I am not your father

Question 1:

It is good that you recognize that you are a hypocrite. That is the beginning of finding all the roots of resentment, hatred, cruelty. Once a person recognizes that he is a hypocrite, things become very easy. He has found the disease.

But the second thing that you say is not right. You say you are a hypocrite, and a rough man, and you are happy you have found a soft master. That's wrong. Nobody can be rougher than I can. Who told you that I am a soft master? You cannot find any rascal in the whole world to compete with me.

So, drop that completely.

You are a hypocrite, that I accept. But I am not a soft master. My ways may look very soft but what I am doing is simply destroying your ego, your hypocrisy, your personality, so that you can discover your authentic individuality. It is hard work, because you are identified with your personality. The moment I hit your personality, you immediately feel as if you have been hit. You have not been hit.

Your personality is your enemy. And only those who are ready to see their personality being killed, murdered, butchered, can live with me, because then they will see what is meant by spiritual rebirth.

Whatever your parents, your society, your family have done to you, I have to undo it. And you are preventing me from undoing it. Perhaps that is why you call me a soft master - you want me to be a soft master. You cannot deceive me. You can deceive yourself and the whole world, but include me out!

This is your desire, that I should be soft. And how can I be soft with you when you are doing every nasty thing to me? You have replaced your father with me. This is criminal. I have never fathered anyone, because I don't take unnecessary accidental things on my own shoulders.

You have replaced your family with the commune? Then naturally as a shadow the resentment against your father will become resentment against me, and the resentment against your family will become resentment against the commune.

And don't say to me that unconsciously you have done it. You are perfectly conscious, you are asking the question! You know perfectly well what you have done. Nobody can ask a question about what his unconscious has done. How are you going to know your unconscious? The very word 'unconscious' means that you are not aware of it.

You are perfectly aware, so it is not an unconscious thing that you have replaced your father with me, your family with the commune. No, you are perfectly conscious. But certainly, being a hypocrite, you can go on deceiving others. And finally, the person who goes on deceiving others is bound to deceive himself. He becomes so accustomed to deceiving.

I used to have a friend who was a kleptomaniac. He was not interested in stealing - he belonged to a rich family, there was no need for him to steal. And things like a button, a safety pin - absolutely absurd. And he had a box in his house which he always kept locked; nobody knew what was in it.

But feeling a deep friendship with me, he said, "I will show you one of my secrets. You come with me to my home." I went. He locked the room, opened the box, and showed me all kinds of things.

I found one of my fountain pens there, one of my notebooks which I had been missing, because it had all the telephone numbers around the country.

I said, "This is your secret?" He said, "Yes, I enjoy stealing so much. It does not matter what I steal, what matters is that I have stolen and have not been caught. I have deceived somebody and proved that I am more clever than they are."

I said, "That is good. Is that the whole secret?" He said, "One thing more I have to confess to you.

Since I have brought you here, and you are the first man to know that I enjoy stealing, the second thing I also want to say to you in order to get rid of it, because it is very embarrassing to me...."

I said, "What is that?" He said, "Sometimes I cannot find anything to steal from anybody; then I steal from my right pocket and put it in the left. I feel embarrassed to accept it, but this is the truth."

You see my point? He has become so accustomed to stealing from others, now without stealing he cannot feel at ease.

You say you are a hypocrite; you certainly are. And what is conscious to you, you are trying to put into the unconscious to get out of the responsibility for it. Now you are being a hypocrite to yourself.

I would like to tell you another story, very famous in the East. There was a great saint, Eknath. He was going on a pilgrimage to holy places. And in India it is difficult to find an unholy place; there are holy places all around. It takes years for somebody to travel to all the holy places.

Thirty of his disciples were going with him. They were all rich people, they could afford a ten, twelve years' journey, the expenses and the dangers.

A new man who had never been to him, came to him and said, "Master, I am a poor man. I would also like to go on this pilgrimage you are going on. And when thirty people are going with you, when food is prepared for thirty, it can easily be managed for one poor man, a little food, a little clothing."

Eknath said, "There is not much of a problem in it, you can come." The man said, "The problem is that I am a thief, and I am afraid that I may let you down." Eknath said, "That is difficult. Poverty is okay, we will take care of you, but who is going to take care of your stealing? You have to promise that you will not steal while we are on the pilgrimage. Only then can I accept you in the group."

He promised; he was accepted. But a strange phenomenon started happening in the group, when they were moving from one place to another, staying overnight in a caravanserai, or in a temple. A strange thing started happening; people started missing their things. More strange than that was that everybody found his things in somebody else's bag. It became a mystery, how things moved from one's bags into somebody else's bag. They were not lost, you just had to search again. Everybody asked....

Eknath said, "I know what is the matter. Call that thirty-first man we have accepted." He said, "You have to be true. Have you been doing this?"

The man said, "I have promised not to steal, I have not promised that I will not put something from one place into another place. You have to forgive me, I am completely addicted to stealing. This much you will have to tolerate. I have not taken anything from anybody. But when everybody is sleeping, you know, it becomes such a great itch - so many people sleeping with so many beautiful things, and I think 'What the hell are you doing here?"

"Night is my day. For years I have slept in the day and remained awake in the night because that was my business time. And I am feeling in trouble. The whole day I am feeling sleepy, and as the night comes, I become fully awake. Hence, seeing all these rich people with precious diamonds, necklaces, pearls, the temptation is too much. But I have kept my promise. I take somebody's necklace and put it onto somebody else's neck. Do you think it is going against my promise?"

Eknath laughed. He said, "No, this you can do; these thirty people will just have to work out where their things are! But I can understand you, your trouble."

I can also understand you and your trouble. You are a hypocrite. You have been pretending to be what you are not. And without knowing, in your question you have done the same thing.

You say unconsciously you have replaced your father with me, your family with the commune. How do you know it? To know the unconscious is to become enlightened, because the unconscious is nine times bigger than your conscious mind. Your conscious mind is a thin layer. The unconscious mind is deep, dark, and you know nothing about it. So please be clear. At least don't cheat yourself.

It is a conscious thing that you have done and you are dumping it on the unconscious. Understanding this much will destroy the whole thing.

I am not your father, I am not even your uncle. And I am not soft. My sword may look very soft but it really cuts deep.

And once you drop the idea of this replacement, which is absolutely absurd, then all resentment, hatred, anger, will disappear automatically. You will not have to do anything else, you have simply to accept that you have been deceiving yourself. And this is a deception. What can be more deceptive?

But one thing is that now there is no going back. You have already fallen in love with me; you enjoy my talks, you love what I have to say. You cannot go back, the only way is forward. So why be bothered with the past?

Your father may have done something to you. Every father does something to every child. He has to; otherwise those children will kill him. They will destroy the house, they will set it on fire - they can do anything! Every father has to be a strict disciplinarian. And that is what creates resentment, because he cuts your freedom.

He tries to make you in his own image, as God made man in his own image. And just look at your face in the mirror: this is God? A great God! And a great image! But every father is trying to do it.

That is exactly the reason why the story of God creating man in his own image has been invented.

Every father tries to make you his carbon copy; that creates resentment.

But how can you put me in your father's place? I am not trying to make you in any way in my image. Just the opposite is the case. I am trying to help you to find who you are, to drop all other paraphernalia that your family, your father, your teachers, your priests have put upon you - clothes upon clothes.

Drop those clothes. It will be difficult, because those clothes carry respectability. Those clothes make you the inheritor of your whole family's past. Those clothes make you a Jew, a Hindu, a Mohammedan. Those clothes make you a cousin to Jesus Christ or Moses or Buddha. That is the difficulty; you cannot drop them.

But you seem to be a courageous man, to accept that you are a hypocrite. Just a little more courage:

drop all that has been imposed upon you. Be utterly naked, the way existence wanted you to be.

That's the way you had come into the world. I mean metaphorically - you need not walk naked into Portland. Here of course, you can, there is no problem. Nobody will pay any attention, you will simply feel and look silly. Nobody will even ask, "What is the matter?"

In my commune everybody is accepted as he is. If he is enjoying the morning sun naked, he is not interfering with anybody, he is not committing any crime. And if you don't want to see him, there is no need to see him. When you are passing him just keep your eyes closed, or look to the other side.

His nakedness is a problem only because in his nakedness you can see your nakedness too. You know you have not been courageous enough to drop your clothes and be open to the wind, to the rain, to the sun.

If you really love what I am revealing to you - it is not a revelation from God, it is just opening my human heart, just to give you courage so that you can also open your heart, so that there is no fear.

And when two hearts open... there is a symphony that arises out of two hearts open to each other, beating with each other in a certain rhythm.

That harmony will give you roots, will make you centered, will make you grounded. And you will also be able to forgive your parents. Not only that, you may feel sorry for them, because the same has been done to them by their parents and family, and so on and so forth, till you reach Adam and Eve - and they have not been treated in a different way even by God.

So this is the whole genealogy of humanity. Each individual is part of this long ugly history. But nothing can be done now; gone is gone. You can forgive, you can feel compassion for all those people. And don't waste time in finding the roots of your resentment. There are no roots, it is just a conscious thing. It is a parasite.

In India we have a creeper which has no roots. It simply moves from one tree to another tree; it can be miles long. It simply sucks juices from trees. When I was a child and somebody told me that this creeper has no roots, I could not believe it - I am not a type who believes in anything. I went following the creeper deep into the forest, where it had started its pilgrimage of exploitation. Yes, there were no roots. The creeper had small branches coming out, very thin but very strong, like thorns. Those thorns enter into the trees, and from the trees it exploits.

Your resentment has no roots, so don't waste time. It is a rootless creeper. Your hatred, your anger, all are rootless; they are out of your misunderstanding. They are just in the conscious mind, sucking you, your energy, your intelligence, your silence, your serenity. Just try to understand why it happened. And it is not something that has happened only to you, it has happened to everybody - in that one matter we are all equal. Only in that matter is communism right. So don't feel that you are the only sufferer.

Becoming alert, conscious, looking at how this resentment has grown... just the very understanding of it will dissolve it.

My father tried his best to make me in his own image; my mother has tried, all those who loved me.

I cannot suspect their intentions, their intentions were good. But that is what has been done to them by their parents, and that was all that they could do to me. How can I feel resentful? It was just pure misunderstanding. I feel sad and sorrowful for them because they suffered, their parents suffered, the whole humanity has been suffering unnecessarily.

Just a small revolution will change the whole color of the world. And that small revolution is contained in being free, in being your own self, whatsoever the cost.

My father used to take me to the temple. I resisted, I fought with him, but he said, "You will have to come; otherwise you will fall into hell." I said, "I would rather fall into hell of my own accord - at least the satisfaction will be there that this is my choice. But you cannot force me into paradise. I will suffer there, badly, because I will not be able to forget that I have been pushed there forcibly, against my will."

The day I said this to him, for a moment he was silent, and he said, "Then it is okay. Wherever you want to go, you go."

I said, "I will remain thankful to you for my whole life, because right now I have an appointment to play cards with a few people. You go to your temple, I will go to my appointment. And from this moment there is a possibility of friendship between us." And from that moment that friendship grew, and a moment came that he became a sannyasin.

My mother is a sannyasin. Of course my mother became a sannyasin first - women are more courageous, for the simple reason that they have nothing to lose. They don't have anything - no respectability, no position in the society; there is no problem.

My father took sannyas four years after my mother became a sannyasin. He started feeling bad that he was not courageous enough; but he started meditating, started coming to the meditation camps.

And finally, one day, there were two things: the breakdown of the personality and the breakthrough into a new existence, into a new life.

If your father is alive, help him. Tell him why you have been feeling resentful, it was simply misunderstanding, "You have done everything that you thought is good. It may not be good - it is not good, but it was not your fault."

The fault goes back to God. That's why I am continually beheading God. Any moment I find a chance, I behead him immediately, because he is the original source of all the stupidity, suffering, misery in which man has to live.

Your father has nothing to do with it. If he is alive, go - and don't be a hypocrite before him. He has taught you to be a hypocrite. Go naked and nude, just yourself. And please don't replace your father with me. That is absolutely unfair, unjust.

I have never tried in my life to change anybody's life. Millions of people have changed their lives around me, but that is their responsibility. I have not made any active effort to enter their territory.

I respect everybody's territory. But if they found something that makes them blissful, peaceful, at ease, and they wanted to have all these blessings themselves, it is their business. Nobody can make me feel responsible for anything. Neither do I make anybody responsible for anything. I respect the individual.

So if you know there is resentment, drop it. The reason is, your father must have been hard in trying to make you a good boy. Now you can go to him - you are no longer a boy, you are no longer even a son to him. You are a sannyasin; and a sannyasin is nobody's son, nobody's father, nobody's husband, nobody's wife. I mean in reality, not legally. Legally you may be a husband, a wife, that is a different thing. But in reality you are just yourself, I am just myself.

If he is dead, then go to his grave with flowers to offer, with tears to offer. The question is not whether your father listens or not, the question is that you are doing it. In your tears your resentment will be gone, washed away. With your flowers you would have shown respect to the person whose intentions were always good.

And don't replace him with me. Without even asking my permission, you become my son, I become your father! Then naturally all that was directed towards your father - resentment, anger, hatred - you direct towards me, and I am absolutely innocent in the matter. I don't even know you! I don't know whom I am answering!

And don't replace your family with the commune. The commune is not the family. The commune is the death of the family. Not one family, many families die, then one commune is created - on their ashes. Your family is dead.

All those who have come to me have dropped out of their families, their religions, their churches.

And here there is no family, just friends living together, helping each other.

Question 2:

I do not understand myself - but what to do?

I have only trust to offer because I don't have any distrust in me.

You ordinarily think that trust has to be given to a trustworthy person. You are very miserly. Perhaps you have only a very small quantity of trust, and you can give it to only a very few trustworthy people.

And that too you never give wholeheartedly. You always remain on the boundary, showing trust, but deep down still feeling, "Who knows if this man is really trustworthy or not?" So you are ready; if you find he is not trustworthy, you can step back.

You cannot understand my problem. My problem is I don't have distrust to give to anybody. In that sense I am very poor. There are many things which are missing: I cannot hate anybody, I cannot be angry at anybody, I cannot do any harm to anybody. I am really poor.

Your question seems to be relevant; "How can you trust a man who is cheating you?" I would like to ask you, "If you cannot trust a man who is cheating you, what kind of trust do you have?" A very impotent kind of trust. If the man is trustworthy, then anybody will trust him. But if the man is cheating, only a man like me can trust him. I may even help him to cheat me in a better way.

It happened in a Sufi mystic's house that by mistake a thief entered. He was thinking that it was some rich man's house. The house was beautiful and big; some rich follower had presented it to the Sufi mystic. Seeing the house, the thief could easily calculate how much treasure must be inside it.

But when he went in for the first time, he was shocked to see that the doors were open. In such a beautiful mansion, there was not even a guard, and the doors were open. He felt a little shaky and afraid too - perhaps this was some kind of a trap.

But his greed was greater than his fear. He said, "I should look around a little bit more. Perhaps they have forgotten to lock the door. Perhaps the guard is on vacation, away for the weekend."

He went in and there he found the Sufi.... It was hot summer but Sufis use only wool. That's why they are called Sufis - suf in Arabic means wool. They use only woollen clothes - it does not matter whether it is winter or summer or rain. And in Arabia it is almost always summer, hot summer, the sun is burning - and the Sufis use wool.

So the Sufi was lying down on a woollen blanket. And there was nothing in the whole house, not a single thing, because the Sufi used the blanket in the day to cover himself and in the night to lie on.

The thief was of course very much disappointed. He looked into other rooms, and when he came back to the front of the house where the Sufi was lying he saw that the Sufi had moved to the bare floor and had left the blanket.

The thief could not understand what had happened, but he thought, "Whatsoever has happened, at least I can take this blanket." But he was feeling a little sorry too, "This man will not have anything tomorrow even to wear. I have looked in the house, there is nothing to eat. Such a beautiful mansion, so utterly empty! The only belonging is the blanket." Even the thief felt compassionate.

Just out of habit, first he took the blanket and was going to run away, but on second thoughts he spread the blanket again in its place. The Sufi was awake. He said, "What are you doing? I rolled out of the blanket just so that you could take it. The house is empty and I am very sorry. I never thought that a thief would come here; otherwise I would have arranged a few things.

"Next time when you come, just inform me two or three days ahead. I have many followers, I can collect things. They are always giving and I am not taking because I don't need. But please don't reject this blanket; otherwise I will always feel wounded that a man had come to find something and I am so utterly poor that I could not offer him anything."

The thief was in a great difficulty: what to do? Nobody before has begged him to steal. And not a single word of condemnation - on the contrary, the Sufi is feeling guilty that the house is empty.

Just not to wound the beautiful man, with whom he had almost fallen in love... he had never seen such a man who could be so loving, so trusting, so helpful even to a thief in his own house. So he took away the blanket, but could not go far. It was ugly to distrust such a man who trusts you so totally, who respects your humanity so totally without any condition.

He came back, and what he saw he could not believe. The Sufi was sitting outside the mansion. It was a full-moon night and he was singing a song. The song meant: "I am so poor. If I possessed the full moon I would have given it to that poor man." He was crying because he did not possess the moon; otherwise he would have given the moon to the poor man.

The thief listened to his song - it was so beautiful.... He came and fell at the Sufi's feet and told him, "Just accept me. You have already a big mansion; accept me as your disciple, as your servant - in any way. And please take this blanket back, I cannot take it. And I promise you, I will never steal because, who knows, sometimes one may be stealing in the house of a man like you. I am not dropping stealing because stealing is bad, I am dropping stealing because there are people like you who can trust even a thief."

You ask me, "How can you trust somebody who is cheating you?" I trust the potential of the individual, I trust his innermost purity, which no cheating can destroy. I know he is cheating because he has been trained to cheat, the society has forced him to cheat. But he is not responsible, he is only a victim. And won't you trust a victim?

You are asking me, "How can you trust a man who is murdering you?" I have lived my life so intensely and so totally that if somebody murders me he is not taking anything away from me. I will trust him for the simple reason that he is a human being; his being a murderer does not matter. Anyway, one day I am going to die, and when I die I will not be satisfying anybody. Today I can satisfy this man; even my death becomes valuable.

I help people in my life, I am helping this man in my death. If this is his enjoyment, if this is what will bring some rejoicing to him, then I am the last person to interfere in it; I will help him. And I will die trusting him.

And the last thing I would like to say to you:

Trust is a very alchemical force.

If you trust somebody, you can transform the person.

Perhaps my trust may stop him being a murderer. My trust may stop somebody cheating me. Trust is a tremendous force, it is not something small. You don't know about it; your trust is not trust. First you find out the trustworthiness of the person and then you say you trust him. He is trustworthy - you are not trusting. And I don't care whether he is trustworthy or not. That is his business, that is his problem.

I do my thing and I let him do his thing. I will trust and love and shower all my blessings on him.

Perhaps he may not come across another man like me. Perhaps this is the only opportunity for him to be transformed, to be reborn.

Question 3:

Just you are stupid.

And you wanted her also to be stupid like you. But she proved far more intelligent than you are.

Rather than going away from the commune - which is the only alternative today in the whole world where some transformation can happen - if she dropped you and the connection with you, she did absolutely right. In fact, if you love her you should come back to the commune. Why should she leave the commune to live with you, out of the commune?

You say it is driving you crazy. No, you are crazy, nobody can drive you crazy. You could not understand the woman. She loved you. She loved you so much that against her will, reluctantly, she was ready even to go with you and live outside. But it was so much against her whole being that finally she decided she had to choose. She had to choose between me and you.

Now who is stupid? If you have a little bit of intelligence left, come back. She has made an opportunity for you too. By remaining here, by clearly, decisively disconnecting from you and your love, she has given you the message that something bigger than your love is happening here.

If you love her you should come to the commune. She has made it possible for you to come back to the commune to be near and close to me. She loves you, that's why she has disconnected completely. This is an electric shock treatment. You know perfectly well she loves you. She knows perfectly well that unless she stops all connections with you, you are not going to come back here.

And why were you afraid of being here? You being the man... and she is a woman - she has more courage than you, she has more guts than you. Just slap your face, wake up, and come back. And you will find for the first time what real love is.

If you cannot sacrifice perhaps your salary, your position, your respectability in the society, then go to hell! You are not meant to be a lover - with all your respectability and all your salary and position.

Your question is a little strange. You have not said why you wanted her to go with you to the outside world. You have some investment in the outside world. It was not out of love that you were persuading her to go with you; it was your respectability there, your position, your business - anything. She could see it, that she is being used.And to use any human being is the ugliest thing in existence. She refused to be used. She declared her independence.

But she has not declared that she does not love you. She has simply disconnected herself so that you are free, she is free. This is an act of love. And if you have something of manliness in you then drop all that is keeping you there outside; for the sake of love come back to her here. And in this way she has created a way to come back near me... otherwise what love do you know?

The whole world seems to be loving. Fathers are loving their children, children are kissing their moms, moms are loving their husbands. Brothers, sisters, friends, the whole world is entangled - loving. And if you look around the world you don't see any fragrance of love. Four billion people loving, and there is no fragrance of love. All that you smell is nuclear weapons, Hiroshima still burning, Nagasaki. When the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was seven hundred times less atomic energy in the whole world than there is today.

And you are going to a society which is continuously preparing to commit suicide, where AIDS is spreading like wildfire. My communes will be the only refuge where we can prevent AIDS, where we can promote a great world movement of meditation, silence and peace - and destroy the mad dreams of politicians to kill all life on this earth.

Question 4:

You woke up with this sentence: "I'm going to squeeze...." Still "going..."? You should have squeezed then and there! "Going to squeeze the whole juice of this moment"? When? When this moment is gone?

And you started wondering about the world constitution that sannyasins will write: "Can this be the oath in that constitution?" No!

In the first place sannyasins are not going to write any constitution. Constitutions are written by politicians. Constitutions are written by people who are power-lusty, ambitious. Constitutions are needed because they are all nations.

I am trying to destroy all divisions between man and man.

In my commune nobody knows who is a German, who is an Italian, who is an American. And soon I'm going to suggest to my commune people to create dresses which don't make any distinction between man and woman.

So in the first place we are not going to make any constitution. We are going to destroy all the constitutions of the world. And for argument's sake, if some idiot sannyasin, some camel, starts writing a constitution, then this sentence cannot be there as an oath; "I am going to squeeze the whole juice of this moment". But when?

Your sentence is exactly against my whole teaching. Squeeze it! Don't even think, "I'm going to squeeze...." By that time the moment is gone.

Squeeze it first, then say whatsoever you want to say!

Question 5:

That's why I don't like spaghetti, because I don't like your so-called self-realized men, your prophets, your messiahs, your avataras, your tirthankaras. They are all spaghetti - you are right. And I don't want to be a spaghetti.

I don't prevent you from enjoying it. It is very difficult for Italians to stop spaghetti. Even if I promised them that if you stop spaghetti you will be enlightened, they would not stop spaghetti. That is the only thing they have contributed to the world; otherwise, what is the contribution of Italy? - a certain kind of greasiness.

You have found the right reason why I don't like spaghetti - because it is very similar to your prophets, your messiahs. I think - were all these people Italians, or what? I will never.... Just visualizing your spaghetti is enough for me to feel sick.