"Chaotic" Meditation

Question:

Man as such is neurotic. It is not that just a few men are neurotic, but humanity is neurotic. It is not a question of correction for a few persons, it is a question of curing humanity as such. Neurosis is the "normal" condition. As you are born, you are born neurotic. There are reasons for it. Understand the reasons which make man "normally neurotic."

The neurosis is inborn. The first reason is that man is the only animal which is born not totally evolved in the womb. Every human birth is immature. Except for man, every animal is born mature; the mother is not really very much needed. The human child is totally helpless. Without mother, without family, without parents there, he cannot survive. He is born unmatured.

Scientists say the nine months is only half the necessary period. The human child needs eighteen months in the womb. But there are problems: women cannot carry a child for eighteen months.

Thus, every birth is abortive. This happens because man is the only animal who is standing on two feet, erect. The womb, the human body, was not made for an erect posture. This erect posture creates problems, and the child has to be born before he is really mature and ready to be born. That gives a neurotic beginning - an unevolved child.

Secondly, even if the situation could be changed, there would be problems. And some day we will be able to change it. When we are able to give a scientifically created womb to the future humanity, then only will we be able to change it. But even then there will be problems. The second problem, which goes even deeper than physiology, is a psychological one. No animal is cultured, but man is cultured. He has to pass through training, conditioning. He is not allowed just to be whatsoever he is, he has to be moulded into a particular pattern. That pattern creates neurosis.

You are not allowed to be yourself. The society gives you a pattern, a mold. You are cultured into a certain shape and form. That means repression. The remaining part of your being is repressed.

Only a fragment is allowed to be expressed. This creates a division, a schizophrenic. A fragment of your mind is allowed to be expressed at the cost of the whole. The major part is not allowed to be expressed. It is not even allowed to be alive. It must move into the darker corners of your being.

But it remains there, and then there is a constant conflict. The fragment that society allows and the major part which society doesn't allow are in tension, in conflict - in constant internal conflict. So you are against yourself: that is the neurosis.

No man is for himself; every man is against himself. Man is against himself. That is how society cultures you, cultivates you, conditions you. This repression has many implications. You can never be at ease because your major part is not even allowed to exist, not even allowed to be conscious.

The major part of your being is in bondage. And remember that a fragment can never be free. Can you make a branch of a tree free while the whole tree is in slavery? The fragment is basically part of the whole, so even the fragment enjoys only a very illusionary freedom. And the part that is suppressed goes on fighting for expression.

Life needs expression, life is expression. If you do not allow life, then you are creating, accumulating, explosive forces. They will explode and you will go to bits. This division in you is schizophrenia. So every man is schizophrenic, divided - divided against himself. He cannot be at ease; he cannot be silent; he cannot be blissful. Hell is always there, and unless you become whole, you cannot be freed from this hell.

So if you understand me, man as such is schizophrenic, neurotic. So something has to be done which releases this neurosis, brings your divided parts nearer. The unexpressed has to be expressed, and this constant repression of your mind, of the conscious upon the unconscious, has to be withdrawn.

All the old meditation techniques do not take this into consideration; that is why they have been failures. Meditation techniques have been in existence for a long time; they have been known throughout history, but a Buddha, a Jesus, a Mahavira, have all been failures. I don't mean that they themselves didn't realize. They realized, but they were exceptions, and exceptions only prove rules.

Buddha was enlightened, but he couldn't help the greater portion of humanity to be enlightened. He was simply an exception.

Why could religion not be a great help? The reason is this: we have been taking man for granted, and we were teaching meditative techniques to help man as he is. But all these techniques can help only to a certain extent, and only on the surface. The inner division remains; you have not done anything to dissolve it.

For example, there are zen techniques, and Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation, and other techniques. They can help you to a certain extent. They can calm you down, your surface can become more peaceful, but nothing happens to your inner being. It cannot! And, in a way, that surface calm is dangerous because in one way or another you will explode again. Basically nothing has happened. You have simply trained your conscious mind to be in a more still state.

You can still your mind easily through mantras, through constant chanting, through many things.

Anything which creates an inner boredom will help you to calm down. For example, if you constantly repeat "Ram Ram Ram," this constant repetition creates a certain sleepiness, a boredom, and your mind begins to fall into sleep. You can feel that sleepiness as calmness, as stillness, but it is not.

Really, it is a sort of dullness. But you can tolerate your life more through it; at least on the surface you will feel more contented. But the forces, the neurotic forces, will go on boiling within; any day they will disrupt the surface, and you will fall down dead.

These methods are conciliatory, and very few people can be helped through them. And those who can be helped through them can be helped without any technique. Those are exceptions - fortunate ones who are not born neurotic. Many things are implied in that, but as a rule humanity is not so fortunate.

So my emphasis is first to dissolve your inner division, to make you one - a unity. Unless you are one, nothing can be done. The first thing is how to dissolve your neurosis.

So my technique accepts your neurosis as it is and tries to release it. My technique basically starts with catharsis. Whatever is hidden must be released. You must not go on repressing; rather, choose expression as the path. Do not condemn yourself. Accept what you are because every condemnation creates division.

Just by condemning nothing is destroyed. If you say sex is bad, you condemn it, but you cannot destroy it. Just by condemning it, it is not destroyed. Rather, it may become a more dangerous force, because when repressed, it may struggle to be expressed. And if you go on struggling with it, not allowing it, it will become perverted. Repression will make you more sexual, and the sex energy will struggle and will try to come out in any way, in any form.

All the perversions, all over the world - homosexuality or sado-masochist perversions are basically byproducts of so-called religions, particularly christianity: because the more they repress, the more the energy has to find paths of its own. Natural sex is beautiful; perverted sex is just ugliness.

Natural sex can be made hallowed and holy, but perverted sex cannot be made holy because it is twice removed from the original source.

Sex is there: do not condemn it. Accept it. Do not create a division in your being, between parts of your being. Anger is there: accept it. Greed is there, or whatsoever: accept it. I do not mean be greedy. Rather on the contrary, the moment you accept you go beyond, because acceptance creates a unity, and when you are united within you have the energy to go beyond.

When you are divided within, your energy is fighting with itself; it cannot be used for any transformation. So let there be an acceptance of what you are - not condemnation. Whatsoever you have been doing up until now is just repressing. That all has to be released. If you become consciously neurotic, one day you will come to a point where you are no more neurotic.

This may seem paradoxical, but those who repress their neurosis become more and more neurotic, while those who express it consciously throw it out. So unless you become consciously insane, you can never become sane. R.D.Laing is right. He is one of the most sensitive men in the West. He says, "Allow yourself to be insane." You are insane, so something has to be done about it. What I say is to become conscious of it. What do old traditions say? They say "Repress it; do not allow it to come out, otherwise you will become insane. I say allow it to come out; that is the only way toward sanity. Release it! Inside, it will become poisonous. Throw it out, remove it from your system totally.

Expression is what is moral. And to do this catharsis, you have to approach it in a very systematic, methodical way because it is becoming mad with a method - consciously mad.

You have to do two things: remain conscious of what you are doing, and then do not suppress anything. In our minds consciousness means suppression. That is the problem. The moment you become conscious of certain things in yourself, you start suppressing them. This is the discipline and this has to be learned: to be conscious and nonsuppressive; on the contrary, to be conscious and expressive.

You are feeling miserable: what will you do? Either you will try some escape so that you can forget, or you will try something which brings you out of your misery, or something which calms you down.

Whatsoever you do will be a subtle repression, and the misery will be accumulated and it will remain in your system. The more it remains there, the more poisonous it becomes; the longer, the more poisonous. It is not only in your mind. It moves into your body, into your blood, into your bones, into your physiology. It creates many diseases.

At least fifty percent of diseases are mental and have their origin in the mind. And this statistic I am giving is a very conservative statistic - fifty percent. Those who work with mind and body, they know that ninety percent of diseases are mind-created. So the more you repress your energies, the more diseased you will become in mind and body - both. You have to go inside yourself with a deep transforming method.

My system of Dynamic Meditation starts with breathing, because breathing has deep roots in the being. You may not have observed that breathing is very special in many ways. Your body has two types of systems. One system is voluntary, another system is nonvoluntary. I can move my hand voluntarily, but I cannot influence my blood circulation. That is nonvoluntary. Your body is made of these two types of systems - the voluntary and the nonvoluntary. You can do something with it: you can take deep breaths; you can take slow breaths. You can change the rhythm; you can even stop breathing for a few minutes or a few seconds. But it is still in between. You cannot stop it forever. It is a link between the voluntary and nonvoluntary systems of your body.

If you can change your breathing, you can change many things with it. If you can observe your breathing minutely, you can detect in yourself many things. When you are angry you have a different rhythm of breathing; when you are in love, a totally different rhythm comes to you. When you are relaxed you breathe differently; when you are tense you breathe differently. You cannot breathe the way you do when you are relaxed and be angry at the same time. That is impossible.

When you are sexually aroused, your breathing changes. If you do not allow the breathing to change, your sexual arousal will drop automatically. That means that breathing is deeply related to your mental state. If you change your breathing, you can change the state of your mind. Or, if you change the state of your mind, breathing will change.

So I start with breathing, and I suggest chaotic breathing for ten minutes in the beginning of the technique. And by chaotic breathing I mean just taking the breath in and throwing it out without any rhythm - without any rhythm. Just taking it in and throwing it out, as much as you can.

This chaotic breathing is to create a chaos within your repressed system. Whatever you are, you are with a certain type of breathing. A child breathes in a different way, and when the child becomes sexually aware, or is made aware by parents or society, he starts to breathe again in a different way.

If you are sexually afraid, you cannot breathe deeply because every deep breath hits the sex center.

So if you are sexually afraid, you cannot take deep breaths. And we make the child sexually afraid.

If a child is touching or playing with his sex organs, we will stop him. When you stop him, his breath will become shallow. He cannot breathe deeply; he has become afraid. In fear, you cannot take deep breaths; fear creates shallow breathing.

This chaotic breathing is to destroy all your systems of the past. Whatsoever you have made out of yourself, it is to destroy it. This creates a chaos within you, because unless a chaos is created you cannot release your repressed emotions; and those emotions have now moved into the body.

Ten minutes of chaotic breathing is wonderful. But it must be chaotic. It is not a type of pranayama, yogic breathing; it is simply creating chaos through breathing. And it creates chaos for many reasons.

Deep, fast breathing gives you more oxygen. The more oxygen in the body, the more alive you become, the more animal-like. Animals are alive and man is half-dead, half-alive. You have to be made into an animal again; only then can something higher develop in you. You are false, and if you are only half-alive nothing can be done with you.

So this chaotic breathing will make you like an animal: alive, vibrating, vital - with more oxygen in your blood, more energy in your cells. Your body cells become more alive and this oxygenation helps to create body electricity, or you can call it bioenergy. When there is electricity in the body you can move deep within, beyond yourself, because this electricity will work within you. As you are, you are just dead, or half-dead. ... Because even to be completely dead is good. Something complete is always good, but this half-deadness is bad.

The body has its own electrical sources. If you hammer them with more breathing and more oxygen, they begin to flow. And if you become really alive then you are no more a body. When you are alive you feel yourself as energy, not matter. You feel yourself to be a body because you are half dead.

That is why you feel so much weight. That half-deadness gives you weight and a feeling of being pulled down by gravity. You feel you have to carry yourself somehow. You are just heavy. This heaviness is because of your half-deadness. The more alive you become, then the more energy flows in your system, and the less you will feel yourself physically. You will feel more like energy and less like matter.

And whenever it happens that you are more alive, in those moments you are not body oriented. If sex has so much appeal, one of the reasons is that if you are really in the act, totally moving, totally alive, then you are no longer a body - just energy. To feel this energy is very necessary if you are to move further.

Then my second step is a catharsis. I tell you to be consciously insane, and whatever comes to your mind - whatever - allow it expression and cooperate with it. No resistance, just a flow of emotions....

If you want to scream, then scream; cooperate with it. A deep scream, a total scream in which your whole being becomes involved, is very therapeutic, deeply therapeutic. Many things, many diseases, will be released just by the scream. If the scream becomes total, then your whole being is in it. Allow yourself expression through crying, dancing, weeping, jumping, "freaking out," as they say. This second step is also for ten minutes, and within a few days you will come to feel what it is.

In the beginning it may be just forced, an effort, or it may even be just acting. We have become so false that nothing real or authentic can be done by us. We have not laughed, we have not cried, we have not screamed authentically; everything is just a facade, a mask. So when you start to do it, in the beginning it may be forced. It may need effort, there may be just acting, but do not bother about it, go on. Soon you will touch those sources where you have repressed many things. You will touch those sources, and once they are broken you will feel unburdened; a new life will come to you, a new birth will take place. This unburdening is basic, and without it there can be no meditation for man as he is. I am not talking about the exceptions; they are irrelevant.

With this second step, when things are thrown out you become vacant. And this is what is meant by emptiness - to be empty of all repressions. Then in this emptiness something can be done.

Then in the third step I use the sound HOO. Many sounds have been used in the past; each sound has something specific to do. For example, Hindus have been using the sound AUM. It may be very familiar to you, but I won't suggest aum. It never goes deeper than the heart. It just touches the heart and moves back; it cannot go deeper.

Sufis have used hoo, and if you say hoo loudly, it goes deep to the sex center. So this sound is used just as a hammering within. When you have become vacant and empty, only then can this sound move within you. The movement of the sound is possible only when you are empty. If you are filled with repressions nothing will happen. And sometimes it is even dangerous to use any mantra or sound when you are filled with repressions, because each repression will change the sound inside, and the ultimate result may be something of which you never dreamed, never expected, never wished for, because each layer of repression will change the path of the sound. You need a vacant mind; only then can a mantra be used.

So I never suggest a mantra to anyone as he is. There were certain mantras in old India that were used only by sannyasins, never by householders. They were never allowed to be used by householders because householders have a different system within. That sound hoo could disturb them. So only a sannyasin was allowed to use certain sounds.

In the old days, particularly in Tibet, whenever a mantra was given to a sannyasin he had to touch a flower, a live flower on a branch. And if the flower became dead, dulled by his touch, only then was the mantra given to him because that mantra was going to create a subtle death within him. It should not be used by a householder because then death will start hovering around him. It should not be done without first doing the first two steps. It should never be done without them. If you are neurotic and the neurosis is not released, then if you do "hoo," you will become more neurotic. So only in the third step, for ten minutes, is this "hoo" to be used - as loudly as possible. Bring your total energy to it. This is a hammering. When you are empty, this hoo goes deep down and hits the sex center.

The sex center can be hit in two ways. The first is naturally. Whenever you are attracted to a member of the opposite sex, the sex center is hit from without. And really that hit is also a subtle vibration.

A man is attracted to a woman or a woman is attracted to a man. Why are they attracted? What is there in a man and what is there in a woman? A positive or negative electricity hits them, a subtle vibration: it is a sound, really. You may have observed in birds that they use sound for sex appeal. All their singing is sexual; they are repeatedly hitting each other with particular sounds. These sounds hit the sex centers of birds of the opposite sex.

Subtle vibrations of electricity are hitting you from without. When your sex center is hit from without, your energy begins to flow out That causes reproduction, birth: someone else will be born out of you.

This "hoo" is hitting the same center of energy from within; and when the sex center is hit from within, the energy starts to flow within. This inner flow of energy changes you completely. You become transformed; you give birth to yourself.

You are transformed only when your energy moves in a totally opposite direction. Right now it is flowing out, but then it begins to flow within; now it is flowing down, but then it flows upward. This upward flow of energy is what is known as KUNDALINI. You will feel it in your spine - actually flowing - and the higher it moves, the higher you will move with it. And when this energy reaches to your head center, to the last, the seventh center, you are the highest man possible - what Gurdjieff calls "man number seven."

You are "man number one" when your energy is just at the sex center. When some energy comes to your heart center, you are "man number two," the man of emotion. When some energy moves to the intellect, you are "man number three," a man of the intellect. These are ordinary men - all neurotic in their own ways. Someone is emotionally neurotic, someone is bodily neurotic, someone is intellectually neurotic. These three men are just ordinary men.

"Man number four" is one who is trying to move his energy within: the man who is meditating, the man who is making efforts to dissolve his neurosis, divisions and schizophrenia. This is "man number four." And as this energy moves upwards and inwards, a higher man is created in you. That higher man will be less neurotic, less schizophrenic, more sane.

Then a moment comes when that energy is released from your last center into the cosmos. You become a superman, or then you are no longer man. And when that moment comes, when you are no longer man, only then are you no longer mad.

Man is bound to be mad somehow or other because he is not a being; he is, rather, a facade. Man is not an end; rather, he is a process - something midway. He is no longer animal, and he is still not that which he was meant to be. He is just a midway thing, a phase. That creates neurosis.

You are no longer an animal. With all the animality within you, you are no more an animal. The animal is there, but you are no more animal. The animal goes on pulling you down. There is nothing bad in it; the animal cannot do anything else. It goes on pulling you down to the sex center, and you move around it continously. But that is your first center, not your ultimate possibility. Your ultimate possibility is the superman - going beyond humanity, transcending man. That goes on pulling you upwards.

These two pulls create schizophrenia. So one moment you are pulled to the higher and you are like a saint, and the next moment you are behaving like an animal; you are pulled down. Now the mind becomes confused. You cannot be an animal wholeheartedly because of the higher possibility. The seed is there and it goes on hitting you and challenging you. So you cannot be at ease with the animal, but you cannot remove the animal. It is there, it is your heritage. So you divide yourself in two. You place the animal part of you in the unconscious, and consciously you identify yourself with your higher possibility, which you are not.

This higher possibility is the ideal, the end. Consciously you identify with the end, unconsciously you remain with the beginning. These two points create conflict. So unless you go beyond man, you cannot go beyond madness. Man is madness.

In the third step I use hoo as a vehicle to bring your energy upward. These first three steps are cathartic. Really, they are not meditation but just the preparation for it. They are a getting ready to take the jump, not the jump itself.

The fourth step is the jump. In the fourth step I tell you just to be a witness - a conscious alertness; not doing anything, but just remaining a witness, just remaining with yourself; not doing anything - no movement, no desire, no becoming, but just remaining then and there, silently witnessing whatsoever is happening....

That remaining in the center, in yourself, is possible because of the first three steps. Unless these three are done you cannot remain with yourself. You can go on talking about it, thinking about it, dreaming about it, but it will not happen because you are not ready.

These first three steps will make you ready to remain with the moment, they will make you aware.

That is meditation, and in that meditation something happens that is beyond words. And once it happens you will never be the same again; it is impossible. It is a growth. It is not simply an experience, it is a growth.

And that is the difference between false techniques and real techniques. With false techniques you can have an experience, remember, then you will fall back again. It was just a glimpse; it was not a growth. So with LSD this can happen: you will have a glimpse. With other techniques this can happen: you can have a glimpse, you can have an experience, but again you will fall down because you have not grown. The experience has happened to you; you have not happened to the experience. You have not grown. When you grow, you cannot fall down.

If a child dreams that he has become a young man, he can have a glimpse of being a young man, but it is a dream. The dream will be broken and he will be a child again because it was not a growth.

But if you have grown and become a young man, you cannot fall down and become a child; it is a real growth. So this is the criterion to judge whether a method, a technique, has been real or false.

There are false techniques that are easier to do; they never lead you anywhere. And if you are just after experiences you will fall prey to any false technique. A real technique is not concerned with experiences as such; a real technique is concerned with real growth. Experiences happen; that is irrelevant. My concern is with growth, not with experiences. Experiences will be there as just part and parcel of the growth, but I am not concerned....

You must grow to become one, to become whole, to become sane. And this sanity cannot be forced upon you. It is being forced by society so you remain insane within and the sanity is just a facade.

I am not going to force sanity upon you. Rather, I am going to bring out your insanity. When it is pulled out completely, thrown into the wind, sanity will happen to you. You will grow.

And you ask why this coincidence, because in the West also many techniques are being developed just similar to what I am saying. But they are just similar, not the same. There are many differences.

But it has become now very much an emergency situation. The whole world is in the grip of a long postponed insanity. We have been postponing and postponing, and now the last point, the evaporation point, has come.

There are now only two possibilities: one is that humanity may commit a collective suicide, because this insanity can no more be accumulated. Religions have helped, moralists have helped, teachers have helped, the so-called great men have helped, to make man more and more insane. And now the last point has come where we may commit a collective suicide through atom bombs or hydrogen bombs or something else.

Man as such cannot be tolerated on the earth now. He has become intolerable. And with him, he is murdering the whole earth. Not only is he suicidal, he has become murderous; he is killing everything. Man is killing everything on the earth. There is nothing alive that he likes now; only dead things appeal to him. And the deader the better, because then you can possess them, manipulate them.

So he is killing nature and everything on earth. He cannot be tolerated, and his own inner insanity is bringing him to the evaporating point. Because of this, the time is coming nearer and nearer. And all over the world, those who think and those who feel and those who know, they are searching for methods, they are devising methods, to help humanity to transcend madness. That is the only way.

Either man will commit suicide or man will take a jump into higher realms of being. If this transformation is not going to come, then nothing can be done: man will commit suicide. That is why all over the world spiritual energies are gathering, spiritual forces are joining together, many esoteric groups are working. And sometimes it may not be so obvious but deep down in the very center of the human mind. Languages differ, ways differ, approaches differ, but everywhere there is a groping for something which can become an alchemy to change humanity.

And you ask about Wilhelm Reich's use of sexual energy to release body blocks that coincide with neurosis: I am wholly in agreement with Wilhelm Reich's approach. Really, sex is the problem; all other problems are byproducts. And unless man comes to a deep understanding of sex energy it is impossible to help him.

It is very difficult because a basic mechanism has been used to make man a slave. You cannot make a man a slave unless you make him feel guilty. Guilt is the trick to enslave anyone. First make him guilty. And you can make anyone guilty only with something that is so natural that he cannot go beyond it easily. And sex is the most natural thing because it is the source of life.

You are born of sex. Your every body cell is a sex cell, all your energy is sex energy. So if religions teach that sex is bad, sex is sin, they have condemned you completely. And not only have they condemned you, now you will condemn yourself. Now you cannot go beyond it and you cannot leave it, and now it is a sin. You are divided; you start fighting with yourself. And the more this guilt can be created in you - over the concept that sex is something unholy - the more neurotic you will become.

But when you are neurotic, you can be possessed. Priests can possess you, kings can possess you. But if you are not neurotic, you will not go to priests. Then there is no need. You go because you are afraid of a certain energy which is there, and the priests say they know the way how to help you. So first they create the guilt; then they say that now they are going to help you. Then they can exploit you. A society which is sexually free and at ease with sex will not go to temples, to mosques, to churches - no! It is impossible! If you are at ease with your sex, then this so-called religion cannot continue business. Then you are not guilty, so what is the need to go anywhere?

And sex can give you such deep contentment! That too can become a problem. If you are contented, then you are not hankering after any heaven or something beyond life. Then you are here and now - so contented. Then you need not go ask someone about life after death. Then life is here.

So sex was used as an exploitative thing. And kings can use you only if you suppress your sex, because suppressed sex becomes violence. You cannot create soldiers, you cannot create militaries, you cannot create wars if you do not suppress sex. A suppressed man is always in the mood to fight. That is the only way to release his sex.

So kings, emperors, they cannot allow soldiers to have a sex life. And if American soldiers prove everywhere to be failures, the reason is only this: they cannot succeed anywhere with sexstarved people. Americans can never succeed, because sexstarved soldiers are mad; you cannot fight with them. So whenever a society becomes affluent, easygoing, it is defeated easily. Anyone can defeat it. A higher civilization is always defeated by a lower civilization.

India was defeated continuously because of her higher civilization. People were more at ease, not in the mood to fight, they were enjoying life. Those who are not enjoying life, they are ready to fight.

If life is beautiful, you can bless everyone. If your life is in difficulty, in turmoil, you can kill, you can become destructive. So hippies are right when they say, "Make love, not war." They are very consistent. If you make love, wars will become impossible. And if you cannot love, then the energy will move another way. It has to move. Then it will move toward wars.

So Wilhem Reich was right, absolutely right, that sex is the problem and all other problems are just byproducts of it, branches of it. And if you go on tackling branches, nothing can happen. Nothing can happen unless you tackle the roots. This is my understanding also - not only mine, but the whole understanding of tantra.

But tantra was always supressed. It was never allowed to exist anywhere visibly. Tantra had to go underground, because whenever a tantra teacher was there and he would say these things, he was killed - because the whole society is based on something he was destroying.

So Wilhelm Reich was attacked in every way. It was forcibly declared that he was mad. They put him into prison, and he died an unknown man. And this century has not given birth to a parallel genius. He was a modern tantrika, and there was an esoteric group that was helping him. But it was difficult. It is very difficult to bring truths to humanity, because humanity is based on lies.

Humanity is neurotic. It is suffering because of its lies. But everyone thinks these are truths. The moment you say you are suffering because of a particular lie, society will kill you because then you are taking away the whole foundation. Society wants that one should not suffer and also that its lies should not be challenged. But that is not possible, so you cannot be helped.

This is my experience: every day I come across people, and they come and they say they are searching for God. The more I analyze them, the more I find that sex is the problem. But if I say that sex is the problem, it is insulting to them, ego-deflating. And sex is the problem. Unless it is solved, no search for God is possible.

This is my attitude: unless you are at ease with the earth you cannot enter heaven. Be at ease with the earth, be at ease with your body, be at ease with your energies. Only then can you become masters. Only then can you "persuade" your energies. And they cannot be fought, they can only be persuaded. You cannot force them. A master is one who can persuade his earthly energies to move upwards.

So I take sex as the basic problem. And if your sex problem is solved, you are a different man or a different woman, because then all the perversions simply are no more. You have resolved the base.

And when sex is solved and it is not a problem for you, not a fight, when you have deeply accepted it and said a deep yes to it, then you can transform it - because that is the energy which is alive in you. When you are dead, that energy will go on and on, more and more. You are just a wave in a sex ocean: the ocean continues, and the waves go on, die and disappear. The ocean continues.

Sex is the BRAHMAN. If you go deep into sex, then it is the very life. If you forget it, then you remain on the surface. Then it is ugly. If you do not fight with it or sink into it, but drop into it, dissolve into it, melt into it, when you allow sex to become life, then suddenly it is transformed into love. That is how the mechanism automatically works. If you fight it, sex becomes hate. So those who are filled with hatred are those who are fighting with their sex.

If you do not fight it, if you accept it and melt into it, it becomes love. So love and hate are two faces of sex. If it is perverted, it becomes hate. If accepted deeply, it will become love. And you can create love out of your sex energies. If those energies transform into love, then you are at ease in the world, at home with the earth. That at-homeness is basic.

And this is the beauty: if you accept sex, you will not reject anything else. That is why there is so much emphasis on it. If you reject sex, you will have to reject many things. Sex is the root rejection.

If you reject sex, you will reject many things. Food will be rejected, then clothes will be rejected, then everything will be rejected. It is a long sequence, and in that sequence you will have to reject and reject, because the whole life is sexual. If you reject sex you will go on and on rejecting, and ultimately you will reject life. Then suicide is the only thing worth doing because even to take a breath is sexual. It goes to your sex cells and gives them life. To be alive is to be sexual. If you are against sex, then you will be against everything. And a person who is against everything is bound to be neurotic, mad, and you cannot help him.

I am for everything, and everything can be hallowed - can be made sacred. You must know the technique, you must know the tantra, you must know the way how to make everything sacred. Every poison can become an elixir, it depends on you. And my whole approach is to help you, to give you a method through which you can change your life energies. It is a deeply scientific approach.

You ask: "I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO ASK HOW DO THE PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW YOU, THE SANNYASINS, FUNCTION IN THIS NEUROTIC WORLD NOW THAT THEY ARE PRACTICING SOMETHING ELSE THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BRING THEM OUT OF THEIR INNER NEUROSIS?"

If you are sane, then there is no problem. You can move in this neurotic world very easily - if you are sane. If you are insane, then it is a problem.

Ordinarily, it may look very difficult to be non-neurotic in a neurotic world. It is difficult in a way. If you get too serious, it is very difficult. If you start fighting with insane men and you start fighting with everything they have created, it will be difficult. But you can fight only if you are still insane.

Otherwise you will laugh; there is no need to fight. There is no need to fight! You will laugh!

Then you will act. A wise man is an actor; he is not serious because there is no need to be serious.

You know that all around you are madmen, so there is no need to be serious with them. You can act, and only if you act can you help them.

There is a proposal of R.D.Laing's that doctors in asylums for the mad should not be there as doctors but as madmen. That means they should act. Then they will be more helpful because there will be more affinity; as doctors, they are against the mad. They should remain in the asylum as madmen.

No one should know that they are doctors; then they can help more. This proposal is absolutely worth trying. I am working that way already!

You must act, and a man must be cunning. When I say "cunning," I mean this: he must act.

Gurdjieff used to say a wise man must be sly. He must act; otherwise he cannot help. He must not be too serious like Krishnamurti. That seriousness gives unnecessary sadness to you. And then anger comes, because a serious person is angry against everyone. There is no need. If you already know that someone is insane, there is no need. So help them. You can, but be a madman among them. Do not fight them. This is the way of the wise man.

There are many teachers that propose that they are teachers, and perhaps many are false teachers.

How can a real seeker distinguish a real teacher from one who is involved with his own ego power?

It is difficult, very difficult; in a way impossible. But there is no need either. You need not try to distinguish, you need not try! Even a false teacher will help you to know falsity. Do not worry too much about distinguishing. If you happen to be with a false teacher, be with him as wholeheartedly as possible. You will know, and when you know you will have grown, and then no other false teacher will be able to catch you.

And life is known only through experience. I cannot give you any criteria to judge whether someone is a false teacher or someone is a true one because all the criteria can be used by those false teachers also. And they have used all. And sometimes it happens - rather, it has happened more often than not - that you will find it difficult to judge a real teacher, because a real teacher will not bother about your criteria. But a false teacher will always move according to the criteria.

If the society says that a real teacher will be an ascetic one, then anyone can manage to be ascetic, it is not difficult. So anything can be managed. And a seeker is not even aware of himself, so how can he judge? But there is no need. If this is made a basic need - first to judge whether a teacher is real or not - then you will never proceed because this first thing cannot be fulfilled. You will remain where you are. So I say move. If you happen to be with a false teacher, good: move with him; live with him. Whatsoever he teaches, try it. You will come to know through your own experience that the man was false. But do not go against him. There is no need. He has trained you for a particular thing. You have known something which is good to know - what falsity is. Now you will be more aware. So go on moving, go on moving!

Everything in life is a learning. Make everything a learning and do not try to be wise before experience; you cannot be. Experience will show you more. And the real search is not for a real teacher, the real search is for a "real seeker." So you will become a real seeker through your search.

And false or real, all teachers will help you.

Everyone helps if you are ready to take the help. So do not think of the other, whether the teacher is real or not. Your search must be real and authentic; that is all. If yours is a real, authentic search, no false teacher can deceive you. And if otherwise, there is no way. So remain authentic with your search. Those teachers will fall down by themselves.

You say: "AMONG YOUR FOLLOWERS THERE ARE MANY WESTERNERS. IN RELATION TO WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT SEX, I HAVE THE IMPRESSION THAT THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF SEXUAL REPRESSION HERE IN INDIA. ISN'T IT THAT YOU ATTRACT SO MANY WESTERNERS BECAUSE OF YOUR VIEWS ON RELEASING SUPPRESSIONS? SO YOU FIND THAT THE INDIAN MENTALITY CANNOT RESPOND TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING AS EASILY AS THE WESTERNERS CAN?"

Humanity, deep down, is not so divided. East and West are just surface distinctions. And in a way, ostensibly it will appear that whatsoever I am saying will be more appealing to the Western mind than to the Eastern mind. But deeply, it is not so.

The Eastern mind is more repressed, obviously. It has moved along in a very deep repression. But the Western mind today has moved to the opposite pole. I am standing somewhere in between and the distance is the same.

For the Easterner to travel to me, the distance is the same as it is for the Westerner to travel to me, because I am neither Eastern nor Western: I am beyond both. So as I see it, if a Western seeker comes to me, in the beginning, in the beginning only, he feels at ease with me. Whatsoever I say appeals to him, because now the whole trend in the West, the modern trend, is anti-repressive.

But this is the way of the mind - that it always moves to the opposite pole, the opposite extreme. The modern trend is against tradition, but you can make a tradition out of being against tradition, and they have made it so. It is a nonconformist attitude, but nonconformism can become a conformist attitude.

For example, a hippie is a nonconformist to the establishment, but now hippies have their own establishment, and if you do not have their style of hair, you cannot be accepted. So what to do?

Anti-tradition has become a tradition. Rebelliousness can become an orthodoxy and it has become so. They have moved to the opposite pole.

So when they come to me in the beginning, my thoughts appeal to them. But I am not anti- traditionalist. I am neither anti nor for. So when they start moving with me, then troubles arise.

With the Western seeker, in the beginning he is very easily attracted to me. But the more I work with him and on him, the more he struggles. With the Easterner it is very difficult in the beginning for him to be attracted to me, but once he is attracted then there is no trouble. Do you understand me? It is difficult for the Eastern mind to be attracted to me, because whatsoever I say just shocks him. But once he can tolerate the shock, then things will happen more easily. There are reasons.

The Eastern mind lives with tradition, totally accepting it. He suffers many things because of it, but the deep acceptance is there. Whenever I say something, he is shocked and he will move away from me. But if he comes to me, that deep acceptance of tradition is shifted toward me. He will accept me, and then the work becomes very easy. When the Westerner comes to me, he is attracted by my thoughts. But when I work with him, he cannot even accept me, he cannot follow any discipline.

He cannot do anything consistently, systematically. So that creates problems. It is easy to attract Westerners with my views, but difficult to work with them. It is difficult to attract Easterners, but easy to work with them once they are attracted. So on the whole, it is the same. On the whole there is not much difference.