Little Ernie is your brother

Question 1:

Maneesha, I knowingly have not used the whole name, Anurag Dolma, because I wanted to answer another Dolma who was here two months ago, just remained two days and said to people, "This is not the place for me anymore and these are not the people with whom I would like to live" - and left.

I certainly knew that this question cannot be from that Dolma. But just as she needed the answer you also needed the answer. The Dolmas may have been different, their questions deep down were the same. And moreover, I answered not the question, but the person.

Both of the Dolmas have the similar problem of personality. You are more courageous that you have remained, the other one was a coward. Rather than accepting that she has betrayed the commune, she thought it better to leave the place. She could not see herself in the mirror of the thousands of eyes all around. Every eye would have reflected her guilt. And how was she going to face me? She had not even written a question or a letter.

There is nothing wrong - I have my own ways. This is not a teaching school; this is a world of a master who is concerned with your potential being. And as far as your potential being is concerned most of the questions are exactly about you. You may not have stumbled upon it today, perhaps tomorrow. Or perhaps you may have raised the question within yourself yesterday, but were not courageous enough to expose yourself.

Every question has to be understood as the question of the whole commune. Only then can you learn as much as is possible to learn. If you think, "It is a question of Deva Dolma, it has nothing to do with us," you are missing something. Something in it must be a part in you too, expressed, unexpressed. Perhaps a few have betrayed, a few are waiting to betray. But I am not addressing questions, I am addressing the whole commune, the whole atmosphere in which I want you to live and grow.

It is just a strategy that I answer somebody's question. There is no need at all even to mention the name, because the question as such belongs to almost every human being more or less.

Mick Jagger orders an extremely expensive, custom-made suit, but is very dissatisfied with the finished garment.

"I told you to make the pants tight!" he remarks angrily to the tailor. "I want them tight enough to show my sex."

"I am sorry, sir," the tailor protests, "but if they were any tighter they would show your religion!"

I have been told by my bodyworker, Anubuddha, to look all around. He says that because I go on looking in this direction, people want their seats in this direction. And according to him my neck gets disturbed. So from now onward, once in a while I'm going to look all around, just as an exercise.

Where is Avirbhava? She must be holding the wall, because two times the wall has moved towards me...!

Question 2:

Maneesha, it would have been right if you had not asked this. Little Ernie is your brother, but he is not my son. But he is really cute, intelligent and anybody can be really proud of him.

Little Ernie's father invites his boss to dinner, in the hope of getting a promotion at work.

Days are spent planning the menu and getting the house just right, but the effect is ruined when little Ernie appears on the stairs just as the boss arrives.

"I wanted to see you," says Ernie, "because Mum said you were a self-made man."

"I am," smiles the boss, "and proud of it!"

"In that case," says Ernie, "why did you make yourself look so ugly?"

The elevator on a New York skyscraper is packed with people.

Suddenly a tall man screams out in agony.

Little Ernie looks up at his mother, "I don't care, Mom," he says, "it was in my face, so I bit it."

Maneesha, he is everybody's brother, not only yours. There are a few universal characters. Ernie is one of those universal characters. And you know I talk about all of those universal characters.

But it is good not to ask me personal questions, because they are not going to help you in any way.

You are here for your own personal growth, you are not to be worried about my personal life; in fact, I don't have much personal life. Eighteen hours at least is sleeping.

I have been told many times that I should write my autobiography. What autobiography? No love affair... Even Niskriya is smiling. He must be thinking, "Now look in what trouble I have been up to now."

I am not in trouble. Just to avoid trouble I am not in any love relationship. And without love relationships, without a wife and children what autobiography...? I am not a man of actions.

Today after I finished lunch, my Coke was just sitting in front of me on the table, but I waited and waited for Shunyo...

Finally she showed up. She said, "You have finished?"

I said, "I have finished long ago, I am just waiting for my Coke."

She said, "But the Coke is here."

I said, "It is there, that's what I am thinking. The Coke is here; I am here - nothing is happening. I am simply waiting for someone..."

These people, you don't know... Anando opens the door and forces me into my bathroom: "It is time to take a bath."

I said, "This is strange, I could have walked myself."

They don't even allow me to open the door of the car...!

I have looked many times - at the most, half a page will do for my autobiography, and the rest of my life I have been sleeping. Seeing the fact that for eternity one has to sleep, I thought, why bother?

Just start it right now.

My physician, Dr. Amrito goes on trying to cure my troubles. My hand hurts - he has been injecting it as many times as he wants. I am so lazy that I will not even stop... so let them do what they want to do. Finally, this morning I said, "Just wait a few days. When I am gone keep my skeleton and study it well, and wherever things are incorrect correct them. Why torture me unnecessarily now?"

I don't have any personal life. Just today I told Hasya not to answer any letter from anybody who addresses me as "friend," because I don't have any friend.

I don't take any responsibility. Once you accept somebody as a friend you have accepted somebody to be an enemy in the future. It is better from the very beginning to be on the safe side. Already I have so many enemies, why go on increasing them?

A person who is asking questions, but is not ready to be a disciple does not deserve to be answered either, because disciple simply means one who is capable of learning. And a person who himself is accepting that, "I am not going to be a disciple, but I want these questions to be answered" - why should I bother? He has not even the respect.

You don't ask spiritual questions to your friends; you don't ask questions about meditation and the inner life to your friends. Friends are in the same boat; I am not your friend. I may call you friends just out of my love, but that does not mean that you can call me your friend. The moment you call me your friend, I am not going to answer, because you are in the same state of consciousness as I am... what is the point of answering? You must know!

If you want to learn you have to be a learner, a disciple. If, because of my love, I call you my friend that does not give you the permission to start calling me your friend.

The distance between our consciousnesses is infinite.

I am calling you from a sunlit peak.

And you are in a dark valley.

And anyway Maneesha, neither do I have any personality nor any personal life.

Reduced to its simplest: I talk to you twice if my body allows. Once in a while it freaks out. Then two times a bath - just a quick shower, as quick as one can do. Fifteen hundred calories of food - which even small babies will find insufficient - because if I take more I will have to become a member of the Couch Potato Club.

I don't have any antagonism as far as potatoes are concerned. They are very good people; they have never done any harm to anybody. But still I don't want to enter into that company.

So for your information, this is my autobiography.

... And then two times of sleep - in total eighteen hours. I don't have any ambition for tomorrow. If by chance I am still here I will talk to you about things which may help you on the path. If I am not here perhaps that may also help you, because then you cannot take me for granted. Perhaps my remembrance may give you much more light than I can give you.

Never take me for granted, because I have nothing to stay for: no desire, no ambition, nowhere to go. I have not even visited the M.G. Road market. I hope that some time, by chance...

Just a few days ago I had to go to Jehangir Hospital to see one of my old lovers, Manik Bafna, because he had a second heart attack. If it was the first I would not have gone. A second is too much. The third is the last - after the third also I will not go, because there is no point. The right point was the second.

And I heard from sannyasins that there is a rumor in the hospital that I had a heart attack, and I had come to be checked, but I did not like the place so I did not go - because within two minutes I was out. Naturally the hospital servants and doctors must have thought that I did not like the place. Who likes places like hospitals?

So Maneesha, there is not much. I think I could have given you more information - Maneesha is writing books about me; she would have been helped - but I am helpless. You can invent anything you like. I will say yes, so you need not be worried. Even if you say that I have a wife and five children, I am not going to contradict it. What is wrong in it? Everybody has a wife, everybody has many children. And there is no harm; one really feels proud.

But it is better not to ask such questions.

Adolf Hitler is inspecting his panzer division. Every boot and button is shining bright and there is a deathly silence over the parade ground.

All of a sudden someone sneezes.

"Who sneezed?" Hitler shrieks at the men.

Nobody dares to answer. Hitler raises his arm, and the first row of soldiers is shot dead.

"Who sneezed?" Hitler shrieks again.

There is no reply, so Hitler raises his arm and the next row of soldiers is shot dead.

"I will ask you one more time," says Hitler. "Who sneezed?"

A man in the back row timidly raises his hand.

"It was me," says the soldier.

"A-ha!" says Hitler, "Gesundheit!"

... Can I have a little exercise? because I don't have any other time to do the exercise.

(THE MASTER SLOWLY MOVES HIS HEAD ALL THE WAY ROUND THE SEMICIRCLE OF DELIGHTED SANNYASINS IN FRONT OF HIM.) Luigi comes home after eighteen months abroad and is amazed to find his wife, Carlotta, has a three-week-old baby.

Carlotta explains that she dreamt she had sex with him and she got pregnant.

Luigi sues for a divorce, and in court, the judge is astounded by Carlotta's story. The judge stands up and asks the audience if they ever had intercourse with a ghost.

In the back of the courtroom, Luigi's grandfather raises his hand, and the judge calls him up to testify.

"Now-a," says the judge, "you say-a you had-a intercourse with a ghost?"

"Ah, scusa," says the old Italian, "I thought-a you say-a goat!"

Before another exercise... Nobody is willing for a small exercise.... Anubuddha, this is not good.

One bright Sunday in the morning after church, Mother Superior takes the nuns out for a bicycle ride.

But before long, most of the the nuns are squealing and giggling and fooling around.

"All right, girls," shouts Mother Superior, "if you don't calm down and behave yourselves, I am going to make you put the bicycles seats back on!"

Just the last...

Gertie Kowalski goes to visit Dr. Bones with cuts and scratches on her knees.

"How did this happen?" asks Bones.

Gertie blushes a deep red, but then she finally tells him.

"The truth is, Doctor," she says, "that I have been doing it doggie style."

"Well, that is no problem to cure," says Bones. "Just roll over and do it in the missionary position."

"I have tried it," says Gertie, "but each time I do, I get knocked out by the smell of my dog's breath!"

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.