Sex to ecstasy

Question 1:

THE movement of human consciousness from darkness to light, from unconsciousness to consciousness, is the greatest revolution there is.

Everything in human life changes, even with a slight movement in consciousness. All depends on where your consciousness is. But this is something which has never been explored. If you look into the dictionaries you will not find three meanings of love there should be. You will not find three meanings of religiousness; there should be. You will not find three meanings of happiness either; there should be. Let us move step by step. Love, for the person who lives in the darkness of his instincts, is not even worth calling love. It is simply sex, a strategy of nature to go on reproducing itself.

You are being used as a means - that is the ugliest part of it. You are not the master of it, you are in the hands of biology. And whatever you are doing, it is not your doing either: you are forced by your instinctive nature to do it - there is no option, it is not your choice. You cannot choose - as far as instincts are concerned, their grip on you is absolute; you are simply a prisoner.

But you go on befooling yourself: you think it is something that you are doing - it is something that is being done through you.

72 There is a story in India.... In Jagganath Puri, one of the sacred places of Hindus - jagganath means the lord of the world; the temple in Jagganath Puri is the temple of the lord of the world. Because of the temple, the city has grown around it, and because of the temple, the whole city is called Jagganath Puri.

Every year there is a great festival; millions of people gather. The statue from the temple is taken on a chariot for people to see, and it goes around those millions who have gathered. The chariot is drawn by beautiful horses, twelve, of the same color, pure white - the color of the lord of the world.

The chariot is golden, of immense value.

Once it happened - this is how the story goes - that a dog started walking in front of the chariot, in front of the horses. Now, when millions of people were there, who was going to bother about a dog who is walking in front of the chariot? People were falling on the ground, prostrating, to give respect to the lord of the world. And the dog thought, "This is great! I have so many followers - I had no idea before. Such a multitude of disciples... I must be some great master."

Obviously - the logic is simple - the disciples were there and everybody was prostrating to him. He was not aware of the lord of the world, who was behind. Even if he tried he could not see, because the statue was high in the chariot, and then there were twelve horses. It was not possible for the dog to find out to whom... and they were almost touching his feet. And when somebody is respected by millions of people in this way, the very idea of thinking that this respect is being given to somebody else who is behind is impossible - it is against the ego. And the evidence is so clear, anybody can see.

This is the situation of man as far as biology is concerned. The chariot of biology is behind you, carrying the lord of nature, and you think everything is being done by you. Just a little alertness is needed and you will be able to see that it is nothing to do with you. Nature wants to fulfill itself - you are being used as a means.

The antagonism of religion against sex is ninety-nine percent stupid, but there is one percent of truth which I cannot deny. But I have never talked about that one percent of truth to you because there is the danger that the one percent truth may deceive you and you will forget the ninety-nine percent which is untrue. So I have been hammering on the ninety-nine percent. But to make my picture complete... these are my last touches to the picture, so I cannot leave anything out.

That one percent of truth is significant; in fact because of that one percent, all religions became anti-sex. And that truth is that sex makes man a fool, gives him the idea that he is the master of it, while he is only a slave. And the slavery has to be broken - he has to be pulled out of this ditch. But if he thinks that that ditch is a palace then you cannot pull him out. You cannot even persuade him to come out of it; hence, the condemnation of sex by all the religions.

But they overdid it, and they forgot the ninety-nine percent dangers just for the one percent. It could have been done very easily without taking the risk of ninety-nine percent falsehood. But they saw the danger of man being simply a means, and that is the lowliest position possible; you are just a means, not an end. You are being used by some unknown force of which you have no idea. And you go on thinking in your mind that all these prostrating people are prostrating to you.

The man living on the instinctive level only has an hallucination of love. That hallucination is created by nature, by biology, chemistry. You have in your body drugs which are released when you are making love, and you start moving into euphoria. That is one of the reasons why people who become addicted to drugs slowly slowly become uninterested in sex.

The hippies and yippies and all kinds of people - when they became too interested in drugs, they lost their fervor for sex completely, because now they had found a better way of getting into a euphoric state. Now sex seemed to be nothing compared to it. That can give you a clue that both are drugs.

Nature has been using that drug in a very minute quantity; there was no need for more up to now.

Perhaps nature will have to think again - find out better drugs, create better chemistry, bring its level up to date; it is lagging far behind. Man's mind has created things like LSD far superior; so superior that a man like Aldous Huxley thought that LSD gives you samadhi - that it is actually what Kabir and Buddha and Rumi and all the mystics of the world have been talking about. But they had bullock-cart methods to reach to this state.

Now science has given us very advanced drugs, there is no need for yoga and tantra and other things - you just take an injection. You yourself push the injection, there is no need for somebody else to do it. And for hours you are in a euphoric state which is certainly superior to what you call orgasm, because orgasm is so momentary that it only creates more desire for it; it never gives you any satisfaction.

The second symptom that it is a drug is its power of addiction: people become addicted to sex. And a very strange thing about addiction is that if you have the drug, it is nothing; if you don't have it, you are missing. You never think what you are missing because when you have it, it is nothing. Each time you have it you feel that it is just a futile effort, nothing comes out of it. You don't move a single inch in evolution. You just jump for a moment in the air and with a thump you fall back on the ground.

That's why people don't like to make love publicly, there is no other reason. The reason is nobody wants to look so foolish. Now, in California, which is the most advanced stupid place in the whole world, they have hotels for peeping Toms - you have to pay for it. Inside two fools are making love, and many around the room are sitting and looking and enjoying what the two fools are enjoying.

They are enjoying how the couple are making fools of themselves. People pay for it, but those two people are not aware of it; they have also paid.

One man, the first day, was inside the room, but coming out he found many people really hilarious.

He asked them, "What is the matter?"

They said, "The show was so good!"

"Which show?" he asked.

They said, "You don't know? Come tomorrow - it is worth seeing." The man was such an idiot, and he had been doing such idiotic things, it was worth seeing. The next day the man came with these friends. Now he was outside the wall - and then he found what the matter was: the previous day he had been inside and all these people had enjoyed him. This was tricky - now he was enjoying somebody else!

All the cultures around the world have prohibited, in some way or other, lovemaking in public places, for the simple reason that if you want to be idiotic then at least find some privacy. Don't make yourself unnecessarily a public show free of charge. A crowd will gather and they will enjoy. Nobody can pass by that place; they will all stop there. And they know they all are doing the same kinds of things. But it is an unconscious state.

Love, at the instinctive level - which is the lowest level - is just a dream created by nature so that you can pass through this arduous job of making love. If there is no euphoria around it, you are going to refuse: "I am not going to make a fool of myself." Nature has given you a certain allurement.

So in the unconscious state where instinct functions, love is only a name. It means nothing, it simply means foreplay... because just going to a woman and asking her, "Are you ready to come with me to bed?" looks so sudden and so inhuman that the woman, even if she wanted to come with you, is going to slap you. Instead of sleeping with you she is going to slap you then and there.

No, you have to follow a certain procedure - and that procedure you call love. It is not that you do it deliberately to cheat the woman, no: you are being cheated as much as she is being cheated by the same biological forces. The same force is making you say beautiful things to her, what you call "sweet nothings," whispered into her ear. And the same force is managing things from the other side also, so that she believes you. Whatever you are saying - even if the woman is the ugliest that you have seen, if you say to her, "You are the most beautiful woman in the world, perhaps another Cleopatra," she is going to believe it! And it is not that you are saying it to cheat her, to deceive her in any way; in that moment you are really true.

One of my friends, a very rich man, who presented me with almost everything.... He made it a point that nobody could present anything before him, so everything that I needed or could have needed anytime he managed to present to me - things which I never used. I asked him also "What am I going to do with this?"

He said, "That is not the point. The point is, nobody is going to present you anything before me.

Later on they can go on presenting you with things - and millions will be presenting you things out of love - but they will always be after me. Nobody else can be first."

And I was very reluctant, because if there was something I was not going to use, if it was no use to me, he was unnecessarily wasting money. And he was so particular and such a perfectionist that only the best satisfied him. If I would not take something then he would find ways somehow to smuggle the thing into my house. Once, when I was leaving - I used to stay with him at least three days every year, that was a commitment. So three days I used to stay with him every year, and when I was leaving he said to me - which he had never said before - "Just be a little careful about your suitcase."

I said, "I have come so many times, and so many times you have come to the train to say goodbye to me, but you have never said to me, 'Be careful about the suitcase.' What is the matter?"

He said, "Nothing is the matter," and he gave me the key.

I said, "Strange - why are you keeping the key? If it had been left with you, then I would have been in trouble" - and it was a thirty-six-hour journey from his place to Jabalpur.

He said, "No, I was not going to forget it."

As the train left, the first thing I did, I opened the suitcase: what was the matter? The suitcase was full of one-hundred rupee notes. I thought, "My God! What has he done?" And there was a slip in an envelope: "This is for a new Fiat car. Purchase it immediately. And you cannot say no to me because that will hurt me my whole life."

I said, "This is strange." I am continually traveling - in Jabalpur I remain only for five to seven days a month at the most, and that too, not at one stretch. But he will be certainly hurt." And as I reached home, immediately my phone was ringing. He said, "You have to do first things first. I have already arranged it. I have contacted the Fiat company in Jabalpur - and the car is ready there. Just take the suitcase and take delivery of the car."

I said, "You don't leave anything for me!" The car was already standing there ready and the man said, "We have been waiting for you."

I said, "What to do? The train was two hours late." And my friend must have been phoning according to the timetable. In India it is said that that's why the timetable is published - so you can find how late the train is; otherwise how will you find out by how much the train is late? The timetable is absolutely a necessity. Only once it happened that I got into a carriage at the exact time. Traveling for thirty years continually, that was the only time the train arrived exactly on time; it was a miracle. I went to the guard and thanked him; I said, "This is a miracle."

He said, "It is not a miracle. You don't know - this is YESTERDAY'S train! We are twenty-four hours late, we are not on time."

I said to the man at the garage, "What could I do? - the train was late, so two hours...."

He said, "Your friend was very particular about everything; a radio had to be in the car." And he had made sure of everything, insurance.... And he asked the garage owner to arrange a license for me because otherwise the car might just stay parked at my place. He gave me the first tape-recorder, the first camera - everything that he could find, he would immediately bring to me.

This man was rare in many ways. He was a miser - such a miser that beggars simply bypassed his house. If any beggar ever stood there, other beggars thought, "This seems to be a new man - standing before Rekhchand Parekh's house, begging!" He had never donated to any institution in his life, never given a single pai to any beggar.

His wife had taken me to introduce to her husband because she said, "He is so miserly, and he has so much money. And we have only three daughters, who are married and have rich houses, so there is no problem. And there is no son, there is nobody after us, but he goes on collecting - even I don't know how much he has."

They lived in a place, Chanda, in Maharashtra. She said, "He had purchased almost one-third of the houses of the city - it seems he is going to purchase the whole city. If there is any house for sale, he is not going to let anybody else purchase it. And his only joy seems to be just accumulating money.

I have brought many Jaina monks" - because they were Jainas, and they were Gandhians - "and I have brought many great disciples of Gandhi, thinking perhaps somebody will change his mind. But he is very straight and does not give any chance for anybody to even touch him."

So I said, "Okay, I will come. I cannot guarantee anything; I don't know what type of man he is, but he appeals to me."

He had come to receive me at the station. While we were going to his house - he was driving - I told him, "One thing I should tell you is that your wife has brought me here to persuade you not to be miserly. She wants you to donate to institutions who are doing a public service, to religious institutions, to schools, to hospitals. I am not interested in all of these things; I have just come to meet you because you attracted me. You are a rare man! Never in your life have you given to a beggar, never have you donated a single PAI?"

He said, "Never, because I am waiting for the man who is worth to be given EVERYTHING."

When we reached his house, his wife was surprised because never before had he taken to his sitting room any saints that she had brought. And he told the servants that I would be staying in his guest house, in his sitting room; that I would be there: "And tell my wife she need not worry about this man." His wife was at a loss: What had happened?

A sudden synchronicity, he told me - not the word "synchronicity," he had never heard that, but he told me, "It is strange, the moment I saw you, I felt, 'This is the man.'" And even after we had known each other for twenty years, there was not a single question from him - no question, no doubt, no argument - whatever I was saying was truth to him.

I asked his wife only one question. After being there for the first time for three days, I asked his wife, "Is your husband interested in sex or not?"

She said, "Not at all, and it is not that he represses, he is simply finished. And you can see now that he is a strange man. He has told me, 'If you are not finished you are free; you can have sex with whoever you want. I am finished with it."'

The moment a man is finished with sex as an instinct that is forcing him to do something, he becomes in a certain way a master of himself and he starts having insights, visions which the unconscious, instinctive man cannot have.

Just looking at me - not a single word had been said - he said, "I have found the person." And then whenever I needed any amount of money, for myself or somebody else, I had just to inform him, "Give this much money to this man."

He never asked, "Who is this man and why is so much money needed for him?" He simply gave it.

His wife was simply shocked. She could not believe that this miserly man... how suddenly he had completely become just the opposite.

I told her, "There is no problem. He is not miserly - it was your misunderstanding. He never wanted to give to those people who are not worthy of it. And coming from the station to the house he said to me, 'I have found you; now all that I have belongs to you. Whatsoever you want to do with it you can do.' He is not a miserly man, it was your misunderstanding. It is difficult to find such a man, so generous." But from where was his generosity coming? His generosity was coming from a certain mastery over himself.

The instinctive man clings to everything: to sex, to money, to power - to everything.

I asked him, "Why do you go on purchasing all the houses?"

He said, "Some day you may like to have a commune - then from where am I going to suddenly give you a commune? By that time I will have purchased the whole city. I know that you will take a little time before you need a place - I am preparing it for you." Now, nobody would have thought that he was purchasing houses... that even before knowing me, he was purchasing them for somebody who was going to come into his life, who one day may need this whole city.

And many times it happened... he used to come with me once in a while for a tour. Anybody would think that he was a miser because he was such a rich, super-rich man, but he would always travel third class on the passenger trains. Never express trains, mail trains, no; never first class, air-conditioned - out of the question. But whenever he would travel with me, he would say, "You can travel in the air-conditioned class; I will travel in the third class."

Once I asked, "Why do you insist on traveling third class?"

He said, "I have my own ideas. People think I am a miser - I don't care a bit about money. What am I going to do with the money? Soon I will die and all this money will be lying here. But to travel in the third class is an experience: the crowd, the people, the gossips, and things that go on happening in the third class of an Indian railway train...." He had traveled all over India, and he had friends at every station; he would call the coolies by their names. And he knew every place where you could get the best milk, where you could get the best tea, where you could get the best sweets.

He said, "With an express train, a mail train, this is not possible, because they stop only at a few stations and I want to stop at every station, because at every station I have friends and I have things to do. The passenger train stays longer at every station. If other trains are passing, then the passenger train will be delayed; no other train will be delayed, so you always have hours on your hands. And all these stationmasters are my friends, the guards are my friends, the drivers are my friends - because I call all of them when I know that a particular sweet is made the best at that station. So they say to me, 'Parekh, enjoy yourself! Unless you enter the train, the train will not move.' "

And he said, "I like to be the master rather than the servant - not that they give the whistle and you run, no."

That was his reason: "I want to be the master. When I enter the train, then whistling and flagging and everything happens - but first they have to see that Parekh has entered."

He was an old man - I was only thirty-five, he was fifty at that time - but he would take me out of the station, and he would say, "Come outside. The mango trees are great here."

I would say, "The train is there - are we going to pick mangos? And then if we miss the train.... I have my appointment."

He would say, "Don't be worried. Until I enter the train, the train remains in the station. You can go up the tree, I am also coming; we will go up the tree and pick mangos."

One day it happened: we were picking mangos and Parekh said to me, "Just look upwards," and there was another man. He said, "He is the driver. He knows that I will come to pick mangos so the train has to stay. So why waste time? - collect a few mangos, and these mangos are really sweet!

In fact, the guard will be in some other tree.... It is all under my control."

This man had no instinctive force. He was not in any way interested in any particular food; he liked all kinds of food, he liked all kinds of clothes. In fact he was so disinterested that anything would do - no special liking, disliking. But he was a man full of love.

Once in a city in Rajasthan, Biawar, he was with me, and I had a fever. The whole night he remained by my side. I told him, "Parekh, you go to sleep. Because of you I cannot go to sleep!"

He said, "That is up to you - that is your problem. I am not saying to you, 'Don't go to sleep'; I am trying to help you to go to sleep. As far as I am concerned I cannot sleep knowing that you have a fever. The fever may increase in the night and I may be asleep. That is not permissible."

And actually it happened: in the night the fever increased; at two o'clock it was one hundred and five. He said, "Do you see the point? You would not have awakened me."

I said, "That is true."

He called the doctor and he said to me, "This is not the time for you to leave the body. If you can make some arrangement, I am willing to leave the body and you remain in the body - because you have much to do, and I have nothing to do." This is love of a totally different kind - a caring, a friendliness.

The instinctive love can become any moment hate. The man who was ready to die for you can kill you. The woman who was so caring towards you, so loving towards you, can poison you; literally she can poison you. Love, if it is instinctive, is not in your hands; you are just a slave. The unconscious is very easily convertible into its opposite, and you cannot do anything about it.

But when love comes to the conscious level - that is, when it comes to the level of intellect, not instinct - then it has a different flavor. Then it has no biological purpose.

What biological purpose can music have? What biological purpose can poetry have? or painting?

or philosophy? But Socrates is ready to die for his philosophy. There seems to be a tremendous love affair with his own system that he has created. He knows perfectly well that his death is not going to destroy his philosophy, but if he compromises just to go on living, that may destroy his whole philosophy. The very compromise - because that was one of his teachings: never compromise.

Truth is truth, and untruth is untruth.

And there is no possibility of compromise.

Just the other day I received a very beautiful, nice, elegant letter from a council of priests, bishops, Christian theologians. They have a certain council in America, and they have written that they have been discussing me now for almost two to three years - reading, discussing. I have become their center of discussion. They have invited me to come, and they will take every care; they want to exchange thoughts with me. That's where the trouble is.

The whole letter is beautiful. And in this too - they have not consciously written anything rude - they are unconscious people. An exchange of thoughts is not something bad, but they don't know that you cannot exchange thoughts with me; I don't deal in that business. If you know, then I will not bother. If you don't know, then how is the exchange going to be? What are you going to give me in exchange? Either you know or you don't know; there is no third position. You cannot say, "A little bit I know," because truth cannot be divided into fragments.

You cannot know truth a little bit; either you know it, the whole of it, or you don't know it, the whole of it. So what exchange?

Now, I may look rude to them. I am not ready for any exchange because as far as I am concerned I don't need anybody's ideas. It was so difficult to get rid of them, now again to exchange.... It took me twenty-one years to get rid of other people's ideas. I am not interested. Even if God invites me for an exchange of ideas - nothing doing! You can have your ideas, and I don't have any ideas to give you.

I can share myself, but it is not going to be an intellectual discussion. It is going to be an intelligence communion; but for that, that council cannot be ready. They have already decided what is right, who is the messiah. They have already decided that God exists. Now what remains to be exchanged?

You have your whole theology already decided, by others, not by you. You have borrowed it and now you are feeling in confusion because of my ideas. If my ideas are so confusing, that is proof enough that you don't know what truth is; otherwise, what is the point of discussing for three years? Who am I? - I have not been discussing those fellows, not even for three days, what to say about three years. And they must have written great theological books....

There is no possibility of exchange; but at the instinctive level, everything is an exchange. You give something, you take something - and there is every effort to take more than you give. That's the whole difficulty of all the couples around the world. The wife goes on saying, "I love you, but you don't love me." The husband says, "How to prove it? I love you." But nobody can convince the other.

It is not a question of convincing. But why does the question arise that "You love me less," or "I love you more"? At the instinctive level, love is a quantity. You can measure it - how many kilos you give and how many kilos you get in return, in exchange. And you can see who is a loser. It is a business deal. And people are continually quarreling, and trying to manage to snatch as much from the other as possible.

But when love moves to the conscious level, when it has no biological slavery, when it is free of biology... that does not mean that you cannot make love to someone. You can make love to someone, but now it will have a totally different quality. It will not be in any way a bondage, an enforcement by nature. It will be out of your freedom; you can share.

The right word to use will be... it will be just playfulness. Yes, you can play with somebody's body.

You like the body, you enjoy the body, you enjoy the warmth of the body, you enjoy the contours of the body. You can be playful, there is no business deal.

In fact that is why - along with many other reasons, this is also one of the reasons - I am in favor of birth control methods, while all the religions are against it. You will be surprised to know what is going on in the minds of the popes, shankaracharyas, imams, rabbis. You may not have thought of it in that way, perhaps they are not even aware themselves, but I want it to be clear to you and to them. This is the fact that is going on in religious people's minds:

If birth control methods become more prevalent, then sex will be a playfulness.

Then you cannot call it sin.

There is nothing involved, no sin at all. Two persons enjoying each other's warmth - there is no problem in it. They cannot condemn sex, they cannot condemn you, that you are in bondage, a slave. They cannot say to you, "You are only a means in the hands of biology," because birth control methods make you capable, even if you are not conscious, they make you capable of turning sex into playfulness; and that is the danger. Their whole theology will collapse because no religious scripture had the idea that there were going to be birth control methods.

They were happy with the slavery of sex because then they could condemn it and you could not argue - it is so clear that it is a slavery, and nobody wants to be a slave: So repress it, get out of it.

But the dilemma is that the more you repress it, the more you try to get out of it, the more you are caught in it. Only by playfulness is there a possibility one day, suddenly, to get out of it, because it is no longer a serious business.

One fundamental you have to remember: if you fight with something you will have to remain on that level to fight; otherwise how can you continue the fight? If you are fighting sex, then you cannot move beyond your instinctive level - impossible - because then who will fight? If you start moving upwards then all those wolves in your unconscious will run amok. You cannot leave that place, you have to be there constantly fighting, repressing. How is transformation possible for a man who is fighting with his own nature? It is impossible.

Take it as a categorical principle; there is no exception to it. With whomsoever you fight you will have to remain with that person, with that state, with that space. But if you are playful, then it is a totally different thing. If you are on the war front you cannot say to the soldiers on the other side, "Now I am feeling tired; we will go home now and start tomorrow." You cannot say that. If you turn your back that fellow is going to shoot you then and there, and finish all your tiredness.

On the front you cannot do that, but if you are playing with somebody, playing cards, you can say, "Now I am tired. Tomorrow we will start; we can start even from this point where we are stopping."

There is no problem in it, it is only a play.

Let your instinctive world become a playfulness....

And that's the fear of all the priests in the world. They are condemning me continually for the simple reason that I am giving you a chance to get out of the grip of your instinct. But that is also the grip of the priest; that is also the grip of the pornographer.

If you get out of your instinctive level, you are free from the priest, the pope, and the pornographer.

The pornographer and the priest are using the same methodology. And they are partners, whether they know it or not, in the same business.

You will be surprised to know that in aboriginal tribes you cannot make anybody interested in a nude, pornographic picture. You cannot make anybody interested. I have lived in Bastar, and gone there again and again... because in India a few tribes are left which are five thousand years old. And they have not kept pace with time; they have stood still. So it is good for a visit into history, five thousand years old; there is no other way to visit history, to go back in time.

But in Bastar it is not the twentieth century. You can touch a woman's breast and ask, "What are these?" and she will say, "You don't know? These are tits for children to drink milk." She is not offended by that, that you touched her tits. She is simply surprised that you don't know such a simple thing.

They are almost naked. They only wrap a cloth around when they come to the cities, down from their hills, out of their forests; otherwise they are all naked. How can you make an aboriginal of Bastar interested in a PLAYBOY magazine or STERN? He will be simply surprised: "What is this?"

It is like a magazine on fruits advertising tomatoes half-clothed, tightly clothed A man who grows tomatoes will be simply surprised: "Are these people mad? If you are advertising tomatoes, then advertise tomatoes, but why these strange clothes, tight around the tomatoes?"

These pornographers are using what the priest has done before. The priest is the head partner, perhaps the major shareholder. He represses sex; he makes people interested in sex beyond all rationality - he drives them irrational about sex. Then comes the pornographer, and naturally, the repressed person would like at least to see the photographs. He is not allowed to see living human beings, that is a sin. At least THE BIBLE has not said, "Cursed are those who will see pornography.

They will inherit the kingdom of hell." I think pornographers will be needed in heaven too, because all your monks will die.... They may have already found a way to smuggle in PLAYBOY, STERN, and all kinds of third-rate magazines from around the world.

You may even be surprised to find God looking at a PLAYBOY magazine, because He is the original source of this whole business. And it is natural, because He has not even a girlfriend - what to say of a wife, not even a girlfriend. In the name of a girlfriend he has the Holy Ghost. Just think of yourself with the Holy Ghost as your girlfriend; you would like better to live alone. You would ask the Holy Ghost, "Leave me alone, you go somewhere else."

The priest creates the business basis: repression.

Then the pornographer uses it.

I am destroying their business completely.

Sheela informed me from New Delhi - she had taken our latest publication, THIS VERY PLACE THE LOTUS PARADISE, to show to people - that one minister, the finance minister of India, came to see her. She showed him the book. K.D. was with her, and K.D. could not believe what that man was doing.... Because in THE LOTUS PARADISE we have a few pictures of our nature institute; naked women walking by the lake or massaging each other, or just sitting and giving an interview.

Sheela was sitting in front so she could not see, but K.D. was at the side so he was amazed when he saw that the man was touching the bottom of a girl in the picture! And these are the people who are in power.

He is one of the persons who has been creating all kinds of hindrances for our commune in Poona and still goes on doing it. In parliament he spoke against me. In parliament the man said it is good that I have left the country, because "this man was dangerous; he was preaching sex as if he is doing something religious."

Now, this man is simply insane. But who has driven him insane? A picture is just printed paper.

There are not any buttocks or anything, but he is trying to touch the buttocks and feel them. And K.D. saw such a greasy feeling on his face - as if this man could rape a woman if he had a chance.

He can rape even a picture! If he can touch the buttocks in the picture, can't you imagine him raping a picture of a naked woman? He is capable.

This is what the priests have done to the world.

Now these people are all turned into customers for pornographers.

And our pictures in that book are not even pornographic, because a naked picture by itself is not pornography. A naked child - can you call him pornographic? A naked Mahavira, can you call him pornographic? - then all the temples of the Jainas in India are pornographic. But no - if you go and see Mahavira's statue standing naked, you cannot say that it is pornography. There is no pornography at all; he is simply nude. But he is not exhibiting his nudity; he is not trying to pollute your mind and poison you. He is not trying to attract you sexually - and in fact, facing a statue of Mahavira naked you will never feel sexual.

He has a beautiful body, very proportionate, but it is impossible even to think of pornography.

Children are there, women are there, men are there - they are all worshipping the naked Mahavira, and there is no question....

Pornography needs something more. It is not just a naked body. It needs to place the body in such a situation, in such a posture, with such clothing that it releases your imagination. Just a naked body cannot release your imagination. In fact it stops it; where to go? A naked woman is standing before you; what to do? How long can you look at a naked woman or a naked man? Soon you will say, "Shit! I am going home. What nonsense is this?"

But the pornographer's art is to make the woman naked enough so that you feel attracted and covered enough so that your imagination is allowed to discover what is hidden, what is covered. The real art of pornography is in the balance: the body should not be too naked, otherwise you will soon be bored; it should not be too covered, otherwise you will soon be bored. It should be covered in such a way that your imagination can start working on it, so that you can close your eyes and you can contemplate what is hidden. And in your contemplation you can make it as beautiful as you want it is your imagination.

All religions are pornographic in this sense because they are partners in the same business, they are the major shareholders. They create the situation to be exploited. But they are afraid if you are free from the sexual instinct and other instincts which are minor, if you are free then they are committing suicide.

As you come to the level of intellect - and the only way, I told you, to come to the level of intellect and consciousness is not to repress, but to enjoy everything that nature has given to you, playfully, non-seriously. And you will - be soon beyond it; you cannot go on playing with it your whole life.

It is just like teddy bears. There are a few people who in many ways need teddy bears even in later life - very important people even.

I have met one very famous saint, Shivananda. He had many followers in America and around the world, and he was thought of as one of the greatest living yogis. Seeing him, I was simply in shock that this man - he used to eat so much that perhaps he must be the weightiest man in the world. He was just like an elephant, not like a man. His hands were so heavy he could not raise them himself.

Two persons were needed to hold his hands when he stood up, they were so heavy, so thick. When I saw him I said, "My God! This man is a yogi?"

But what had happened - he had repressed when he was young. His master was continually forcing his fasting, fasting; so he fasted, starved himself. When the master died and he became the successor, then naturally, the first thing he did - anybody can imagine it - the first thing he did, he started eating as much as he could. All those years of starvation had to be compensated. His body was the ugliest; he could not carry his own weight.

And this man was talking about becoming fearless because fear keeps you worshipping wrong gods; out of fear you start worshipping anything. Yoga does not believe even in God. That's one of the beauties of yoga, that it is very scientific.

The yogis never mention the fact that yoga does not believe in God. They simply ignore the statement or camouflage it in commentaries, and this and that; but the statement is clear. What I am saying is what yoga says. Yoga says God is a hypothesis. There is no need to believe in it, there is no need not to believe in it; it is just a hypothesis. It can be used for certain purposes. But God is not some existent thing.

It is just like I don't want a child to go out because it is so cold; the child will not listen so I say, "Wait, outside there is a ghost. Now if you want to go, you can go." Now the child will sit just by my side. I will say, "You go out, the ghost is waiting." Now the ghost is a hypothesis, but it has a function. Yoga says God can be used just like a hypothesis, for certain purposes in practice. It is perfectly good for a child. He has been saved from the cold.

I wanted Shivananda's disciples to give more information about Shivananda - what he eats, how much he eats, when he gets up, when he goes to sleep. In that information I found one item which was just hilarious. He sleeps keeping one foot in a plastic bag full of salt. I have read all about yoga but I have never come across this exercise.

They said, "This is not a yoga exercise; this keeps ghosts away." There is in India a belief that if you keep one leg in salt then ghosts can't come and kill you. This man is continually teaching fearlessness, and in the night.... Of course ghosts don't listen to the sermons of the yogis; and who knows? - they may be there. It is better to be on the safe side.

I told one of his chief disciples, "I would love to see it.

He said, "There is no problem. When he goes to sleep I will leave the window open; you can simply slip in and see."

So I opened the window and saw: he was there lying on the bed with one of his feet tied inside a bag. I said, "If you are not finished, playfully, with your unconscious then it is going to come up in some way or another. You can teach beautiful things but you can't have the quality of those things."

As you move up, playfully, exhausting the biological sources, fulfilling what biology wants you to do, it relieves you; you are freed, you become conscious. And conscious love is a totally different thing.

It is just friendliness.

You don't fall in love - no more fall - you rise in love. The more you love, the more you feel you are going higher in your consciousness. And the same is true about other values: authenticity, religiousness, happiness.

Happiness on the instinctive level is only pleasure; happiness on the level of intellect is joy. When you listen to great music, or you see a beautiful painting - a sudden upsurge of joy. No animal can enjoy a painting. He can eat it, but he cannot enjoy it.

No animal is capable of enjoying anything that belongs to the second level - your consciousness - because no animal rises to that level; only man... and not all men either. Few men are capable of enjoying things which have no biological purpose. What biological purpose does a painting serve?

- or music? or poetry? There is no biological purpose. That's why no parent wants you to become an artist.

One of my uncles is a poet, but the whole family was against him; they destroyed him. They did not allow him... they withdrew him from the university because they saw that if he passed from the university then all he was going to do was write poetry. But if he had no certificates, then he had no way to escape anywhere; he had to sit in the shop.

And I have seen him - when I was small, I saw him sitting in the shop. And if there was nobody else, only I was there... he knew that I never disturb anybody's business. You just have to be aware not to be disturb my business; then it is a contract. And it was a contract between me and him that he should never interrupt anything, whatsoever it was.

He said, "Okay, but don't you report anything about me."

I said, "I am not concerned."

What he used to do - a customer would come and he would simply wave his hand as if the customer where a beggar: "Just go!" He would not speak because somebody might hear, so he would just make a gesture with his hands: "Move on!" My father, my grandfather, they were all puzzled: "Whenever you sit here, no customer comes in."

He said, "What can I do? I can sit here but if nobody comes it is not my fault."

He was not interested in business at all; while sitting in the shop he was writing poetry. But soon they arranged his marriage. And I went on telling him, "You are getting trapped. First, why did you come back from the university? Don't you have any guts? You could have done anything - pulled a rickshaw, been a coolie at the railway station. You could have done anything."

I told him, "Your poetry is just lousy. They stopped sending money to you so you are back; now they are arranging your marriage and you don't know that that is the end of your poetry. At least right now you can shoo away the customers and go on writing a little bit. You will not be able to do that when your wife is here."

He said, "But my wife will be in the house, and I will be in the shop."

I said, "You just wait... because I see what happens to my father. My mother only sees him when he is there for his lunch or his supper. He simply goes on eating, his eyes down, and she goes on hammering him about all kinds of things. And she screams, 'You don't say anything, no or yes. I know you are not listening to me.' And he will say, 'I can do only one thing at a time - let me first eat.'

But she will say, 'Once you finish you escape; then again at supper time - I see you only twice.'"

And she had problems. She was not very old but the whole family had fallen on her head, because my father's mother died after his marriage. And my grandfather was a problem because he was continually inviting people, all kinds of people; he had so many friends. He had no other business, he had left the business to my father. He had only one business - to make friends. And the best way to make a friend is to invite him for lunch, supper, dinner, anything.

And my mother was angry, perfectly logically: "You should at least inform me how many people you are bringing because from where can I produce food suddenly? You simply come in the kitchen with a dozen people, and I have no idea even that a dozen people are coming." So she had her problems.

But my grandfather was not a man to listen to anybody; he would do whatsoever he wanted.

He had created a great stir.... Just the other day I was telling you about Hajji Baba of Pakistan, who is now nearly one hundred and ten years old. He was present at my father's marriage and he had come with the marriage party to my mother's place. It created a great stir in the whole Jaina community, because it is a tradition that when the bridegroom comes to the house of the bride they have to be received on the boundary of the town, and the chief of the family has to be garlanded. A turban, a very valuable turban, has to be put on his head, beautiful shoes made of velvet have to be put on his feet and he is given a robe, specially made for him.

My grandfather said, "Hajji Baba is the chief of our family." Now, a Mohammedan, chief of the family of a Jaina... my mother's father was at a loss - what to do? Hajji Baba was saying, "Don't do this."

But my grandfather was never able to listen to anybody. He said, "It doesn't matter. Even if we have to go back, we will go back, but you are my family's chief I have always been like your younger brother, and how can I be received when you are here?"

There was no other way; my mother's father had to receive Hajji Baba as the chief of the family. I asked my mother - because in his letters he goes on writing to her, "How is my Bahurani?" Bahurani means bridequeen, and that is used only for young brides when they are just married. Now she is seventy-five and he goes on asking, "How is my Bahurani? Does she remember me at all?"

So I asked my mother, "Why does he write to you as Bahurani?"

She said, "He is the only man who can write to me as Bahurani, because I was only seven years old when he came as the chief of your father's family with the procession. I was only seven years - for him I am still seven years. For him your grandfather was a brother, your father was a son, you are a grandson."

So I told my uncle, "You don't know your father but he is my friend and I know the whole trap, what is going on - the whole conspiracy. But I have also a pact with my grandfather that I will not reveal any rumors in the house. But this is something serious; they are going to trap you. They have just found a really beautiful woman for you, there is no doubt about it"... because my grandfather had taken me to choose her. He said, "I have become too old, and you are so sharp. Find out whether this girl will do or not." And he had found really a beautiful girl.

So I said, "He has found a beautiful girl but the reason why he is trying to find a beautiful girl is so that you forget all your poetry." And that's what happened. Once he got married then most of his time he was with his wife or he was in the shop - and slowly slowly his poetry started disappearing.

And his wife started dominating him for the simple reason that she felt guilty because everybody in the house, children included, knew that "your husband is just a do-nothing, useless, just a wastage."

So she was nagging my uncle, "You forget about all poetry." She burned the copies of his poetry, his years' work, and she told him, "No more poetry for you - because I feel ashamed, everybody laughs at me." They destroyed his poetry.

I asked my father, "Why are all you people against my poor uncle? He is not doing any harm. Poetry is not harmful, it is not violent. He is not writing war songs or anything like that; he writes beautiful love poetry. Why are you against him?"

They said, "We are not against him; all that we want is that he should stand on his feet. Now he is married, tomorrow he will have children; who is going to feed them continually?" And that's what happened. Now he has a shop and now he no more moves people on. His children are married; they have children.

The last time I went, in 1970, I asked him, "What about the customers?"

He said, "There is nothing about the customers - all my poetry is gone. And you were right that my wife would be real trouble. Neither my grandfather, nor your father, nor my other brother - nobody was such a trouble. But my wife continually nagging... finally I had to decide. Either I have to become a monk renounce the world - but that too is difficult: a Jaina monk cannot write poetry because poetry belongs to ordinary people. And poetry is something basically connected with the affair of love, so what can a monk write?"

I said, "You can write sutras, religious bhajans devoted to some god - songs, devotional songs."

He said, "But I am not interested in any god, in any devotion. I want to write what I feel in my heart."

I said, "That is finished - your heart is married!" And in India at that time divorce was not legal either.

And even though now it is legal it rarely happens, and only in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, New Delhi - nowhere else. They destroyed his poetry to keep him tethered to the lowest part of his being.

All the painters, all the poets, all the musicians have faced a world which is against them. Why? - because what they are doing is something which has no relationship with the whole world and its life. The love they are talking about is not the love that people are living. They are talking about love which is something airy-fairy, not of the earth. They are doing some great creative work. To paint a Picasso you need a certain quality of consciousness; to be a Leonardo da Vinci you need something that is missing in ordinary mortals.

What has he got? The whole grip of biology is not on him. That's why he can devote his whole energy to a new kind of creation - not children, but paintings, poetry, songs, dances, statues. This is non-biological creation. This is conscious creation; he is the master of it. It serves no purpose as far as nature is concerned, but it certainly serves some purpose as far as human consciousness is concerned.

Just watching Mahavira's statue you may fall into a meditative state. That was their original function.

They were not made to be worshipped, they were made to make you aware of a certain state. The statue is of a certain state, not of a certain man; that man is irrelevant.

It happened that some photographer took a picture of Ramakrishna. That was his first picture and the photographer was very happy. He brought the large framed picture to present to Ramakrishna who was sitting with his disciples. He took the picture in his hand and kissed the feet in the picture.

The photographer could not believe it! Is this man sane or insane? His own picture, and he is kissing the feet!

Vivekananda, his chief disciple, was sitting by the side. He said, "Paramahansadeva, what are you doing? This is your own picture. Have you seen it or not?" He thought he had not looked at the picture - Just that the man had given it to him, and he must have thought it was some god's picture, so he had kissed it.

Ramakrishna said, "Is it so? Let me look." He looked and he said, "Yes, it is my picture," and he kissed the feet again!

Vivekananda said, "Now this is too much."

Ramakrishna said, "I am not kissing my own feet. This is a picture of a state, it has nothing to do with me. Just look at the picture," he said, "It is a picture of a certain state. The body is just the outer lines, but look into the eyes, look into the face. And I remember perfectly where I was when this picture was taken: I was in samadhi, so it is a picture of samadhi. And I say to you that only this picture should be distributed, no other picture."

So only that picture hangs in the houses of people who worship Ramakrishna, because that picture was worshipped by Ramakrishna himself. It is absurd logically, but just a little bit of patience and you can see the point. It is a picture of a state. It is immaterial whether Ramakrishna was in that state or Mahavira was in that state or Buddha was in that state. It is immaterial - what matters is that consciousness.

Good music, good poetry, can raise your consciousness. They can create the situation for the entry into the third. Very few musicians have been there very few poets, very few painters, and very few sculptors are capable of creating such artifacts that can give you a resonance inside you.

Gurdjieff has called such art, objective art. He has given it a special name. All art is not objective art. The Taj Mahal is objective art. It was made by Sufi mystics - they were the architects, they designed it. The whole structure is made in such a way that on the full-moon night, exactly at nine in the night, if you sit silently there, you will fall into a deep sleep - which is not sleep. You will be aware. You will experience what I have been telling you about: hypnos. And from there meditation is very close.

The man who guards the Taj Mahal is traditionally a Sufi mystic. If you meditate, at a certain moment you can inquire of him, What else to do to change the hypnos into meditation? And he will give you the method, how hypnos can be changed into meditation.

Now, Gurdjieff has called the Taj Mahal objective art. And I agree with him because I have been to the Taj Mahal hundreds of times and I have watched it in every part of the night - dark nights, moon nights, full-moon nights, no-moon nights - and I can tell you that in each different period it gives you a different taste, a different flavor. It is not just an ordinary building, not just a beautiful marble memorial. That was only an excuse; hidden behind is the secret of meditation.

So when your state changes, your love changes, your religion changes, you cannot remain a Christian or a Hindu or a Buddhist.

In the conscious state you have to find out your own religion, you have to choose.

You cannot be born in a religion; that is sheer nonsense. Religion is not something one can be born with.

It is a search, you have to find it. It is a risk - you have to go a long way and to risk everything. Only then can you get it.

Your religion will be different.

Your authenticity will be different.

An unconscious man has no authenticity. Not that it is his fault. He is many persons at the same time; how can he be authentic? He says one thing - tomorrow he is not the same person, somebody else has come on top of the wheel. There are spokes on a wheel - exactly like that there are many personalities on the wheel. The wheel is moving, and the wheel is you. Now which personality has promised? The other spoke has no idea about it; it may simply say, "I have never said anything to you."

When you become conscious you become conscious of this wheel. You become conscious also that these spokes are not you, and you should not allow them to speak on behalf of you. For the first time you start speaking on behalf of yourself. Then there is authenticity, sincerity, honesty, truth - and these, I am saying, only on the second level. As you reach the third level... these things will help you to move to the third. Then things are beyond description.

It is on the third level, the highest level - intuition - where Lao Tzu feels nothing can be said. Only up to the second can something be said, because intellect is still functioning. On the third, you have gone beyond intellect. Now things cannot be said, but can only be showed. That's my expression - because all these people have said, "Nothing can be said." True, but much can be showed.

I may not be able to say something about the beauty of the moon but I can catch hold of your hand and take you to the window, and I can raise my fingers towards the moon. I am not saying anything, but I am showing something.

On the intuitive level, only fingers showing the moon... everything becomes inexpressible. But everything becomes visible, tangible.

Yes, even love, religiousness, authenticity, truth - they all become tangible. They are no more theories philosophies, they are realities. You can live them, you can become them.

All that is needed is that you move to the third level. And that is not a great thing, it is a simple process.

Live completely the first level, then energy starts moving on its own towards the second, and starts hitting the third. Soon it will make a way in the jungle.

Your work consists only in the first story of your life; the second story and the third story happen of their own accord. All the scriptures describe only up to the second; the third can only be said by silence. But silence is expressive enough if you are ready to listen in silence. Then, from the Master to the disciple, any moment the jump happens.

That transfer of flame from the Master to the disciple is what I call the very soul of my religion.