Doubt is a Sword

The first question

Question 1:

Ananda Prabhu,

EVERY CHILD IS INTELLIGENT far more intelligent than the so-called grown-ups. The grown-ups are only "so-called"; it is very rare to come across a person who is really a grown-up person. The most fundamental quality in a really grown-up person is that he still keeps the innocence of the child alive, the wondering eyes of the child, the enquiring heart of the child; the purity, the clarity of the child will remain intact in him. He has defeated the society. He has not allowed anybody to destroy his intelligence.

People only grow in age; they don't grow up. Growing up is something vertical, growing in age is something horizontal. You remain on the same plane; just time passes by. And of course time helps you to collect many experiences, knowledge, words, information, and you start thinking that you know. And that is the greatest calamity that can happen to any man: not knowing and believing that you know. It means now the doors for knowing are closed forever.

Socrates is a grown-up person. He said: "I know only one thing, that I know nothing." His childhood is absolutely unpolluted. The time that has passed by has not been just dust gathering on the mirror. On the contrary, it has helped to sharpen his sword; it has not been like rust on the sword.

Knowledge is rust: it destroys your intelligence and gives you poor substitutes - knowledge is a poor substitute for intelligence.

Remember, one can be very intellectual and yet unintelligent. The child is not intellectual. He does not know anything about the great philosophers, the great scriptures; he is not a scholar. He knows nothing! But out of that state of not-knowing he functions. Hence he is always full of wonder and awe; he looks at the world feeling that it is a mystery. The more you know, the more you destroy the mystery.

The whole function of our so-called schools, colleges and universities is to de-mystify the universe.

Even scientists brag about it, that they are doing a great service to humanity by de-mystifying the universe. In fact, they are creating more and more boredom in the world.

No child is ever bored; he is always finding something or other which is immensely interesting for him. He can get absorbed in any small thing - a butterfly, a flower, a stone, a rock - anything will do.

He immediately becomes aware of something extraordinary in it. That is insight, that is intelligence.

If we help children in every possible way to remain as intelligent as when they come into the world, then there will be many grown-up people. Right now you can count the grown-up people in the whole world on your fingers very easily - because everybody has been manipulated, has been poisoned.

It needs a totally different society, a totally different vision of life in which the child is respected.

For centuries we have respected the old man: the older the man is, the more we respect him. Why do you respect the old man? just because he has existed for a hundred years? Just existing is not enough for respect; living is a totally different matter. Existing is very ordinary; living has a totally different flavor to it.

Living means living out of AGNOSIA, living out of a state of not-knowing, living life as a mystery.

That is the only way to live it. Others only exist, others only survive.

A grown-up person moves in a deep harmony. His body, his psychology, his spirituality are always attuned; they all move together. This does not happen to the people who only grow in age. Their bodies become older but their minds remain retarded.

At the time of the First World War, psychologists became aware for the first time of this fact, because for the first time on a large scale they tried to observe, experiment, to know how many people are really psychologically grown-up. And they were amazed, shocked: the average psychological age of human beings is only twelve years. The body may be eighty years old and the mind is lagging far behind. In fact, there seems to be no connection... the gap of seventy years or eighty years. And the eighty-year-old person pretends to know because he thinks he is eighty years old, and he stopped growing when he was only twelve years of age. Really he should be counted only as twelve years of age, not eighty. And as far as the spirit is concerned he may be still in the womb of the mother; he may. never have come out of the womb.

These three together, in deep harmony, create beauty, grace, light, love. When they are all in accord, life is an orchestra - but they are in discord. The spirit is almost non-existent. Hence George Gurdjieff used to say, "I have come across very few people who have any soul."

Ordinarily everybody believes that he HAS a soul because the religions have been telling for centuries that everybody has a soul. Everybody only has a potential for being a soul, but that potential is not actualized, not realized. It is Still a seed; it has not come to be a tree. It has not reached the point where spring comes and flowers open up and one feels fulfilled, contented.

A grown-up person is a flowering. His life is not divided; his life is an organic unity. He moves in a kind of absolute unity; nothing is lagging behind, nothing has gone far ahead.

And this disunity that we see in the world is multidimensional. The soul is in the womb; the mind, the psychology is somewhere hung up at the age of twelve, and the body is eighty or ninety years old. This is only one kind of discord; there are many kinds of discord.

The head goes on becoming bigger and bigger, and the heart goes on shrinking. They lose all synchronicity. And when the head becomes too much, man is a monster.

If you watch, if you observe within yourself, you can see it. I am only stating a fact. You will not feel any heart in you. You will see your head is heavy, full of junk, but your heart is only a word. You have read about it in poetry, in novels. It seems to be a fiction, a myth. In fact, physiologists say there is no heart. What you call the heart, from where the love arises, does not exist for the scientist.

What exists is only a blood-purifying system. Your heartbeat has nothing to do with the heartbeat the poets have been talking about, the mystics have been praising; it is something else.

But scientists are right in a way, because the people they observe DON'T have any hearts. They have not observed a Buddha or a Meera, they have not observed Chuang Tzu or Kabir. They have never come across a man of the heart, so what they know is only about lungs.

The mystics are talking about something ELSE which is not grown-up in you. It is something behind your physical heart.which has not started functioning. It starts functioning only when you shower much energy on it, when your energy starts moving it. But your whole energy goes to the head.

Our structure of education is such that we bypass the heart. In fact, we try to ensure in every possible way that nobody's energy should enter the heart, because once the heart starts functioning it becomes difficult for the head to take possession of you.

And the society needs only heads and hands. That's why the society is divided into two kinds of people: the heads - the people who work with their heads, the so-called intelligentsia - and the hands, the people who are laborers. The society does not believe in the heart because the heart has no utilitarian purpose. You cannot produce commodities out of the heart; you cannot make people rich; you cannot create bigger houses, sophisticated machines; you cannot reach the moon.

So what is the purpose of it? Its purpose is totally different: it is non-utilitarian. It brings joy, but joy the society is not interested in. The society wants people who are efficient robots. A joyful person is not a robot. The society does not want you to be loving; it wants you to be calculating.

A lover is never a calculator; he is always risking. He is not a good businessman. He lives in a totally different world; he sees things from a different perspective. For him flowers are far more important than all your scientific gadgets, stars are far more important than all your political ideologies, rivers and mountains are far more significant than all your churches and temples.

The vested interests are against the heart, hence they have put it aside. They have created a shortcut: your sexual energy moves directly to the head without passing through the heart. That's why your psychological age remains nearabout twelve, because that is the time when sexual maturity starts happening - twelve, thirteen, fourteen. That is when you become sexually mature and that is where the society stops you, because once the energy is ready to move it starts moving it towards the head. That is the most important time in the life of a man, between twelve and fourteen. That is the time when either you move through the heart or you move through no-heart directly to the head.

And every society takes care, before the energy starts working in the heart, to stop it - to close that door completely, forever.

Psychologists have not been able to explain why the psychological age should be nearabout twelve - this is the reason. They don't yet have any explanation for it, but this is the reason: because your sexual energy is the only energy you have got, and the moment it becomes ripe there is danger - because it can become love. If allowed a natural course it is bound to become love; it will move through the heart. And, in fact, once it moves through the heart, once the heart opens up, the head can never be the master; it will remain a slave, because a higher value has entered in your being.

Now logic can never be supreme, it will always be secondary. And it is good that logic should be a servant to love; then it is beautiful. But love is a dangerous energy.

All the social institutions are afraid of love because the whole society depends on unloving institutions. Our society is rooted in marriage; marriage is an unloving institution. Marriage has been invented against love. That's why parents never like their daughter or their son to fall in love.

They would like to choose the right wife, the right husband, for their son or daughter. THEY would like to choose, and how can they choose? They will choose through the head. They will say to the children, "You don't know. You have not experienced life - we have experienced life, so we know what is right and what is wrong." For centuries, all over the world, marriage was arranged by parents at a very early stage so the child was not even aware of it, what was happening.

My mother got married when she was seven; she was not aware of what was happening. My father must have been nearabout ten; he was not aware of what was really happening. He enjoyed the whole thing - because he was riding on the horse and so many people were following him, so of course he enjoyed it! And when the marriage procession came to my mother's home she was puzzled because she was not allowed to come out and see what was happening there. And the whole crowd was there, the whole village was there; only she was not allowed. She could not understand: "What is the matter? Why can't I go?" Of course she was interested: "What is happening outside? Music, band, horse, procession!" It was enough to get interested in.

Now, marrying a girl of seven years is a very dangerous strategy of the society. If child marriages happen, love has been prevented forever. They will grow like brother and sister and they will start accepting each other and the convenience that they give to each other. They will LIKE each other, but never love. And liking is not loving; they are not synonymous. You may like a person very much, but you may not love them, and you may not like a person very much but you may love them. Love is a strange phenomenon; it is illogical. Liking has a logic about it: you can give reasons why you like a person, but you cannot give any reason why you love a person; it is irrational.

To prevent love, child marriages were prevalent all over the world. To prevent love, pseudo love was taught: "You have to love your mother because she is your mother!" But there is no necessity. She may be a mother; that does not mean that the child HAS TO love her.

That's what the DESIDERATA says: Never feign affection. But we have been doing that for centuries.

You have to love your mother - just because she happens to be your mother; you have to love your father - just because he happens to be your father. You have to love your brothers and your sisters.

And in a child these things can be easily forced - he is helpless. And then you can force him to marry. And then, of course, the husband has to love the wife, the wife has to love the husband. This whole love is pseudo! It has never happened. You are simply fulfilling a formality.

That's why people remain retarded psychologically at the age of twelve, or somewhere between twelve and fourteen. The head becomes the suprememost center. That's why there is so much misery in the world, because without love bliss is impossible. That's why there is so much irreligiousness in the world, because without love there is no God. Logic cannot prove God, only love proves God. Knowledge can never prove God, only innocence experiences it.

Ananda Prabhu, your children are beautiful. They have understood what is most important.

Another sannyasin has just asked: "I write questions, but the moment I have written the question I immediately see the answer, and then both the question and the answer become unimportant. And I can never ask because they become unimportant. Why does this happen?" she asks.

This happens because you take life too seriously. You want your question to be very important.

That will give you a reflected glory; that will make you important. You don't want to ask an ordinary question; you want to ask something very important. And of course you will never be able to ask one. Any question is bound to be unimportant; no question is important - or ALL questions are important.

If you are a child, if you have the innocence of a child, then all questions are important - not only questions about God but questions about the dog also have the same value. A child can ask, "Why does the dog start barking when the moon rises in the sky?" Dogs are very much against the moon!

On a full-moon night they will bark and bark their hearts out. They go crazy! A child can ask it; when you are a grown-up you cannot ask such a question. It looks so unimportant - what has it to do with YOU? If the dog barks, let him bark! And what will people think if you ask such a question? It seems unimportant - it seems unimportant because of the ego. You want to ask questions about God.

Hence, particularly in India, I have experienced people whose problems remain unasked, and they go on asking metaphysical questions because that gives them importance.

They will come and they will ask, "Does God exist?" - as if that is something they are really interested in! What will you do if he exists?

When I was traveling around the country, thousands of times I had to tell people, "Are you really interested in God? What will you do if he exists? Is it going to make any difference in your life whether God exists or not? Is it a life and death problem for you?"

They would say, "No, but we are curious whether God is or not." And sooner or later, when they became a little more acquainted with me, their real problems would come up: anger, jealousy, possessiveness. They are real problems, but they hurt the ego. To ask, "Why am I jealous?" is to recognize your jealousy, is to declare that you are jealous. Nobody wants that. Everybody is jealous, everybody is possessive, but everybody thinks it is not so. "It is not so with me - it may be so with others."

Nobody wants to look at his real face; people avoid themselves as they avoid nobody else. That's why everybody else will be able to see your faults except you. You minimize your faults and you maximize others' faults; you have double standards. When it comes to your fault you rationalize it; when it comes to somebody else's fault you don't accept any rationalization. You magnify it as much as you can; you make it look as big as you can, because your fault brings your ego down. The other person has a bigger fault; the bigger it is the better, because that helps you to feel, "How nice I am!

How simple, how humble I am! And look at these people - they are all full of faults, they are all full of fallacies, superstitions, stupidities. I am not THAT bad!" That gives you a good feeling.

The sannyasin has asked, "Why does it always feel unimportant?" It is bound to feel unimportant, because you are asking out of your knowledge, not out of a real enquiry.

Ananda Prabhu, your children are far more intelligent. Children are always authentic because they are not worried about the ego; otherwise they would not have said this to you. They asked you, "When you come back, bring a few jokes."

A serious person cannot ask that. A serious person will ask, "Bring some great philosophy, great religion. Bring some truth for me." But children are simple and innocent. They simply open their hearts and they say whatsoever their real need is.

If everybody is like a child, the whole quality of human consciousness will go through a transformation. We can bring a new humanity very easily. Jesus is right when he says: Unless you are like small children you will not enter into the kingdom of my God.

First joke for Benjamin:

There's the story about the fellow who each day walked to work and passed a window where he saw a lady hitting a boy over the head with a loaf of bread. The fellow decided it was none of his business and walked on. He saw the same thing happen every day for five months. Each day the lady was hitting the boy with a loaf of bread.

Then one morning he saw the woman toss an entire chocolate cake into the boy's face. Astonished, he peered into the open window and asked why.

"Oh," the lady said, "it's his birthday!"

Second, for Rosemary:

Charlie the cat was scampering all over the neighborhood, down alleys, up fire-escapes, down cellars. A lady who knew Charlie's little owner, Johnny, knocked on his door. "Your cat is running around like mad!"

"I know," said Johnny. "He has just been neutered and he is rushing around cancelling engagements!"

Third, for Andrew:

It happened in Naples. The teacher asked little Pierino, "Pierino, tell-a me, who was-a the first-a man?"

"I don't-a know-a nothing!" replied the little boy. "I didn't-a see nothing, and I will die before-a confessin'!"

And fourth, for Nathan:

Two children are playing, imitating the sounds of different animals. Suddenly Johnny says to his friend, "My grandfather is really good at imitating a wolf. Just listen!"

He goes to his grandfather, whispers something in his ear, and the old man starts howling, "Oooh!

Oooh! Oooh! "

Astonished, the friend asks Johnny where his grandfather had learned to imitate a wolf so well.

Says Johnny, "Well, all I do is ask him how long it has been since he last fucked!"

And, Ananda Prabhu, as far as your wife is concerned, she certainly is crazy - but she loves me.

In fact, she is afraid of falling into my love. The love is there, but she is afraid also. Hence all her maneuvers - hiding your orange clothes, hiding my photographs is nothing but an unconscious effort to hide herself from me. But she cannot hide for long!

There is a Sufi story:

A Sufi Master wrote a small book which was outrageous in many ways to the traditional, orthodox mind. And then he told one of his disciples, "Go to the IMAM, the greatest priest, and give this book to him as a present from me. And watch, watch carefully what happens. And come and report to me EXACTLY what happens, without any interpretation of your own."

This was a device, a double-edged sword. It was a device for the disciple to see whether he could report exactly what happened without changing it, coloring it, interpreting it. His commentary was not needed; he had to just be absolutely factual, a pure, detached observer, as if he was not concerned at all.

He went there very alert, he knew that this was a kind of test. He presented the imam the book; he was sitting in the garden. It was a winter morning and he was enjoying the sun. His wife was sitting there.

When he presented the book, the imam asked, "Who has written this?"

He told his Master's name. The imam suddenly became so enraged that he threw the book outside the gate and said, "This type of nonsense, this type of outrageous, irreligious, sacrilegious thing cannot enter into my house! Get out immediately and never come here again! Your Master is a danger to the society. He is creating chaos, he is destroying our religion!"

For a moment the disciple was losing his detachment, because great anger was arising in him, but he remembered that the Master had said that he had to be just a reporter; he had not to bring his emotions in, his sentiments in.

Just when he was leaving, the wife of the imam said, "You could have thrown it out a little later on when the man had gone. There was no need to be so enraged - it doesn't fit you, your status. Or, you have such a big library in which there are all kinds of books - you could have put that book there also. If you don't want to read it there is no need to read it. And I have seen all kinds of books - religious, irreligious, belonging to our religion, belonging to other religions - in your library, so why can't this book also be a part of the library?"

Again the disciple felt an emotion arising, that the woman was more compassionate, more loving, more human. But suddenly he became aware that he had not to bring his attitude into it at all; he had just to report. He came back and he just reported, but when he was reporting, at the last moment he forgot and he said, "One thing I must say, that the imam's wife is a very nice, beautiful woman, and she even seems to understand you. Maybe one day she can be converted to your path."

The Master said, "Wait! Who has asked about your commentary, about your interpretation? You should simply report. And as far as your commentary is concerned, it is absolutely wrong. If you ask me, then I will say this imam is sooner or later going to be trapped by me, but his wife will never be a part of our commune, NEVER, because his wife is indifferent. She says, 'YOU can put it in the library.' The imam HATES me - hate can be transformed into love - but the wife is just indifferent:

she does not love me, she does not hate me. She is not interested in me at all. She says, 'There is no need to throw it out.' But the way the imam became enraged shows his emotion; soon he will feel that it was not right. And I tell you: go again and see what has happened to the book - the imam must have taken it back into his home, he must be reading it now. A man who becomes so enraged is already interested. He cannot avoid reading it - he HAS to read it."

And the disciple went again. And wonder of wonders! The Master was right: the imam was reading the book....

Your wife may show anger, may show hatred. Don't be worried about it. She is already getting interested; she is not indifferent. She is a little upside-down, but that is not a big problem - doing a headstand! We can put her right-side-up.

The fifth joke, for your wife:

Astonished to find the new nurse, Miss Flack, pursuing the patient down the corridor with a bowl of boiling water, the head of the hospital, Dr. Killcare, buttonholed the young intern on duty and asked what was going on.

"I told her to prick the patient's boil," the youthful sawbones said, "but that Miss Flack is such a dummy, she gets everything backwards!"

You get it?

The second question

Question 2:

Anand Parinita,

TRUST IS A MYSTERY - that is the first thing to be understood about trust. Hence it cannot be explained. I can give you a few indications of it, just fingers pointing to the moon, a few hints, but it cannot be described or defined.

It is the highest form of love, it is the essential core of love. Love itself is a mystery and indefinable, but love is like a circumference and trust is its very center, its soul. Love is like a temple and trust is the innermost shrine in the temple where God is situated.

Ordinarily people think that trust means faith; that is wrong. Trust does not mean faith. Faith is emotional, sentimental. Faith creates fanatics. Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, these are the people who have faith. Trust creates only a quality of religiousness. Trust never makes anybody a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian. Faith is borrowed - borrowed from the parents, from the society in which you are born. Faith is accidental. YOU live in faith out of fear or out of greed, but not out of love. Trust is out of love.

Faith is a conditioning, imposed; it is a bondage. The man of faith is a prisoner. He may know it, he may not know it. He may have been living in a very beautiful palace, but he is imprisoned in it. The prison may be very well decorated - with Bibles and Korans and Vedas and Gitas - it may be made out of beautiful doctrines, philosophies, ideologies, but it is a prison because you have not entered into it on your own; you have been forced to enter it.

I was a small child and my father used to take me to the temple, and I always resisted it. I would tell him, "I will stay outside the temple - you go in."

He would say, "But why can't you come in?"

I would say, "When I feel like coming in I will come in, but I don't feel like coming in. It is so beautiful outside! Why should I go in? And I don't see any point in it at all! The trees outside, the birds singing outside, the sun - it is so beautiful! I will wait here for you. If you choose to be inside and sit in that windowless, closed place, that is YOUR choice."

He would try to persuade me but he was never successful. Every parent tries, and the intention is not bad - the intention IS good - but unconscious intentions, even if they are good, they are not of much help. They hinder, they harm. An intention can be really good only when it is conscious, otherwise prisons are created, and you become attached to prisons. It is so difficult.

Even a man like Bertrand Russell, who does not believe in Christianity, has confessed that although he has dropped believing in Christianity, if somebody suddenly asks him, "Who was the greater man, Buddha or Christ?" somewhere deep inside he knows that Buddha is greater, but he will answer, "Christ." That Christian upbringing... the mind that has been dropped has left scars.

He says, "When I think about it, when I am alert, I can see the greatness of Buddha. Compared to Buddha what Christ says looks ordinary - but that is when I am alert. When I am not alert, if you wake me up suddenly from sleep and ask me, I will certainly say Christ. It hurts somewhere to put Buddha above Christ."

And I can understand his difficulty. The same will be the difficulty of a Buddhist. He may be convinced that Christ is far better, he may be convinced that Christ's sacrifice is greater than Buddha's, but deep down in the unconscious the training, the conditioning is there - he cannot put anybody else above Buddha.

One Jaina scholar who was a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi wrote a book on Mahavira and Buddha and he showed me his manuscript. He told me, "I am trying to synthesize both the religions."

I looked at the title and I said, "You won't be able to synthesize them, you will not be able to bring about a synthesis. Just your title is enough!"

He said, "What can you know from the title?"

The title was BHAGWAN MAHAVIRA AND MAHATMA BUDDHA. I said, "Can't you call both Bhagwan?" "Mahatma" means a very great man but still a man, and "Bhagwan" means one who has gone beyond man. I said, "How can you bring about a synthesis? You have already discriminated! "

He was shocked and he said, "I have shown my book to many people - nobody has indicated that.

I have shown it to great scholars, pundits, and they have all appreciated it."

I asked him, "Have you shown it to any Buddhist?" He said, "No." I said, "Show it to any Buddhist and he will see the insult that you have done Buddha. Ask him what he would suggest. He will say, 'Write BHAGWAN BUDDHA AND MAHATMA MAHAVIRA - change it!"

What is Mahavira compared to Buddha to a Buddhist? But to a Jaina, Mahavira is greater. Buddha comes very close, but close; a distance is still there. It may be only of one step, but that much distance has to be there. Our egos are involved.

Faith is egoistic, hence it is fanatic. Faith is borrowed, hence it is ugly. Faith is a bondage because you have been forced into it by subtle strategies. It is not trust. Trust is a totally different phenomenon, with a different flavor. It is your own growth that brings you to trust; it is your own experience, it Is your own knowing. Faith happens through conditioning and trust happens through unconditioning. One has to drop faith before one can attain to trust.

And the second thing to remember: trust is not belief either. Belief is again a trick of the mind to repress doubt. Man is born with many doubts, millions of doubts, and it is natural, it is a gift of God. Doubt is a gift of God, but it creates trouble for you. If you start doubting... and you can doubt EVERYTHING, and you have to live with people who believe. Your life will be in constant conflict, you have to compromise. If you are born amongst Christians you have to believe; if you don't believe you will be in trouble.

Why was Jesus crucified? - for the simple reason that he refused to believe; he tried to experience.

In the Bible the major part of his life is completely missing; eighteen years are missing. And in a life of thirty-three years, eighteen years iS a maJor portion. He is mentioned first when he is twelve and then he is mentioned when he is thirty, and by thirty-three he is crucified.

What happened between the ages of twelve and thirty? Where was he? In these eighteen years he lived with many Masters, he moved in many mystery schools. Particularly, he lived with a secret school, that of the Essenes; his whole teaching comes from that secret school. But all those eighteen years were of deep meditation, experimentation; he went to the deepest core of his being. When he arrived when he himself came to know what truth is, there was trust - it was not belief.

Trust has to be deserved belief is a very cheap substitute. Belief means you are afraid of doubt, because doubt creates trouble, and doubt keeps you in a state of confusion. And you are not courageous enough to live in confusion, not courageous enough to live in a state of chaos, in anarchy - and doubt creates that. So you immediately repress the doubt, and the way to repress is to believe.

The way to trust is DOUBT, and doubt to the very end. Go the whole way! Don't repress your doubt at any point, otherwise you will miss trust. Trust arises out of doubt, not by repressing but by experiencing doubt to its ultimate extreme.

When you go on doubting and doubting and doubting, a moment comes when all beliefs are destroyed by doubt, all faith evaporates in the heat of doubt, and all that is left is your being. Now there is nothing to doubt because you have doubted all and everything. When there is nothing to doubt, doubt dies, commits suicide, because there is nothing to keep it going on, nothing to nourish it any more. That has been my way. I have not arrived through belief, I have arrived through doubt.

It is better to begin as a great doubter than as a believer, because the believer will remain always pseudo; he will always remain superficial, shallow. Belief can never be more than skin-deep: scratch it a little bit and immediately the doubt is there. Trust needs a continuous hammering; doubt has to be used as a hammer. Until you reach to the rock bottom of it all...

An America tenor was making his debut in "Pagliacci" at La Scala Opera House in Milano. When he finished the exciting aria, "Vesta la Giubba," the audience applauded, and Carbogno, an elderly man sitting down front, stood up and exclaimed, "Sing-a it again!"

The tenor, delighted by the request, did an encore. Carbogno, the opera-lover, again leapt to his feet and implored, "Sing-a it again!"

After five encores, the tenor walked to the edge of the stage and said, "Thank you for your very gracious reception."

Once more the old man shouted, "Sing-a it again!"

"I'm sorry, sir," begged the singer. "We must go on. I cannot sing it again."

"Yes!" declared the opera fan. "You sing-a it again until-a you sing-a it right!"

One has to go on and on doubting - until-a you sing-a it right!

Doubt is a sword: it cuts all beliefs, but it is a dangerous path. The path to truth is bound to be dangerous because truth is the ultimate peak. The higher you move towards Everest, the more you are entering into a dangerous arena. A single wrong step and you will be lost forever.

Truth liberates, but to reach truth you have to go through a very narrow passage, climbing towards the heights. It is dangerous. Hence millions of people decide to live in their dark valleys and they believe that "Everest exists and it is sunlit and there is tremendous beauty, because Jesus has reached there, Buddha has reached there.

We can believe in them. What need is there for us to go there? We can live in our dark valleys comfortably. There is no need to take any risk."

But without risk there is no truth, without risk there is no life. You have to learn to gamble, you have to be a gambler.

If you doubt and go on doubting, a moment comes when all that you have ever believed disappears, evaporates. It is almost a state of madness. One can fall any moment into the abyss that surrounds you. If one falls, it is a breakdown. If one keeps alert and aware, watchful, cautious, then it is a breakthrough.

Trust is the ultimate breakthrough: it helps you to know the truth on your own. And truth liberates only when it is YOURS; somebody else's truth cannot liberate anybody. It creates bondage and nothing else.

The last question

Question 3:

Anand Nandan,

IT IS VERY DIFFICULT for me to be truthful. I don't believe in anything, not even in truth! I am not a serious person at all! I believe in playfulness. So... how does it matter whose question it is? And do you think when you write a question it is better than when I write a question? And do you think, Nandan, that when you are writing a question you are really writing or am I writing through you?

If I have to tell a joke tomorrow I can say something today and many questions will come tomorrow!

There is really no need for me to write them - I can create questions in you; there is no difficulty.

Otherwise, how do these many many questions come?

But you seem to be serious. And I am serious only about jokes! I am not serious about anything else. That's why you never see me laughing at the jokes - I am really serious! - because jokes are not a laughing matter. It is not a laughing matter. It is not a joke! It is one of the most serious things in life, in fact, the only serious thing.

You ask me: I HAVE HEARD THAT YOU SOMETIMES MAKE UP...

Sometimes! Always, every day! because whenever I come across a good joke I cannot wait for tomorrow. Who knows? Tomorrow may come, may not come. I may not be here, you may not be here - and the joke HAS to be told!

Just look at these jokes: they cannot remain untold!

A Negro walks into the fishmarket and buys an eel for his dinner. He puts it into the pocket of his overcoat and decides to have a drink before going home. One drink leads to another and another...

Hours later he staggers home and stumbles into the toilet for a piss. Reeling backwards and forwards he fumbles inside his trousers and pulls out what he thinks is his johnny. He feels a warm tickle down his legs, then looks down and utters in wide-eyed disbelief, "I knew you was big and I knew you was black, but I sure as hell didn't know you had such beautiful, big blue eyes!"

A man walks into an optometrist's office holding a cardboard box. He hands it to the optometrist who opens it and upon seeing its contents exclaims, "WOW! That's the biggest turd I've ever seen!"

"Isn't it a beauty? I did it myself!"

"It must be at least two feet long!"

"Twenty-five and a half inches, to be exact!" boasts the man, "And four and three-quarter inches in diameter!"

"Incredible! How much does it weigh?"

"One and a half pounds!" comes the proud reply.

"That is simply amazing!" exclaims the optometrist, unable to take his eyes off this marvelous specimen. "But why bring it to me? I am an optometrist!"

"Well, you see, I have this problem: every time I do one of these monsters, my eyes water!"

Mary comes to the police station with her mother. She is sobbing loudly when she reports to the policeman that she had been raped. The officer, concerned, asks her when and where all this happened.

"Well," says Mary, crying, "three days ago in the cemetery, the following day in the forest, and yesterday evening in Johnny's own room!"

You missed it! Perhaps you will get this...?

Dino was making pretty good time with Sally, the office steno. She agreed to go away for the weekend, provided he brought a sheath with him.

When they went upstairs to bed he admitted he didn't know how to wear it, so she rolled it down his thumb to show him. Then they put out the light and really went at it.

In a few minutes Sally said, "I'm really sticky. I think you broke that thing."

"No, I ain't," said Dino, switching on the light. "Here it is, still on my thumb!"

And you ask me: Is THIS SO? PLEASE BE TRUTHFUL!

Anand Nandan, even this question is invented by me! What more truth is needed to prove it? You have not asked it, but I have answered it!

Two Jews are walking. Ahead of them they notice Moishe walking like a duck along the footpath.

"I bet you he has hemorrhoids," says Saul, "that's why he walks that way!"

"No," says Mo, "his balls are enlarged, that's why!"

They catch up with Moishe and tell him of the bet they just made.

"You are walking this way because of bad hemorrhoids, right?" says Saul.

"No," replies Moishe.

"Aha!" exclaims Mo. "Then it is because of your swollen balls, right?"

Moishe stops and turns towards them. "I am sorry, but both of you lose. You see, I thought it was going to be just a good old fart, but..."