This nonsense of nations

Question 1:

It must be Veeresh.

Veeresh, you are not only okay, you are just perfect!

The people who have gathered around me are all misfits in the rotten society. Any intelligent person is bound to be a misfit in a society which is dead, out of date, superstitious, based on belief systems.

Only retarded people can be the fit ones. It is fortunate that you are not retarded.

Anybody who fits with me is bound to be a misfit everywhere else.

I have been a misfit my whole life - in my family, in my religion, in my country - and I have enjoyed it all the way, because to be a misfit is to be an individual.

To fit with the existing established order is to lose your individuality.

And that's your whole world.

The moment you compromise and lose your individuality, you have lost everything. You have committed suicide. The people who are fit in the world are people who have destroyed themselves.

Certainly it needs courage, a tremendously strong sense for freedom; otherwise, you cannot stand alone against the whole world. But to stand against the whole world is the beginning of such a great joy, rejoicing and blessing that those who have never been misfits cannot understand it.

All the great names in the history of man were just misfits in their society. All the people who have contributed to the happiness of man and the beauty of the earth have been misfits. To be a misfit is a tremendously valuable quality.

Never compromise on any point.

The very compromise is the beginning of your destruction.

I do not mean that you have to be stubborn; if you see something is right, go along with it. But the moment you realize that something is not right, then even if the whole world feels it is right, it is not right for you. And then stick to your position - that will give you stamina, strength, a certain integrity.

My sannyasins are all misfits in the world.

That's why a great problem has arisen for those sannyasins - very few - who have left the commune for their own reasons. I have nothing to say against their leaving the commune; I don't want anybody to be here against his will. Here there is no society, only a communion of individuals with all their freedom intact. The freedom to leave the commune is one of the basic rights of every sannyasin.

But now those few sannyasins, just a dozen, are in a dilemma. They cannot fit with the society They could not fit in the society, that's why they had come here. Now it is even more difficult for them to fit with the society, so they are in a limbo. They cannot fit with the society, and the milieu where they were acceptable as they were - nobody was trying to change them - they have left.

In Santa Fe those twelve are known as "the dirty dozen." Now they are hankering to come back.

They are writing letters to sannyasins that they are dreaming of the commune, they are missing the commune. But they don't have guts enough to say, "We would like to come back."

Writing these letters they are trying - perhaps we will invite them back. We never prevented them from going, that would have been an infringement on their freedom. We will not invite them, for the same reason. Just as out of freedom they have gone, out of freedom they can come.

And everybody is welcome. We don't bother about the past, we have not inquired about the past of anyone. Our concern is to drop the past and to be in the present, and be available and open for the unknown future.

Now it is their past - that they have once been sannyasins, then they left it. They can come back as clean, pure... they can drop their past. Nobody is even going to ask them, "Why had you left, and why are you coming back?"

When they left, they left in the darkness of the night, ashamed, because they had no real reasons to leave. The only reason for their leaving was their ego. Certainly in this commune nobody can nourish his ego.

And to be a misfit does not mean to be an egoist. If you are an egoist, sooner or later you will compromise. When you find any group of people, any society, any country, which helps you to be more egoistic, you will immediately fit with that society.

The real misfit is a humble man.

That's why nobody can absorb him.

He is free because he is free of the ego.

Now these "dirty dozen".... And Santa Fe seems to be something special. Nobody had heard about it before. Why have these camels reached Santa Fe? Just because they are camels. Santa Fe at its entrance has a rock formation of a camel. They print postcards of that camel - somebody sent me one. Then I came to know why these camels are going to Santa Fe - Santa Fe is meant for camels.

But they don't know... now that they have been with me for four years, five years, seven years, they cannot fit even with camels! So much has happened in those five years without their knowing. They have lost their humps! Now the other camels are not going to accept them; they are unfit camels there. And their letters show that they are waiting to receive the message to come.

I have never called anybody, but I have never prevented anybody. It is your freedom to be here or not to be here. If you are feeling in difficulty... you are enriched in your understanding that this is the only place where you can be accepted with respect, without anybody cutting you, tailoring you, making you into a certain shape, giving you a mold.

We accept all kinds of camels - even those who have lost their humps. But they will have to come.

And if they can travel to Santa Fe, what is the problem? They know the way, they just have to turn their face.

And we will be really rejoiced. And this time their coming will be of immense value to them too, because now the desire to leave the commune will be finished. Now they have understood: wherever they are, they will be outcasts.

And here? This is the caste of outcasts!

Anybody rejected anywhere is welcome here... because my understanding is that only people of intelligence, individuality, are rejected.

The people who are obedient, who have no individuality, no freedom of expression, never say no to anything, are always ready to say yes, even against their wills - these are the people who gain much respectability in the world. They become presidents, they become prime ministers, they are honored in every possible way, for the simple reason that they committed suicide. They are no longer living, they are simply fossilized.

Here, people are alive. How can you fit living people into a certain pattern? Every individual is unique.

And why should he fit into another's mold?

The whole misery of the world can be explained very simply: everybody has been cut, molded, arranged by others without their even bothering to find out what he was supposed to be by nature.

They don't give a chance to existence.

From the very moment the child is born, they start spoiling him - with all good intentions, of course.

No parent does it consciously, but he was conditioned in the same way. He repeats the same with his children; he knows nothing else.

The disobedient child is continuously condemned. The obedient child is, on the other hand, continuously praised. But have you heard of any obedient child having become world-famous in any dimension of creativity? Have you heard of any obedient child who has attained the Nobel prize for anything - literature, peace, science? The obedient child becomes just the common crowd. All that is added to existence is added by the disobedient.

Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the most significant persons of this century, refused to accept the Nobel prize. And when he was asked why, he said, "To accept the Nobel prize is in some way to compromise, is in some way to receive respectability from a society with which I am not in agreement. Perhaps the Nobel prize will weaken me.

"They are so respectful to me - how can I go on fighting against everything they believe in: against their God, against their morality, against their politics?" He said, "Accepting the Nobel prize will be selling myself - that I cannot do." And he was perfectly right.

So, Veeresh, remember never to compromise, whatsoever the cost.

Even at the cost of losing your life, don't compromise.

A compromised man is a castrated man.

A man who dies for his individuality and freedom dies with joy, and all the blessings of existence are his.

I have lived continuously as a misfit everywhere, and I have enjoyed it, every inch of it, every drop of it. It is such a beautiful journey, to be just yourself. You go on discovering your being, your potential, and one day this discovery leads you to the ultimate flowering of your being. That ultimate flowering I have called enlightenment. You become luminous.

Why have very few people become enlightened in the world? The question has been asked of me again and again. The reason is very simple: they did not dare to remain misfits, condemned, dishonored, rejected their whole life. That's why very few people have been individuals, and very few people have reached to the ultimate explosion of their being. There are people who start, but sooner or later they compromise, seeing the dangers of being just yourself.

When I was a small child I had made it clear to my parents and to my family, "If you want me to do something, please don't say it. I am aware enough, I will see what is the need, and if I feel to, I will do it. But once you have told me to do it, then even if you kill me, I am not going to do it.

"I can see that my mother is sitting there and she has no vegetables. I can go to the market which is just a few yards away, I can fetch vegetables for her, but it will be my decision. Nobody can tell me, 'You go and fetch vegetables.' Then it is impossible for me to go - because this is my religion and my life and my way of thinking, that I am to remain myself at every cost."

And soon they understood it, because they found that this is absolutely a difficult task: whatever they say, I do just the opposite of it. It is better to be silent; at least I will not do the opposite.

Slowly slowly, when they were not telling me to do anything, I became almost absent for them, because my presence was of no use to them. And I was surprised to see that sometimes my father would ask, "Have you seen anybody in the house?" - I was sitting there - "because I want to send him to do some work."

I would say, "I have not seen anybody; and now, because you have said it, even if I do see anybody, I will close my eyes."

My mother would say, "You have been here - have you seen somebody else in the house? - because I want something from the market."

And I would say, "I have not seen anybody, the house is empty; only you are here." It became slowly accepted that I could not be relied on for anything. On the contrary, if they tried to command me, to order me, then it was absolutely impossible.

But there were a few moments when they had to say something.... One of my relatives was a little crazy - not much, just a little crazy. He was going to be married: they had arranged a beautiful girl for him, a good house, a good family. Now this was the time they had to tell me, "You remember, don't create any trouble. Don't let it be exposed that he is a little off center. Nobody will be able to figure it out; it will take years to figure it out, that he is off center."

I said, "I don't interfere in anybody's work, nor do I want anybody else to interfere in my work.

Whatever I am going to do, I will do."

They were afraid. They kept the relative away from me, but I found him one day at the riverside, where he used to go to have a bath. I went there and told him, "Are you aware what these people are planning for you?"

He said, "What? They are arranging my marriage."

I said, "Marriage is okay, but before the marriage they will force you to sit upon a horse. And do you know horse-riding?"

He said, "I don't."

I said, "Simply refuse to sit on the horse - whatever happens."

He said, "I am not going to sit on any horse. He may throw me off his back, give me a few fractures - and after all those fractures, what am I going to do with the marriage? Forget all about it."

I said, "No, don't drop the idea of marriage, but don't sit on the horse." Now in India it is very difficult to get married without sitting on a horse. The boy has to sit on the horse, and that's how the procession goes to the girl's house.

But he simply refused! They persuaded, they tried hard, they said, "The time is passing." And everything has to be done in India through astrology. The astrologer decides when the marriage procession should start, when they should reach the house, by what time exactly, minute to minute, the marriage should be performed.

He said, "You have all been befooling me. You have been telling me about marriage, but nobody told me that you will force me to sit on a horse. If you had told me this before, I would have refused to marry."

They inquired, "But who has told you?"

He said, "Everybody knows, in this house there is only one person who takes care about everybody's freedom. He has informed me, 'You will be forced; don't compromise.'" It was such a struggle! And they were all looking for me, but I had disappeared because there was going to be trouble for me.

They had to force him, physically - four persons forced him on a horse - and I was sitting by the way. And when the procession came there and he saw me, he jumped off the horse.

He said, "Enough is enough! Now the procession cannot go anymore, because the person is here whom I have promised I would not sit on the horse. You somehow persuaded me, forced me...."

They all came to me and said, "Somehow persuade him; only you can do it. Half the journey is complete; just a little more, just fifteen minutes more he has to be on the horse, and then in his whole life, nobody is going to force him."

I said, "I would not have interfered in the matter, because I never interfere in anybody's business, but you asked me, emphatically, not to create any trouble, 'because he is a little eccentric, and you can manage to have him do something that will expose him.'"

Now this horse thing was exposing him. It had already reached the girl's family: "The boy is a little strange. He has been forced to sit on the horse and he was running away and screaming and saying, 'I don't want to sit on the horse, I have been warned against it. I have never sat on a horse, why should I? And what has marriage to do with sitting on a horse?' Something is wrong with the boy."

And while they were in the middle of the road, stuck, the family of the girl sent a message, "Don't force him. Take him back, because we are not willing to give our daughter in marriage to this man.

What kind of man is he? He is crazy! And it is good that it is known in time: just fifteen minutes more and they would have been married!"

And in India, in ninety-nine percent of India, divorce does not happen. Once you are married you are married. That relative had to remain unmarried for three more years. And when they arranged it again, my father said, "We are not saying anything to you. If you want to create trouble you can."

I said, "Then I will not create any trouble. Just remain alert: Don't say anything to me that you want me to do, because then I will not do it."

It helped me immensely. It was troublesome - everybody was against me, everybody was condemning me - but it gave me a tremendous courage to be alone. And I never compromised on anything. Whatever I had to suffer, I went through that suffering without any complaint; I had chosen it myself. But all that fire purified my being more and more.

So don't compromise at any point, because the point of compromise makes you weak: you lose your individuality. But don't be egoistic. Be humble. If you want to be an egoist, then sooner or later you will have to compromise.

When I was being sent to the university, they were all persuading me either to go to the medical college and become a doctor, or to the engineering college and become an engineer. But I should become somebody who earns money, who has respectability in the society.

And I said to them, "You know me perfectly well: I may want to become a beggar just because I don't want to be respectable. What is the meaning of getting respect from all these retarded people? Even if all these idiots make me emperor, it is worthless, because they are idiots! I would like a communion with an intelligent person, but not respectability from the mob. I am going to study philosophy."

Now in India, philosophy departments in the universities are almost empty. For years no student turns up - because what can philosophy give you? The only profession available is to become a professor. But how many people can become professors of philosophy while there are no students?

Many universities don't have a philosophy department, they have closed it. There is no point in keeping professors and staff and space for the students when nobody ever turns up.

So they said, "You are taking an unnecessary risk."

I said, "I have to take it. I have to pass through this fire too. And don't be worried about the future.

Even as a beggar I will have the satisfaction that I have not compromised on any point."

And my father, before he died, told me, "Please forgive all of us - we were trying to make you part of the society. If you had not resisted so strongly we would have succeeded. But you were so strong in your struggle that we failed. But now I can say with great joy that our failure was good. Our failure gave you your individuality."

He died as a sannyasin, enlightened. In the whole history, it has rarely happened that a father has become a disciple of his own son. And the moment he became a sannyasin he behaved like a sannyasin - not like a father.

My mother is a sannyasin - she is here - but she has dropped completely the idea of being a mother.

She is here just like anybody else. And they are all happy: my uncles are also sannyasins-they too are happy that I did not compromise. But it took a little time for them to realize that it was a question of life or death to me.

They thought that I was simply mischievous, but soon they realized that it was not mischief. I was simply trying to keep myself completely free, unfettered, unburdened. And it has given me all that a man can dream of.

So, Veeresh, no compromise, whatever the consequence. Even if death comes as a result, you will be able to receive death dancingly. Only individuals can receive death dancingly, because only individuals know that there is no death, that it is only a transformation from one form into another form.

The old house has become dilapidated and you enter into a new house. Of course, the old house may think you have died, because you have disappeared. Here you die; and there, immediately, you find a new house, a new form.

Individuals slowly slowly become aware that there is no death. And if they blossom totally, become enlightened, they know it absolutely, with a tremendous relaxation: that they are eternal beings, they are immortal. The whole universe is theirs. They have been here always; they are here now, and they will be here forever. They are an intrinsic part of existence, there is no question of death.

And this is exactly where life should lead you:

To the experience of deathlessness.

Question 2:

The family is certainly the cause of all kinds of neurosis, psychosis, schizophrenia. The whole sickness of man's mind is created by the family.

The family is the basic unit of the old society; unless the family disappears the old society will continue, because its basic unit is intact.

In my own way, without my saying anything, my communes are helping make the family disappear.

A commune means the disappearance of family ties. You may be here, your wife may be here, your child may be here, but you are no longer a separate unit competing against every other separate unit. In a commune you are not competing, but on the contrary, you are pooling all your energies together. The child will not get fixated - which is one of the most significant things to be understood.

Scientists have discovered in animals a certain fact - the first impression... and very strange conclusions they have come to. When the egg opens and the bird comes out of it, whatever the bird sees first - his first impression - becomes his lifelong thing. That will almost decide his whole life. And it is a very crazy thing.... Ordinarily the bird comes out of the egg and finds his mother or father close by, but once in a while...

It happened when a scientist was working on this fact of the first impression. He was moving around while one egg opened, and a bird came out. His first impression was of the shoe of the scientist, that was the first thing the bird saw. And you cannot think what pathology that created.

He would not take any note of his mother or father, but the moment he would see the shoe.... He would play with the shoe, go inside it and have much fun. But how long can you have much fun with a shoe? You will be surprised: when the bird became young, sexually mature, he started making love to the shoe! He was not interested in females of his species, not at all; his love object was the shoe.

Now it is an established fact that the early impressions go on forever in your unconscious. The early impressions should be wider, richer. For example, a boy is born. While he is coming out of his mother's womb, many women should be there, rejoicing, singing, dancing. He should know not only his mother as the woman, he should know many women just as he knows his mother. He will get a very vague idea what a woman is, not a very accurate picture from the mother.

Psychologists have become aware that no couple in the world is happy, for the simple reason that the woman is searching for her father in the husband. This is something unconscious that she does not know. Now, the husband has not married her to become her father. He has no idea at all that that is what is expected of him. And if he does not behave like her father, then the woman is frustrated.

And vice versa: he himself is looking for his mother. And you cannot find your mother again.

Existence never creates similar people; its creativity is original. You will find millions of women, but you will not find your mother anywhere. Perhaps a few things may be similar: the color of the hair, the color of the eyes, the way the woman walks, the way she laughs, the sound of her voice-something similar, and you will fall in love.

But this is only a part of the woman. After marriage you will have come to know one hundred percent of the woman; and what you had fallen in love with may have been only five percent. And the same is true from the side of the woman: five percent of you is somehow similar to her father, and ninety-five percent is a stranger.

Now, there is no possibility of these two people living peacefully, lovingly - almost impossible. Five percent against ninety-five percent from both sides? There is bound to be continuous quarreling, fighting, arguing; never a moment of peace.

I have heard about a clerk who used to sit in the office after everybody had left, at the time to close the office. The peon who used to close the office also used to sit long. The clerk thought, "Perhaps he sits for me. Unless I leave, how can he close the office?" So he inquired of the peon, "Please forgive me. I am unnecessarily preventing you from going home."

The peon said, "I am not sitting here for you."

The clerk said, "Then why are you sitting here?"

The peon said, "I am sitting here to avoid my wife. As long as I can sit here, I sit. And don't feel guilty that I am sitting for you; in fact, I feel happy that there is some excuse for me to tell the boss, 'Because one clerk was working overtime, I had to sit.'

"But," the peon asked, "why do you go on sitting? I don't see you working, there is no overtime."

The clerk said, "Because I am a bachelor. I don't have a wife, so what is the point of going home? I am killing time."

One is killing time because he has no wife, so what is the point of going home? - nobody is waiting there. The other is sitting there because he has a wife who is really waiting just in front of the house on the steps, to grab him and to put him right into his place.

Strange world! But the cause is the small family unit - for many reasons. It destroys your whole life as far as the relationships between men and women are concerned.

Every girl should have the impressions of many men - loving, friendly. Every boy should have the impressions of many women - loving, friendly. It is possible only in a commune.

Here, there are five thousand people. Every child has thousands of uncles and thousands of aunts.

And he gets loving care from all these people. He will not have a certain fixed idea of a woman. He will have a vague, very vague, cloudy idea of what womanhood consists of. This cloud is capable of helping to create a communion with any woman, because this cloud carries the impressions of thousands of women. So thousands of women are capable of becoming beautiful partners in life.

And the girl also carries... in the same way the girl carries the impression of thousands of men. It is difficult for her to draw a picture of the man she would like. She knows only vaguely, and only qualities, not personalities. And she has learned that every man has unique qualities, and all these qualities don't create the impression of a shoe.

There is a possibility that people will be more in love with their life partners. The words 'intimate enemies' will disappear, but 'intimate friends' will take their place.

And there are other dimensions in which the family creates neurotic trends. For example, you are born in a Christian family; then the whole of Christianity will be loaded upon you. You will not be given freedom to choose your path, your inquiry. Before you have even asked any questions about God, the answers have already been imprinted on you. So there are Hindus, there are Mohammedans, there are Christians. In fact, this is one of the greatest crimes that have been perpetually committed against man.

A child should be just an inquirer.

That is not possible with the small family unit, because the family is Christian, is Jewish; the family goes to the synagogue or to the church. And children are imitative, even if you don't say anything, they would like to come where you are going.

It is impossible for a child to grow in a religious family and not be impressed by the beliefs, superstitions. And by the time he is able to inquire he already has the answers - but they are all borrowed.

In a commune it is possible, because a commune has no religion - everybody is an inquirer. Nobody is interested in imposing his ideas on the child, because he himself is finished with the ideas of others and is trying to find his own way. He will help the child to become an individual and inquire on his own, because truth is discovered by individual inquiry; it is not to be acquired by communal knowledge.

The child is going to gain immensely if the family dissolves into a commune. And the family is also going to be benefited immensely because they are no longer burdened with the child; the commune will take care of him.

There are children here; the commune takes care of their education, and in that education we make them more and more alert, more and more centered. We don't make them Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans. We don't give them a holy book. We don't teach them about God and the belief in God and his prophets.

Our children are absolutely free of the idea of God, heaven and hell, and they are immensely joyous.

And even observers from the outside have noticed the fact that they are far more intelligent than the children in the world. They have to be, because they are coming in contact with so many people.

Their experiences are rich. Nobody is trying to mold them, their freedom is infinite. Everybody is pouring his love on them.

Somebody may be Italian, somebody may be German, somebody may be American, somebody may be Indian - they are all pouring their love on a child who may be Brazilian. Now this child will not carry the old ideas of nations and nationalities and responsibilities. Now this child will not become part of Italy or Germany or America or Brazil. This child will know that all are equally human beings, and all are beautiful, and all are loving.

Why create this nonsense of nations?

Why create this nonsense of races, of black and white...?

In this commune there is no question - nobody takes note whether you are white or black, whether you are Chinese or Russian or Japanese. Your old boundaries start disappearing. But for the new child there will be no boundaries at all. He will belong to the whole earth.

And the responsibility of parents in a family - it is a burden. They are continuously in anxiety: What is the child going to become? How to raise the child rightly so nothing goes wrong?

But everything seems to be going wrong. And there are hundreds of books which teach you how to raise a child, how to be a mother, how to be a father. In fact, there should be books on how to give birth to a child and not be a mother! - because that is one of the most hated words in everybody's unconscious.

It is not only Jews who are against moms.

Everybody is!

In a communal setting things are totally different. More than father and mother, uncles and aunts become important. And you will be surprised to know that as far as language is concerned, 'aunt' and 'uncle' are older words; 'mother' and 'father' are later additions, because there was a time when there was no family. There were tribes, an ancient form of the commune.

In the tribe nobody knew who his father was, because there was no question of marriage. People were producing children, people were making love, but there was no question of family. It was a tribe, all were living together. The child grew in a tribal atmosphere. That is the most natural atmosphere for the child to grow up in.

A commune is the most up-dated tribe. With all the facilities that science has made available, something tremendously revolutionary has become possible.

For example, there is no need that your child should have something to do with your wife's egg or with your semen. This is something very stupid. You should think of the child, not of the semen and not of the egg. And how do you know which egg is your wife's egg?

In a commune, the family is dispersed. The doctors, the medical board, can decide which egg is to meet with which sperm, so that we can create a more healthy, more intelligent child - a child who will not suffer with polio, a child who will not suffer with blindness, a child who will not suffer with cancer, a child who will not suffer from old age even. And we can give him as long a life as we feel is suitable. For the first time man is capable of human engineering.

Up to now it was all accident. You don't know to which kind of child you are going to give birth. It may turn out to be an Adolf Hitler, and you cannot say, "I am not responsible." You are responsible.

Why did you take the chance?

Adolf Hitlers, Joseph Stalins, Benito Mussolinis can be simply dropped out of existence. There is no need for them. Only a certain sperm and a certain egg can create them; we can avoid that possibility.

And we can create more Gautam Buddhas. We can create more Van Goghs. We can create more Yehudi Menuhins, painters, musicians, poets. And these people will be far superior to our Shakespeares and Miltons and Dantes, because they were just accidental, by chance. But there is no need now to take chances.

But before we can start human engineering, the family has to become loose; it is too tight. The family want their child because he will inherit their property.

In a commune, whatever you have is the commune's, and whatever you will leave behind will be the commune's. There is no question of inheritance, so you need not be worried that somebody else's child will inherit your property. In a commune, the property is the commune's.

And you need not be worried that if you die or something happens to you, who is going to take care of your child? In a commune the child will not miss you. He will have so many women, more loving and more compassionate because he has lost his mother.

The family is out-dated.

The future belongs to the communes.

And we are creating these models so that the outside people can start learning something. We are going to do everything that science has made available.

Just as we are victorious over the stupid politicians - and we are going to be victorious, because we are in favor of the American constitution, and they are against it. A very puzzling situation!

We have to fight for the American constitution because Americans are prostituting it. The constitution is absolutely favorable to us. It is democratic, it respects the individual. It wants freedom of expression. It accepts all the birthrights.

The American constitution is perhaps the best democratic constitution which has ever been made.

But the politicians continuously go on doing something which is not constitutional. And they have been able to do it for three hundred years because we were not here.

Now it is not going to be so. Once our commune and the city are settled, we are going to fight them on bigger issues. We will not let them rest. And we are going to expose them to the whole world - that their politicians are hypocrites, and they are going against their own constitution, destroying people's freedom in every way, destroying individuality in every way.

We are spreading these communes all over the world to become models where we will be experimenting with the latest biological, psychological and all other developments. And we will show to the world that we can create a better human being in every way. He will not be a criminal, he will not be a rapist, he will not be a thief.

All these things can be managed from the very beginning, because the first meeting of the egg and the male contribution to your life decides everything - whether the person is going to be a murderer or not. And it can be read! Even before you are born, it can be read. Your whole biography in detail can be written: that you will become a murderer or you will become suicidal or you will become a criminal or you will become a politician or you will become a mystic.

We need the world to have more mystics.

And if murderers and politicians and criminals can be dropped, simply dropped, we can have a beautiful world.

A few old ties have to be loosened. And they are automatically loosened the moment you enter the commune.

Many people have written to me, "I want to join the commune, but I am a little bit afraid: perhaps I may lose my wife there."

I said, "Your fear is right. There is every possibility she may find a better man, you may find a better woman. Nobody is going to be a loser. There is profit in every possible way for both the parties."

The small family is the cause of many troubles to humanity; it has to die, it has to disappear, and it has to be replaced by a bigger commune where marriage is a game you can play if you want. And you can marry today and tomorrow you can divorce. Or in the morning you can marry, and in the evening you can divorce. It is just your decision.

There is no need to promise for the future, because the future has to be left open. Only then do people grow. If you promise for the future you have already blocked and destroyed it. No intelligent man can promise for the future.

Who knows what tomorrow is going to bring? You may meet a beautiful woman and suddenly your whole attention shifts from the wife to the new woman. There is no need for jealousy. You have to say to your wife that this has happened. "I am grateful to you for all those beautiful moments that you have given to me. Perhaps the time has come that we part, and I hope that you will find a better man than me."

Naturally, if you have experienced a few people you always find better ones, because your understanding, your experience becomes bigger and bigger. You know whom to avoid - your old husbands!

It is beautiful to fall in a new ditch; at least it is new, fresh - rather than falling in the old ditch again and again and again. That becomes mechanical, it loses adventure. I am not against falling in ditches, just don't fall in the same ditch again! Find some other ditch! There are so many ditches all around - why remain poor in your experience? And why keep somebody else remaining poor in her experience?

In a small family the child is the problem. In a commune the child is not a problem. The father and mother go on changing partners - that does not matter to the child. The child is being taken care of by the commune. He can go to his old father to see him, to meet him; he can go to his mother. It does not matter that they no longer live together.

In fact, it is enriching, because he will be meeting a new father, a new mother. When he goes to meet his father, he will introduce him to his new mother. When he goes to meet his mother, she will introduce him to his new father. And this is going to happen so many times that he becomes introduced to the whole commune.

This is more human. And he is no longer tied to a very small thing, he is flowing in a vast sea of human beings.

Once we have settled our communes in the world, these are going to be the predecessors, the pioneers for the whole humanity in the future. There is no other way. The old family is finished; it is just dragging on somehow because people can't see any alternative.

We are the alternative.

Question 3:

If you are in doubt, it is conditioning.

If there is no doubt, it is awareness.

It is a very simple criterion!

Question 4:

I have never thought in my life that there is going to be someday the Osho Shake!

I don't know dancing, so it is going to be outrageous.

And the secret is very simple:

It is your love.

I don't think any man in the whole history has been loved so much by so many intelligent people.

Your love makes me dance.

The secret is with you.

I cannot believe it, because I don't deserve any love even from a single human being. But one million sannyasins around the earth - it surprises me!

And you are showering so much love that what else can I do? I can do a little Osho Shake!