We are here to be whole

Question 1:

It is impossible. I am simply an individual who belongs to no religion, to no caste, to no cult, to no nation. And I cannot belong to anybody, for the simple reason that I am completely content with myself. The desire to belong arises because you feel empty. In a crowd of any kind - political, religious - you forget your emptiness; the crowd fills you.

It is impossible also because I am no longer seeking, searching for anything - existence has opened all its doors to me. I cannot even say that I belong to existence, because I am just part of it. If you are not part of it, then in some way you create a relationship, a belonging.

When a flower blossoms, I blossom with it.

When the sun rises, I rise with it.

The ego in me, which keeps people separate, is no longer there. I am dissolved - who can belong?

I am not there. My body is part of nature, my being is part of the whole. I am not a separate entity.

When you are a separate entity, there is fear. The universe is vast, the problems are immense.

You would like a family to belong to, a community, a society, a culture, a religion. Alone you cannot face the vast emptiness surrounding you. Alone you are so small in comparison to the expanding universe - great fear arises.

But when you start belonging to a big crowd, the fear is diluted. So people belong to the family, they belong to a society, they belong to a culture, they belong to a church. And if even that is not fulfilling, then they create Rotary clubs, Lions clubs, the "One Thousand Enemies of Oregon." The bigger the crowd, the bigger you start imagining yourself to be. If you are a Catholic, you know there are six hundred million Catholics - you become huge.

I have no fear, because the one that could have fear has disappeared long ago. Even here, you are Rajneeshees, I am not. In fact, in my whole life I have never belonged to anything. I have been just a guest everywhere - even here I am simply a guest. Even my guesthouse is not within the boundaries of Rajneeshpuram.

I am just an outsider, but to be an outsider and contented, fearless... because death cannot destroy me, there is nothing to be destroyed. My death has already happened thirty-two years ago; this is my posthumous existence. Any moment the body can fall apart, and I will be part of the whole. And remember, being part of the whole is not the same as being part of a machine, an organization. The words are the same, but in reality, to be part of the whole means to be the whole. There is no other way.

To be part of any kind of mechanism is not to be the whole mechanism. In your machines, cars, you can change a part because the part is really apart - you can take it out and put in another part. It was not the whole machine.

But to be part of the whole is totally different. You are irreplaceable. The stars are within you, just as you are within the universe. The universe is within you; there is no demarcation line.

And this is my whole message to you:

Dissolve, be in a state of let-go.

Then there is no death, then there is no fear. Then you are not alone, the whole universe is within you.

Anybody who is awakened to the truth becomes an outsider to all kinds of collectivities. Gautam Buddha is not a Buddhist, Mahavira is not a Jaina, Jesus is not a Christian. There have been very few individuals in history who were part of the whole. Nothing less than that will do. Everything else is just a poor substitute.

When I can have a friendship with the flowers and the trees and the birds and the stars, when I can love the smallest blade of grass and the biggest star - because they are mine and I am theirs - then what is the need to belong to a small, tiny group?

I am making every effort so that you dissolve, so that you start melting into the whole, so that slowly, slowly you forget yourself and only remember the reality that surrounds you. Just as a dewdrop falls from the lotus leaf into the lake and becomes one with the lake, thirty-two years ago my dewdrop slipped from the lotus leaf into the lake of wholeness.

I am no more. Whatever I say to you is the voice of the whole; hence, I am not worried about respectability or notoriousness. I am not worried about anything, because the worrier is not there.

I am not even responsible. I have dropped myself into the whole; now the responsibility is of the whole. This is exactly the case with everyone, but you have to remember it. You have forgotten - you have been made to forget it.

In this commune slowly, slowly merge, melt, if the universe seems too vast and scares you. The purpose of the commune is to give you an opportunity that does not scare you. Melt! Don't be a part of this commune, become the whole commune. Each individual in this commune is the whole commune.

This will give you a glimpse of dissolving, and if with such a small commune dissolving brings such great blessings, you will know the secret, from where it is coming. Then why remain stuck? You know the key - you can open the doors of the whole universe for yourself.

A commune is only a small experiment, a kind of rehearsal where you can dissolve without any fear.

Once you know how to dissolve, melt, you have known all; the same has to be done with the whole.

And the paradoxical phenomenon is, when you dissolve in the whole, the whole dissolves in you.

You don't lose anything; you gain the whole universe! Perhaps you lose your chains, bondages, you lose your small, cozy, egoistic existence. But when you have the whole existence melting in you, who cares for small things?

So this is the only university. The other universities are teaching you to become strong egos. They are not universities, because the university should teach you to become one with the universe. That is the meaning of the word "university." I don't know what kind of idiots go on creating language.

They create a university to strengthen your ego; they are against the universe.

In my way of seeing, they should call all the universities of the world - Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, all the universities of the world - they should stop calling them universities; they are multiversities.

There is nothing like unity with existence; they are making you more and more solid, crystallized, separate from everybody.

This university is exactly what the word means. We are not here to be part, we are here to be the whole. And when you can be the whole, it will be sheer stupidity to remain a part.

I don't belong to anything, because to belong means separation. I am in everything, and everything is in me.

Question 2:

It is true, what I say is for everyone. But everyone is not ready for it.

We have become accustomed to dividing the world into East and West. It has to be changed - we should start conceiving of the world as divided into North and South. East and West is not a true division, because the eastern people and the western people are all different shades of whiteness.

They come from the same root, the same race - the Aryans. Their languages can prove it very easily.

All the languages of East and West are sister languages; their roots are derived from a single source, Sanskrit. The words may have taken different shapes, changes - a little bit here, a little bit there - but if you are careful you can figure out what has happened to each word.

Just think of a few words of East and West, and you will see they are not separate people. You call man's first beginning, Adam. Arabians call him Dum, Indians call him Admi. Do you see any difference?

Sometimes words take such a turn that suddenly you cannot see they are one. The first woman, you call Eve. In many languages she is called Eve. In Arabic she is called Hava. Now "Hava" and "Eve" seem to be two different words; they are not. "Eve" and "Hava" may seem very different, but if you go through all the intermediate steps: Eve, Eve, Hava - just one link, and you know this is the same language.

This is not true about South and North; their languages are not connected at all. They are totally different evolutions happening on the earth.

Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Mohammed, Moses, Jesus - they are all born in the northern regions.

All the religions are born in the North; there is nothing comparable in the South. All the scientists are born in the North; there is nothing comparable in the South.

The South is living at least five thousand years behind. They are still living in the world of magic - science is very far away. Even your so-called religions have not evolved there. If in the South there are Christians it is because you have converted them, bribed them with education, food, better clothing, better possibilities to rise higher on the ladder of prestige, power, respectability.

In the South there are Mohammedans; they have also been converted - at the point of the sword.

Mohammedanism in a way is very straight and direct. Why go in roundabout ways: teaching, feeding, giving clothes, education, sending people to learn in England, in France, in America - too long a route. They take a shortcut. They just put their sword on your neck, and they say, "Decide. You can live only as a Mohammedan, so choose between Mohammedanism and death." It is not a question of choosing between two religions, it is a question of choosing between Mohammedanism and death.

And naturally, one chooses Mohammedanism.

You are asking me why people from Africa are not coming to me. Now, what can I do? You should go to Africa and ask those people!

But I can see why they are not coming. There is a gap of five thousand years between you and them. I am saying, "between you and them" - the gap between me and them is immeasurable, you cannot calculate it. Even the northern white people find a great gap between me and them - what to say about the poor black people of southern Africa? They are still worshipping the magician, they still believe in superstitions which were prevalent all over the world in the past. They are still groping in the dark.

The southern hemisphere needs to be transformed. But it is so difficult even to transform the northern people, who have been thinking for thousands of years, have created great philosophies, theologies, religions. You cannot name a single person from southern Africa who can be compared to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. You cannot, because it has not happened. There has been no Kant, no Hegel, no Feuerbach. There has been no Martin Heidegger, Jaspers, Jean-Paul Sartre. And to understand me, you need this whole background.

It will look strange to you, that what I am criticizing continually and destroying continually is a basic need as a background to understand me.

I cannot criticize Jesus to a southern African. What does it mean to him? Jesus has nothing to do with him. I cannot criticize Aristotle, he has never heard the name. So I can go on criticizing Aristotle, it is not going to make any dent; it is not his heritage. That's why they are not coming.

But if you blossom, and your fragrance spreads, it will not be far in the future that even the Africans will be able to walk along with you. Right now, it is almost impossible. Your problems are different from their problems; your background is different from their background; otherwise, there is not much difference. As human beings there is no difference except the color.

The black people of South Africa are a little richer in color than the white people, because they have something more that you don't have. They have a certain color pigment - not very valuable, maybe one-third of a dollar; that color pigment in their bodies is the only thing they have more than you.

And it is an absolute necessity there - the sun is so burning hot that unless the body is black, it will not be able to survive.

In India, I know.... India is something in between: the skin is not as white as German nordics, but it is not as black as southern Africans, because India's climate does not need that pigment which prevents sunrays from entering into the body.

India was under British rule for two hundred years. For the people who had come from England, it was a suffering; India was too hot. Delhi is one of the hottest places in India, and that was the capital. So the British government made another capital in Simla, in the Himalayas; it was the summer capital. As the summer came, all the British people would move to Simla - the whole capital. They could not even survive in New Delhi. The moment India became independent, Simla was no longer a summer capital; the Indian skin can take the heat of Delhi.

So the only difference is of a little color pigment. Scientifically, I think it would be possible to inject you with the pigment and you would become black; or to find some way to take out the black pigment from the African, and he would be as white as you are - or even more, because he would be fresh.

But then he could not survive in Africa, or he would have to make different arrangements to survive.

Except for the color there is no difference, they are human beings just like you. But they have evolved in a different way from the North.

The North - particularly India - has created almost all the best religions. Compared to Jainism and Buddhism, Christianity and Mohammedanism look very childish. The reason was, India was affluent, rich; there was no poverty as it exists now. Twenty-five centuries ago India was known all over the world as a golden bird. It attracted all kinds of thieves to exploit that gold. Those who came - Moguls, Turks, Mongols, Hunas, Portuguese, French, English - they were all thieves in search of the riches that were available in India.

India never attacked anybody - there was no reason. A rich man never goes to steal in a poor man's hut, that is absolutely absurd. If the poor man goes to the rich man's house to steal, it is absolutely logical. India never attacked any country; it was attacked by almost everybody. In twenty- five centuries they exploited everything India had. They were parasites; they have left India almost in a the situation of a skeleton. But in those good old days, India created the best philosophers.

Yes, even now, when the West is so rich, affluent, its philosophers cannot compare with the Indian philosophers of two, three thousand years ago - Nagarjuna, Shankara, Nimbark. Even today Sartre, Jaspers, Russell, have much to learn from these people. The country was so satisfied physically that it started groping for some spiritual nourishment.

Mohammed was a poor man, illiterate; so was Jesus a poor man, illiterate. Buddha was not a poor man and illiterate. He was a prince, the only son of his father; soon he was going to be crowned.

He was educated in the best possible way, he was acquainted with all the wisdom available. His intelligence was sharpened in every possible way... because in India, philosophy has developed differently than it has developed in Europe.

It was developed not by writing philosophic treatises, it was developed by wandering philosophers arguing all over the country, debating, discussing, winning. And the rule of the game was that whoever wins in an argument becomes the master of the person who is defeated. And the defeated person - not in any sadness, but with great joy - surrenders to the master, because the question is not who is winning, the question is: What is true? And if this man has a better insight into truth, then there is no reason to be sad and sorrowful that you are defeated. You have found a better mind.

Indian philosophers moving all over the country, arguing, sharpened the mind of the whole nation.

They were not just sitting in their rooms and writing books, like Immanuel Kant or Wilhelm Hegel.

That cannot give you that sharpness.

I know it from my own experience. For thirty years I was traveling in India - arguing, fighting, challenging. I know that under that challenge, argument, your capacity, which ordinarily remains dormant, becomes active. Your intelligence, under the pressure of challenge, functions perfectly. It is a question of life and death.

The southern hemisphere is lagging behind - poor, uneducated. And the gap is big - five thousand years at least. That's why it is very difficult for them to commune with me.

Even negroes in America who have been here for two hundred years, three hundred years.... They go on writing questions to me, "You criticize Christianity, but you never talk about the religions of southern Africa." There is no religion there - and I am not fighting magic, I am not a magician. Red Indians of America go on writing questions to me, "What about our religion?" You don't have any.

What you have is so primitive that I am not going to waste my time on it.

It is so difficult to convince the white races of the world. They are the most progressive, yet to convince them to drop all programs and conditionings is so difficult. And even if a man drops them, listens to my argument, understands the argument, that understanding mostly remains intellectual.

And the question is: how am I going to reach your heart?

The Christian clergyman was from Sweden. He was under great pressure and trouble in Sweden because he was spreading my message there. He was giving my books to people he thought would understand. He created a great stir in Sweden - all the Christian churches condemned him and his congregation, saying that he was trying to destroy Christianity.

He continued to fight; in newspapers, on television, on radio, he was arguing. But coming here this year, he fell flat on the ground and forgot that he was giving my message to the Christians - because he had never heard me speak against Christianity. He was thinking that what I am saying.... I commented on Jesus and the Christians were surprised. I received so many letters from Christian clergymen around the world: "The way you have explained the words of Jesus, we had never thought... we never knew that Jesus was such a great philosopher, and that what he said has so many implications."

Now they all know: I was simply speaking for myself, my own ideas, using Jesus' name - for a simple reason. I have done that with Hindus, with Mohammedans, with Christians - because from where else to get my congregation? So first I spoke on Jesus, choosing only those parts which I can support. Now I have my own people, and I don't care a bit. Now I am going to tell you the whole truth!

Hearing the whole truth, that clergyman freaked out. I can understand his trouble. Now he will be torn apart in Sweden, because the Swedish orthodox Christians will be against him, and he cannot any longer go on propagating my word. And if he stops propagating my word, then the people who have come to him because of me will be against him. I have put him in a real fix. Now it is a question of either/or; he has to choose. That's why he said, "You have given me moments of heaven and moments of hell."

First I give everybody moments of heaven. When I see that you are getting in tune with me, then I give you the moments of hell, because I have to destroy all the garbage that centuries have poured upon you. Unless you are completely free from all prejudices, you cannot open your heart to me.

And I am not interested in your head; I am searching for your heart, because real religiousness is not a matter of the head.

Science is a matter of the head, it has nothing to do with the heart. Religion is a matter absolutely concerned with your heart. Unless your heart starts beating with me, in tune, nothing is held back, you are totally and utterly harmonious with me... only then can I bring you to the vision where this whole universe is yours.

Then you know there is no death, everything is eternal; nothing dies, things only change forms.

Then you know the universe is not static; it is moving, alive, breathing. It is not standing still, it is progressing every moment.

First, if you fall into a harmonious pace with me, then I am going to throw you into a bigger harmony, the biggest, so that you can move with the stars, with the trees, with the rivers, with the oceans.

Then only will you know what it is to be blessed.

I feel sorry for southern Africa, but what can I do? They will not listen to me. Even you are hearing me and not listening to me. And I am a very pragmatic, existential man. I am not a Don Quixote.

But if I can transform the vision of millions of white people, there is a possibility that those millions of people will create enough energy, enough power to transform even those who are so backward.

I cannot go anywhere - no country will allow me in. Secondly, I cannot go anywhere because America will not allow me back in. They are holding my green card and hoping that somehow, someday I may go out of the country for some reason. Then they won't allow me any entry again.

Boys, forget all that. Green card or no green card, I am going to be here, because I know where I can have people who understand me. They will carry the fragrance.

I have come to a new arrangement. I cannot go, but I have communes in Europe, in Japan, in Australia. I am starting a new program: we will be exchanging sannyasins for three months from one commune to another commune. Thirty sannyasins from Germany will be coming here; thirty sannyasins from here will be going to Germany. These thirty people going from here will take my fragrance there, and those thirty people living for three months here will catch fire!

Politicians think they are very intelligent - I can manage without going anywhere. From all over the world now, there will be exchange programs. Sannyasins who are now in tune with me will be going there. In fact, I am going there within those thirty sannyasins! And the thirty that will be coming here, I will enter in their hearts too. And this exchange program from commune to commune around the world will create, in fact, one single commune around the world.

We will be the first to dissolve the idea of boundaries. In Germany, or in Holland, or in England, or in Italy - anywhere - they will feel part of Rajneeshpuram, and they will not miss me at all. But about Africa, we will have to wait a little.

Question 3:

Absolutely true.

Who can know it better than me?

There are problems in expressing truth. First, when you experience it, there is no word, there is no language. The mind is put aside. You experience it in such a profound silence that to give it in the form of words to others already makes it a lie. And a great master knows which lies can bring you nearer to him.

You cannot understand truth, that is certain, because truth is not something to be understood; it has to be experienced. The master's work is not to make you understand what is true. His work is to create a situation in which you can see the truth.

And if he speaks the truth right now, you will not be able to bear the shock of it. So he has to go very slowly. He will lie, because you can understand only lies. Unconscious people, blind people - they have lived on lies for centuries, they can understand a lie. But the master's lie is a strategy.

When I commented on Jesus before, in five volumes of books, I was lying. Jesus has not the meaning that I was putting into his words. But to bring Christians closer, that was the only way. I was speaking on Buddha, on Mahavira, on Krishna, because that was the only way.

Truth cannot be said in the first place; and if you try, people will simply escape from you. You have to think about the people first, what is possible for them to absorb. And then slowly slowly they can absorb more and more. A time comes when you can start turning their vision towards the truth.

It is a great and arduous job to take away your diseases from you; you are clinging to them. I have to gain your confidence first. You are a Christian or a Hindu or a Jew, you are clinging hard to your religion - and I want you to drop it. The only possible way is to tell you that whatsoever you are carrying is not crap, it is Christianity, it is great! That helps you to come closer to me.

The moment I see you have come so close and so far, and the return is not possible, then I start hitting you. And then you will not feel hurt, you will rejoice that I have taken so much trouble in lying to you. That's the way you catch men in your net. Once you are caught by me, once I see the certainty in your eyes that whatsoever happens you are going to be with me, when I have made absolutely certain that if you have to leave Jesus for me you will; that if it is a question of Krishna and me, and you have to choose, there is no uncertainty, you are going to choose me....

Gurdjieff is right. He had a tremendously clear insight into the human mind. Perhaps in this century he was the most significant figure. And when he says, "The master has to use lies to bring you to the truth," he is absolutely right, because that's what I have been doing my whole life.

It is always a risky game. First talking to you about Jesus, his enlightenment - and he was not enlightened. First giving beautiful meanings to his words - which he was incapable of giving to those words. Once you become certain that I am in tune with Jesus, you have fallen in the trap.

I don't care about Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed. I care about you! And I will do everything that can make you alert, aware, conscious of the reality within you and without you.

Question 4:

No, they don't mean what you are thinking. They don't mean that any questioning, any doubt, is negativity. I am teaching you doubting, questioning. How can my commune call you negative?

Negative, negativity have a totally different meaning.

There are people who can only see the dark side; they are addicted to seeing the dark side. These addicted people are negative people. It is impossible for them to see the lighted side of anything.

Doubt, question, but don't become a negative being. A negative being cannot see anything right. A negative person cannot see anything beautiful; everything is dark, ugly, hopeless. A negative person is always in despair. Doubt is not despair, it is enquiry. Questioning is man's birthright. Question as much as you can. Doubt, and don't repress it, bring it forth.

Doubt and questioning are positive qualities. You are saying, "I want to understand more clearly before I move, hence the question. The question is not against the commune, the question is for the commune, so that I can do better. If I go on keeping this doubt in me, I cannot commune with other people totally. Let me be freed from this doubt, this question."

Why do I go on answering you? For what? Just so that your questions drop, they don't become a barrier; your doubts drop, they don't become a barrier, and you are light, you can fly... because doubts and enquiries repressed make you heavy. When all doubts are dispersed and all questions are answered, you start growing wings; you can fly, you are light.

But a negative person is a totally different phenomenon. He is determined to remain negative. He is determined to see only the black side. They say, "Every black cloud has a silver lining." The negative person will say, "Every silver lining is surrounded by a black cloud."

I am reminded of a beautiful story. In a monastery, two monks were walking in the garden, and they both were in the same trouble. They were allowed to smoke outside the monastery, but they were not allowed to smoke inside the monastery. Most of the time they were inside the monastery, and they were chainsmokers; it was really a torture.

They enquired, "Why are we not allowed to smoke in the monastery?"

And the answer came from the abbot, "The monastery is a place of prayer. You cannot be allowed anything that spoils the pure, divine atmosphere in the monastery. It is not a movie hall."

But just this much was not going to help; they were addicted to their smoking. They said, "We should try one time more - separately, not in the congregation."

The next day one monk was sitting in the garden joyously smoking. The other monk came and was very angry, he could not believe it. He said, "What are you doing? Have you asked the abbot?"

He said, "Yes, and he allowed me."

The other said, "This is simply injustice. I also asked him, and he said no!"

The man who was smoking smiled and he said, "I know why he said no to you and yes to me. I approached with positivity, you approached with negativity. Your negativity became a 'no' in the heart of the abbot. My positivity became a 'yes' in the heart of the same abbot. Please tell me what you asked, and things will be clear."

The man who was angry said, "I asked, 'Can I smoke while praying?' And the abbot said, 'No!

Absolutely no.'"

The one who was smoking said, "I also asked him. I asked him, 'Can I pray while I am smoking?'

And he said, 'Yes! Absolutely yes!'"