A woman is more poetic

Question 1:

Milarepa, without women there would not have been any enlightenment. That's the reason why women themselves don't become enlightened; they are continuously engaged in making men enlightened. They don't have time enough for themselves. Their sacrifice is great.

There is an incident in Gautam Buddha's life. When he was born, he was born as an old man's son. The father was praying to the gods; otherwise, who was going to inherit the kingdom? Finally, Gautam Buddha was born. There was great celebration. But in the whole celebration, the most important thing that happened was...

A great enlightened sage used to live in the Himalayas, and people used to go to him just to feel his presence, just to look into his eyes, just to hear his words which indicated towards the wordless, his silence, his music. His very being was music. His very presence was an invisible dance. He was very old. The sage suddenly got up and rushed towards Gautam Buddha's house. It was a long journey from the Himalayas, but he said to his disciples that he had to do it, he would not be born again.

Enlightenment means ultimate death.

You will not have another imprisonment in a body, in desires, in jealousies, in all kinds of uglinesses.

You will be here, but a pure breeze, merged into the whole.

He said, "I am not going to be born again, and Gautam Buddha has just been born. He will become, one day, the greatest enlightened one. I want to touch his feet because our meeting can happen only now."

The king was very much impressed. He could not believe it; he wanted the old sage to bless the child. He said, "Bring the child." Rather than blessing him, he touched his feet. And tears rolled down from his eyes.

The king said, "What is the matter? Is there something wrong? Is there some fatality, some danger?"

He said, "No, I am crying because I will not see this beautiful being blossoming in its utter beauty.

But I am happy that at least I have touched his feet."

This created a great trouble in the mind of Buddha's father. "It means he is going to become enlightened, a sage. Then who is going to take care of the kingdom? He will renounce the world."

He called all the astrologers of his kingdom and asked them to find out the future of the boy. They all looked at his birth chart, and remained silent. Each looked at the other: "You say it, because the old man may have a heart attack." But a young man, Konda, was not very much concerned about anything except the truth.

He said, "Listen, all these old astrologers are silent because they don't want to say something which may hurt you. But I have to say it. Whether it hurts you or not is not my business; you have called me, the chart is before me. This boy has two possibilities. Either he will become a world conqueror, a chakravartin, or he will become one of the greatest enlightened persons."

A new problem arose: how to prevent his enlightenment. All the astrologers made a suggestion.

And what they suggested, in fact became the cause of his enlightenment. They knew astrology, but they did not know anything about enlightenment. They said, "Give him all luxury, all pleasures, never allow him to see anything miserable, old, dead. Not even in his garden should a dead leaf be left.

In the night all dead leaves should be removed. And surround him with all the beautiful girls of the kingdom. Let life be just a playfulness to him. Then there is no need to renounce it. Obviously, one renounces life because it is not all playfulness; it is just the opposite - a long, long agony."

So Gautam Buddha's father arranged everything: beautiful palaces for him, for different seasons in different places, far away from people. He was not allowed to move amongst the people. No old man, no old woman, no dead person was allowed in his palaces. And all beautiful girls were his playmates. He grew up in immense luxury; perhaps nobody has grown up the way he did.

And the astrologers said, "As soon as he is old enough, mature enough, get him caught in marriage."

One of the most beautiful women, Yashodara, was chosen to be his wife. His whole life was just pleasure. The whole night was dance, song, music, women, wine, and the whole day was for rest, sleep. But this whole situation created the impetus for enlightenment.

It was a special occasion every year - he had to go to inaugurate the youth festival of the kingdom.

The story is beautiful. At this point, I think it becomes mythological; but it does not lose significance, it gains more significance.

The gods in heaven became very worried. Twenty-nine years have passed and they are waiting and waiting that this man is going to become a buddha. Now he is married, has a child, born just a day before. They managed a small strategy: an old man, coughing, with an utterly sick appearance passed by the golden chariot.

And Buddha asked his charioteer, "Chhanak, what has happened to this man?"

The story is that Chhanak would not have said the truth, so a god spoke from inside Chhanak, "This happens to everybody. This life is nothing but a death every moment, and he has reached the last stage. Ahead of it is the graveyard."

Buddha said, "Nobody told me anything about death. I have never heard about it." And the gods had managed for a small funeral procession to pass by the side of the chariot.

And Buddha again asked, "What has happened to this man? Why are people carrying him?" And the gods within spoke, "My lord, this happens to everybody. Everybody is here to die. Life is only a prelude, a preface to death."

Great transformation was happening in the mind of Buddha. And then suddenly he saw a sannyasin.

He said, "Why is he wearing orange clothes? I have never seen anybody wearing orange clothes."

And the gods spoke again, "This man is in search of something deathless before death comes. This man wants to avoid death. This man wants to know not this ephemeral life but the real life, the authentic life which has no beginning, no end. He wants to know the existential, not this life which is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of."

A great turning point. Buddha said to Chhanak, "Turn back, I am not going to inaugurate the youth festival. I am no longer young. If youth is going, old age is coming, death is the only certainty in life.

Then before time is lost I want to seek and search for the truth."

That very night he escaped. And while he was escaping, he saw the beautiful women sleeping:

somebody's saliva was flowing, somebody had one eye open... For the first time he saw that these women and men were just bags of skin; behind them were hidden only skeletons.

If instead of Konda I had been there and if the king wanted his son not to be enlightened, I would not have suggested that solution. He became fed up with women, bored and tired; he became fed up with luxury. One becomes accustomed to everything. And the moment you are accustomed it loses all juice.

He had nothing to live for in that palace; he never looked back. In the Buddhist scriptures this sentence comes so beautifully: "He never looked back." Because he had seen everything - all luxury, all comfort, all women, all food, all beautiful gardens, palaces. What is there to look back for?

The point was to find something ahead - totally different from what he had been living up to now.

He was asleep; a certain awakening had come to him, and now he wanted this awakening to reach to its ultimate peak.

Enlightenment is not something outside you. It is your own consciousness, growing to ultimate potentiality. It is your own lotus flower that blossoms in the silences of your heart.

Women have really supported men very much by nagging them, by torturing them, by harassing them.

In a small school, the teacher was asking, "Can you name an animal which goes out of the house as a lion and comes back as a rat?"

A small hand was raised. The boy said, "I know him, he is my father. Outside he is a lion; inside he is just a rat."

And man has to be a rat inside. In fact, every husband is a henpecked husband. It is just a way of adjusting. The whole day he is tired - so many things, so many ambitions, so many desires, so many conflicts - and when he comes home, the wife is ready, full of energy.

Hymie Goldberg comes home wearing a new hat.

"My God!" says Becky, "where did you get that hat?"

"At a clearance sale," replies Hymie.

"No wonder they wanted to clear it," says Becky, "it makes you look like an idiot."

"I know," says Hymie.

"Then why the hell," snaps Becky, "did you buy it?"

"I will tell you," replies Hymie. "When I put it on and looked at myself in the mirror, I looked so stupid that to argue with the sales clerk was impossible."

In fact, women should be given every honor for all the great awakened people. But to awaken somebody else is charity. Men have not allowed women to become enlightened. Men have not allowed women to be anything that is their potential. In the whole of history, at the most ten women have become enlightened. The fact is very sad and miserable. These women must have been very rebellious.

In the Vedas, there is one woman, Gargi, and you can see her courage.... The king of those days, Janak, used to have every year a great conference of the wise ones, to argue and discuss about the ultimate truth. He was himself very much a seeker. He wanted to listen to all the aspects, all the different pathways.

Yagnavalkya was one of the most important wise people. He had thousands of followers. And there was a great prize also: whoever won that great contest would get one thousand cows, which were standing outside the palace with their horns covered with thick gold.

It was getting hot. Yagnavalkya told his disciples, "Take these cows to the ashram." But they said, "You have not won the debate." He said, "That I will do later on." He was so confident, and everybody knew that he would win, so nobody objected, not even the king - because this was absolutely not right, to take the prize before you have even entered the discussion. You have accepted yourself as victorious already.

His disciples took away those one thousand cows. And Yagnavalkya was winning against other learned people; one by one, whoever stood against him was defeated immediately. But he encountered for the first time a woman, Gargi.

Gargi said, "You will have to bring those cows back. You have not won the debate - I am here. I will ask a few questions and you will be finished." Even Yagnavalkya became afraid. Nobody had behaved like this, and a woman...

Gargi said, "Do you think God exists? - then give the evidence."

There is no argument that can prove God's existence - either you believe or you don't believe, but belief is not an argument. It is simply failure of your nerve. Yagnavalkya remained silent. She asked, "Can you tell me if anybody created the world?"

He said, "Yes, God created the world."

Gargi laughed. On that beautiful, auspicious occasion, her laughter was immensely beautiful. She said, "Are you sure? Were you a witness? Or have you any other witness, who has seen you seeing God creating the world?"

Now, this was difficult. Nobody had ever witnessed it. And the problem was, if Yagnavalkya said, "I witnessed," that meant the world was already created. What were you witnessing? - you are the world. Certainly, the beginning cannot be witnessed. And if it cannot be witnessed, it cannot be proved.

And Gargi said, "Neither is there God, nor is there any beginning, nor is there any end. These are all things which the parasite priests have invented, imagined, propagated... all kinds of nonsense and superstitions."

Yagnavalkya was known to be a silent, peaceful man. He forgot all about silence and peace, and he said, "Gargi, if you speak any other word your head will fall on the earth."

Now, the sword is not an argument. And Yagnavalkya had to return, in deep shame, those one thousand cows. When they were returned, Gargi said, "You can keep them. I am not interested in cows and gold. I was interested to see how much understanding you had."

There have been a few women... Yagnavalkya, before leaving the world to go to the forest to meditate, had two wives, and he said to them, "You can divide all my possessions" - which were big and huge.

But one wife, Katyayani, said, "If these possessions have not given you peace, do you think they will give me peace? If these possessions have not given you the truth, do you think they will give me the truth? I refuse. If you are going to meditate, I am going to meditate. Your going away proves that whatever we have been doing is futile. It does not create a connection with existence, it does not fill your heart with love and truth, with celebration." And as Yagnavalkya went to the mountains, Katyayani also went in another direction to the mountains.

A few women have been of tremendous courage, but most women have been crippled by men. They have not been educated. They are not allowed to read religious scriptures, they are not allowed any social contact. Half of the world has been cut away from the other half completely. This is the greatest slavery that has happened on this earth; all other slaveries are very small. But even with this slavery, women have asserted themselves once in a while. That shows the possibility.

Rabiya al-Adabiya in South Arabia was one such woman. One day people saw her with a pot full of water in one hand and a torch burning in the other, running through the marketplace. They asked, "Where are you going?"

She said, "I am going to burn your paradise and I am going to drown your hell. These are all inventions of the priests, with which they have managed to enslave the whole humanity."

One mystic, Hassan, was staying with Rabiya. He asked in the morning for Rabiya's copy of KORAN SHARIF, and he was shocked to see that Rabiya had corrected many places in the KORAN. "That is not done. The KORAN is God's word, written by God's only and final prophet, Mohammed. You cannot improve upon it." That's why there are no commentaries on the KORAN.

Many times, many Mohammedan friends have sent me the KORAN, beautifully printed, and asked me if I can comment on it. I said, "You have not commented on it for a different reason - because Mohammedans will not tolerate anybody commenting on the KORAN. My reason is different: there is nothing in it to comment on. I have looked all through it - it is all bullshit. It is better that I do not say anything more. That one word is enough of a commentary."

But Al-Adabiya changed many words in the KORAN. Hassan was very much shaken. He said, "Adabiya, somebody has destroyed your KORAN."

She said, "Nobody can even touch my KORAN. I have corrected it wherever it was wrong."

Hassan said, "You think the KORAN can be wrong?"

Rabiya said, "The line you are reading is: when you meet the devil, hate him, curse him. I have crossed it out, because when I became myself, when my own flame became a great light around me, I could see one thing - I can only love, I cannot hate. Even if the devil comes, stands before me, I will be loving, just the same as I will be loving if God is there. It is my own experience, and I have not to follow the KORAN, I have to correct the KORAN according to my experience. A man is not made by books - books are made by men."

Now, such women indicate that if man had not repressed them... my own understanding is that more women would have become enlightened than men, because man's mind is full of rubbish.

And man's mind is much more outgoing. He may go to the Everest... Just think of Edmund Hillary standing on the Everest, how stupid he must have looked. And for only these two minutes he was on the Everest, he risked his life.

Now people are going to the moon. The earth is in a mess and people are thinking of going to Mars.

You cannot put your home right and people are trying to approach some other planet where living beings exist. Here in this world there is no dialogue, there is no love.

Because the woman is heart-oriented there is more possibility of her being awakened. Man is more logical, more arithmetical. Perhaps he can become a great scientist, but a woman is more poetic - potentially, but we have not allowed her. She can be a beautiful dancer, she can be a musician. She will open new avenues of enlightenment through the heart. Love will become her god.

You know Jesus said, "God is love." If it had been written by a woman she would have written, "Love is God." God must be secondary; it is a mental hypothesis. But love is a reality throbbing in every heart.

We have seen people like Meera.... But only very courageous women could manage to come out of the repressive social system. She could manage because she was a queen, although her own family tried to kill her because she was dancing on the streets, singing songs. The family could not tolerate it. Particularly in India, and in Rajasthan, the woman is very much repressed. And a woman of the beauty of Meera, dancing in the streets, singing songs of joy...

There was a temple in Vrindavan, where Krishna had resided. In his memory a great temple was made, and the priest of the temple had to be a celibate. Now, celibacy is absolutely unnatural. It can drive you crazy, into unnatural perversions. In that temple, no woman was allowed to enter. Women were allowed only on the outside, to touch the steps of the temple. They never saw the statue of Krishna inside, because the priest was very adamant. When Meera came the priest became afraid that she would come to the temple.

Two men with swords, naked swords, were placed before the gate to prevent Meera from coming in. But when Meera came - and such people are so rare, such a fragrant breeze, such a beautiful dance, such a song that brings into words that which cannot be brought into words - those two swordsmen forgot what they were standing there for and Meera danced into the temple. It was the time for the priest to worship Krishna. His plate, full of flowers, fell onto the ground as he saw Meera.

He was utterly angry and he said to Meera, "You have broken a rule of hundreds of years."

She said, "What rule?"

The priest said, "No woman can enter here."

And can you believe the answer? This is the courage... Meera said, "Then how have you entered here? Except one, the ultimate, the beloved, everybody is a woman. Do you think there are two men in the world - you and the ultimate? Forget all this nonsense." Certainly she was right. A woman full of heart looks at existence as a beloved. And existence is one.

There have been a few other women - Sahajo... but they are very few. It is a condemnation of men that you did not allow a woman to become a Gautam Buddha, that you did not allow a woman to become a Lao Tzu.

The crime is so big that it is incalculable.

And, Milarepa, you are asking, "Theoretically speaking, enlightenment and women are just great.

But what about practically speaking?" Practically speaking, also they are great. And the day woman's greatness is accepted, her uniqueness is accepted, her freedom, her individuality are respected, the world will be filled with more love, more flowers, with more fragrance.

What has man been doing down the ages except fighting? And what has man's genius been doing except creating more and more dangerous, destructive weapons? They are not satisfied with the nuclear weapons which exist today; they are enough to kill the whole earth seven times. I don't understand: what is the point, now, of piling up more and more nuclear weapons? There is only one incidence - Jesus - of someone who resurrected and may have needed a second killing. But ordinarily people die only once.

And the fact is, Jesus was not resurrected; he never died on the cross. He was taken off the cross before he could have died. The Jewish cross is such that it takes forty-eight hours to kill a person, because slowly, slowly blood flows out of the body. And Jesus was young - only thirty-three years old, healthy.

He was taken off the cross after six hours. It was a conspiracy between his disciples and the Roman governor of Judea - Judea was in slavery. The governor was not interested in killing an innocent man who had not done anything. If he believes that he is the son of God, why prevent him? - let him believe. You can believe you are the father of God! Just a little imagination... He had not done anything wrong, he was just a little crazy and took things literally, but he was not a criminal.

So this arrangement was made: Jesus was brought down after six hours - and in six hours, nobody can die on a Jewish cross - and he was put into a cave; the guards were Romans. In the night he was removed. As he became healed, he escaped. He died in India, in Kashmir. And Kashmir was one of the parts where Jews had been living for hundreds of years.

When Moses was looking for God's city, God's land, Israel, a tribe of the Jews got lost. In fact, Moses reached a wrong place; Israel is not worth anything. The lost tribe reached Kashmir. And Kashmir is certainly the most beautiful place in the world. If anything can be said to be God's land, then Kashmir is. Moses himself came to look for the lost tribe and he died in Kashmir. It is strange that Moses and Jesus both died in Kashmir. And there is every evidence... I have been to their graves.

In India, nobody writes Hebrew. And those graves are not Mohammedan graves, because Mohammedan graves have to be made in a way so that the head is always pointing towards Mecca.

Those two graves are not Mohammedan graves. And the person who takes care of those graves has been allowed by the Mohammedans to remain a Jew; otherwise, Mohammedans converted the whole of Kashmir. You can convert people's religion, but you cannot convert their noses. Their noses show that they are Jews. Just look at the nose of Jawaharlal Nehru or Indira Gandhi - these are Kashmiris.

And you will not believe it: they are brahmins but they eat meat. No brahmin eats meat in India, but because they were basically Jews and then became Mohammedans or Hindus, the basic non- vegetarian food continued.

A very detailed analysis is needed, which Christianity prevents, because if it is known that they are certainly Jesus' and Moses' graves then it will become a holy place for Christians and for Jews both.

And you should remember that Jesus was never a Christian. He was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, died a Jew. He never heard anything about these idiot Polack popes.

In this beautiful morning, in this silence, in these beautiful sounds of the birds, it is out of place to talk about serious things. So now a few really nonserious things, in tune with this beautiful morning.

Don't destroy it with sermons.

Somewhere in a little shack in the middle of Australia, Bruce, Edna and their daughter, Shirley, have finished their kangaroo stew dinner, and are arguing about who is going to do the washing up.

There's a big fight, and finally Bruce suggests that they all lie down on the floor and the first person to move does the dishes.

The same night, Hamish MacTavish is driving his old pick-up nearby, when the radiator overheats.

He sees the shack and walks over there to get some water.

Going into the shack, he finds everyone lying on the floor, so he decides to help himself to water. On his way to the kitchen, he steps over Shirley, and in a moment of passion, jumps on her and fucks her.

He gets up from Shirley and finds Edna on the kitchen floor. The temptation is too great for Hamish and he jumps on Edna too.

Then he takes some water back to his car, but while he is filling the radiator, he burns his arm.

Hamish rushes into the shack and cries out, "Have you got any vaseline?"

Hearing this, Bruce jumps up and yells, "Okay, okay! I will do the dishes!"

Paddy and Sean are deep in the mountains on a hunting trip, when they stop to rest. Paddy gazes at Sean and says, "You know, I'm a pretty big fellow. If I had a heart attack or broke a leg, how would you get me out?"

"Don't worry," replies Sean. "Last year I shot a sixteen-hundred-pound elk, way back in the hills, and got it out all right."

"How did you manage that?" asks Paddy.

"Simple," says Sean, "it took me twelve trips."

Paddy goes to the horse races in Dublin. In the evening, he walks into a pub and orders a large brandy for himself and drinks for everyone in the bar.

"And have one yourself," he tells the bartender, generously.

Half an hour later, the order is repeated, and this goes on all evening until at closing time, the bartender taps Paddy on the shoulder.

"I hope you don't mind my mentioning it," he says, "but your bill comes to two hundred pounds."

"Does it?" asks Paddy. "Well I am sorry to hear that, because I've not got a penny."

The bartender leaps over the bar and starts to beat Paddy and eventually kicks him out of the door, into the street.

The next evening, the pub is just opening when Paddy walks in.

"A large brandy for me," he announces, "and drinks for everyone in the bar. But I am not giving you one," he says to the barman. "After a couple of drinks, you get very nasty!"

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.