You Cannot Manufacture Enlightenment

Question 1:

I am not even a primary school teacher, and you are asking about being a world teacher.

But this foolish idea of being a world teacher is very ancient in India. Shankara, Ramanuja, Vallabha, Nimbaraka, and hundreds of others down the ages have claimed that they are the world teachers.

Strange: they have never gone out of their small states, not even all over India. They don't know anything about the world, but they are claiming they are world teachers.

The world knows nothing about them, the world has not accepted them; how can they be world teachers? But they had found a logical basis for it, and they had all agreed upon it. That was:

whosoever won in debating theological, philosophical questions, interpreting the so-called holy scriptures, whoever won in these debating competitions, the defeated one had to accept him as his teacher. And then that winner would go around the country challenging every other person who was pretending to be a world teacher. If he was defeated, then of course he had to accept the other person as a world teacher. If he was the winner, the other would follow him as a disciple.

These people used just logical, linguistic discussions to decide who was the world teacher. Now, to win in a logical discussion is a childish game. You may not have experienced anything, yet you can be a good logician. You may not know anything at all about the truth, but you can argue well. That is a totally different quality.

In Greece these people were called sophists. By and by they became condemned; in the beginning they were respected just like the world teachers of India. The work of the sophists was to argue and to teach how to argue. And argument is simply a game, just like chess. It has nothing to do with truth. Nobody has ever achieved truth through argumentation. Yes, you can defeat somebody.

You can even defeat the person who may have experienced. If you are articulate enough and can bring in language and logic in your support, there is no difficulty. By the time Socrates arrived on the scene in Greece, the sophists were everywhere. It was Socrates who condemned sophistry. He said, I can argue from any side. You tell me to be for God or to be against God: I can argue from any side, and I am going to win." And he demonstrated it. He would argue from both sides and he would win from both sides. And he said, "What is the meaning of all this argumentation?"

I know it because it happened to me. While I was a student in the university I loved only one game, and that was argument. I hated every other game because all other games looked very childish. If you know argumentation, then there is no game compared to it. And I was going from one university to another university for debating, for eloquence competitions.

In Nagpur University it happened.... Two people always used to go, one person with me: one for and one against the subject. One, the person who had gone to speak against the subject, suddenly became sick. It was time to go to the university auditorium, and he had diarrhea. He said, "It is impossible; I cannot make it, I cannot go. I cannot remain even five minutes in the room and I have to run to the bathroom - how am I going to wait there for three or four hours continuously? And one never knows when our number is to come... impossible."

So I said, "Don't be worried. I will take care of it."

He said, "How are you going to take care of it?"

I said, "You will see."

I was for the subject. This was my approach always, that whoever was going with me.... It was a competition first in the affiliated colleges - you have to win in all the affiliated colleges - then the university competition, your own university competition, you have to win that. Then two people would be chosen. Then they hade to decide which one was going to be for, and the other would be against.

It was always troublesome because people wanted the stronger side.

With me it was never a problem. I always told them, "You choose the side you want to be on, and the remaining one is mine."

"But," they said, "that never happens. People fight and then we have to draw chits for and against, or we have to go to the vice-chancellor to decide. With you it is so simple, you allow us the choice.

What is the secret?"

I said, "There is no secret. If you know how to argue, it does not matter for what you are arguing. If you don't know how to argue, then too it does not matter."

I was speaking for. I spoke for, then it was the number of my opposite colleague; his name was Karl.

I stood up and went to the opposite side. The vice-chancellor of Nagpur University was presiding.

He said, "What! You have just spoken for, and now you are standing against?"

I said, "What can I do? The man who was to speak against is suffering from diarrhea. It is not my fault, and for me there is no problem."

"But," he said, "just now you have spoken for."

I said, "Yes, I have spoken for. Now listen to me speaking against too. Just forget that I am the same person. Why bother about the person? - you have to listen to the argument. Who is arguing should not be your concern, your concern should be for the argument."

He said, "Okay."

I argued against. I won both the prizes. Against, I won the first prize; for, I won the second prize. And I told the vice-chancellor, "Look, what do you say now? Of course when I was arguing for somebody else then I did my best. When I was arguing for myself, I knew perfectly well that I was going to be first, so who bothers? But I am neither for nor against; I am absolutely neutral. It is just a game, and you are taking it so seriously."

That's what Socrates did in Greece. And sophistry, because of Socrates... a single man's understanding, experience, awareness condemned the whole development - and it was almost a one thousand year-old development - of sophistry. And they were very respected people:

kings would send their princes to learn sophistry. The function of the master was to teach how you can argue from any side and yet win. He was not concerned about truth, the concern was winning, conquering. Socrates condemned sophistry; he said that your approach should not be for conquering, for winning. Your approach should be to know the truth. You are using even the name of truth to fulfill your ego desire.

But in India, the same sophistry continues even today. Of course it is not called sophistry. The word was beautiful; it comes from sophia - sophia means wisdom. It was not wisdom. What was happening in the name of wisdom was just stupidity - good to play a game, but not to find out and seek the truth.

The sophist was respected before Socrates, but after Socrates the very word became so condemned. And Socrates proved it so basically and finally, that after him, in the West, that game completely stopped. Philosophers continued to argue, but argument was not to win but to discover, and this is a totally different attitude.

But in India it has continued even today. Still there are jagatgurus - jagatguru means world teacher; the world teacher is simply a translation of jagatguru. And you will be surprised that there are many world teachers in India. Every shankaracharya is a world teacher because the original Shankaracharya was really a sophist. He went around the country one thousand years ago and defeated all the known, respected philosophers, scholars - anybody who had any claim to know he defeated - from one corner to another corner. His disciples wrote the book Shankara Digvijaya, Shankara's World Conquest. But that was their world. He conquered Buddhists, Jainas, atheists, and different interpreters of the Vedas, and he became the most famous world teacher. And the world knows nothing about him.

But just like a frog in a small well thinks that that is the whole world, for Shankara India was the whole world. Outside India the people were not really human beings. The condemnation in Shankara's mind was the same as that which India has carried for ten thousand years: whoever lives outside India is subhuman; India is the chosen race, the Aryans.

Adolf Hitler got the idea of Aryans from India. He got the symbol - the swastika on his flag - from India. It is an Indian symbol, one of the most ancient symbols of India, and the word aryan is Indian. And certainly, basically all the Europeans have come from the same race as the Indians.

It is proved by their languages, because all these languages - German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish - all have their roots in Sanskrit. From thirty percent to seventy percent of their words are derived from Sanskrit roots. That simply means that originally all these people have come from the same stock.

So Germans ARE Aryans - but the idea that Aryans are the chosen ones also comes from India.

That's why there was a great sympathy in India for Adolf Hitler - for two reasons: India was against the British because they had been enslaving it for three centuries, exploiting it; and now Adolf Hitler was promising that India was the homeland of the Aryans. So one of the greatest Indian leaders, Subash Chandra, escaped from India and reached Germany; and Adolf Hitler had never received and welcomed anybody else like Subash. And he was nobody; he had escaped from a British jail.

What Adolf Hitler had said, receiving Subash Chandra, is worth remembering. He said, "I am the leader of a small group of Aryans. This man, Subash Chandra, comes from the original Aryan home.

I represent only a small fragment; he represents the whole Aryan race. Give him the respect that he deserves." It was Adolf Hitler who sent Subash to Japan to persuade them to attack from the other side.

The idea that you are special needs some way to be proved, and argumentation is a very sophisticated way to prove it. The sword is not a very sophisticated way to prove that you are right, but argument is. It looks very cultured, but deep down the game is the same - just the same ego, the same trip. It is unfortunate that in India there was no Socrates.

I have been meeting these world teachers, and they have become so settled with the idea of their being world teachers - now it is inherited. When one shankaracharya dies he writes a will for somebody else to succeed him. That one becomes a world teacher... not even defeating a single person in debate. And I have been discussing with many of these world teachers. They have forgotten completely what argument is.

I am reminded: with one jagatguru, with one world teacher, I came in conflict - that was my first conflict with a shankaracharya - in a world religious conference. He was telling a simple story, a very simple story which I had used many times before. And I have nothing against the story; the story is beautiful and significant to explain a certain truth. But it is not a question of truth; it was the way he was speaking - that he was the world teacher....

He told the story... the story you may have heard: ten blind men crossed a river holding each other's hands. When they reached the other side of the river one of them said, "It is better to count. We are blind. Somebody may have been left in the river - the current was strong. Somebody may have gone with the river, so let us count."

So they started counting. One tried; there were nine, because he started counting from the person by his side, excluding himself. Of course he came to the number nine. The second one tried... again nine. Then they became very afraid; one man was lost! The third tried, again there were nine. It was settled: one is lost.

One man sitting by the side was watching the whole thing. He laughed at the foolishness of these blind people. He came close to them and said, "What is the problem? Why are you crying and weeping?"

They said, "We have lost one of our friends. We were ten, now we are only nine. One person has been taken away by the river."

The man must have been a very nonserious, joyful man. He said, "You just do one thing. Stand in a line and count the way I tell you. I will hit on one person's head and he has to say 'one'; then I will hit twice on the second person's head, he has to say 'two'; then I will hit thrice on the third person's head, he has to say 'three'...."

They said, "This is perfectly right." And of course there were ten. They all fell at his feet and said, "You saved us."

This is an ancient story, in perhaps one of the most ancient collections of stories, Panch Tantra. You know in the West Aesop's Fables; they are derived from Panch Tantra. All the stories of Aesop are very ancient - in fact, there has never been such a person as Aesop. Panch Tantra is at least five thousand years old. It has all the fables that Aesop has, and many many more.

Buddha loved to explain matters through fables, so he used those from Panch Tantra. In the West, by and by, as people came to hear about Buddha, first Buddha's name became Bodhisat. And from Bodhisat, where it became Aesop is still not known. But it is Buddha's name that turned into Aesop's fables. All those fables are there.

This one is not in Aesop's fables; this is one of the most significant. For five thousand years the wise men have been telling it: "Remember that you have to start counting from yourself, that you are the first and foremost responsibility. Remember that the other is number two. The other can never become number one, there is no way. And the other is available to your eyes, to your senses. The other is an object there - outside, visible, tangible - and you are inside where your senses don't reach. So there is every possibility of forgetting yourself, not counting yourself."

I had used the story myself many times. But that day it was a question of argument and the haughty way the shankaracharya was telling it; I had to stand up, and I said, "The whole story is absurd."

There were at least fifty thousand people: they were in shock. I was absolutely unknown in Punjab at that time; that was my first entry into Punjab. And Punjabis and Sikhs... dangerous people, and to challenge their jagatguru....

There was pin-drop silence. The jagatguru asked - he must have thought nobody could prove this story absurd; in five thousand years not a single person had questioned it - he said, "You come to the microphone and prove that the story is absurd."

I said, "It is so simple it needs no proof. How did these people know that they were ten? They must have counted themselves before they entered the river. And if they could count rightly before they entered the river, it is strange that after getting out of the river they forgot how to count! You tell me how they came to know that they were ten."

Now he was in shock. How did they come to know? If somebody else had counted, then too they would have known how the counting was done. Later they knew - they got hit on the head by a man - then they knew what was missing: they were not counting themselves. If somebody else had counted, then too they would have known. If they themselves knew how to count, what happened in that small river - their arithmetic went with the current? I said, "You have to answer that first, otherwise the story is absolutely absurd."

He could not answer. He started trembling. He was an old man - he died after three months. He became so angry that I said to the people, "Look, he is so angry. So all this wisdom and that peace and that silence - where has it gone? With the arithmetic of those ten blind people? He is the eleventh blind person!"

He became so violent that he thought that if he remained there on the stage he might say something, or do something or attack me, so he simply jumped off the stage and left. And I said, "Look! He is escaping. This is your jagatguru, the world teacher. He cannot explain a simple story, which he had raised - what to say about other things!" But this is the way sophistry functions. It can prove anything right, it can prove anything wrong.

In Jabalpur, where I was for at least twenty years, there was a shankaracharya, a jagatguru, a world teacher, and he lived just very close to me. So once in a while I used to harass him. Whenever I saw that there were people there, I would go there. And the moment I arrived he would say, "Today's meeting is dismissed."

I would say, "Whether you dismiss the meeting or not, you cannot dismiss me. I am going to remain and have a few arguments with you." I told him, "Nobody knows you in the world - and still you call yourself a world teacher? Do you have any grounds for it?"

He said, "I don't have any grounds for it, but don't raise such questions before the public. They don't understand."

I said, "Yes, they don't understand because of people like you who are preventing the raising of valid questions. This is a valid question. You know that the world knows nothing about you, the world has not accepted you as its teacher." I told him, "If you start following my advice, then I can give you valid grounds."

He said, "What are the valid grounds? I am ready to follow your advice."

I said, "You just do one thing. You have one disciple who continually serves you" - he was almost like a servant - "you change his name."

He said, "But how is that going to help?"

I said, "Just listen. Call him Jagat, the world. Jagat is a common name in India, so you call him Jagat and of course you are his guru; by calling him Jagat, you logically become Jagatguru."

He said, "This is right. Then nobody can ask me why I call myself Jagatguru."

These fools... but in the beginning of this century the idea was brought to the West by one of the most bogus religious movements that has ever happened in the world. It was theosophy. Theosophy was a world movement, and theosophy translated the word jagatguru as world teacher. And just as the Jews are waiting for the messiah, Buddhists are waiting for Buddha's coming. His name is going to be Maitreya, the friend. And this is the time predicted by Buddha "... when I will be coming back."

So the theosophical movement took the opportunity....

It is a hodgepodge of all the religions: Christianity, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism.

From everywhere whatsoever good, whatsoever appealing has been found, they have collected. But sometimes you can do such an idiotic thing. A nose is beautiful, so you cut it off. Somebody else's eyes are beautiful; you take them out. Somebody's hands are beautiful; you cut his hands off. And you go on collecting all these features from different people and then put them together. Do you think you will have the world's most beautiful person? You will simply have a corpse, not even alive.

And a nose that may have looked beautiful on a certain face, may not look at all beautiful in this new combination. The eyes which were beautiful with one kind of hair, with one color of hair, may not look beautiful with this man at all. This hodgepodge of a man is dead and all the parts are disconnected; there is no thread running between them.

That's what theosophy is. It has taken everything beautiful from every place possible. They did a great job. And when they came across the idea that this is the time that Buddha is to come, they started - because only then would their religion be well established. Otherwise it was only a scholarly job: a few scholars working from Jaina sources, other scholars working from Buddhist sources, other scholars from Hindu sources. And it is a big job even to work from one source. There are so many Buddhist books, so many Jaina books. They are not as poor as the Christians - one Bible. They are not as poor as the Mohammedans - one Koran. They have thousands of books, and commentaries on those books, and then commentaries on commentaries and commentaries on commentaries. For centuries... one book may have created a series of a thousand commentaries, one commentary upon another commentary. To find out the best parts is not easy, but theosophists worked tremendously.

They have one of the most precious libraries - in Adyar, in Madras, India - where they have collected all possible sources of religion. Even religions which have disappeared and of which there are no followers, they have searched through and worked on. If they have not been able to find authentic sources, then they have drawn from other contemporary religions, because they were constantly arguing. One religion may have disappeared, but its arguments are compiled in some other religion, a contemporary religion, which is alive. From these sources, secondary sources, they started collecting, and they created great literature. They created a tremendous following around the world... because people were fed up with all kinds of old religions. It was very appealing that they have taken the most essential core of every religion and had created theosophy: theo means God, sophy means wisdom - wisdom about God.

But unless they had a founder like Gautam Buddha, Jesus Christ, Krishna, Mahavira, Mohammed - a man of authority who can say on his own experience that this is so... and they had only scholars.

Those scholars could say, "This is written in this book, upon that page." But they themselves had no experience, so the religion had no foundation. So then they started looking for somebody who could be declared jagatguru, a world teacher. That's how the expression world teacher came into English, a translation of jagatguru.

They prepared small boys. They searched for some genius, and wherever they found a small boy who seemed to be immensely talented, intellectual, and had the potentiality, if he could be trained and conditioned to become.... This was a strange experiment, never done before. Buddhas are born, not made. This was for the first time that people were trying to make a buddha. But our century is accustomed to readymade things. So they tried to tailor a buddha. Of course they were not perfectly certain whether this man would turn out or not, so they tried on at least five people I know of. Perhaps they tried on more....

One of them was J. Krishnamurti. The second was Nityananda, J. Krishnamurti's elder brother. The third was an Anglo-lndian, the fourth was a Ceylonese, the fifth was also an Indian, and the sixth was a German! And they tried to train them - rigorous training and discipline. Nityananda died because of too much training. He was a fragile person, not very strong, and they were training him according to all the laws of all the religions. Anybody would go mad. He preferred to be dead. So when he was twenty-two, he died. He died simply because of discipline - because you had to sleep three hours only, you had to take three baths every day, you had to eat certain food, not just anything; you were not allowed to mix with women or touch any woman or even talk to them - all kinds of disciplines.

One religion is enough to kill you - and they had all the religions after you! And these boys were small: Krishnamurti was nine years old when they caught hold of him, Nityananda was eleven years old. At that time both used to take a bath in the Adyar River near the headquarters of the theosophy movement. Nearby their father lived, who was a very poor man. Their mother had died, and the father was in great difficulty because he had to function as a clerk the whole day, and then to take care of these two children, prepare food for them, and send them to school. He was just looking for some opportunity to get some help for these children.

And it came as if from God. Leadbeater, who was one of the leaders of the theosophists, and was thought to be a man capable of knowing the future.... And it is not right, because he proved absolutely wrong. The five people he chose all failed in one way or other. He watched these two boys every day, and he felt that these two boys could be potential victims. He suggested them to Annie Besant, who was the president of this world movement.

It was just like John the Baptist used to say: "I have come just to prepare the ground for the messiah to appear. My work is not to give you the message. My work is to prepare the ground, so when the messiah comes you can recognize him and you can understand him, and you can follow him." And when Jesus came, John the Baptist initiated him and told his people, "Now the messiah has come.

My work is finished, now he takes over this work and I go into isolation." Of course he could not go into isolation - he was caught by the Romans and beheaded; jailed and beheaded, because he was a very fiery man, his words were always full of fire. He was in the real sense a prophet, plus a revolutionary.

The theosophists said, "Our function is to prepare the ground. Soon, the messiah, Maitreya, the friend of all, the reincarnation of Gautam Buddha, the world teacher, will appear and transform the whole world." Just the same idea: salvation, redemption, transformation, and for the whole world; just his coming is needed. And he is already on the way.

They did not declare him because they were themselves not certain who it is going to be out of these six people. One died. If they had declared him, and he was far more intelligent than J.

Krishnamurti.... If they had to choose between the two they would have chosen Nityananda, but he died in time, before they could force him to become the world teacher. The other, Raj Gopal, another Indian, proved to be mediocre. They could see that he could not be declared a world teacher. At the most he could be a helper to the world teacher, but not the world teacher himself.

The German fellow, seeing that they are leaning more and more towards Krishnamurti...

Krishnamurti, of course, after Nityananda was the most potential person. The German fellow, seeing that they were going to choose Krishnamurti, immediately split from the group and declared a new movement in Germany - anthroposophy. Theosophy means... theo means God, sophy means wisdom. Anthroposophy means... ANTHROPO means man, sophy means wisdom. He said, "God, and all talk about God, is absurd, meaningless. We have to think about men, and we have to explore the wisdom hidden in man." So the German theosophical movement turned into anthroposophy.

Leadbeater, who was thought to be a knower of the future, firstly did not know, "Nityananda is going to die, don't waste time!" - they wasted twenty years on him; that this German fellow was going to create a split in the movement: "Don't waste time"; that Raj Gopal was going to prove to be mediocre.... The Ceylonese was taken back by his parents.

Even Krishnamurti's father tried to take Krishnamurti back, and there was a case in the Madras high court, because when he heard about what was going on there - one boy had been killed.... He had given the boys thinking that they would be well educated, would become something; he could not make anything out of them. One boy was killed now; the other was there and they would kill him too.

These people were strange, and what went on in their inner circle, which was not known to anybody outside...?

Krishnamurti was not even allowed to meet his father, because a world teacher should be above all attachments; he has no father, no mother. That's how Jesus behaves with his mother. His mother comes to see him, hearing that he is speaking in the town, and there is a crowd. Somebody in the crowd says, "Jesus, your mother is standing outside, and she wants to see you." And how ugly it looks that Jesus says, "Tell that woman that I have no mother. I have only my father who is above, in heaven."

They were teaching the same to Krishnamurti. Finally the father had no other resort except to go to the court and ask that "my son should be returned." But it was British rule in India - who listens to a poor Indian? And Annie Besant was a very powerful woman - powerful in England, powerful in India, powerful around the world. George Bernard Shaw wanted to marry her. She refused; he was below her. She was the president of the Indian National Congress. Even though she was English and the Indian National Congress was fighting against the British, she was respected so much in India that she was chosen the president of the Indian National Congress. And she was the president of the theosophical world movement.

So naturally it was very difficult. The case went on and on, from one court to another court, from the high court to the supreme court. From the supreme court she took the case away to the privy council, which was in London. That was very cunning. That was the last resort, above the supreme court of India.

The privy council was in England; she took the case there, and because the case was now to be fought in England, she took Krishnamurti away to England. Once he was outside India then no Indian law was applicable. He still carries a British passport, the same that was given to him by Annie Besant. He is a British citizen because Annie Besant made him a British citizen, so that nothing from India can bother him in any way.

Krishnamurti was going to be declared the world teacher. Great preparations were made. In 1925, in Holland, a world conference was called of all the theosophists. Six thousand representatives from every country of the world gathered there for this great event. Krishnamurti was going to declare himself the world teacher, and immediately there was going to be a tremendous transformation in the world.

But Krishnamurti was also tired of these theosophists. They had been as nasty to him as anyone can be. And it was not his desire - it was imposed upon him forcibly. Books were written in his name by others and he had to sign them; he was going to be the world teacher, so he had to show some wisdom before he declared it. So there is a book, At the Feet of the Master; Krishnamurti does not remember at all that he ever wrote that book - and that is one of the best books theosophy has produced. It is rare, a masterpiece; it must have been the work of Leadbeater, because he was a master writer, a master orator; or perhaps many people may have joined together.

The book is of immense value in itself; who wrote it does not matter. But Krishnamurti does not even remember. He says that three hours of sleep and the whole day he was feeling sleepy... and they were chanting mantras and they were reading Tibetan scriptures and Chinese scriptures, and telling him the meaning, and he was not there at all - he was almost in the state of a zombie. And they were taking signatures from him for all kinds of things.

He took good revenge. At the first day of the meeting he stood up and declared, "I am not the world teacher at all, and I dissolve the organization that has been created for me." A special organization, Star of the East - a wing of the theosophical movement - was created especially for the world teacher. It was to have offices all over the world, secretaries, funds, lands - everything that Krishnamurti as a world teacher needs. He was donated castles, palaces - and this whole wing of thousands of people he dissolved. He returned all the castles and all the palaces to their owners and he said, "I am finished with it." Leadbeater had failed again.

And why did Krishnamurti become so adamant against the idea of world teacher? These theosophists made him. It was a constant torture. This was for the first time he was free to speak before the world audience; now they could not do anything else. Annie Besant started crying and weeping. But what can you do? And he was saying, "Yes, yes" up to the last moment, and at the last moment he just turned around one hundred and eighty degrees and said, "I am nobody's teacher."

The theosophists must really have tortured him - for his own sake. He still carries the scars, they are not healed. Krishnamurti is not healed yet. He is still angry at all those people who died long ago; not one of them is alive. But he carries those years with them. From the ninth year to his twenty-fifth year were too much because they were trying to compress the whole wisdom of the world in him.

Wisdom does not happen that way. They were filling him, forcing him, striving so that he memorized everything; and he was doing whatsoever they were saying because he was at their mercy. All that together became a revolt - and the scars have gone so deep and the wounds are so deep.

I feel sorry for him. What those theosophists did is not of much importance now. They are all dead, have been dead for at least forty years, all of them. The theosophical movement has dispersed, it has no grounds. I feel sorry for Krishnamurti. If he cannot get rid of that anger, that rage, his unfoldment will not be complete. He has to get out of this trap. It is only a memory, but he is so trapped in the memory; otherwise he is an immensely intelligent man. But the memory surrounds him from everywhere; anything resembling... and he immediately loses his temper.

It has been happening... my sannyasins go to listen to him. If they ask me, I say, "Certainly you can go. You can go anywhere. If you don't ask me which movie you are going to see, why should you be bothered about whom you are going to listen to? Go, and particularly to Krishnamurti you go, and sit in front." They don't know why I say, "Sit in front." When for the first time it happened in Bombay that a few of my sannyasins asked, I said, "You go and sit in the front." They said, "But why?" I said, "That I will tell you later on."

They went and they sat there, the whole line in the front row, and the moment Krishnamurti saw the red and orange, the color of sannyasins, he was so angry, and started on against sannyas and against the master and the disciple. The sannyasins were shocked: what has happened? He was going to speak on some other subject; he forgot everything and he spoke on this subject. And since then it has been happening almost everywhere, because now my sannyasins are everywhere.

Wherever he goes he finds my sannyasins and he behaves just like a bull: you show the red flag and immediately, seeing the red sannyasins, he is like a bull in a china shop. Then he loses all control.

Then he forgets against whom he is speaking. These people have not done anything to him, I have not done anything to him.

But the people he thought were his masters, the people to whom he was taught to surrender and be a disciple, the people to whom he was forced in every possible way to be committed - their ghosts are following him. Unless he gets rid of those ghosts he will not be able to blossom fully. Then something inside remains tethered to the dead, to the past. And a man tethered to the past, to the dead, cannot be fully alive. He is carrying so much dead weight that he cannot see the present, he cannot see anything else.

I am not a world teacher. I am not a teacher at all, because I don't teach you anything.

Teaching means conditioning you. Teaching means giving you a certain doctrine. Teaching means words, ideologies, philosophies. I am not giving you anything. Whatever I am doing is trying to destroy everything that you may have gathered from somewhere. You may have gathered from me, because you are such a gatherer. Things just simply go on clinging to you like iron filings to a magnet; they come from all directions. I want to destroy this state of continually gathering crap. But it is so difficult.

The day I declared the Sambodhi Sansad, The Senate of the Enlightened Ones, I declared a few names just as a joke too. But people are so foolish. I declared that Somendra is enlightened, although he is no longer a sannyasin. And do you know what happened? Actually what I was thinking - exactly predictable. He immediately wrote a letter. Suddenly I became "Beloved Master."

"It has happened" - in the letter that was the only content, again and again: "It has happened."

Now, enlightenment does not happen that way. It is not EST. There it happens, and very easily:

two hundred and fifty dollars and two weekends, and it happens. That's how it happened to Werner Erhard. He must have seen the Indian gurus doing great business in California. It happened to him too. Looking at his name you will think he is a German: Werner Erhard. He is not, he is a Jew.

He changed his name - good strategy, only a Jew can do it. Now, being a Jew, who was going to listen to him? And who has ever heard of a Jew becoming enlightened? He changed his name. He dropped his family, his wife, father, mother - escaped from there. And of course California is the right place for 'It' to happen. And since then, to everybody and anybody it is happening. When you pay two hundred and fifty dollars you cannot say it has not happened. That looks stupid - then why did you pay two hundred and fifty dollars?

Somendra did the same. Immediately the letter: "It has happened, it has happened." And what I was expecting... he wrote a letter to Teertha too, asking, "Has it happened to you or not?" - because he was continually in competition with Teertha, that was his trouble. He has not dropped out of sannyas for any other reason, it was the competitiveness with Teertha. He wanted somehow to be above Teertha. And he tried in every possible way. But when he could not manage.... So the second letter comes to Teertha on the same date: "Has it happened to you or not yet?" And I have not included Teertha in the Sambodhi Senate knowingly. These two letters I was waiting for. You don't need a certificate for enlightenment - who has heard of it? Never in history has it happened this way, that you receive a certificate that you are enlightened. And fools believe immediately. Fools are, after all, fools.

And remember, it is not only about Somendra, it is about you all, about everybody. Remember, the ego plays very subtle games. The games are so subtle and the work is sometimes very delicate. It is almost like brain surgery - perhaps finer than that. In brain surgery, if your hand trembles a little it may cut thousands of tissues inside the brain. Your hand has to remain absolutely untrembling, and you have to be perfectly certain where your instrument is going, because in this small skull you have seven million cells. All those cells are contributing to your life, and everything is controlled from these seven million cells - your sex, your love, your poetry, your mathematics, your pain, your pleasure. Everything is being controlled from those cells in the head.

Whatever you feel on your hand is not really felt there; it is felt in the head and projected there. There are brain surgeons who say that it is within our control now to put electrodes in your head. This is one of the mysterious phenomena about the brain, that it is absolutely insensitive. Once your skull is opened you can put any instrument inside and you will not feel it, because the inner structure of the brain has no sensitivity. If something is left there, you will never feel it.

In the second world war - it happened after the war, three years after - a man's head was opened for some other reasons. He had some growth which was creating trouble, headaches, and his eyesight was being affected. So for the growth, to see whether it was canceric or not, his head was opened.

They were puzzled. It was a bullet, and around the bullet the growth had happened, just to cover it - but the man for three years was unaware that he was carrying a bullet in his head. The bullet must have gone there, and in a military hospital he must have been treated as if there was just a wound.

The wound was treated and the bullet remained inside.

Now brain surgeons say you can put an electrode... there are seven hundred very significant points in your skull, in the brain. Those seven hundred points control your whole life. These are exactly the seven hundred acupuncture centers for the body. So what acupuncture does, has been doing in China for centuries, is trying - through the body - to manipulate the brain center.

Each brain center is connected to a certain center in the body. So, for example, when you are having a sexual orgasm, do you think it is happening in your genitals? You are wrong, it is happening in your head. Now it is possible to put an electrode at the sex center in your brain and give you a remote control which you can carry in your pocket. Any time you push it you will have immediately a sexual orgasm - far stronger.... It depends on you how much you push; you can have it as much as you want.

You will be surprised that when this experiment was done by Delgado on a white mouse.... Strange why they do it on a white mouse; perhaps they think black mice are not so intelligent or something.

An electrode is fixed on a white mouse at his sex center in the brain, and he is shown the button in front of him. He just has to put his feet on the pedal and he will have a sexual orgasm.

Can you believe, in one hour he tried it seven hundred times! - and died! Yes! What else can you expect? It was such a great joy, he forgot about eating. Food was placed around him, water... he wouldn't look at them. Beautiful white females... no interest at all, because what this button was giving had never happened before. And it was in his control - he could go on pressing it deeper, deeper, deeper, and it could go on endlessly.

All these religions up to now have been simply working on these brain centers unknowingly, putting ideas at certain centers in your mind through exercises, disciplines, fasting. Yoga is nothing but changing your body chemistry and making it possible that you start controlling your mind centers.

That's why a yogi can remain without food as long as he wants. It is that he is not hungry. He simply goes on pressing, through a certain discipline that he has learned - you may not be aware of it, the discipline is such. He knows the posture in which to sit, and then in that posture hunger cannot happen. In that posture a particular brain center is pressed and you feel as if you have just eaten.

He can remain without water for days. He can remain without breathing. He can drink any kind of poison that can kill a person immediately it touches their tongue; he can drink as much poison as you want. And yogis have been photographed, X-rayed; the poison simply does not touch them at all, it simply goes through their system without affecting the system at all. Because they know what to do with the system, they have prepared the body in such a way - arduous, difficult, yearlong processes, but they have done it, they have tried it.

Mohammedan fakirs cut their tongue underneath, where it is joined to the bottom of the mouth.

Slowly slowly they go on cutting it. A time comes when the tongue is no more joined there. When it is no longer joined, then it can be turned up to close the nose from behind. Then you cannot breathe; the mouth is closed, the nose is closed. But in that particular position the tongue presses a certain center in your brain which makes it possible that you can exist, remain alive, without breathing.

All the religions have been doing things with you which you may not be aware of. In fact, even the so-called teachers may not be aware what they are doing, but the effects are there. But this has nothing to do with realization, enlightenment, awareness. It has nothing to do with knowing the truth of your being, and the being of the whole universe.

So remember, when I am saying anything... for example, I used the name of Somendra, but don't simply laugh at Somendra. It has nothing to do with Somendra - you have to watch yourself. Santosh is here.... Do you know what he wrote? Exactly predictable... I knew that he was going to write this.

He wrote, "Osho, I am not much impressed by the declaration that I am enlightened, but I am very much impressed that I have been included in the council of the enlightened ones."

Now, can you see the contradiction? First: "I am not impressed by being declared enlightened."

Then why are you bothering to write to me at all? - because nobody else has written! You want to show me that you are not impressed, you are far above that. Enlightenment is far below you; you are not impressed by it. But you are impressed - otherwise there is no necessity for writing this letter.

Why waste paper? Why waste this letter?

If you are not impressed, good. I have not declared you enlightened to be impressed. And in the same sentence he says, "But I am impressed that I am included in the council of the enlightened ones." Why are you impressed that you are included in the council of the enlightened ones? If you are not impressed by enlightenment, then what does this council mean to you? It does not mean anything. If enlightenment does not mean anything, then why does being included in the council mean so much to you?

You cannot hide anything from me. You are impressed by enlightenment. If your name was not declared you would have been in the same position as Somendra. He always wanted to be the chief disciple, so desperately. And my trouble is there are no chief disciples here. There is no teacher, no taught, so what is the point of being chief? Who is chief disciple? Nobody is a chief disciple.

And why should you be impressed by inclusion in the committee? The same ego comes in from the back door. You were pushing it out from the front door, that "I am not impressed," that that will be egoistic to be impressed - you were pushing it out from the front door and it said, "Okay, I am coming in from the back door." And it has come in immediately in the same sentence.

My effort here is such that it can only be called an absolutely thankless job. I have to hit you, I have to hurt you, I have to remove so much cancer in your consciousness. And you go on watering it.

I am trying to remove it some way, and you are trying somehow to grow it. Even in the name of egolessness the ego comes in.

Now Somendra is spreading all over Europe the news that he is declared enlightened. Just now he has gathered one hundred and fifty people in Holland - and many sannyasins are in it, most of them sannyasins. He has become enlightened. Have you ever heard that people become enlightened by certificates? Have I got any certificate from anybody? It is not a question of certificates, it is not a question of declaration. It is a question of your realization - and the moment you receive my letter it happens. And now when he hears what I am saying today, then it will disappear.

The third letter I received was from Gunakar in Germany, who has become many times enlightened, many times unenlightened. Each time he goes to Germany he becomes enlightened. Then he used to come back, and when he came to me I would explain to him, and he would say, "Yes, it is foolish, but what to do? The urge..." and he would become unenlightened again. Since I have come to America he has not turned up. Perhaps out of the fear... because whenever he comes to me he becomes unenlightened. When he goes to Germany... Germany is far better. He has a beautiful castle and a few sannyasins taking care of him, and he becomes enlightened and they all recognize his enlightenment.

I have received his letter. He is so angry because he was in a great competition: the same competition as Somendra was in with Teertha, Gunakar was in with Somendra. Both were candidates for enlightenment. Now that Somendra has received it, Gunakar is very angry; he wrote a very angry letter saying, "I want to drop sannyas and I want to forget all this. How come Somendra has become enlightened?"

Now what trouble is it to you if Somendra becomes enlightened? Let him become! But before Gunakar? - it is not possible. And he has been declaring himself enlightened many times, but he needs a certificate; that's what the letter is for: "A certificate is needed urgently." Otherwise, how is he going to fight with Somendra? They have been exchanging letters and writing strange things to each other, showing that this is how enlightenment is - absurd things, meaningless things; both were doing the same job.

I told both of them, "Don't waste time. This is not a way to prove your enlightenment, and even if you convince Somendra that you are enlightened, will you be enlightened? Or if Somendra convinces you that he is enlightened, will that be his enlightenment? Then it is very simple, a mutual understanding: you both recognize each other's enlightenment and be finished with it. It is only a problem between you two."

No, it is difficult for you to understand me, my ways, my devices. It is difficult for you to see what I am doing, why I am doing it.

Whatsoever is happening around here is only for one thing - that you become unburdened of all that burdens you... so light, as if you have grown wings, and you can fly.

The only right comment came from Maitreya. He said to Sheela, "Osho is naughty." That's true.

Okay Sheela?