

I understand that you are in a very difficult situation. You would love to live in peace, but peace seems to be flat; nothing is happening, you are almost in your grave. To avoid being in such a dead state, you go on doing something or other - falling into a love affair, chasing a man or a woman; and then the whole drama of overpowering each other, of dominating each other, fighting.... That too does not seem to be good - every night a pillow fight. It does not seem good, but excitement is there.

Every husband on his way home is thinking of excuses why he is late, figuring out where he has been, what to say, what not to say. And the woman is figuring out... she has phoned all his friends' houses and she has collected all the information that she knows he will use for his excuses.

Yes, there is drama. You tell her, "I have been with one of my friends; we met after such a long time."

And the woman laughs, and she says, "Don't be stupid, your friend has been here! Now I don't think your friend is a Jesus Christ who can be in two places simultaneously." You are caught. Every husband feels guilty, the woman is angry, he is trying to persuade her....

At least all these dramas and traumatic experiences keep you from falling into that space you call flat. But at such a cost. The peace is flat, the excitement is a torture; you are caught in a dilemma.

The reason is that you don't know what real peace is. Just not to fight, not to get involved again with another woman, not to go to the pub and drink too much and beat others and be beaten.... You can avoid all these things. You can just close your door and sit inside your room, but you will not find peace. The question is not of the room and you, the question is of your mind.

Your mind is born out of the monkeys. Your mind is a monkey. Have you seen a monkey sitting silently? That would be a miracle. The monkey is always doing something or other - jumping from one tree to another tree in search of excitement. He is bored with peace. Even if you have not done anything, just look at the monkey and he will make faces at you. What is he doing? He is just trying to create some entertainment.

He will start running after you. If you run, then he will enjoy it very much. Great excitement, although there is no point. If you stop and turn back, the monkey will go up the tree; he does not mean business, it was just a game. He was feeling flat, you were feeling flat, and it was a good game.

Both became excited.

Your mind is constantly seeking and searching for some involvement, some trouble, because the peace is really killing, poisonous.

Let me repeat: this is not the peace which I am talking about. That peace comes out of meditation, that peace comes when you come out of your mind and become centered as a witness, just watching the mind without any judgment, without any evaluation, without saying, "This is good, this is bad, this is really groovy." If you do such things, then you have already jumped in and become identified with the monkey. The moment you say, "This is groovy," you cannot remain outside; you are on the track again.

You have simply to be a witness, like a mirror that gives no judgment - a beautiful woman, a Cleopatra, or Mother Teresa, it makes no difference.

One journalist was asking me about Mother Teresa, and he said, "I agree with you on almost all the points, but why are you against Mother Teresa? She is a beautiful woman...." And he was shocked to think of marrying Mother Teresa. Then he understood it is not easy to use any word in front of me just like that: "She is a beautiful woman." Then he must have remembered her face. Are you going to make love to the Nobel prize? What are you going to do with that woman? Then in his mind he must have understood that she is exactly the type of woman that Christians were burning alive in the Middle Ages - witches. She is exactly that type.

I know her. I would prefer to remain in hell for eternity than to get married to Teresa the Terrible!

But the most difficult thing in your life - which should really be the easiest - is to sit by the side of the flow of your mind. Your mind is just like a river. Thoughts and thoughts and a crowd of thoughts go on passing. You simply sit by the bank, unconcerned, just a witness, and you are in for a great surprise.

Slowly slowly, as you become more and more centered and simply a witness, thoughts start disappearing. They can exist only with your identification. You give energy to your mind. When you pull yourself out, you have stopped giving nourishment to the mind. And once there is no nourishment - thoughts are very fragile things - they start dying out.

Soon there is silence, there is peace. And this peace is not the peace of a cemetery. This peace is not dead, it is not flat. It is such a tremendous experience that once you have reached the first rung of the ladder, the ladder goes to infinity. You can go on and on discovering new layers of peace. This is the real excitement, unending excitement.

That's the meaning of the word "ecstasy": unending excitement. You cannot exhaust it, you cannot come to a point where you say, "There is no more to discover and I am feeling flat." It has never happened. On my own authority I say to you, I have been going as fast as possible, deeper and deeper into silence, but there is no bottom, there is no limit.

Each moment of silence brings new fragrance. Peace brings new flowers. Nothing is said, but much is heard. Nothing is shown, but much is seen. Nobody guides you, but some magnetic force of peace itself takes you farther and farther away from the mind, from the body, from the neighbors, from the wife, from the husband. And the excitement is continuously deepening.

Unless we can create millions of people around the earth who have experienced this kind of peace, war is inevitable, because people cannot survive flat lives. It is better to go into a war and have a little excitement, although it means death.

If a man who has not known inner peace is forced to live peacefully, he will either murder or kill himself. Even that will provide some excitement. Excitement is a great nourishment, but only the right kind of excitement is nourishment. The wrong kind of excitement is poison. And up to now humanity has been dominated by the wrong kind of excitement.

You are here with me to learn a very simple thing: to enjoy peace, to enjoy silence, to enjoy something that is within you and you do not have to depend on others for. Such a peaceful man radiates peace for others too. His silence starts touching other hearts too. His silence becomes oceanic and very inviting.

That's what I am doing here.

Last night, a very nice, juicy journalist was with me. And he was constantly asking me, "Why don't you go out into the world to teach people meditation, silence, or whatsoever you name it?"

It was difficult for him to understand that the well never goes to the thirsty. And remember, if the well goes towards the thirsty, the thirsty will escape! Seeing a well coming towards him, he will do anything but stand there where he was standing. He is thirsty, that is true, but that does not mean that wells have to come towards him. The well has to remain where it is.

And what to say of an oceanic peace? The well is a small thing; you can miss it, you may not be able to find it. I am not a well. The whole world knows about this ocean. Few are the friends of the ocean, many are the enemies of the ocean - but on one point they all agree, that the ocean is there.

I told the journalist, "I create friends, I create enemies, but I never create a person who can ignore me. I am not ignored. And there is no difficulty; the friend and the foe are just superficially different.

The friend will reach me first, and sooner or later the foe will be following. He has already become connected with me - with his hate, with his hostility. He has already married me!" It is only a question of time. He will be watching what is happening to those who are friends.

It all depends on you. If you become peaceful, silent, loving, you will create everywhere a certain area of loving energy. People will start stopping you in the street and asking you what has happened to you - it is something invisible, but very tangible. I am going to remain here. You are going to spread like waves in the ocean to the whole earth.

I am not fighting against the third world war, for the simple reason that there is only one way to fight it, and that is to create a peaceful humanity, a humanity which refuses to fight because now there is no excitement in fighting. Now there is excitement in sitting silently, doing nothing and letting the grass grow by itself. You have found real, authentic excitement. Now who cares to fight?

I am not directly a pacifist, I am not taking protest marches to Washington or Moscow. But I am creating and generating a force which can envelop the whole earth. And that will be the barrier against nuclear weapons, wars, and all kinds of stupidities.

Just recognize your responsibility. Man was never required to be so responsible as he is required to be today, because upon him rests the whole thing - of whether the earth is going to be alive, thriving, flowering, or is going to be a dead planet.

Question 2:

Certainly there is no need for the third world war. AIDS will do whatever the politicians want to be done by a third world war. But it is not in my hands.

Politicians don't want to take a chance. Every day they are piling up more and more nuclear weapons. And on the other hand - you will be surprised - every nation is trying to repress information about AIDS.

Why is every nation trying to repress the information about how many people are suffering from AIDS, and how many people have been in contact with these people? The cases may not be confirmed, but they are all around, and they will be spreading.

Countries are afraid to declare that they have AIDS because it means they accept that there is homosexuality, it means they accept that all kinds of sexual perversions exist in their country, because AIDS is the climax of all perversions together. It is insulting to their ego.

But they are not realizing the fact that if you repress information about AIDS, it is going to spread faster. Perhaps they are not worried because they know that anyway the third world war is going to be there - AIDS or no AIDS. In the politician's mind it seems that there is no way out anymore: they are geared towards the third world war.

Yes, it is a concern to me. The third world war can easily be avoided if people learn a little meditativeness. Then their whole excitement and support for war, democracy, communism, socialism, fascism - everything - disappears. They are no longer slaves of any government, any nation, any religion, any party.

And a man who is meditative, who knows his inner peace and silence, cannot be a perverted sex maniac. The experience of inner ecstasy is helpful in both ways. On the one hand, it will make you normal human beings, not perverted in any way. Secondly, it will make you capable of creating small fields of energy which will go on spreading on their own. We have to cover the whole earth with a red blanket. That will be the barrier which cannot be broken by any nuclear weapons.

But you are right. If AIDS goes on spreading the way it is spreading.... It is not only through sexual intercourse that you can get AIDS. Even by kissing you can get AIDS. There are a few tribes - old, ancient tribes living in the mountains in the Himalayas - who seem to be far more advanced as far as kissing is concerned. They laugh at the whole idea, it is so unhygienic. In each kiss the partners are exchanging millions of germs. You have heard the words "kiss of death." Up to now it has been only words; now it is a reality.

One journalist was asking me, "Then what do you propose as a substitute, because if we stop kissing, we will feel something is missing?"

I said, "No, there is no need. Man is so inventive. You just rub noses with each other, and you will enjoy it more." These aboriginal tribes in the Himalayas do exactly that. They don't kiss, they simply rub noses.

But the journalist was more concerned about catching a cold than about catching AIDS, and he said, "What if one partner has a cold?"

I said, "That is such a simple thing. At the most you can catch a cold. If you don't take any medicine your cold will go in seven days; if you take medicine your cold will go in one week. There is no problem. And it is a show of affection, intimacy, love, that you are willing to rub noses with someone who has a cold."

But please, avoid kissing. You don't know who has AIDS. Very few people are confirmed, because very few people go to the doctors. And those who know they have AIDS manage to bribe the doctors to keep the information secret. They know that they cannot live more than two years - that is the maximum - perhaps they will live six months, eight months.

Just think of a man - put yourself in his position - whose doctor says to him, "You have AIDS and you don't have more than two years to live, at the maximum; most probably six months will do it."

Naturally, you don't want people to know that you have AIDS, because it is so humiliating. AIDS simply means you are a homosexual, perverted. So you are going to bribe the doctor, "Please keep your mouth shut."

And there is no medicine for AIDS, so the doctor cannot be of any help. And as for you, when you see that you have at the most two years, or perhaps only six months, you will try to make the best of those six months - make as much love as you can, find as many partners as possible, because life is finishing.

The people who have AIDS become more focused on sexuality because their whole life flame is going out any moment. Before it goes out.... Now they have nothing to lose, but they can give something - AIDS - to as many friends, lovers, as possible. And each person who comes in contact with these people will become a new source. Within fifteen years, the world will be covered with people who have AIDS, and it will be impossible to prevent it.

So you are right - what is the need of the third world war? The need is that the politicians don't want to take any chance. Who knows? The medical profession may come up with some medicine. Who knows? Man may start naturally building antibodies to AIDS in his body, because this is a challenge to his whole system. Everything is possible. The body does not want to die, it creates antibodies for all kinds of sicknesses. AIDS is a new phenomenon, our bodies are not yet fully acquainted with it.

Perhaps our bodies will start creating antibodies to AIDS.

So it is better, the politicians think, to let AIDS do its work - that is the work of God, the father who is in heaven, above the roof - and we should go on doing our own job of piling up nuclear weapons, so no chance is left.

They are determined, it seems, that this planet earth, which is a rare planet.... All the planets around you are dead. This is the only planet which is alive with millions of species - animals, birds, insects, fish, trees. All the planets around you are very poor. They don't have oceans, they don't have rivers, they don't have trees. They are just dead stone. Nothing grows there. And your politicians are determined to make this earth the same.

This is the greatest responsibility that man has ever faced. But remember, the greater the responsibility, the greater the challenge, the greater is the possibility for you to come to your highest intelligence, potential, capabilities, creativity.

So, on the one hand, it is a very sad picture. But on the other hand, never before has humanity faced such a challenge. Who knows? This challenge may give you guts enough to do things which you always wanted to do for many lives, but went on postponing. Now there is no way to postpone - death is knocking on the door.

What do you want? To read the newspapers - or do meditation? What do you want? To go on playing cards - or do meditation?

Man has to be made aware of the great, the greatest challenge that is standing in front of us.

Politicians are trying to keep both AIDS and nuclear weapons hidden. They do not declare exactly how many nuclear weapons they have, all estimates are guesswork. And now they are trying to repress information about the disease AIDS. Their whole effort is so that you do not become aware of the challenge, because the challenge can bring a transformation in the whole of human consciousness.

I am hammering continually on these two things, AIDS and nuclear weapons, for the single reason that perhaps this is the moment when you would not like to remain asleep. This is the moment you would like to know something deeper than life and death itself. That is the world of peace. And it belongs to you, you just have to claim it.

Question 3:

Energy is always neutral. It has no program in it. It can save or it can mar, it can make or it can destroy.

It is a great opportunity that is becoming available to women, now that they are freed from biological bondage. Of course, man has always praised them for their great creativity in having children. But what kind of children have you produced? Just look around the world: these are your children - what creativity! All the animals are doing it, perhaps better than you.

I have been in many jungles and mountains in India. I have never seen any deer which is too fat or too thin; they are all alike. They are not like man: one person is thin and one is so fat and ugly. I have watched all kinds of animals in the wild: nobody teaches them how to produce children. They don't have any schools, no maternity homes, no guidance from anybody. So don't take much pride in the fact that you can produce children.

Yes, man has been giving woman much juice about it: "You are a great creator because you give birth to a child." It was really very tricky of man; it meant that the woman should continue to create children. And in poor countries it is still happening - to have a dozen children is not rare. Some women have more than one dozen. I saw one woman who had twenty children. Now her whole life is wasted. Either she is pregnant or she is raising the children. And when the child is not even six months old, she is pregnant again. She is doing a double job.

I know about a man who had uniforms for his children. I asked him, "What nonsense this is! Why do you create uniforms for your children?"

He said, "Do you know how many children I have? Fifteen. Without their wearing uniforms I cannot recognize which my child is. So the uniform helps me in two ways. I have to take the children to the school and bring them back home. It helps me to recognize my children and sort them out. It also helps me to know if somebody else's child has not entered into my fold and my child has gone with somebody else."

I said, "Now it is time you should stop; fifteen is too much."

He said, "It is God and his grace. I cannot go against God." He was a very religious Hindu. "If God wants to give birth to more children, then who am I to prevent it?"

All the religions of the world are against birth control methods, the pill. They are against abortion.

It means the woman remains biologically in bondage, and her energies continue to create only mediocre people, crowds to serve in the armies, navies, airforce, to be killed or to kill-at the most to be clerks, nurses, porters. What do you mean by creativity? You have created a porter. Do you feel proud? How much pride can it give to you?

Every parent should feel ashamed. You are creating like animals. Science has given you a chance today to get out of the bondage of biology-a great freedom so that sex becomes, for the first time, not a biological reproductive method; it becomes sheer play, joy.

You are asking me, if women's energies are not poured into creating children, then what will happen to those energies? Why can't you start.... There are thousands of ways to make this world more beautiful. Anything that makes the world more beautiful is creative. Landscape the garden around your house. Crossbreed plants; create new flowers that have never existed before. And of course, they will give new fragrances which the earth has never experienced.

And compete with men in every field. Prove to him that you are equal - not by the women's liberation movement; prove by your actions that you are equal, perhaps superior. The women's liberation movement is just idiotic. A few women will gather and just create anger and hatred against men, and they will all smoke continuously, and drink. And they will all become lesbians because they hate men; they cannot love men, they can only love women. It is such a perversion, a woman loving another woman.

I cannot conceive the idea of a man loving another man - and not just ordinary people: one of the popes before this pope was a homosexual. He was a bishop in Milan before he became pope. The whole of Milan knew it, because he was always hanging around with his boyfriend. And when he became pope and went to the Vatican, the boyfriend went there as his secretary. And you know secretaries are just an escape from your wife, a refuge from your wife.

If the pope is homosexual - and popes are infallible - it creates great suspicion, because Jesus was also hanging out with twelve boys. It may be something coming down from Jesus himself.

Monks are well-known homosexuals, and nuns are lesbians; but this is out of necessity. The monks have to live together in a monastery; the nuns have to live in a nunnery, separate - they cannot meet. Naturally, their sexuality starts taking some other forms. And I think it is intelligent, it is not unintelligent: if you cannot get the food you like, then you have to like the food you get. This is simple intelligence.

In jungles animals are never homosexuals, never. But in zoos they become homosexuals. When I came to know about this, I started being really concerned about humanity: is it a zoo?

This women's liberation movement has only turned women into lesbians. It has created hate towards men, but this is not going to give you equality. Equality has to be earned, it has to be deserved. So since the pill has released you from the bondage of biology, now you are free to use your energy.

And a woman has a more delicate body, a more flexible body. She can become a better dancer than any man can ever manage. The man, howsoever trained, is stiff. It is not his fault, his physiology is stiff. Women can become the best dancers in the world.

A woman has a great imagination, but her imagination has remained confined to the home. The reason was children - children kept her in the home, and for millions of years, so it became almost second nature. Otherwise, I don't see that there is any natural necessity for woman to confine her imagination within the walls of her home.

The stars belong to her as much as to any man. The sunrise and sunset - they are also her possessions. She has to spread her wings, her consciousness. She has to widen her vision, imagination, dreaming, beyond children. Right now, the woman goes on thinking about the child, "He should become a doctor, he should become an engineer, he should become this and that."

Now the woman has to become what she used to project through the child. Become a doctor, become an engineer, become a pilot. What you imagined through the child... Why not directly encounter reality, and be yourself what you wanted your child to be? I don't see that there is any problem.

Women are in many ways superior to men, and their superiority can be used for new dimensions of creativity. An experienced mother knows whether there is a boy or a girl in her womb. How does she come to know? Because the boy starts kicking, and the girl never does that. The girl remains more centered, the boy is already freaking out. And you can see in children - girls will be sitting with their dolls in a corner silently enjoying their game, and boys will be creating all kinds of nuisance all over the neighborhood.

What man has created is nothing if the woman comes into the field with her centeredness, with her roundedness, with her contentment, with her love. So move in any direction that feels fulfilling to you.

The day women start creating all kinds of things that men have been creating up to now.... I say to you, there is no need to ask for equality, because women are the superior sex - naturally, because nature has made the woman to create children. Man's function in creating children is negligible. Any syringe can do what he is doing, just a plastic syringe, use it and throw it out.

Women are more resistant to diseases. From the very beginning, nature has an immense balancing power. If one hundred girls are born, then one hundred and fifteen boys are born, because by the time they reach marriageable age, fifteen boys will have disappeared. They are weaker - any sickness, any disease.... But those hundred girls will be there, so by the marriageable age the balance is equal; those fifteen extras are gone.

If nature were producing exactly the same number of girls and boys, there would be great difficulty.

Soon the population of women would have gone far beyond the population of men. But nature has its own ways of balancing. Knowing that man has a much weaker body, in the sense that it cannot resist and fight with sickness, it creates fifteen extras.

The woman lives longer than the man - five years longer - in every country, in every race. And the woman suffers much, but still she survives. Man cannot survive as much suffering as woman manages to. So don't be worried about your energies. You have more energy than men.

Man started suppressing women only because he felt inferior. His inferiority complex was the cause of his forcing women to become inferior, so he could cover up his wound and feel superior. It is stupid.

And now because biology no longer has power over women, don't waste your energy in being a lesbian. This is the time for you to be creative in every field, and you will be able to have your Picassos, your Mozarts, your Van Goghs, your Shakespeares. There is no reason why not. Perhaps a little better, a little softer, and your sculpture is certainly going to be more alive.

There is only one thing in which you will not find yourself equal to men - and please remember, don't try to be equal in that area - that is muscles. Let men be superior as far as muscles are concerned, because if women start going to gymnasiums and creating muscular bodies, that will be the worst day in the history of humanity.

Just closing my eyes... if I see thousands of muscular women sitting here I am not going to come again!

And there is a tendency to imitate. You know that man has imitated you; otherwise, what is the need to shave his beard and his mustache? It seems as though he wants to look as beautiful as a woman, but he forgets completely that to a woman, a man looks more beautiful with a beautiful beard and mustache. He is thinking from a man's side, that a woman looks beautiful. Just think of it the other way: if a woman grows a beard and a mustache - do you think she is going to find a man to chase her?

But that's what man has done, imitate. A simple argument, but without understanding. He feels that the woman is beautiful, and as it is so easy to remove the mustache and the beard, why not be as beautiful as the woman? He forgets the fact that for the woman you are losing much attraction.

Just look at my beard! I don't think any of my sannyasins would like my beard to be shaved. Perhaps many of my women sannyasins are here just because of my gray beard. And anyway, whether I am saved spiritually or not, I am not going to shave my beard!

Question 4:

The first thing: I don't agree with the idea that these two contending parties, the Soviet Union and America, are not going to come to an agreement. They are bound to come to an agreement, because the forces are equal and war is meaningless.

The only meaning of war is if someone becomes victorious and someone is defeated. That's how wars have always been. But if a war is going to destroy the whole globe, and both the forces are equally balanced, and both the forces are aware of the fact that after the war there will be nobody even to write the history - who won the war, who was defeated in the war.... Both the contenders will disappear.

This fact is preventing them from clashing. And this fact will become more and more powerful, because they are both piling up more and more nuclear weapons. The more nuclear weapons there are, the less is the possibility of a third world war.

So first, I do not agree that they are not capable of coming to an agreement. In fact, without it being said, the agreement is already there. One thing both the parties know: that war is going to destroy all. War for the first time in history has become meaningless. So what the Italian philosopher suggested is wrong.

Secondly, he suggested that someone is needed, a third party more powerful than both; then there is a possibility of agreement. But the third party - if it is more powerful than both, why should it bother about their agreement? It should rule over both. What is the point of their agreement or non-agreement? If China becomes the third party, more powerful than both, then certainly China will rule over Russia and America. In the world of politics, "might is right." So on that point also he is wrong.

And on the third point, that if the third party is religious as it was in the past, a pope.... But do you think wars were not happening in the past? Popes themselves were involved in wars, crusades against the heretics, non-Christians, Mohammedans, Jews. The whole history of the popes is the history of bloodshed, burning people alive, destroying cities, putting cities on fire. Which pope has been able to prevent a war? And you say, "Unfortunately, nobody listens to the pope."

And lastly, you ask me if I am given the chance one day, what kind of agreement I would like to have between the Soviet Union and America. One day is too long; I do not need to do that much work, and don't think I cannot manage it with just one-and-a-half hours.

It is so simple! Just take all their nuclear weapons and drown them in the Pacific Ocean. Whoever named it Pacific perhaps was thinking of this time, that one day the Pacific will bring peace. There is no need for any agreement. Just take all their nuclear weapons - and that can be done easily within one-and-a-half hours. I can order them, "Drown your nuclear weapons in the Pacific."

And as far as little wars are concerned, you can go on playing the game, there is no problem. Man needs to fight once in a while; till the whole of humanity becomes meditative he will need to. So with old methods, the methods that were used before the first world war, you can continue to play the game. It is just football, it is not much of a problem.

To me, it is so simple. There is no need for any agreement, and agreement is not possible. And you are giving me only twenty-four hours. An agreement between communism and capitalism in twenty- four hours is impossible. It is not possible even in twenty-four centuries. So what will I do? I don't care about their agreement. And why should they agree? If Russia feels good with communism, let them feel good. They have the right. If America feels good with capitalism, let them enjoy capitalism.

There is nothing wrong in it. But one thing I will do immediately and quickly: destroy their nuclear weapons; then you have castrated both.

Have you seen a bull? And have you watched? You cannot force the bull to pull your cart; first you have to castrate him. And the castrated bull is no longer the same animal.

In India the bull is worshipped as a symbol of the Lord Shiva by the devotees. Those bulls are really worth seeing - their strength, their pride, the way they walk. Particularly in Benares, which is the city of the Lord Shiva - he founded it. According to Hindu mythology, Benares is the oldest city in the world. And that looks right; it is so rotten, it must be the oldest.

But the greatest joy in Benares is to see the bulls. They will be resting in the middle of the street:

you go on honking your horn, and the bull will not even look at you. The question of his going away does not arise. And don't disturb him, because he is powerful enough to upturn your car and kill you. But after castration the same bull goes on pulling your bullock carts.

So what I will do - and it is a simple operation - I will castrate America and Russia. And castration means take all their nuclear weapons away from them and throw them in the Pacific. And close the Pacific to all ships passing through, because that could be dangerous. Although the Pacific is five miles deep, in any accident - if a ship drowns and hits a nuclear weapon - there will be an explosion immediately. So close the Pacific to travelers.

That I can do within one-and-a-half hours. And more I don't want because of my bladder. Okay?