Everybody is unique, not equal

Question 1:

Deva Shikha, your question is a little complicated. Perhaps you are not conscious of its implications.

To say the truth hurts a little - and I cannot say anything else but the truth - so be prepared. These are the games mind goes on playing within itself. And slowly, slowly it starts believing in them as if they are real.

You say, "I feel a new kind of authority and love growing in me." The remainder of the question will reveal that you don't understand the difference between authority and authoritativeness. The reason for me to take it for granted that you don't understand is because you are putting authority and love together.

Love knows no authority.

It is authority, but it knows no authority. It never feels any authority. It is just a roseflower dancing in the sun, in the rain, in the wind.... What does a poor flower think about authority? It is again the ego from the back door that gives you the sense of authority.

Only one can be true - either your love can be true or your authority can be true. But these words have never been disassociated from each other, for the simple reason that the love and authority come from the same people: the mother is the authority and love, the father is the authority and love, the priest is the authority and love. They get entangled with each other. You have never entered deep enough to see that they are not only two absolutely separate phenomena, they are absolutely contradictory.

The second thing: love does not grow. It is not grass! It is born suddenly, out of nowhere. You feel the song, the dance of love, and you are amazed. It does not come with any indication: "I am coming." It simply comes whenever you are ready, whenever your meditation is ready, whenever your being is silent - it suddenly comes, and all your being dances. It has an authority, but not authority over others. It has an authority in the sense that it is your own experience. You can say, "I am not quoting scriptures, I am the scripture."

Ordinarily, authority is always a kind of domination. And authority is always derived from somebody else.

Jesus derives his authority from God; otherwise he has no argument for what he is saying - just a villager's statements. He gets the authority because these are the words coming to him from his father who is above in heaven. And then the whole train starts - pope after pope. This Polack pope seems to have forgotten to die. Polacks are Polacks; you can't depend on their intelligence. Down through twenty centuries, popes have lived one year, six months, two years, at the most three years, but to get rid of this Polack is very difficult.

From where does their authority come? From Jesus Christ. And all down the line - the cardinals, the bishops, the priests - they all derive their authority from above. It is not their own experience.

I used to live in a neighborhood in Raipur, and a priest - a Catholic priest - also lived there. We used to go early in the morning for a walk. I was very new; he had no idea who I was. I suddenly took hold of his collar and asked him, "Tell me truly: Do you know God?"

He said, "My God! This is a strange situation. So early in the morning, in the darkness - I can't even see your face, who you are. I don't know, but those who know, they have taught me."

I asked him, "Have you asked them if they know? The same reply would have been given to you.

'Those who know have taught us.'" That is the authority derived from others. And when you derive your authority from others, you start being authoritative over others. You have to take revenge.

If you have to believe in others, you will force others to believe in you. It is simply a question of who is more powerful.

A beautiful story is related by a great Indian emperor, Akbar, in his autobiography, AKBAR NAMMA.

One day in the court - and he had in his court the wisest men of the land... He was always in search of wise people. And certainly he had great poets, painters, musicians, philosophers - all kinds of geniuses. Just by his side was standing the court joker. Every court used to have a joker - just to keep things from becoming too hard, once in a while, to bring them down to a human level, to laughter... It was a very basic insight into psychology.

Birbal was the name of the joker. Akbar, just being playful and also wanting to know what was going to be the response of Birbal - he was a very responsive person, immediate - Akbar slapped him hard. Not waiting even for a moment to think what to do, Birbal slapped the person who was standing by his side.

While this was going on, people were seeing... It went all over the capital; everybody was slapping everybody else. And in the night, Akbar asked Birbal, "Why did you act in this way?"

He said, "Wait, in the morning you will know the answer." And in the morning he knew the answer.

In the night when he entered the chambers of his queen, she slapped him.

He said, "My God! You are also in this game? Who told you?"

She said, "Nobody tells anybody. Things are moving, the whole city is in a deeply hilarious mood.

The only question is that you should hit the person who is weaker than you. I was waiting for you."

Then he remembered that Birbal had said, "In the morning you will know." Of course Birbal could not hit Akbar, the emperor - he was too powerful. Birbal was just a beautiful man, a wise man, but not powerful. He could hit only the one next down in rank. And once it was understood, who is to hit and who is to get the hit, the game started. It ended with the queen hitting Akbar. Akbar was a very honest man to write in his autobiography, "That moment I understood the great intelligence of Birbal. He had hit me, but in a very roundabout way."

Authority has two sides. One side is: be dominated by those who have power; they are authoritative over you. And the other side is: take revenge with those who are below you, who cannot react, who have to take your hit and still smile. The husband comes home and hits the wife because the boss was very angry, and it was nasty, but still he had to smile, falsely. He wanted to hit him, but that would be dangerous - the job would be lost.

The Italian consul who was here... when he was asked, "Why are you afraid of meeting Shree Rajneesh with somebody present, taking notes or recording - whatever you prefer?" he said, "Do you want me to lose my job?" I laughed when I heard this.

I said, "I will make it certain that he loses his job." Now it is all over the world in the newspapers, in Italy and everywhere. It would have been better if he had come and met me. His job is gone.

People are living in a hierarchy. Somebody is higher than you, somebody is lower than you.

One Indian saint - I should call him a so-called saint... all saints are so-called, so that does not matter. He was teaching, and I was present. He was teaching that to be contented, one fundamental rule has to be remembered: "Always look down. Look how people are suffering. Look, somebody is blind; look, somebody is crippled; look, somebody is dying. You are in a far better position. That will give you consolation and contentment."

I had to stop him. I said, "What you are saying is absolutely stupid, because a man who looks down cannot avoid looking up. There are people who are in higher posts, having more money, more power, more prestige. Do you think he has to look continuously towards the blind, the beggars?

Mind does not function like that. Mind looks at both sides. And this kind of contentment... what are you going to say to the man who is blind? Tell him, 'At least you are alive, you are not dead. Look, many are in their graves, but you are out of the grave'? Where will this stupid logic lead?"

Just a few days ago, a very grumpy, negative type of mind was dying. His friends were around, and of course this was the greatest chance for him to show his negativity, sadness, misery: he has been treated by the world very badly; he cannot forgive this world. If he meets God, he is going to have a good talk with him.

Then somebody said, "Cool down, at least you have one thing positive - that is AIDS. Everything else is negative. Look at the positive and be happy!"

People have been told continuously to look at the positive and just ignore the negative. But by your ignoring, it does not disappear. It is there, and any moment it can explode. So you cannot have authority in this way - looking to those who are unfortunately lower than you in any area of life - because the superior ones are also there. They will make you inferior and you will feel hurt.

This is a sick kind of authoritativeness. It can even become aggressive. The politicians, the criminals, the generals - they become aggressive. They want to prove actually that they have authority. They can kill millions of people, but even by killing millions of people you don't become superior. You remain the same, just you become the ugliest creature on the earth.

So first you have to understand all these nuances of authority. Yes, there is an authority which is not felt. That is the authority of love. But it is not felt, it is simply there. It does not dominate anybody, it is not superior to anybody, it is just enjoying the tremendous gift of life from the very sources. This authority will give you humbleness, not turn you into an arrogant egoist. These are the checking points: if your authority makes you humble, loving, a nobody.

And you are asking, "... a clarity about myself, and love for myself and others." You are really confused. First you say, "Love is growing." It is not a crop. It is just a diamond you find in your clarity, in your silence, radiating. Secondly, you are saying that the love that is growing is for "myself and others." Love knows no division: "myself and others." Love is an experience in which duality disappears. You simply feel one, in tune with the music of the whole.

"It feels," you say, "like everybody is equal for me." Now, I suspect something is hidden in this which is sick. "It feels like everybody is equal for me." Nobody is equal. Equality is one of the most wrongly conceived ideas, which has created all kinds of communisms, socialisms, anarchisms. They are all based on the foundation of equality. Even people who are not communist don't have the guts to say that equality does not exist. It has become almost ingrained in everybody's mind.

I want you to know that everybody is unique, not equal. And uniqueness gives a totally different dimension. A rosebush is not equal to the bamboos reaching to the stars. In what way is it equal?

A rose is a rose, a lotus is a lotus; there is no question of equality.

I am not saying that they are unequal, I am simply saying they are not equal. That is their dignity.

They should rejoice, because they are simply themselves, there is nobody else to be compared with.

These ideas of equality, inequality... all are comparisons. And in existence everything is so unique, you cannot compare. But I can see just between the lines....

You say, "It feels like everybody is equal for me." Do you see the point? You want everybody to be equal to you. The president of a country, the prime minister of a country, the king of a country, the queen of a country - you would like them all to be equal to you.

It is not strange that two ideas have gripped the human heart more deeply then anything else....

One is that of equality, because that gives you a feeling that now there is no need to prove... all are equal. And deep down you know that you are superior, because you know that all are equal - all are not knowing. In your knowledge of equality you in a certain way satisfy your superiority.

Half of the world is communist - equality has not happened. Equality cannot happen; equality is not possible. It is against nature. You are not built for it. And it is good; otherwise, just to see equal faces, equal people would be so boring. The differences create a variety and a life with color and rainbows.

The second idea is that poverty has something spiritual. Both, strangely, were created by Christianity. Jesus was not crucified because he was teaching a great philosophy or was against the tradition or was in any way dangerous. He was crucified because he consoled the poor: "You are the chosen people of God and you will enter paradise. Even a camel can enter through the eye of a needle, but a rich man cannot enter paradise." This was the reason he was crucified. It was nothing to do with religion. But this was also the reason that the poor became converted to Christianity, because he was the only messiah who was giving them a free ticket to paradise. Just being poor is enough.

Christianity has given many diseases to the world. One is enhancing poverty, making poverty something spiritual. It is not spiritual. It is simply our stupidity that we are poor; otherwise everything can be comfortably settled, without any poverty, without any beggars. But rather than looking at the roots, they started talking about equality. Have you seen two persons equal? - in any way? Even twins are not exactly equal. Their parents recognize one from the other.

One man married a woman who was a twin. A friend asked him, "It must be a very difficult job to figure out who is your wife."

He said, "This is giving me such great joy, because there is no need to bother about who is my wife.

I have two wives, and a clear-cut excuse that it is very difficult to distinguish who is who. And neither do they speak, because it would look awkward - 'Why did you not stop him?'"

Even one-egg twins have small differences. About others the differences are great. And the greater the differences are, the more unique you are - but not equal. I am not saying you are unequal, remember, I am simply denying the whole philosophy of equality. Instead I am giving you a new idea of uniqueness which is far more beautiful. It accepts everybody.

Equality is something idiotic.

In Greek mythology there is a story.... A king was a little crazy. He had made a beautiful guest house with a golden bed, but only a few guests ever stayed in his guest house, and they never came out alive, because his principle was that the guest had to fit with the bed. Now, this is a strange idea.

And he was a powerful man; people were standing there with swords to fit the guest. If his head was too long, it was cut - what is the need of it? If you were too short, then traction... pull him from both sides. Sometimes legs would come off. Until the guest was completely comfortable, the king remained in the room.

Naturally, the guest disappeared. Slowly, slowly people became suspicious. What happens?

Whoever becomes a guest never comes out of the palace. Some servant leaked the message, "Nobody should ever come, because that bed is not made for man. That bed is made as a piece of art, and man has to fit to it." Guests stopped coming to the palace; otherwise they used to enjoy the palatial pleasures. But by the first night everything was finished!

Equality is something similar. Do you think you are equal in intelligence to Albert Einstein? Or even with the man who proclaimed the philosophy of equality, Karl Marx? Do you think you are equal to him?

I have met many communists, and I have asked them, "Have you read DAS KAPITAL?" - Karl Marx's great contribution. But it is so complicated and so voluminous that they have a copy of it, just as every Christian has a BIBLE and every Hindu a GITA and every Mohammedan a KORAN... It is the holy DAS KAPITAL, but nobody reads it.

You cannot read it. The argumentation is very complicated. And the man worked his whole life, doing nothing but sitting in the British Museum consulting books. Before the museum was opened, he was always present before the door. And when the museum was closed, he was physically forced to leave. Sometimes while reading or writing complicated philosophical questions he became unconscious, so an ambulance was called.

Do you think you are equal to Gautam Buddha? Drop the idea of being equal. That simply shows you are deep down feeling the unequality. To cover it, you have come with a beautiful mask of equality. Learn a new language, a new grammar, a new manifesto, of uniqueness. That gives credit and dignity to every human being, whatever he is doing. He may be making shoes, he may be a carpenter, he may be a scientist, he may be anyone; it does not matter. But what he is doing has his own touch, his own individual flavor, his own creativity, his own signature.

But your feeling does not look right. "It feels like everybody is equal for me and I don't have a special affection towards anybody." It would have been better to say, "I have a special affection for everybody." Why fall into the negative? It is a protective mask - you are afraid of love. A special affection for anybody means trouble. It is better to keep out of trouble and convince yourself that you don't have any special love for anybody. But this will shrink you. And just a moment before you were saying, "My love is growing towards myself and towards others."

Love need not be more or less. It is just a rain cloud. It showers on mountains, on trees, on streets, on people, not because these are its special favorites, but because it is too full of rain power, too full of rainwater. It has to unburden itself, so it does not matter who helps it to be unburdened.

You are saying, "I am free and beautiful." Free from what? You are not even free from the idea of beautiful. And who gives you this idea of beautiful? Your mirror? Because you don't have any special affection towards anybody? I don't think such a person will get special affection from anybody else either - only a mirror. You can purchase a good mirror, and whenever you are feeling a little suspicious...

Women keep small mirrors in their bags. The moment they start feeling suspicious about whether they are beautiful or not, immediately they look into the mirror and they say, "Everything is good."

"And all these gifts are just given to me." They must be given by the mirror. "I don't do anything to get them." Obviously - just standing before a mirror is enough. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to persuade the mirror and you don't have to tell the mirror, "I love you very much. I really, really love you."

"Everything just happens. Can you say something about this?" I can say only one thing, that you are not grateful. If everything happens and if it is authentic, following it will come a deep gratitude.

That gratitude is not in your question anywhere. And gratitude is religiousness, gratitude is the only prayer. All prayers are just man-made. Gratitude is not a word, it is a deep feeling in the very center of your being.

If that gratitude is felt, everything is right; then whatever I have said, don't take any note of it. But if gratitude is not there, then what I have said, ponder over it. Meditate more and don't get into such stupid ideas.

To me, gratitude is the greatest experience that you can have - not to God, not to me, not to anybody in particular... simple gratitude for this whole existence. These birds, these beautiful trees, this whole existence is so beautiful that not to feel gratitude about it is to remain blind, ignorant, unaware.

The function of meditation is to pull you out of your blindness and make you aware of this tremendous splendor that is spread all over.

A shy young man with a fine voice is asked to take part in the local play. But he tries to refuse, saying that he always gets embarrassed under such circumstances.

He is assured it will be very simple, and he will only have one line to say: "I come to snatch a kiss, and dart into the fray. Hark! I hear a pistol shot." And then walk offstage.

At the performance, he comes onstage, very embarrassed already by the bright green tights he has been forced to put on at the last minute, and becomes completely flustered at the sight of the beautiful heroine lying on the garden seat, in a white gown, awaiting him.

He clears his throat and announces, "I come here to kiss your snatch, no! snatch a kiss, and fart into the fray - I mean, dart into the fray! Hark! I hear a shistol pot, no! oh shit! Yes shit! Shit on you all! I never wanted to be in this damned play anyway!"

Don't take it seriously. To be alive is to be playful, and with this playfulness, prayer is bound to happen. And particularly in Poona you should be very alert, calm and quiet....

A sannyasin asks an Indian in a chai shop for information. He says, "Excuse me, where can I buy some shampoo?"

The chaiwallah says, "You are from which country?"

"Australia," says the sannyasin.

"America?" queries the Indian.

"Not America - Australia!"

"England? Germany?... good. You are married?"

"Not married," says the swami. "But where can I buy some shampoo?"

"What you want?" asks the Indian.

"Shampoo!" cries the sannyasin.

"For what you want this?" enquires the Indian.

"To wash my balls!" snaps the sannyasin. "What do you think?"

"Oh yes," says the Indian, "you are a tourist or you are coming for study?"

"I want to buy some shampoo. Do you know where I can buy some?"

"What? What you want?" says the Indian casually.

"Shampoo!" screams the sannyasin.

"Oh yes, you can buy," replies the Indian.

"But where can I buy it?" the sannyasin asks hopefully.

"In shop you can buy," answers the Indian.

"Yes, but which shop?" pleads the sannyasin.

"What you want?" asks the Indian.

In desperation the sannyasin screams, "I want some fucking shampoo!"

"No!" shouts the Indian, standing up, "no fucking here!"

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.