Having a lovely time - but why?

Question 1:

Swami Anutosh Pradip, your question is hilarious - to say the least! Let them go on their way. Why should you be worried?

The mind is going in one direction; the heart is going in another direction. It is none of your business to interfere. Simply remain a witness and see where these fellows are going. Not understanding the secret of awareness is the cause of your problem.

You are neither the heart nor the mind.

You are a pure consciousness behind them. And unless you get identified they cannot go anywhere; they don't have their own energy.

You ask me, "Is it always good to follow the heart?" and I have been teaching you that your heart, your body, your mind, should follow you. This is how we go on misunderstanding.

You are not to be a follower of any; you are simply to be a witness. Witnessing the mind moving in one direction and the heart in another is a great experience. Experience that you are neither of

them. You can remain above and they cannot move very far. They need each other's support and finally they need energy from you, because you are life, they are only instruments.

Your question is just like this: my left hand wants to follow this side, my right hand wants to follow this side - what am I supposed to do? Of course, to follow the right is always good. Right is right and left is wrong!

Not to follow is the secret of freedom, and once your heart and your mind know that you are not a man who is going to follow, they will stop quarreling, they will stop moving, because they don't have any energy. The energy comes from you and it comes because you get identified with them, but every identification is wrong.

You remind me of Ruthie Finkelstein who has been having therapy for some time without finding much improvement in her generally depressed and confused state. Finally she tells her therapist that she is going away for a few weeks for a holiday in Greece. Some time later the shrink receives a postcard from Ruthie which says, "Having a lovely time, but WHY?"

You cannot even have a lovely time without inquiring why - and that destroys your whole joy. The questions are a disturbance. No question is of any importance. Just to be silent and watch what goes on around in you - in the mind, in the heart - and remain aloof, will not only solve this question, it will solve all your questions. But mind loves to ask!

You are saying you feel very happy following the heart and you know it is always good... Who told you? The heart has also committed as many crimes as the mind.

When a Mohammedan destroys the statue of a Gautam Buddha, do you think he is doing it from the mind? It is his heart. When he forces somebody on the point of the sword to change his religion and become a Mohammedan, do you think he is following his mind? He is following his heart. The heart has its own conditionings which go deeper than the conditionings of the mind.

The heart has always been praised for the simple reason that it gets no chance - the mind goes on playing the whole game and society prepares you not to listen to the heart.

But the Christians who were killing Mohammedans, and the Mohammedans who were killing Christians - and they are still doing that - not for a moment does a doubt arise that what they are doing is absolutely inhuman and cannot be religious. If it was done by the mind the question would have arisen, but because it is done by the heart, the heart does not know questioning. They feel with absolute certainty that if a man is killed in a crusade which they call jihad, then that man has already reached to paradise. And according to the number of people you kill, the more certain becomes your paradise.

These are not mind things. They have entered the heart, slowly, slowly sinking down through the centuries. Just one difference is that the mind always questions if what you are doing is right or wrong. The heart never questions. That's why all the religions want you to surrender, to be faithful, to believe. These are the qualities which enter into the heart.

I don't teach the mind. For that there are thousands of universities. I don't teach the heart because I know the heart can do things more cruelly than the mind. The mind at least hesitates; the heart believes totally.

I teach you awareness of your being beyond both the heart and the mind. I say unto you, disidentify yourself and they will forget going this way or that way. And for the first time you will be the master and they will simply be servants. You can order them and they will have to follow, because without your order they cannot get any nourishment.

Anutosh Pradip, as far as your problem is concerned, let both of them go wherever they want. Simply remain centered - above, alert, not being dragged by them and not being influenced by them. Then your purity of awareness will lead you to the cosmic purity of existence. That is the only way of merging with the whole. All else is just an utterly futile exercise.

Your silence will take you to the right path. Neither does your mind know silence nor your heart.

Your consciousness will take you in the right direction. Neither does your mind know how to be conscious nor your heart. They are both fast asleep and whatever they do is going to prove stupid and dangerous to yourself and others.

If all the crimes that have been committed in the world are counted, then you will be surprised that all the religions are the fundamental causes of those crimes. They teach love and they practice hate.

They teach oneness and they practice discrimination. The religious history of man is so mean, so ugly, that to be part of any religion is to prove that you are retarded, that you don't know what these religions have done.

Old Sam Finkelstein arrives from Russia to visit his relatives in America. On his way to Texas he sits down in a train between two rednecks. He nods in a friendly way but the rednecks sit in stony silence.

Old Sam notices an American newspaper lying on the seat and picks it up. Having taken classes in English for the past few months, he is able to read most of the page, but all of a sudden he turns to the redneck on his right and says in a thick Russian accent, "You look like an intelligent man. Would you be kind enough to tell me what this word is?"

The redneck winks at his friend and without looking at the paper says, "That word is 'syphilis'."

Old Sam thanks him and reads on. A few minutes later he turns to the other redneck and says, "You are obviously a man of education. Would you kindly tell me what this word is?"

The redneck smirks, winks at his friend and ignoring the newspaper says, "That word is 'gonorrhea'."

"Syphilis and gonorrhea?" cries old Sam. "Ah, my God - that poor Ronald Reagan!"

Don't take any problem, any question seriously. Your taking them seriously makes them important and forces you to find the solution. Whenever a question arises in you, just be silent and watch the arising of the question. Watch how it becomes more condensed, watch how it becomes more clear - but go on watching. And you will be surprised that just as you are simply watching and not getting involved, it starts evaporating. Soon there is tremendous silence left behind it, and this silence is the answer!

But what do people do? A question arises in their minds - and there are thousands of questions; you will need millions of lives to find the answers for all of them. Still you will remain ignorant,

knowledgeably ignorant. And because of the question you start asking others... perhaps somebody else knows the answer - that makes you a beggar. The knowledge that you get from others is borrowed; it is not going to help you at all.

One thing and only one thing helps.

Watch the question and don't be dragged by it in any direction.

Be silent and see the whole question and what happens to it. It comes and it goes; no question remains there. It is just like a signature on water: you have not even made your full signature, and it has started to disappear.

The art of meditation is how to make your questions disappear, not to give you an answer. The answer will bring new questions and there is no end to it. Meditation will leave you in a space where there is no question, no answer, but only a purity, a simplicity - the same that you had known when you were born. You were alive but there was no question. You were so full of wonder. Your eyes sparkled seeing a small thing.

In a right society - for which I go on hopelessly hoping - a child's innocence should not be destroyed.

And when we have an almost oceanic innocence all around, the beauty and the experience of it are so tremendous and so strong that who cares about stupid questions? In fact they never arise.

I am reminded of D.H. Lawrence, a man of this century whom I have loved much. He was condemned from all corners - not as much as I am condemned, but he prepared the way. He was walking in a garden early in the morning with a small child, and the small child asked, "Uncle, why are the trees green?"

As far as language is concerned, the question is absolutely correct, but you know that it is stupid and you cannot say that it is stupid. If it had been somebody other than D.H. Lawrence, who was a man of great sincerity and authenticity... Any other knowledgeable person would have told the child that trees are green because of a certain chemical, chlorophyll.

Perhaps for the moment the child would have been silent: chlorophyll.... But sooner or later the questions were bound to arise, "Why do all the trees have chlorophyll? Who goes on giving them chlorophyll? What is the purpose of making all the trees full of chlorophyll? What is chlorophyll...?"

But D.H. Lawrence looked at the innocent eyes of the child and said, "My boy, trees are just green,"

and the boy was immensely happy. The trees are green because they are green - it is not a problem, and the small boy understood it. What can you do? If the trees are green, they are green. It is their problem, it is not our problem - why should we be bothered?

But as man grows and is filled and fed by all kinds of knowledge and information in the name of educating him, in the name of making him civilized and cultured, we spoil a tremendously beautiful innocence. And there is no need to know why the trees are green.... It is perfectly good that they are green. If they decide to change, that is their problem, they can change.

But look at people's questions and you will find that all questions without exception are stupid.

Although I might say that this question is very significant, you know I am a contradictory man. It

does not bother me, why should it bother you? I am controversial. It has never bothered me, it has bothered the whole world. Strange! These are my problems and I don't consider them as problems.

They are my unique individuality. Why should you bother? And people get sad....

Just a few days ago Hasya brought news of a sannyasin that had dropped sannyas because "Shree Rajneesh says many things which are not in THE BIBLE." I am not speaking on THE BIBLE. I don't care a bit about THE BIBLE. But deep down he must have been waiting to be confirmed in his beliefs, to be blessed: "You are right and your BIBLE is right." And strangely enough, before that he had not read THE BIBLE!

He took sannyas first thinking that I am talking about THE BIBLE. And being impressed he went into an utterly boring book, THE BIBLE. No intelligent man can read it from the first page to the last page - nobody does it. And what is the problem? Why should I talk about things which are in THE BIBLE? Rather than dropping THE BIBLE, he dropped sannyas. Such is the way of conditioning.

Three missionaries, all nuns, are walking along the street and one is describing with her hands the tremendous grapefruits she has seen in Africa. Then the second one, also with her hands, describes the huge bananas she has seen in India. The third nun, a little deaf, asked, "Father who?"

Strange questions - nothing to do with your own being and its growth. But people go on for their whole lives and finally, they become just walking encyclopedias. They know everything, and deep inside at the center is still the same innocence with which they were born. It is not knowledgeable, it is not ignorant; it is simply innocent.

And to be utterly innocent is the whole purpose of all meditations, particularly here. I allow you to ask questions so that I can destroy them as much as possible.

Question 2:

Deva Abhiyana, it is true: the very word 'mevlana' has still, after twelve hundred years, a life of its own. And if you are open, 'mevlana' is going to stir strange waves, open unknown dimensions.

There have been thousands of masters in the world, but nobody's name begins to stir your heart and being with a song and with a juice like Mevlana. And Mevlana simply means the master. In Persian, Arabic and in Urdu, the Mohammedan countries, the word 'maulana' is used for the master.

But great must have been the disciples of Jalaluddin Rumi, who never called him Maulana; they changed the whole word. They started to call him Mevlana, "my beloved master."

Maulana means a man of great knowledge. It has no juice in it. It is dry, desert dry. Mevlana is a play on the same word but with a slight change. Even those who don't understand its meaning, when they hear "Mevlana" something in their being starts responding to the word. Ordinary words are not that potent, but 'mevlana' is an exception. It has beauty because it does not say that the person, Jalaluddin Rumi is a man of knowledge. It has some love in it, some trust in it. It does not refer to knowledge at all. It simply refers to my heart, to my being. Mevlana means "my master," and not just my master but my beloved master.

Since Mevlana no Sufi mystic has been called "Mevlana." No Sufi mystic has stirred so many people's hearts. So I can understand that you say "just hearing the name of Mevlana sends waves of an unknown force like a wild wind through me. Tears well up with an unbearable feeling of longing.

Perhaps I missed Rumi, and again, because of the same stupidities, I am missing with you. Beloved, can you comment?"

Only one thing can I say to you, Abhiyana: it is possible you may have been with Mevlana; hence a faraway echo of that beautiful man. His dances and his songs, his grace and his peace and his showering of love may be stirring you. You are not here for the first time; most of the faces are perfectly well known. You may have changed your mask, but that does not mean anything, your inner being still shows something that you have carried from many many lives. And because you all have been here all the time since eternity, there is every possibility you may have missed Mevlana, and now there is a sadness. But Mevlana very gracefully allowed you to escape. I am a different type of man. I will follow you until you get it! This time you cannot go before you get it - not because of you, but because of me!

However stupid you are, the very recognition makes you innocent. Stupid people never recognize that they are stupid, and if you tell them, "You are stupid," you are in a trouble. Only a man of innocence can say, "Because of my stupidities I missed something far back. It is a very faint picture or a very faint echo of a song." But this time it is not going to happen, because my way of working is totally different from Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi.

I am really a dangerous man!

If twenty-five countries don't allow me to enter, it is not without any reason. Once I get hold of somebody I never leave him unless he says, "Beloved Master, I have got it! Now let me go home."

And you cannot cheat me because I know when you have got it and when you have not got it.

Those who were not worthy, and I could not see any possibility that in this life however hard I hit them, they were going to open their doors... They were hiding behind the doors and locking them from inside. Finally, I thought it is wasting time and I should leave this work to some other master who knows the art of entering into these people, a real locksmith. I am not a locksmith. The world is vast. How many people can I manage? It is better to let them go. I made arrangements and devices so that those people would disappear to wait for future lives, to be caught by another master of a different quality.

But Abhiyana, you don't belong to that category. If even just the word 'mevlana' thrills you, you are already ready to sing and to dance and to celebrate existence. To me, other than that, there is no religion. You are a simple person, accepting your stupidity.

Especially for you, a few beautiful anecdotes to laugh at in the middle of the night when you get them! Right now you can laugh just to keep company, but the real thing happens in the middle of the night when suddenly, under your blanket, your belly starts, "My God, this joke has done something to me!"

A Couch Potato is watching football on TV and eating peanuts at the same time. His wife comes in and somehow manages to distract him, so he puts a peanut in his ear by mistake. He tries everything but can't get the peanut out.

Just then his daughter and her boyfriend Chip come in and find her father shaking his head and sticking his finger in his ear.

"Let me help you," says the boyfriend. "I will put two fingers in your nose and blow in your other ear."

So the desperate Couch Potato lets the boyfriend try, and sure enough, the peanut flies out. The man is ecstatic and goes back to watching TV.

Later that night the Couch Potato and his wife are lying in bed when she asks, "That Chip is really a nice boy. What do you think he will be when he finishes college?"

"I don't know," replies the husband, "but by the smell of his fingers, I think he will be our son-in-law."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.