One wonders...

Friends, I have never laughed in my life as much as I have laughed this last week. Every day something hilarious happens.

Today I have received a message from the Dalit Elevation Republic Party, that I have to prove my sanity by a certificate from a psychologist. Only then are they ready to discuss matters with me.

Under my guidance, almost one hundred psychologists are working, and hundreds more come and go to learn meditation here. Whom should I ask for the certificate?

It reminded me.... When I graduated from the university I immediately went to the education minister of Madhya Pradesh. He was also the chancellor of the University of Sagar, where I had postgraduate degrees in psychology, in religion, in philosophy. Now that same person is the vice-president of India.

I went directly to him. I told his secretary, "I am going to meet the chancellor of my university, not the education minister, so don't come in between me and the chancellor.

He knows me, he has been coming to the university every year for the convocation address. He has even addressed under my presidency the philosophical department of the University of Sagar. He knows me."

He informed the education minister, who called me in. He said, "What is the matter?"

I said, "I have passed from your university, and I have topped the whole university. This is the gold medal. I need a teaching job in any university."

He said, "You qualify absolutely. All the way you have been a first-class first, and finally you have topped the university, so you will get a place. And I know you personally, and I have always loved and respected you. Because you have been presiding over the meetings in the university where I was a guest speaker, I have heard you."

So he looked at my papers, the application, and then he said, "One thing is missing, your character certificate."

I said, "I know it. But do you want me to have a character certificate from someone to whom I cannot give a character certificate?"

He scratched his head. He said, "Perhaps you are right. What about your vice-chancellor?

What about your head of the department of philosophy?"

I said, "You know perfectly well my vice-chancellor is a drunkard. Do you want me to get a certificate from a drunkard about my character? I cannot certify my vice-chancellor for his character.

"My head of the department of philosophy has never lived with his wife, has been living with another woman. He keeps his wife and children in Delhi just to avoid them, so that he can have all the women he wants. Do you want me to get a character certificate from him? I know him better; perhaps you don't know him that well."

He said, "It is a difficult problem."

I asked him point-blank, "Do you want to give me a character certificate? Do you think you are qualified? No politician in this country is qualified to give me a character certificate. Either you accept my application without the character certificate, or you refuse it.

"And I am here and you are asking for a character certificate. Look into my eyes! Look into my face! And do you have any understanding? Then don't ask foolish questions."

He immediately gave me an appointment in a college. I took the appointment order from his hand. He said, "This is not the right way, it has to go through the post."

I said, "When I am going to the college myself, why unnecessarily waste postage stamps?"

He said, "You are a strange fellow."

I said, "That's correct. But to be a strange fellow does not mean a man without character."

So I took the appointment order, and the next day I appeared in the college where he had appointed me. The principal could not believe it: "Just in one day... where did you get this appointment order?"

I said, "Directly from the education minister."

He said, "This is not routine. It should come through the post."

I said, "Just because of this routine your whole bureaucracy is stagnant. I remember many cases.... One postcard traveled from Katni to Jabalpur, only eighty miles by road, in forty years. Do you want me to be appointed alive or dead?"

He looked at me, and he said, "That's true, I have also read many cases where a postcard has traveled for seventeen years, eighteen years."

So I said, "That's why I have brought it with me myself." But he was a little hesitant. I said, "You can phone the education minister in front of me. If you cannot trust me, you can phone the education minister."

He phoned the education minister, who said, "That appointment order is signed by me.

You don't have to hesitate, give him the appointment!"

There are hundreds of psychoanalysts, psychologists, therapists, believers in other different schools of psychology, who have been here under me to learn meditation -- because psychology itself has come to understand that it is incomplete. Without attaining a silent mind, all that you can do is analyze dreams. And analyzing dreams is not going to give you the essential being of the person.

Right now there are dozens of psychoanalysts, therapists present in this meeting -- they have come from far away, well educated, trained, certified to practice psychoanalysis.

But psychoanalysis itself is dying, because it has not cured a single person in the whole world. Twenty years of psychoanalysis...

Millions of dollars are being paid -- because psychoanalysis is the most costly profession.

But even they cannot claim that they have psychoanalyzed a single person completely.

The whole effort of psychoanalysis is futile. They are simply scratching on the surface of the mind, looking into dreams.

Psychology does not believe in the soul of man. Psychology believes that mind is a by- product of the body, and the people who have not even inquired beyond the mind into the soul of man are making statements which are absolute lies. They have not inquired. The whole East has been concerned not with the mind, but with something beyond the mind.

Now they are becoming aware that threshing the mind for years you gain nothing. There must be something more, otherwise psychoanalysis and all other different schools of psychology are going to die. They are already dying.

One of the greatest psychiatrists of America, Dr. Weiss, for many years was thinking whether to say it or not -- because it will create an uproar in the whole psychological movement around the world. He has been watching for years and seeing that psychoanalysis does not work. Unless something spiritual is added to it, it is on its deathbed.

But just now he gathered courage and wrote a book, MANY LIVES, MANY MASTERS, and declared that psychoanalysis and all its different schools are in their last death throes.

He has shocked the whole psychological movement around the world.

He is a graduate of Yale University and now one of the most respected American psychoanalysts -- a psychiatrist, psycho-pharmacologist, writer of many books. A lifelong search has ended in the declaration that psychology is not enough.

The East has been saying this for almost ten thousand years. For what reasons was psychology not born in the East?

It is strange, because the East has been working on the inner world of man, and they did not develop a psychology. They did not bother about analyzing dreams, because they knew this is just treating the symptoms, and treating the symptoms does not cure the disease.

The disease is deeper than the mind, and unless you give man a clear perception of his being, of his eternal soul, nothing can help humanity. Only an experience of the eternity, the immortality of consciousness gives man wholeness -- and I call this the only holiness also.

If these people whom I have been trying to help all my life... I have been in support of the oppressed, the suppressed, but they don't understand. Neither have they read any book of mine, nor have they ever come to listen to me.

I have six hundred and fifty books -- perhaps nobody in the whole world has written six hundred and fifty books -- translated into thirty-four languages of the world. And this uneducated, uncultured Dalit organization has some nerve to ask me that I should produce a certificate from a psychologist concerning my sanity.

England's greatest psychoanalyst, Ronnie Laing, has written just a few days ago. He has been sending his own patients, whom he could not cure in fourteen or sixteen years of work, to learn meditation. He wanted to come to be here for a few days. He wants to learn meditation -- because mind is not enough; one needs something more of the eternity of existence.

Eighty-four of the most prominent psychoanalysts, painters, poets, philosophers of Italy have protested to the Italian government for refusing me entry into Italy. The same is the case in Holland, in Greece, in other countries.

Twenty-one countries have banned my entry into their territory. Never has there been an unarmed man... Just a word of truth creates fear in all those people who are living on lies.

Even the German parliament -- I have never asked to enter Germany -- without my asking, thinking that perhaps some day I may ask, has passed a law in the parliament that not only can I not enter into Germany, but my jet plane cannot be refueled at any German airport, because I might corrupt their morality, their religion, their culture -- just in three weeks. A culture that has been propagated for two thousand years, a religion that has lived for two thousand years, is afraid of a single man. If your two thousand-year-old culture, morality, religion can be destroyed by a tourist in three weeks, then it is not worth having.

And if these people want to know, they can come to the ashram office. There are at least one thousand letters that were written to the American government when I was arrested there, from all kinds of prominent people around the world, condemning the criminal step of Ronald Reagan: arresting a man without any reason, without any arrest warrant. They had no evidence at all against me.

I never go out of my room. I am not concerned with anybody's morality and religion and civilization.

According to me, all these things have not yet happened. Man has yet to wait. Man is still living in the darkness of the barbarious past.

In three thousand years man has fought five thousand wars -- and you call this man cultured? Just Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadirshah -- amongst these three they have killed one hundred million people.

The most cultured country, the most educated -- which has created great philosophers like Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Karl Marx -- is afraid of me. And this is the country of Adolf Hitler, who killed six million Jews in Germany in his gas chambers, and who killed in the second world war thirty million people. And they think they are civilized, they think they are cultured, they have a religion.

But if this Dalit organization wants, it can come to the office and look at all the protests that have been made to the president of America for arresting a mystic who has not committed any crime at all.

They fabricated, imagined, thirty-four charges against me, and not a single one had any truth in it. And the attorney general, Ed Meese, of America...

When they forced me to leave America, after my leaving, Ed Meese's representative admitted in a press conference, "He was innocent, he has not committed any crime." But the fundamentalist Christians -- and Ronald Reagan was a fundamentalist Christian -- did not want "this man" to be in the country.

One wonders, has man changed at all since Socrates, the greatest man of Greece, was poisoned? But the little man, the crowd of Greece, could not tolerate his height; they poisoned their own greatest genius. Since then Greece has never been the same. It committed suicide by poisoning Socrates. It is no longer a prominent country in the world. With Socrates it had been at the very peak of civilization.

The Jews killed Jesus, crucified him without any reason or rhyme, with no evidence of any crime. And since then the Jews have suffered immeasurably all around the world.

What crime had Jesus committed? What crime had al-Hillaj Mansoor committed?

Mohammedans killed him, in a far more animalistic way than Jesus was crucified. They cut him piece by piece: feet, legs, thighs -- they cut him piece by piece. And yet this man's crime was that he kept making the statement "Ana'l Haq" again and again. It means "I am the truth." That was the crime.

It seems that thinking is a crime in the eyes of the world.

One of the most important journalists, internationally well established, is M. V. Kamath.

He has reviewed my books, and says that I am the greatest genius in the last part of this century. Mad people are never geniuses.

Another great journalist of India, the late editor of the ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY OF INDIA, has reviewed another book of mine on Friedrich Nietzsche's Zarathustra.

I am the only person who has commented on that book -- because Adolf Hitler adulterated Friedrich Nietzsche's statements according to his own will. Whatever he wanted to use he had chosen out of Friedrich Nietzsche's work. And because of Adolf Hitler, Nietzsche became condemned. I had to pull Nietzsche out from Adolf Hitler's hands.

I have spoken on THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. Reviewing it, the editor of the ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY has compared me with Adi Shankara. He says in his review that "After Adi Shankara, there has never been anybody else of the same caliber and the same intelligence" -- although I don't agree with him.

I would not like to be compared in any way to Adi Shankara. I accept Adi Shankara as one of the greatest philosophers, there is no doubt about it. But his philosophy and his lifestyle were contradictory; hence I don't want to be compared with Adi Shankara.

On the one hand he was saying, "We are all divine, we are all in our innermost being gods, the ultimate cosmic soul," and on the other hand he was accepting the Hindu caste system. He was saying that everybody is god in a hidden way. But what about the sudras?

Even their shadow makes you dirty.

He was propounding the philosophy that the whole world outside you is illusory -- but what about the sudras? They are the only real people it seems; everybody else is illusory.

One sudra touched Shankara when he had come to take a bath in the Ganges in Varanasi.

It was early morning, still dark, and a man touched him intentionally. Shankara would not have detected anything because it was dark and he could not see the man, but the man himself said, "Wait! You will have to take another bath. I am a sudra."

Shankara freaked out. You don't expect a man of the intelligence of Shankara to freak out. He was so angry, so full of rage, he said, "Why have you touched me?"

The man said, "It is a question of philosophy. You say everything in the world is illusory.

What about me? Is my body different from your body? Is my soul different from your soul? In your philosophy you are saying totally different things. Please practice them also."

So I understand the great compliment to me as the greatest genius after Adi Shankara, but still I will not agree to be compared with Adi Shankara. His philosophy and his lifestyle are contradictory.

The world-famous journalist and writer, Aubrey Menon, has written a book, THE NEW MYSTICS. He has written about me in that book that when he encountered me in Bombay in a Cross Maidan meeting of almost fifty thousand people, he could not believe his eyes. He writes that he had been sitting in the front row when President Kennedy was speaking, but he could not feel anything. The speech was written by his secretary, it was not spontaneous. "It was ordinary, it did not touch anybody's heart. I came away utterly frustrated."

He had been in the rallies of Adolf Hitler, who was thought to be one of the greatest orators. But, he says, when he heard me, he heard a totally different kind of being.

Adolf Hitler was simply shouting slogans without any meaning, even nonsensical. He was telling the Germans, "All our miseries are because of the Jews." The fact was that the Jews were the richest people in Germany, and his eye was on their riches. "Kill the Jews and take all their money and all their factories and all their businesses!" And he convinced the so-called intellectuals of Germany -- even Martin Heidegger, one of the most famous philosophers of this century -- that Jews were the problem. "Because of the Jews, Germany is not able to conquer the whole world, so first finish the Jews."

Absolutely absurd.

Aubrey Menon writes, "I could not feel any conviction in what he was saying."

And when he heard me... I am absolutely spontaneous, simple. I don't know what word is going to come next, I don't know what I am going to say to you. I just face you and allow my being to be poured into your hearts. He felt it, and he could not believe that fifty thousand people were sitting so silently as if there was no one -- pindrop silence. He says, "I understood the meaning of the phrase for the first time."

You can experience it here.

These ten thousand people can testify for my sanity. Raise both your hands if you think I am sane.

(WITH GREAT LAUGHTER, EVERYONE RAISES BOTH HANDS.) Thank you.

(MORE LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE.) Now the sutras. Maneesha has asked:

OUR

SHOJIN DAISHI CAME FROM INDIA AND SAID TO FUKETSU, "WE LEARNERS HAVE THE THREE OF THE BODY, THE FOUR OF THE MOUTH; I ASK YOU TO CONFESS ME!"

There are, according to Gautam Buddha, and according to all the mystics of the East -- and particularly of India -- three bodies. The one body you know is physical. Another body behind it is astral; it is made of pure light, hence it has no weight.

When you die only your physical body dies. The astral body takes your innermost being to another womb, unless you have become enlightened. If you become enlightened, then except your innermost center everything dies, and the center is for the first time released from the prison of the three bodies. It simply melts like ice in the oceanic consciousness of the universe. That is the ultimate freedom. We have called it moksha, we have called it nirvana. All those words mean ultimate freedom from all bondage of body and action, of mind and thinking, of feeling and emotions.

The third body is called the subtle body. It is completely made of something like air. You can see the second body if you have the eyes of meditation. You can see the body of light; light is perceptible. But air is not perceptible even to meditators. The third body is the subtle body.

These are layers of protection.

Behind these three bodies is hidden your real being, your great splendor, your ultimate ecstasy.

And what are the four mouths? Gautam Buddha jokingly said, "Everybody has at least four mouths. You can have more, but everybody has at least four mouths." He means masks upon masks.

When you meet your boss you have a different face. When you meet your servant you don't have the same face. Just watch. When you meet your wife you have another face.

When you meet your girlfriend you have another face.

You can watch from far away a couple walking towards you, and see whether they are married or not. The faces will show. The husband looks embarrassed, the wife is constantly being a detective. A beautiful woman passes by: the husband cannot look at her, the wife is watching.

It is said that a few people get out of bed in the morning, take their breakfast and go to their job; a few people get out of bed and go to their home.

When you see a man with a girlfriend, it is all joy. The same girlfriend will become a crucifixion.

I am reminded of a great psychologist who was surveying a madhouse. The superintendent took him inside. In a small room one man was just weeping and weeping, tears and tears, and was holding a photograph on his chest. It was such a miserable situation.

The psychoanalyst asked the superintendent, "What has happened to this man?"

The superintendent said, "He wanted to marry a woman -- he has the photograph -- but he could not marry her, and he has gone insane."

They moved to the second cell, and another man was hitting his head on the walls. The psychoanalyst asked, "What has happened to this man? Why is he hitting his head?"

The superintendent said, "You may not believe it: he married the same woman, and has gone mad!"

Buddha says everybody has masks, and unless you are freed of masks, you can never know your original face. The original face and the finding of it is the whole search of authentic religiousness. So, Buddha said, drop as many masks as possible. Everybody, the poorest of the poor, has at least four masks, and he goes on changing his face.

It starts even from childhood. You go to a school. If the teacher is not in the class, you watch the children. It is a chaos: books are being thrown, people are being beaten, they are writing anything they want on the blackboard. And the moment the teacher enters, absolute silence descends, everybody is looking at his book. They are not reading, but they are looking at the books.

What has happened?

Even small children... but we teach them. Mothers tell small babies, "I am your mother:

smile." If the baby is not feeling to smile, why should she smile? You are teaching diplomacy. Slowly slowly the child learns, because he is dependent on the parents for everything. So when the mother comes, the child smiles. It is fake; he has no desire to smile. When the father comes, he smiles. It is fake.

We are creating frauds from the very childhood: "Respect your elders" -- whether you respect them or not.

I was in constant trouble in my childhood. Anybody who was older, a distant relative -- in India you don't know all your relatives -- my father would tell me, "Touch his feet, he is a distant relative."

I would say, "I will not touch his feet unless I find something respectable in him."

So whenever any relative was to come, they would persuade me to go out, "because it is very embarrassing. We are saying to you, 'Respect the old man,' and you ask, 'Let us wait. Let me see something respectable. I will touch his feet -- but without knowing, how do you expect me to be honest and truthful?'"

But these are not the qualities society respects. Smile, honor, obey -- whether it is right or wrong does not matter. You will have respectability.

In the second world war, a professor in Germany, a professor of philosophy, was enrolled forcibly into the army. He resisted, he said, "You don't understand. I am a philosopher. I cannot kill people without any reason." But nobody listened to him.

They said, "We will teach him. Just let him come to the army quarters. Under a loaded gun he will come to his senses." But they had no idea of the man.

They brought him for the first parade on the ground in the early morning. The commander-in-chief ordered, "Left turn!" Everybody turned left, but the philosopher remained standing as he was.

The commander came to him and asked, "Why...? Are you deaf?"

He said, "No, but I had told you beforehand: I don't see any reason... why should I turn left?"

And then, finally, people turned left and right and went forward and backward, and finally came back to the same place. The professor said, "Aha! If they were all going to the same position again, then what is the point? I have been standing here all the time!"

The commander-in-chief thought, "This man is impossible."

He asked the general, "You have enrolled this man; I cannot cope with him. You give him some other job."

The general took him to the mess, and gave him a simple job: a pile of peas... He told the professor, "You sit down, and sort out the bigger peas on one side, and the smaller peas on the other side. I will come after one hour -- and take care that the work is done."

After one hour he came back. The professor was sitting silently; the peas were exactly the same as when he had left. He said, "What happened?"

The professor said, "There are tremendous problems."

The general said, "What problems?"

The professor said, "There are big peas; okay, I can put them at this side. There are small peas, I can put them at that side. But there are some in between: where to put them? If I don't know where to put them I cannot sort it out.

"In fact," he said, "every pea is individual. I can make a line which will go miles away, the biggest pea, then the smaller, then the smaller, then the smaller. But this small mess will not do, I need a big ground!"

The general said, "Please, you go back to the university."

The man was simple and innocent and had no masks.

Buddha said everybody is a hypocrite. Everybody tries to show his face according to the expectations of the crowd. Everybody listens to the crowd, because the crowd never likes anybody who is a stranger, the crowd never likes anybody who is more intelligent.

In America I had my commune in Oregon, and I told the news media, "The people of Oregon are retarded." The politicians of Oregon were very angry, the governor was very angry, the attorney general was very angry. The supreme court of Oregon, the high court of Oregon -- they were all angry.

I said, "Anger won't help. A survey is needed" -- and an Oregon university took up the task. They came up with the conclusion: "He is right. The average Oregonian has only seven percent of intelligence functioning, and the average member of the commune has fourteen percent -- double that of any Oregonian. You cannot start a case against the man.

It is really a strange clarity of vision that he saw that the whole of Oregon is retarded.

Seven percent is the intelligence of retarded people."

I have called the whole Indian parliament retarded, and the speaker of Lok Sabha wrote a letter to me, saying that "You have to apologize, you have insulted the parliament of the country."

I said, "I have not insulted anybody. First you get all the members of your parliament checked. If I am wrong, you can crucify me. And if I am right, then you all have to leave the parliament, and new elections will be needed."

He did not dare, because he knows... In the parliament people are throwing shoes at each other, using four-letter words which are not to be put on the record, shouting, wrestling with each other. He knows his parliament. He did not answer me, because that will be a strange phenomenon if by chance -- and there is every chance -- the whole parliament proves to be below seven percent. It will be a laughing matter for the whole world. It is better to keep quiet.

Buddha said that the society lives in a very fraudulent way. It lives in lies, it lives in imaginary consolations. It has so many faces. According to the place, according to the person, it changes its face. And he was telling this so that anybody who wants to be authentically religious drops all these masks.

You may not be aware that the word 'personality' comes from Greek. It means the mask.

In Greek drama, in the ancient days, every actor used to have a mask. Persona means mask, and from persona has come the word personality. Unless you drop your personality you will not be able to find your individuality.

Individuality is given by existence; personality is imposed by the society. Personality is social convenience. Society cannot tolerate individuality, because individuality will not follow like a sheep. Individuality has the quality of the lion; the lion moves alone.

The sheep are always in the crowd, hoping that being in the crowd will feel cozy. Being in the crowd one feels more protected, secure. If somebody attacks, there is every possibility in a crowd to save yourself -- but alone? Only the lions move alone.

And every one of you is born a lion, but the society goes on conditioning you, programming your mind as a sheep. It gives you a personality, a cozy personality, nice, very convenient, very obedient.

Society wants slaves, not people who are absolutely dedicated to freedom. Society wants slaves because all the vested interests want obedience.

The people who are in power, the people who have riches, the people who are the heads of religions, they all want one thing: you should not raise your head. You should live like a slave, pulled and pushed to this side and that side. You should not resist. You should not assert your being, your intelligence, your individuality.

This is the fear, the reason why twenty-one countries are preventing me from entering their territories: because I am in absolute favor of personalities dying and individualities being regained. That is real resurrection.

One great king, Prasenjita, contemporary to Gautam Buddha, had come to see Gautam Buddha for the first time. His wife had been a lay-disciple of Gautam Buddha for a long time before she was married to Prasenjita. She was a daughter of a greater king.

So when Gautam Buddha came to Prasenjita's capital, the wife said to the husband, "It does not look right that when a man like Gautam Buddha comes to your capital, you don't go to welcome him. I am going. He is sure to ask about you. What am I to say?"

The husband thought for a moment, and he said, "Okay, I am coming also. But because I am coming for the first time, I would like to give him some present. I have one very great diamond; even emperors are jealous because of that diamond. Buddha must appreciate it, so I will take the diamond."

The wife started laughing. She said, "Rather than the diamond, it will be better if you take a lotus flower from our big pond. To the Buddha the lotus flower is more beautiful. What will he do with the diamond? It will be an unnecessary burden."

He said, "I will take both and let us see who wins."

So he came on his golden chariot to the commune of Buddha, where ten thousand monks were sitting around him. Just before he was going to start his morning talk, the golden chariot of the king stopped, so he waited for the king to come in.

The king came in front of him, and first he offered Buddha the diamond. Buddha said, "Drop it!" It was very difficult for Prasenjita to drop his diamond -- that was his very life!

-- but not to drop it also was difficult. Before ten thousand people Buddha had said it -- "and you have offered the diamond so it no longer belongs to you."

He hesitated. Buddha said, "Drop it!" So he dropped the diamond, reluctantly, and offered the lotus flower with the other hand.

Buddha said, "Drop it!" Prasenjita thought, "Is this man crazy?" He dropped the lotus flower, and Buddha said, "Don't you listen? Drop it!"

He said, "Both my hands are empty. Now what do you want me to drop?"

At that moment, one of the oldest disciples of Buddha, Sariputra, said, "You don't understand. Buddha is not saying to drop the diamond, or to drop the flower. He is saying, 'Drop your personality. Drop that you are a king. Drop this mask, be just human, because through the mask it is impossible for me to approach you.'"

He had never thought about it. But a great silence, and ten thousand people... and he fell spontaneously at the feet of Buddha.

Buddha said, "That's what I have been telling you: drop it. Now sit down. Be just human.

Here nobody is an emperor and nobody is a beggar. Here everybody is himself. Just be yourself. This being an emperor can be taken away from you.

"Someday somebody will conquer your kingdom and you will be a beggar. This emperorhood is not your essential part. It can be stolen, it can be conquered, it can be destroyed. Better you yourself drop it -- that is more manly -- and just remain your authentic being."

Daishi had come to India to learn the teachings and the discipline of Gautam Buddha -- long after Gautam Buddha, perhaps one thousand years after, looking for some awakened, enlightened person who can help him to understand what meditation is.

He was told that we have three bodies and four mouths. He could not understand. What three bodies, four mouths? He went back to Japan and reached the great Zen master Fuketsu, and asked him, "Please explain to me what is the meaning of this puzzling statement. I have only one body, one mouth."

AT THIS, FUKETSU SNAPPED HIS FINGERS -- just snapped his fingers -- AND SAID, "MAY YOUR SINS DISAPPEAR! MAY YOUR SINS DISAPPEAR!"

This is the world of Zen, where an ordinary rationality is of no use. The man has asked something absolutely different, and Fuketsu answered in such a way that if you try to rationalize it you will be absolutely disappointed.

He did not answer on the surface -- just on the surface he did not answer -- but underneath the surface he answered.

I have to explain to you what was underground -- that which cannot be said, but can be transferred. His statement, "MAY YOUR SINS DISAPPEAR!" -- just (THE MASTER SNAPS HIS FINGERS) in a click...

The word sin in its origin, in its roots, means forgetfulness. It does not mean what Christians have been telling the world. It does not mean sin, it means forgetfulness.

And according to Gautam Buddha and Fuketsu that is the only problem. All other problems arise out of it, hence it can be called the original sin -- forgetting yourself. And what is virtue? -- remembering yourself. Being aware of your consciousness is virtue, and forgetting your consciousness and living an unconscious, robotlike life is the only sin.

He did not answer the question as far as language is concerned, but he is answering it in a far deeper way. He said, "Forget about three bodies, four mouths, just remember yourself.

Drop forgetfulness, drop your sleep. Drop your spiritual slumber. Wake up!"

That is exactly the meaning of the word buddha, being awake.

"MAY YOUR SINS DISAPPEAR!"

said Fuketsu, and repeated again, "MAY YOUR SINS DISAPPEAR!"

This will give you a taste of the way Zen works. It is very straight, but it is beyond your reason, your mind, your thoughts. It hits at the very center. Wake up, and all these problems and theorizations and ideologies will disappear. Why not cut the very root from where all the branches go on growing?

All the religions of the world, except Zen, have been trying to prune the leaves. Drop this sin, drop that sin -- and how many sins are there? Drop greed, drop jealousy, drop envy, drop anger, drop violence... And by the time you have been able to drop one, one life may not be enough.

Gautam Buddha brought a rebellion into the world which still lives, aflame in the small stream of Zen masters. Just cut the very roots, don't bother about the foliage, because you should remember: if you cut one leaf, in response to your arrogance, violence to the tree, the tree will bring three leaves. That's how gardeners make trees thicker and thicker: by cutting their leaves, branches. You cut one branch, and two or three branches will sprout.

The same is true about man. You cut one sin, and three more sins will arise, because how can you cut greed separately? They are all together -- your anger, your violence, your jealousy -- they are all one, branches of one tree. Don't cut one; you will be cutting for lives together, and you will never come to the realization of the divine in existence. But if you cut from the roots, in a single blow, this very moment you can become a buddha.

You don't have to become a Buddhist.

This is what is making the Buddhists go out of their senses.

Buddha is your essential core. It is not a question of conversion, it is a question of transformation. You have to go within yourself and cut the roots of all your darkness.

Then suddenly a flame jumps up from your very center and fills your whole being, and slowly starts radiating around you, in your presence, in your eyes, in your gestures, in your grace, in your blissfulness.

The buddha is your birthright. It is not a question of imitating any buddha -- there have been thousands -- you need not imitate anyone. You have to find your own. You are carrying it from your very birth, perhaps for many lives, but you have never looked inwards.

The idea of waking up simply means waking up from your very center, so that you can see your authentic nature. The buddha is your nature. The moment you realize who you are, you will suddenly start dancing, singing, in a drunkenness which is divine, because you have found the source of all life, you have found the connection with the cosmic whole. You are no longer imprisoned in the body, you have found the door going out of the prison, and disappearing into existence.

This is called nirvana.

This is called becoming a god in your own right.

ON ANOTHER OCCASION, A MONK SAID TO FUKETSU, "PEOPLE HAVE COLLECTED LIKE CLOUDS; PLEASE EXPOUND THE DHARMA!"

FUKETSU REPLIED, "PEOPLE PURSUE A RABBIT BAREFOOT; THEY EAT THE MEAT WITH THEIR SHOES ON."

He was asked to tell something about the ultimate nature, which in Pali is called dhamma, in Sanskrit, dharma. It means exactly, your ultimate nature, your eternal nature.

The man was asking, "So many people have come, a great crowd like clouds has gathered around your temple, Fuketsu. You should teach the dharma."

Fuketsu replied in a way that means, "These people will not be able to understand dharma, they are so unconscious. These PEOPLE PURSUE A RABBIT BAREFOOT."

He is trying to explain without saying directly that they are unconscious. Pursuing a rabbit barefoot is very unconscious. You may fall, you may trample on thorns. The rabbit will go zigzag in a forest; it is better to have your shoes on. But these unconscious people will pursue a rabbit barefoot, and "THEY EAT THE MEAT WITH THEIR SHOES ON."

In short, he is saying, "These people's actions are unconscious, they don't know what they are doing. They don't know who they are. They don't know from where they are coming.

They don't know where they are going."

Everything about the masses is unconscious, but to tell them so hurts them. Rather than being thankful to you, that "You made me aware of my unconsciousness," they will be angry at you. They will think that you are insulting them.

A blind man was brought to Gautam Buddha. He was a great logician, and he defeated the whole village in a discussion about light. He insisted that there is no light, no sun, no stars, no moon -- "because I don't have any experience of them."

People tried to convince him that there is light: "The whole village says so."

He said, "You will have to prove it. Bring the light, I want to touch it." Now, you cannot touch light, you cannot hold it in your fist.

He said, "Okay. Hit the light, I want to hear the sound." You cannot hit light either.

He said, "Okay. You bring the light, I want to smell it" -- but light has no smell.

He said, "Then I want to taste it. These are the only senses I have got." You cannot taste light, it has no taste.

The whole village was greatly upset. They know light is there, but this man is blind. "We don't want to say directly to him, 'You are blind' -- but he is a great logician, we cannot defeat him."

Just then they heard that Gautam Buddha was to pass by their village. They said, "This is a great opportunity. We should take the blind man to Gautam Buddha. Perhaps he can convince him about light."

The blind man was brought by the villagers with great hope. But Buddha said to the villagers, "You are wrong. Seeing perfectly well that the man has no eyes, you are trying to convince him of light. He does not need a philosopher or a logician to teach him. I will give him my physical physician, and I hope his sight will be restored" -- because he was not born blind.

Within six months his sight was restored. Buddha had moved to another place, leaving his personal physician with the blind man. The blind man looked around at the beautiful existence, the rainbows, the sun, the moon, the stars, the flowers and their colors. He could not believe that he had been missing all this beauty his whole life, and he had been unnecessarily arguing with the poor villagers, who didn't understand logic, but they were right.

He went to the place where Buddha had gone, dancing, and he fell at his feet saying, "If you had not come into my life, I would have remained always blind. Now I can see the greatest gift in life is the eyes" -- because eighty percent of our experiences depend on the eyes, only twenty percent on the other senses.

A man without eyes immediately creates a great compassion in you. The same is not true when you come across a man who is deaf, or a man who has no legs. You feel pity, you feel sympathy, but not the same compassion as you feel when you see a blind man, because he is missing all the colors, all the rainbows, all the flowers, all the sunsets, all the sunrises, the whole starry sky; he is missing everything of beauty. The beautiful faces of men and women, the beautiful birds he is missing; that is the greatest calamity.

We are also blind in a sense, because we are not looking inwards.

In the East, particularly in this country, we have called it the third eye, which opens inwards just between your two eyebrows. When you go deeper in meditation both your eyes have to be closed, so no energy goes out and the whole energy concentrates just in the middle. And from there is the entry into the inner sky, which is far more beautiful, far more colorful, of tremendous ecstasy. The deeper you go in, the more you come close to the divine. When you have reached to the very source of your being, you have found the ultimate meaning and significance of life.

The masses are unconscious. According even to psychologists, if we divide our mind into ten parts, only one part has become conscious; nine parts underneath it are completely in darkness.

It is almost similar to an iceberg. Only one tenth of the iceberg shows above the surface of the sea; nine tenths is underneath. We are living at the very minimum, we don't know how to live at the optimum, and religion is nothing but to give you life in its totality, to help you to live at the optimum. When you can live as a divine being, why live like unconscious animals?

We have become human beings, but our innermost world is a complete darkness. We have never bothered even for a single moment to look inside.

Hence, Fuketsu said, "The masses cannot be taught, unless somebody becomes thirsty, unless somebody becomes frustrated with the outside world and wants to enter into the inner core, to explore the last resource. Outside he has not found anything; perhaps one thing is still left -- that is inside."

When somebody comes not for teachings, not for knowledge, but for experience, then there is a possibility for a master to show you the path. Nobody can lead you to your inner being, nobody can go with you. You will have to go alone. But the master can show you the golden path.

Buddha says: I can show you the moon, but don't take my finger to be the moon. Drop the finger and look at the moon.

But this is the misfortune that has happened around the earth. Every religion is holding the finger! -- somebody of Mohammed, somebody of Krishna, somebody of Buddha, somebody of Mahavira -- and nobody is bothering where the finger points. The finger is not the religion. The teachings, the scriptures, they are all fingers, and people are worshipping scriptures.

I was staying in the Punjab in the house of Punjab state's Inspector General of Police. He was my host. When I went into my room I passed his temple. He had a small temple made in his vast bungalow. I looked in the temple, and there was GURU GRANTHA SAHIB, the religious scripture of the Sikhs. It was early morning, so he had put a toothbrush and a tube of paste by the side of GURU GRANTHA SAHIB.

I said, "My God, what are you doing?"

He said, "Just for GURU GRANTHA SAHIB" -- 'Sahib' makes the scripture almost look like a human being -- "for his morning toothbrushing."

I said, "You are the I.G. of this whole state, and if you can do such a thing, what about the villagers? They may be giving him a bath, just a shower, feeding him food. They may have destroyed GURU GRANTHA SAHIB long ago. You are a reasonable man, well educated, in a high post, and you are behaving like a villager!"

But this is the situation. If your foot touches SRIMAD BHAGAVADGITA, if you are a Hindu you will immediately touch the feet of BHAGAVADGITA. There are no feet!

Scriptures have become reality, fingers have become the moon, for the unconscious masses.

Unless somebody on his own comes to a master... The crowds cannot be taught the deeper secrets of life. They are going to live in superstitions, in all kinds of consolations, but they will never know the nature of the great reality that you are.

On another occasion some monk asked Fuketsu, "EVEN WITHOUT THE PRACTICE OF ZEN..."

Zen means dhyan, it means meditation. The word 'dhyan' is Sanskrit. When it moved to the Buddhist language, Pali, it became zhan. When it moved to China it became chan.

When it moved to Japan it became Zen. Zen means dhyan; dhyan means a state of no- mind.

In English there is no parallel word. We use 'meditation' because there is no other word which comes even close. Meditation is not the right word. The moment you say meditation, immediately the idea arises: meditating on what? It is always objective.

Concentration is objective, contemplation is objective, meditation is objective; dhyan is subjective. It is not meditating on something, it is simply moving inwards, silently, without any object in your vision.

Inside there is no object, only pure subjectivity -- a silent lake of consciousness. And the deeper you go, the calmer and cooler and more blissful you become. When you reach to the deepest point in your being you have arrived home.

Fuketsu was asked, "EVEN WITHOUT THE PRACTICE OF ZEN, MAY WE CERTAINLY ATTAIN BUDDHAHOOD?"

An absurd question. Without dhyan, without Zen, nobody can attain buddhahood. It is saying, in other words, "Can we reach inside without going inside?" It is absolutely nonsense, the question.

Fuketsu said, "THE GOLDEN COCK HERALDS THE DAWN; THE PITCH BARREL SENDS OUT A DARK RADIANCE."

Just as the golden cock heralds the dawn, meditation heralds the beginning of your buddhahood. Without meditation, you cannot taste anything of religion. You can believe, but belief is always of the ignorant.

I want you to understand absolutely: never believe in anything. Experiment. Take the belief as a hypothesis but never as a certainty. Unless you experience, no belief can help you.

Can belief in water quench your thirst? Can belief in God herald the dawn? No belief system is of any help. You have to go inwards, alone, as deep as possible.

Meditation is the very essence of all religions.

Everything else is mere commentary.

AT ANOTHER TIME, A MONK ASKED FUKETSU, "BOTH SPEECH AND SILENCE TRANSGRESS. HOW CAN WE NOT DO SO?"

It is especially a Zen question, especially a question for great meditators. When you arrive at your very being you experience something which is beyond words. Now there are only two possibilities. Either you use words, which don't justify your experience...

They distort your experience, because the experience happened beyond words, far away, it cannot be dragged into ordinary human language.

So the one possibility is to speak. That transgresses the experience. The other possibility is to remain silent, but that too is not right. If you are silent, how are you going to share your experience with those who are all groping in the dark? The man is asking a very important thing.

When Gautam Buddha became enlightened, for seven days he remained silent, just thinking what to do. "If I speak, it is not exactly the truth, something is missed. And when you hear it, something more is missed because you will interpret it according to your mind, and you don't have that experience from which those words are coming. It is a transgression against truth.

"Should I remain silent?" Buddha thought. "But that seems to be very unkind, uncompassionate. So many people are searching, and I have found. At least I can help them in some way -- if not through words, then through some devices. If not through words, then some other way has to be found to transmit the fragrance, the fire of my experience."

Finally, fortunately, he decided to speak. It would have been a tremendous loss to humanity if Gautam Buddha had not spoken. Although he always says, "Remember while you are reading my scriptures that the word is not the truth. It may indicate as a finger, but it is not the moon" -- but who remembers?

People simply get knowledgeable by reading scriptures -- rabbis, bishops, popes -- but they are all knowledgeable; they don't have the experience. They have not known themselves, they have only believed. Belief prevents you from searching for the truth.

Never stop at a belief. Stop only at an experience of your own.

FUKETSU REPLIED: "I ALWAYS REMEMBER THE SPRING IN KONAN..."

where he used to live before he came to Mount Fuketsu. The mountain was renamed by the emperor of Japan according to the name of Fuketsu. It became Mount Fuketsu because he lived there, an enlightened light for millions to come and quench their thirst.

But before coming to this mountain, he used to live at another mountain.

He says:

"I ALWAYS REMEMBER THE SPRING IN KONAN, WHERE THE PARTRIDGES SING; HOW FRAGRANT THE COUNTLESS FLOWERS!"

Do you see the point? He is not answering directly. Zen does not answer directly. It answers in a very poetic and indirect way.

He is saying:

"I CAN REMEMBER THE SPRING IN KONAN, WHERE THE PARTRIDGES SING; HOW FRAGRANT THE COUNTLESS FLOWERS!"

But you have never been to Konan, so you don't know what spring in Konan is, you don't know the flowers and the fragrance and the color and the beauty. Unless you go there, there is no way. "I cannot bring Konan and its spring and the flowers and the songs of the birds into my language. I can point you the way to Konan -- go to Konan."

He is simply saying that the inner world has to be experienced. There comes a great spring... far greater than you have seen outside. There are flowers and fragrances of another world -- a peace, a silence, a song, a dance that you have not known in the outside world. But the only way is: go in.

Issa wrote:

PURE SIMPLICITY MARKS THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING -- A PALE YELLOW SKY.

But you have to see it.

How many people look at the sky? I have been watching, standing by the side of the road:

people are counting money on their fingers and they don't see that the sun is setting and is throwing such psychedelic colors all over the horizon -- and they are counting money. I can see their lips moving. They are talking to somebody who is not present, and the sun is setting with such grandeur. How many people get up early to see the sunrise? How many people watch the immense hypnotic power of the fullmoon night?

Do you know, all those who have become enlightened have become enlightened on the fullmoon night, except Mahavira -- just a single exception in the whole of history?

Strange... why on the fullmoon night? The ocean rises to greet the moon on the fullmoon night. More people go mad on the fullmoon night; hence the word 'lunatic'.

Lunatic means luna, luna means the moon -- moonstruck. Lunatic means struck by the moon. More people commit suicide on the fullmoon night -- four times more than any other time -- more people murder on the fullmoon night. It has been a strange thing: why should it happen on a fullmoon night?

The full moon somehow makes you what you have been in some way repressing in yourself. If you have been repressing the desire to become enlightened, perhaps on the fullmoon night you will become enlightened. It exposes you. If you have been repressing the desire to commit suicide...

Psychologists say there is not a single man on the earth who has not at some time thought of committing suicide. Not that everybody commits it, but there are moments of trouble, anxiety, anguish, when one thinks it is better to finish it all. But the psychologists are not aware that this idea happens only on fullmoon nights.

The fullmoon night simply exposes you. If you are ready for enlightenment, if your meditations have ripened, you become enlightened. If you are ready to commit suicide and you have been somehow avoiding it -- nobody wants to commit suicide, nobody wants to murder anybody, but the idea arises, and on the fullmoon night it is irresistible.

Whatever you have been repressing, whatever you have been searching for is exposed.

But everything has to be your experience.

PURE SIMPLICITY MARKS THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING -- A PALE YELLOW SKY.

You cannot go inwards if you are not finished with the outside world -- its beauty, its treasure, its immense vastness. If you have not become acquainted with it, you will never think of going in, because the inner is vaster, the inner is bigger, the inner is more intelligent. The inner is pure wisdom. It is truth, it is beauty, it is godliness.

But first you should learn from the outside world. This is especially a Zen message. It is not against the outside world, it wants you to learn everything of the outside world so that you graduate from the outside to the inner.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked a question:

Right, Maneesha. It is the punchline of the ultimate joke.

This begins the time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

Percy and Porky Poke own a men's clothing shop in downtown L.A.

One day Buster Chubbs walks in and says, "I need a nice suit."

"Okay," smiles Porky, jumping up. "We have Paris suits, Italian suits, Mexican suits, all kinds and all styles, from every corner of the world. Modern, classical, new wave, formal, business -- any kind of suit.

"You can get them in your favorite color," continues Porky with his best sales pitch. "We have black, blue, grey, even orange -- any color you want! What is your size?"

Buster is really impressed as he looks around the shop. "I think I am size forty-two," he says.

Porky proceeds to bring every size forty-two suit in the store and has Buster try each one.

Every time Buster comes out in a different suit, Porky spins him around to look in the mirror -- back to front, and front to back, spinning him this way and that, to see it from all the angles.

Half an hour later, Porky still cannot sell him a suit.

Then Percy walks up with the last remaining suit, says a few things to Buster, and Buster buys it.

When Buster leaves his shop, Percy turns to Porky and says, "See how easy it was? I sold it to him on the first try."

"Sure," says Porky, "but who made him dizzy?"

Boris Bagel gets invited to a fancy-dress masquerade and decides to go along dressed as Lucifer, the devil.

Unfortunately, on his way to the party, Boris gets lost and ends up walking into the middle of a Jimmy Bakker TV broadcast prayer meeting.

The good folks, watching preacher Jimmy Bakker give his fire and brimstone sermon, take one look at Boris in his devil outfit and start to scream and run for the doors.

In the panic, preacher Jimmy Bakker gets trampled to the floor and Boris, not realizing that he is the cause of the panic, goes over to help him up.

"Ah, Satan!" shouts Bakker, terrified. "I have been running this special Christian church for twenty years, but I want you to know I have really been on your side all along!"

Giovanni, the Italian, George, the Englishman, and Ivan, the terrible Russian, are working for the United Nations Army in Africa, when they are captured by cannibals.

Chief Boonga, the cannibal leader, tells the men that they can have one last request before they get thrown into the cooking pot.

"I-a want a plate of spaghetti!" says Giovanni.

"I would like a bottle of beer, please," says George.

"Just give me a kick in the ass," says Ivan.

Giovanni gets his spaghetti, George gets his beer, and Chief Boonga walks over to Ivan and gives him an enormous kick in the rear-end.

Immediately, Ivan pulls out a gun from his pocket, and shoots all the cannibals.

"I say!" exclaims George. "Jolly good show!"

"Mamma mia!" shouts Giovanni. "But what took-a you so long?"

"Well," explains Ivan, "being a good Russian, I could not attack until I was provoked!"

Nivedano...

(drumbeat)

(gibberish)

Nivedano...

(drumbeat)

Be silent... close your eyes...

Feel your body to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to look inwards. Collect your whole life energy, your total consciousness, and with a great urgency to reach to the center... One never knows, this may be the last moment of your life.

Deeper and deeper... just like an arrow passing through all the layers of body, mind.

As you come closer to the center, you are coming closer to the god....

As you come deeper, nearer, you are coming closer to the buddha hidden in you.

At this moment you are the most fortunate people on the earth, just because you are so close to your divine nature.

Remember only one thing, which is eternal in you, and that is the witnessing consciousness. Just witness everything.

The body is not you -- witness.

The mind is not you -- witness.

All the experiences that are happening to you -- the great silence, the peace, the joy, the ecstasy, you are a witness. You remain always above and beyond.

This beyondness, this witnessing, is your real buddha dharma, your authentic nature, your divine individuality.

To make it clear, Nivedano...

(drumbeat)

Relax...

But keep on remembering that you are just a witness.

As the relaxation becomes more and more and more, you start melting like ice into a vast ocean of consciousness. Gautama the Buddha Auditorium, at this moment, has become an ocean of consciousness.

Feel... and collect the experience.

This is no belief, this is your own experience.

This is no finger, you have come to the moon.

And persuade the buddha to come along with you. He has to become your very life, your breathing, your heartbeat, your daily, ordinary activities.

Chopping the wood for the winter, carrying the water from the well, he should be with you. In fact, slowly slowly you will disappear, only buddha remains. That is the greatest day of your life, when only the buddha remains.

The word 'buddha' means the witness, the observer, the watcher -- in essence, pure awareness. And pure awareness makes you one with the whole cosmos.

Collect as much experience as you can, and persuade the buddha to come along with you.

Nivedano...

(drumbeat)

Come back... but come back with grace, come back with blissfulness, come back as a buddha. And sit down for a few moments just to recollect where you have been, just to remember what golden path you have moved on.

Inch by inch the distance between your circumference and the center is becoming less every day. The day your circumference and center become one, your actions and your consciousness become one, you have arrived home.

One single seed can make the whole earth green. A single buddha can make the whole world afire with a new consciousness and a new humanity.

You are the very hope of a world which is in great despair, in great anguish.

It is not only a question of your individuality, becoming a buddha, it is a question of saving this whole planet. This planet can be saved only by people who understand that every living being is divine.

To destroy anything is ugly and barbarious. Particularly to destroy life is absolutely disgusting, because if you cannot create life, you don't have any right to destroy it.

One seed makes the whole earth green.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.