The Passion for the Impossible

The first question:

Question 1:

The Sufis have a very beautiful saying. They say, 'God is not found by seeking, and never found by those who don't seek.'

First a man has to seek and then he has to surrender his seeking too - because in the seeking the seeker goes on existing. The seeker is the ego. Of course, if you never start seeking, you Will never find. You have to be thirsty for God. You have to start moving, groping in the dark.

But don't become addicted to your groping. A moment comes when you start feeling that your will is not succeeding. But that moment comes only through will, effort, arduous effort. A moment comes when you start feeling that your will has failed, that you are utterly defeated. In that utter defeat is the victory. In that utter defeat you surrender. In that utter defeat you start crying. In that utter defeat you say, 'Now I cannot do any more. I am finished. Whatsoever I could do I have done.' In that moment, when you have this total failure, this feeling of utter defeat, you disappear. You are no more there. The seeker has disappeared - through seeking.

To seek God is to seek the impossible. By seeking you cannot find it. If you can find God by your seeking then God will be something that you can possess, then God will be in your fist, then God will be your property - then God will not be greater than you. That which you can seek is bound to be smaller than you, it cannot be bigger than you. The lower cannot seek the higher and the smaller cannot seek the bigger.

You cannot possess the infinite, the eternal - that is absurd. But to understand that this is absurd one has to start seeking. You will not know it in any other way. One starts longing for God... that means that one is moving, desiring, longing, for God... that means that one is moving, desiring, longing, for the impossible. One day or other defeat is absolutely certain. In that defeat something transmutes, transforms. In that defeat the seeker disappears, will disappears - surrender happens.

You cannot surrender without that defeat. How can you surrender? Deep down you will continue thinking, 'I could have succeeded.' Or you may even think that this surrender is something that you are doing - that you are the doer of the surrender too. But then it is not surrender. Surrender can happen only in utter defeat. Only utter defeat prepares you to surrender - not a single hope remains, not a single ray of light in the dark night of the soul. You have put everything at stake, now nothing is left. You are empty.

In that emptiness... surrender. That emptiness flowers into surrender. In that emptiness you are not, something new arrives. The seeker is no more there, the will has disappeared, but the seeking is there, the longing is there - even more so, because the energy that was involved in the seeker has also become longing. Now you are simply thirsty, knowing perfectly well that you cannot do anything. That moment of utter despair brings grace - that's what Sufis call BARAKA, what Hindus call PRASAD.

When you have fallen flat and you cannot move even a single inch on your own, when you have again become a small child and you are crying and screaming for your mother, the mother comes.

But you have to become helpless again.

The question is important. You ask: I AM NOT CLEAR. IS BEING A SUFI A MATTER OF WILL?

Yes, in the beginning it is a matter of will. Each journey towards God starts in will but never ends in will. The first step has to be of will - and will takes you a long way towards your utter defeat. Half the journey is done by will-power and the other half is done in surrender. Will leads to surrender.

This will look paradoxical to you. Will flowers ultimately into surrender because it is will which makes you aware that on your own you cannot do anything. You have done it. You have seen it fail. So the first step is in will, half the journey is in will. And when will has disappeared there is blessing, PRASAD, BARAKA.

So if you ask me definitively whether it is will or surrender, I will say it is both and neither. Will and surrender are like two wings of a bird. They both help, they both complement each other. Even while they are opposed to each other they are complementing. Their very opposition creates movement.

It is just like your two legs - they are opposed to each other. Through their opposition energy is created, and you can move. Will and surrender are opposites but deep down they are part of one whole.

Every seeker starts in will and ends in surrender.

The second question:

Question 2:

Philosophers are like fences - they run round a lot without getting anywhere at all. Yes, they are exactly like a fence - it goes on running round and round but it never reaches anywhere. Thought is a vicious circle. One thought leads to another and so on, so forth, but you go on moving in a circle.

You do a lot of running but you never reach anywhere. Thought is inconclusive. Thought cannot give you the conclusion, it only pretends. It is a pretender. Conclusion comes through experience - that's why scientists have moved towards the lab, experimentation, and the religious mystics have moved towards the inner lab, experience. Religion is the science of the inner and science is the religion of the outer.

Philosophy is a mess. It is just pure speculation. One sits and thinks without experimenting, without experiencing. And only experience or experiment is conclusive. Experiment is conclusive about the objective world - that which exists opposite to you, the other; and religion is experience, experiment of the inner, of the subjective - that which you are. Both are conclusive. Philosophy is inconclusive, it is an endless game.

But philosophers can say beautiful things. In fact, only they can say beautiful things. Philosophers can afford to say beautiful things but they are only sayings. They may have a certain poetry, those statements, but they don't have any reality, any truth. Yes, those statements can be beautiful, they can have a logical consistency, a logical harmony, but they don't relate to reality at all. They are all false. There is nothing to choose between one philosophy and another - all philosophies are false.

The philosopher is one who has got stuck with the mind.

Man has three layers: first, the body; second, the mind; third, the soul. This has to be understood.

The soul is a reality, so is the body a reality. Mind is nothing but a bridge between the two; in itself it has no value. A bridge has no value in itself. It has value only because it bridges the two banks.

It has no intrinsic value. The banks can exist without the bridge but the bridge cannot exist without the banks. It is just a utility a means. Mind is where soul and body overlap. Where body and soul overlap, a new kind of illusory reality is created. That reality is mind.

Science trusts in the body, religion trusts in the soul, philosophy goes on trusting in the mind. It is a mind game. And remember, when you are totally in your body, mind disappears. Or when you are totally in the soul, mind disappears. If you are making love and you are totally in the body, for a few moments there is no mind. You are so totally involved in the reality of the body that the mind cannot exist. Or, if you are deep in medi-tation, absolutely in, then too the mind disappears. Reality is always a no-mind thing; whether you are in the body or in the soul doesn't matter, reality is always a no-mind thing. Mind is maya, illusion.

You must have heard the often-repeated statement of Vedanta that the world is illusion. That is not exactly right - because by 'world' you understand the world of objects. When Vedanita says the world is illusory what it means exactly is that the mind is illusory. The mind is the world. That is where you live, your world. You don't live in the reality, in the real world, you live in thoughts, desires, fantasies, imaginations. You live in a mind world.

That mind is maya; it is a magical thing. Nothing really exists - it is almost like a dream. Every night you dream and when you are dreaming you think that the dream is real. How many times have you been deceived by the dream? When are you going to understand that the dream is not real? And every day, when you awake in the morning, you know it was not real. And again you sleep and you dream and again it becomes real. When you are asleep the dream appears to be real. The dream appears to be real in the same proportion as you are asleep. If you become a little alert then the mind is no more real and the dream is no more real.

When one becomes perfectly awakened, when one becomes a Buddha, then the mind is no more real. The morning has come. You have become awakened. That is the meaning of the word soul is real, but the mind has disappeared. Mind is a twilight phenomenon.

Nikolai Berdyaev says in his autobiography: 'I am very much afraid of the twilight time, when it is neither day nor night. It frightens me. ' When I read it I was puzzled about why he should be troubled by the twilight. It is so beautiful - when the day is no more and the night has not come yet. But he is right. He does not mean only the twilight, he means all twilight phenomena.

Mind is a twilight phenomenon, neither body nor soul. A little reality has been imparted by the soul and the real reality has been imparted by the body. Mind is borrowed - something of the soul and something of the body. It is just midway; it is neither this nor that.

And philosophy lives in the mind, hence philosophy lives in illusion. Dreams can be beautiful, illusions can be tremendously sweet.

You ask me: WHY DO GREAT PHILOSOPHERS AND SO FORTH, SAY BEAUTIFUL THINGS AND REMAIN SUCH A MESS? By saying beautiful things you cannot sort out the mess, it is not so easy and not so cheap. If you sort out the mess, if you want to get beyond the mess, you will have to do some real work - that's what Gurdjieff used to call it. He used to call his system 'the work'.

Real work is needed. Beautiful as-pirations, poetry, beautiful philosophies, can console, but that is not going to help. It is as if somebody is hungry and you go on talking about delicious foods, as if somebody is hungry and you give him a menu beautifully printed, as if somebody is hungry and you give him a cook-book to read.

That is exactly what philosophy is. Philosophy is a menu. It talks about food and sometimes it can start your saliva flowing. Even thinking about a lemon, juices start moving. But that is not going to satisfy. Philosophy affects people because people live in the mind.

A philosopher went to the bus station to catch a bus, but found he was early. He saw a little fortune- telling machine so he put a nickel in, and a little card came out that said: 'You are John Jones - you are sixty-five years old, you are a great philosopher, and you are on your way to Chicago on a business trip.'

He said, 'I can't believe that this machine knows this information. There must be someone behind it.' So he put another nickel in and another card came out saying: 'You are still John Jones, you are still a great philosopher, you are still sixty-five years old - and you are still on your way to Chicago on a business trip.'

'I just don't believe it,' said the man again, as he put another nickel in. This time a card came out saying: 'You are still John Jones, you are still a great philosopher, you are still sixty-five years old, you are still on your way to Chicago - but you've fooled around and missed your bus.'

Philosophy is a fooling around - and mind you, you will miss your bus.

Just thinking is not going to help. It is a luxury. You can rest and you can think and you can spin theories and you can make castles in Spain and you can dream beautiful dreams. These are all childish.

But if you can be logical, if you can be consistent with words, if you have a certain capacity and skill with words, you can feel very much satisfied. You can start feeling that you have the key, that you know.

The pet shop delivery boy was not exactly the brightest lad in the world. One day he was asked to deliver a pet rabbit to Mrs. Jones, Route 2 - Box 4.

'You had better write that down in case I forget it,' said the boy.

Slipping the address into his pocket he started off on his errand. Every few minutes he glanced at the address and said, 'I know where I'm going: Mrs. Jones, Route 2 - Box 4.'

Everything went smoothly until he hit a crater in the road. The truck he was driving landed in a ditch and the rabbit began to run for its life across an open field.

The boy stood there laughing uproariously. When asked by a passer-by what was so funny he said, ' Did you see that crazy rabbit running across that held? He doesn't know where he's going because I've got the address in my pocket. '

All philosophy is like that. It is not concerned with reality. Philosophers think they know the address of God. They don t know. All they know is rubbish. It is all their own fantasy.

To know God one has to become religious. There are only two ways to know the reality: if you are interested in the objective reality become a scientist; if you are interested in the subjective reality become religious. That's why philosophy is disappearing by and by. In the future there is a possibility that there may be no philosophy at all or it may be only in the madhouses.

Science has taken the bigger part of it. Many questions that used to be thought philosophical are philosophical no more. Science has taken them over, they don't have any philosophy about them any more. Science knows the exact answer. Philo-sophy can exist only in the twilight when the exact answer is not known. So the major part, the objective part, has been taken over by science. And the other part, the other half, has always been taken by the mystics - the Sufis, the Hassids, the Zen people.

Philosophy is dying. It has nothing to think about now. The mystic knows what subjective reality is and the scientist knows what objective reality is - what is left for the philosopher? there is nothing much left. Philosophy has no future. It had a glorious past but it has no future. Out of philosophy two systems have arisen which are more relevant: science and religion.

Philosophy is a primitive approach, a magical approach. When you don't know anything, you need to think about it. That thinking gives you a kind of substitute. It feels good that at least you know something. Either science will take it away from philosophy, or religion will take it away from philosophy. Both are decisive. The future is with science and religion, and the final future will be a new kind of approach which will be religio-scientific. The ultimate future will be where science and religion meet and disappear into a new kind of system, a new kind of synthesis. That will be the greatest day in the history of human consciousness.

Just the other night an old French poet took sannyas. I gave him the name Ananda Kavishwar. It means: great poet of bliss. He was asking me when the revolution was coming. Of course, he is French, so he thinks in terms of revolution. He is very old, must be beyond seventy, but a Frenchman is after all a Frenchman - they don't grow old. 'When is the revolution coming?' I would like to tell him that this is the revolution - what I can call real revolution - when science and religion meet and disappear into one metaphysics, into one synthesis. That will put humanity into a totally new kind of light. That will bring a new harmony into the world.

That will help all schizophrenia to disappear - because body and soul are two realities. I am saying two because still science and religion are separate. In fact, they are not two. The body is the visible soul and the soul is the invisible body. They are not really two - they appear to be two because in-between them stands the mind. Once the mind disappears then the division disappears, then all demarcation disappears. then there is no possibility of deciding where body ends and where soul begins. then they melt and merge into one. That ONE has been called 'God' by Sufis. Body and soul have disappeared into each other, they don't exist separately. It is mind just standing in-between that keeps them separate, that divides and defines them.

Once philosophy is gone, once mind is no more there, who is there to divide the objective from the subjective? Then the outer and the inner will be one. They are one. The outer is the inner and the inner is the outer. Division disappears, duality disappears. Philosophy is dualistic. That ultimate system for which no name exists yet, or, if you allow me, I can use the Indian term, darshana - which may become the name for the ultimate synthesis....

DARSHANA is not philosophy as it is ordinarily translated in Indian universities. Books on DARSHANA are called Indian philosophy. It is not true. It is very, very falsifying. Philosophy means love of thinking. 'Sophia' means knowledge, wisdom, and 'philo' means love - love of knowledge.

DARSHANA means not philosophy but 'philosia' - love of seeing. Not love of thinking - love of realising, an effort to attain a vision of the ultimate reality as it is. In that ultimate reality there are no divisions. It is one piece, it is one melody.

With that vision all schizophrenia disappears - otherwise man remains divided. When you divide the inner and the outer you divide man. When you say body-soul, you divide man. And when you divide man you create conflict, you create tension. And then there is always a war going on inside.

I would like you to learn the ways to drop this war, this constant on-going war. The body is you and you are the body. Respect your body, love your body. Respect your soul, love your soul. And don't create any conflict between the two. Listen silently and you will find that their voice is one. With that one voice there is peace, there is benediction.

The third question:

Question 3:

There is a great difference. Following me, you are still on the path of will; surrendering to me, the will has disappeared. Following me, you are important. You are. This is your decision to follow me.

You can change your mind any moment you want; you can cancel your decision.

Surrendered to me, you have disappeared. Now it cannot be cancelled. There is nobody to cancel it. Now there is no way to reverse it. Following there is no possibility that you may turn back.

Surrendering, how can you turn back? It is irreversible. Following me, you are there, I am here.

There is bound to be conflict.

Surrendering, you disappear. And when you disappear then you will be able to see that I have never been here. In your disappearance you will see the disappearance of the Master too. A Master is a Master only because he has already disappeared. He does not function as an ego. So to have real conflict with a Master is possible only when you also stop functioning as an ego - that is the meaning of surrender. The Master is without any ego. If you want to communicate with him, if you want to be in communion with him, if you want to be in deep love with him, you have to disappear. Only when you also become an emptiness will there be a meeting. When the disciple is not, suddenly all barriers disappear.

If you are, you go on defending. If you are, you go on choosing. If you are, then you will keep a certain space, protected, defended. You will keep a fence around you. You will go only so far. The moment you see that your identity is at stake, you will turn back. The moment you see that now you can be completely taken over, you will start moving away. You will go only to a certain extent, defending yourself, remaining yourself. This is not the way to be a disciple.

A follower is not a disciple. A follower is convinced through his intellect that whatsoever the teacher is saying seems to be logically right. It is convincing. It is intellectually satisfying. That's what a follower is. A follower is from the head. And the disciple? A disciple is not intellectually convinced that the Master is right in what he says, the disciple is convinced that the Master is right - not in what he says but in what he is. It is a heart-to-heart approach. It is a dialogue - deeper than the head, two beings communing. The disciple surrenders.

And the beauty is - very paradoxical it is - the beauty is that when you surrender to a Master you become yourself for the first time. Because surrendering to the outer Master is really surrendering to the inner Master. Everybody is carrying God somewhere deep in the innermost cor of his being.

God is present in you but you don't know how to approach him. You have forgotten the ways and means of coming to your own inner reality. You have lost the key and locked the door. And for centuries you have never been in. You don't know how to turn in. You have become paralysed. You can see only outside. Hence the outer Master is needed. The outer Master will only help you to go to your inner Master. The outer Master will become the door. You will have to go via the outer Master because you cannot go directly. If you can go directly there is no need for a Master.

A few people - very rarely it happens - go without a Master. Yes, sometimes it happens. Sometimes it happens that a person reaches directly into his being - but it is very rare. It is so ex-ceptional that it can be counted out, it is so exceptional that it only proves the rule. Hence no tradition - Sufi, Zen, Hassid - no tradition talks about it. They all insist that a Master is needed.

Why don't they talk about it? Don't they know? They know. It has happened. A few times it has happened down the centuries that a man has attained to his self without going via the outer Master; he has reached directly to his innermost core. But why don't they say it? People think that Krishnamurti is talking about it for the first time; people think Krishnamurti is very original about it.

That is not the case. All the Masters have known about it but they have not talked about it for a certain reason. The reason is that if it is told to you that you can go on your own, this very statement will become a barrier to your surrendering.

Only one in a million can go. What about the remainder? They will also think that they can go - what is the need to surrender? Their ego will exploit the idea. Their ego will say, 'Then it is perfectly okay.

Why should I surrender to anybody? I can go myself. ' To protect these fools it has never been said before. Krishnamurti is not saying anything new, it has been known always. It is one of the oldest, ancient-most truths that sometimes a rare person enters. But it is accidental, it cannot be made a rule. And to talk about it is dangerous because the egoist will fall upon it, will immediately jump upon it.

That's why around Krishnamurti you will find all kinds of egoistic people. One who cannot surrender will sooner or later reach Krishnamurti. One who is not able to surrender, whose ego is really hardened, who does not want to surrender, will be very happy with Krishnamurti. Of course, that happiness is not going to change him.

Many people come to me. They say, 'We have been with Krishnamurti for thirty years, forty years.

We have been reading and listening and whatsoever he says is perfectly true, what do you say about him?' I say, 'He is saying the truth but he is talking to fools. It is the truth, but he should not have told it to you.' They feel very offended. 'Why? If it is the truth then why should he not tell it to us? Forty years are lost and even maybe forty more lives in the future.' I say, 'What have you attained?' They become restless and they say, 'I have not attained anything. But is it not the truth?' It is the truth but you are not ready for it.

A truth is truth only when you can use it. It has to be in such a way that it is helpful. Buddha has said that by 'truth' only one thing is meant - that it works. If it works it is true, if it doesn't work what is the meaning of calling it truth? It is inhuman.

Krishnamurti's truth has not worked. It cannot work. It can work only in a rare case. And the person with whom it can be of any use will not bother to come to Krishnamurti. Why should he bother?

He can go directly. Why should he come via Krishnamurti? These people who are surrounding Krishnamurti are still in need of somebody and are still so egoistic that they cannot surrender. So this is a good support for their ego... they need not surrender and they can have a Master.

But you cannot have a Master without surrendering. Krishnamurti is a Master without disciples.

Those disciples cannot surrender. His own teaching prohibits surrender. He has lived a very lonely life. And sometimes he gets very angry - angry that his whole life has been a wastage.

Buddha helped thousands. Thousands became enlightened. Not only while he was alive, even when he was gone the chain continued, the silsila continued. The continuation has remained. Even now here and there a-flower blooms and bows down in deep gratitude towards Buddha - after two thousand five hundred years.

And Krishnamurti is a man of the same calibre as Buddha, is a man of the same intelligence as Buddha. Nothing is lacking. There is just this idea that the disciple need not surrender.... Even if it is a truth it is still dangerous. It has allowed only egoistic people to come around him; those who would like to surrender will not come to him because he won't allow surrender. Those who don't want to surrender and are still in search of a Master - they cannot depend on themselves and they cannot surrender - these people have gathered around him.

Now they are stuck. Krishnamurti is stuck with them and they are stuck with Krishnamurti.

Krishnamurti cannot say surrender.... The day Krishnamurti says surrender they will escape, because they are there only because he goes on saying there is no need to surrender to anybody.

They are feeling very good, perfectly happy with this idea. Their ego need not be at stake.

But nothing is happening. I have come across many - nothing is happening. They have become very, very intellectual, very refined intellectuals. They can talk a lot. They can discuss and argue a lot, but nothing has happened. No fragrance has happened. The ego won't allow it.

You ask me: PLEASE EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FOLLOWING YOU AND SURRENDERING TO YOU. One who is following me is not with me, remember. He is maybe using me but he is not with me. He may be choosing a few things from me but HE remains the decisive factor. Deep inside he is still defending himself. He may find a few bits and pieces of wisdom but they are not going to help. They will become a philosophy.

Only those who are surrendered to me are with me. And I can only be with those who are with me.

If you are not with me it is impossible for me to be with you even though I would like to be. But it is impossible. It is not possible in the nature of things. Only if you are surrendered can I be with you; only then are you available, receptive.

That's what sannyas is all about. Drop following and move into surrender. Sannyas is surrender.

The day you take sannyas, if you have really taken it from your heart, you are no more. Then you become part of me or I become part of you. Then you breathe for me or I breathe for you. then you don't think about yourself as a separate entity.

And the paradox is that you don't become dependent. For the first time you become independent individuals - because the ego is not the thing that makes you independent; ego is a prison, an ugly prison. When the ego has gone your flame burns bright for the first time.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

Religion does not create guilt - if it creates guilt it is not religion. Yes, Mohammedanism, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, they create guilt. Let that be your definition of religion: if it creates guilt it is not a religion. It is something else pretending, something else garbed as religion, posing as religion - but it is not religion. Religion creates celebration, not guilt.

These are hidden things which don't want to expose themselves. These so-called religions are more political than religious. Their whole idea, desire, ambition, is how to dominate people, how to control people. And naturally, guilt is one of the best mechanisms ever evolved to control people, to dominate people. Make them feel guilty! Once they start feeling guilty they are in your control. All dictators do that, all politicians do that.

And your priest is just a politician behind the mask. The popes, the SHANKARACHARYAS, are all politicians; they are not religious people. They have a very hidden politics how to dominate humanity, how to control people, how to make slaves out of people. And, of course, there is no better trick than creating guilt. It is a psychological technique.

How does it function? To create guilt you first have to create an impossible ideal. You have to give an impossible ideal which cannot be fulfilled, which is inhuman, which is not possible at all.

For example, in India they have created guilt about sex. If you have any sex desire you start feeling like a great sinner. Sex has been condemned.

Now sex is such a natural thing - like eating, breathing. Only one thing is different about sex: it can be transcended. But there is nothing intrinsically wrong about it. One can go beyond it. And when one goes beyond it there is great freedom, there is great joy - greater than sex can ever bring. But still sex is not sin. Sex is beautiful, healthy.

But if it is condemned then you have a great trick, a great technique in your hands. Millions of people will be controlled through it because they will not be able to get beyond it. In fact, the more they think it is a sin, the less is the possibility of going beyond it - because to go beyond one has to go through. So it is very cunning to keep people in sexuality and keep them feeling guilty and keep them continuously afraid. that they are doing something wrong.

When a person feels that he is doing something wrong he is trembling inside. He cannot be a rebel.

He cannot stand on his own, he knows he is guilty. He is not good, he is not worthy enough of anything. He cannot hope to be happy. He knows he is a sinner. Hell is waiting for him. Now you can manipulate, you can do whatsoever you want to do with this man; he is available, he is ready to become a slave. This is a psychological slavery.

You have taken away his respect for himself, you have taken away his worth. He feels himself to be dirty - how can he love himself? How can he respect himself? He will be a victim of anybody who wants to control him. the parents will control him, the wife will control him, the husband will control, children will control, the society will control. Everybody will control him because something immensely valuable has been destroyed in him - his respect for himself. He has lost that. And he will remain miserable, continuously miserable. How can you be happy if you don't have any respect for yourself?

And such a natural thing as sex - and so difficult to get rid of it. Yes, people can transcend but nobody can get rid of it.

Let me tell you something. Just the other day I was reading that the psychologist Dr. Paul Cameron reports that males spend a great deal of time thinking about sex. In a survey of four thousand people he found that males between the ages of twelve and seventeen think about sex once every two minutes. This rate continues into young adulthood and drops to every five minutes in middle age - that is, forty to forty-five - and finally tails off to once every ten minutes after sixty-five.

Females give thoughts to sex every two-and-a-half minutes as teenagers - they are little more saintly, half a minute's difference - once every three minutes in young adulthood, once every ten minutes in middle age - forty to forty-five - and once every twenty minutes after sixty-five.

And that too seems to me to be just because of conditioning - because females down the ages have been conditioned more than males against sex. They were expected to remain virgins. That too is male ego.

Why? Why should you try to find a virgin to get married to? Why? The male ego. The male ego always wants to be there first, to be the first everywhere! Hence the woman has to remain a virgin.

And boys are boys. Virginity was not expected of boys, but girls were very much protected. Women have been more repressed. But out of thousands of years of repression there is only half a minute's difference. Not much.

So ladies, please, don't feel too saintly.

But this survey is very important. It shows how natural sex is. Now if you create guilt, if you make people feel that this is sin, you are destroying their respect for themselves. And you are making them afraid. And the so-called religions make you afraid that you will suffer in hell and they also make you greedy - you will have your rewards in heaven if you follow their dictates. So greed and fear.... And between the two guilt is created.

When the father of Sirhan, the assassinator of Senator Robert Kennedy, was asked why his son did it and how he could do it, the old man said, 'I just don't know. I am crushed and confused. I taught my children to fear God.'

The man said, 'I taught my children to fear God so I am very much confused about how he could do such an ugly, ghastly act, such a horrible thing.' But the old man does not know that fear of God is not a good thing. It is precisely because of the fear that he could do such a thing.

If you are too much afraid - if you are too much afraid of being yourself - then there are two possibilities: either you become a so-called false saint, you pretend to be that which you are not, or you become a criminal, you assert whatsoever is the case. But in both the ways you become abnormal. Fear creates abnormality. Either you become a saint - the so-called saint, the mahatma, a hypocrite - or you become a criminal. It depends how you react. If you are a cowardly man you will become a mahatma and if you are a brave man you will become a criminal. But both are wrong.

Neither cowardly saints and hypocrites nor brave criminals are needed.

Brave saints are needed, courageous saints are needed - that is a totally different thing. You cannot create that out of fear. And for small things man has been made so afraid.

Listen to this story....

There was a young English boy by the name of Orrie. He was from a home of very meagre circumstances. On nights when they didn't have enough food for supper, they resorted to a dish known as Sparrow Pie. He was met at the back door by his mother one day, and she told him to go for some sparrows for sparrow pie.

The best way to hunt them was to go to a group of trees in a cemetery, late in the evening. He crept carefully up - and was ready to make a mighty sweep with a big stick, when suddenly he fell into a freshly dug grave, as yet unoccupied. He tried to get out, but it had rained and the sides were as slick as glass.

He knew his mother would send someone for him, and she did - his big brother. But just as he got near the grave another terrible thing happened - his brother also fell into the grave. It was dark and he didn't know he was not alone so he pushed and shoved, but it had rained in his end of the grave as much as in the other end, and the harder he pushed and shoved, the harder he fell to the bottom. Young Orrie had enjoyed the show but knew that all good things must come to an end, so he decided to make as much of the dramatic situation as possible. He sat up very straight in his end of the grave, gathered all his diaphragmatic tones well underneath him, and with all the eerie, ghastly tones he could muster he said, 'Friend, can't you let a man rest in peace?'

There was a deadening silence in his end of the grave, then something that resembled a rocket zoomed by young Orrie's head, and his brother, who hadn't been able to make six feet to the top of the grave, made twenty feet past it on his first jump.

Fear works! Priests came to know it very early - fear works. Create fear and then you can make people do anything you want them to do. Fear creates such an intensity that one puts one's whole life at the stake.

You go to the monasteries... it is because of fear that people are in the monasteries, struggling hard with sex, with food, with sleep. It is just fear, fear of hell. Or greed - which is another aspect of the same thing. Greed and fear are two aspects of the same coin. A greedy person is an afraid person and a fearful person is a greedy person. A really courageous man has no greed and no fear. He lives his nature in a natural way.

A prominent politician, when he was a candidate for an important municipal office, said to three negroes that he would give a fat turkey to the one who would give the best reason for being a Republican.

The first one said, 'I'se a 'Publican cause de 'Publican set us darkies free.'

'Very good, Peter,' said the politician. 'Now, Bill, let me hear from you. '

'Well, I'se a 'Publican 'cause dey done give us de protective teriff.'

'Fine,' exclaimed the politician. 'Now, Sam, what do you have to say?'

'Boss,' said Sam scratching his head and shifting from one foot to the other. 'Boss, I'se a 'Publican 'cause I wants dat turkey.'

People are religious either out of fear or out of greed, they are not religious out of awareness or out of love. And all these religions which have created guilt in man have created an irreligious world.

Beware - because in you also the same mechanism has been put. Everybody carries guilt inside himself - as if you are naturally wrong, that to be natural is to be wrong. Anger is wrong, sex is wrong, joy in food is wrong, laughter is wrong... all good things seem to be wrong.

And then one goes on repressing. And howsoever you repress, nature goes on asserting. You repress it and it asserts. When-it asserts and you have to do something against your mind, then there is guilt - then you know that you have fallen again, you have committed the sin again.

Be free from guilt. If you really want to go closer to God, be free from guilt. Accept nature, welcome it. It is perfectly good.

Sex is good, sometimes anger is good. When I say 'sometimes', I mean whenever anger is spontaneous it is good. And if you allow anger its spontaneity you will never accumulate anger.

And you will not explode out of proportion. And your system will be clean, it will be a momentary thing - something happens and you respond.

If your anger is spontaneous, relevant, responsible, true to the moment, is not a reaction but a response - it has beauty. You simply say that you are alive, nothing else.

But if you go on repressing your anger - feeling that anger is wrong, anger is wrong, don't do it, when you are feeling angry, smile, go on smiling - you are gathering poison. And after a time there comes a limit; when the poison is too much it will explode. And it will explode in a situation where you will look foolish, stupid, mad, because the situation didn't demand it. Have you not observed it?

When you really become angry out of repression you are always irrelevant, your response is not to the point. It comes from the past.

For example, for many days you have been repressing anger in the office, in the marketplace, with the friends, in the club - then one day suddenly it breaks through on your child: You hit him hard.

And you pretend that you are doing it for his own good. And you know that he has just been an excuse, that the poor child is suffering absolutely unnecessarily from your anger. And the child can see that he has not done anything, not at least in the proportion that you are being hard with him. And you know that in the face of the child you have projected the face of your boss, you have projected the face of your wife, you have projected so many faces, so many situations. Now the poor child is a victim.

This anger is ugly. And this anger comes because you have been taught that anger is wrong - never be angry.

All that is spontaneous is beautiful. And I am not saying there are not states of consciousness where anger disappears - but it disappears only by being spontaneous. Anger, greed, fear, sex, all disappear. Slowly, slowly, when you have experienced life in its truth, in its reality, when you have lived it in all its possibilities, a moment comes when you grow beyond it. Then those things become toys left behind. They look childish, immature, juvenile. It is not that you condemn them and it is not that now you hope you will get to heaven - there is just nothing in them. You have not sacrificed anything, there is no sacrifice.

Mr. Khrushchev wanted to find out what people really thought of him. Naturally they would not tell him if they recognised him, so he dressed in an elaborate disguise, put on glasses and a false moustache, and flew to a small town in the Urals.

There he met a farmer and said, 'Tell me, what do you think of Khrushchev?'

The farmer answered, 'Sh-h-h-h... you crazy or some-thing?'

He looked around furtively and took the Premier inside his farmhouse. He closed all the windows, bolted the doors, pulled down the shades, then whispered, 'I like him.'

This is the situation of man - so much fear. So much fear has been put into your system, into your blood. With your very mother's milk it has gone into you. You have been brought up in fear.

If you really want to be with me, drop guilt. And the same energy that has become a guilt complex becomes celebration once it is released. Celebration is the right attitude. Celebrate all that God has given to you. I promise you that if you can celebrate all that God has given to you, you will become worthy of more.

Sex disappears one day and you become capable of love. And one day love disappears and you become capable of prayer. And one day prayer disappears and you become a God yourself. But one has to start to live that which has been given to you.

I have heard....

Sister Agnes was walking through the park near the convent when she was attacked and raped several times by her assailant.

Hearing of her horrible misfortune the Mother Superior hurried to the hospital and met the doctor on duty.

'Oh, doctor! How is poor Sister Agnes?'

'She is doing fine,' said the M.D. 'They should be through with the plastic surgery in a few hours.'

'What!' exclaimed the Mother Superior. 'Why in God's name would she need plastic surgery?'

'We are trying to get the smile off her face.'

That's what your so-called religions have done to people. Repression, repression, repression. They have not allowed you to be yourself, to be a natural being. They have crippled you, paralysed you.

Of course, it is easy to control paralysed people, it is easy to control crippled people, it is easy to dominate dead people. People who enjoy their life are difficult to control. It will be difficult to send people to war if they are really living their sex life truly. It will be impossible. Why? Why should a man who is immensely satisfied go to war? Because some stupid politicians are fighting about some stupid problems? - where the boundary should be of one country, a few miles here or a few miles there? For those stupid things can you convince people to go and die? You cannot. If they are really living their life they will laugh at the whole ridiculousness of it - 'Why?'

But right now it is just the opposite. People are so ready to go to war because they are so dead.

War gives them a feeling of life, at least some thrill. They are so bored - bored with the wife, bored with the husband, bored with the children, bored with the whole thing that is so-called life. War brings a little joy. People feel happy when there is war. You can see a subtle joy on the face of the soldiers going to the war. You can see thrill, adventure, all around. Why? Their life is so dull that in comparison even death seems to be far better.

If people's life is a celebration you cannot drive them to war. For foolish reasons - ideological, religious - you cannot drive people to war. They will simply refuse. They will laugh at the whole nonsense of it. You cannot force people to do ugly jobs, jobs that simply destroy their souls.

But dead people can be forced anywhere. You can make a man a clerk and for his whole life he will simply move files from here to there. His whole life he will shift files. There will be no joy in his life. But a guilty person cannot expect more. Even this is too much; it is God's blessing that he is employed.

Dead people will go on living. A man will go on sleeping with a woman he does not love. He is so guilty that he feels it is God's blessing that he even has a woman that is okay. A woman will go on living with a man she hates, feels repelled by. Guilty people can be forced into any hole, into any dungeon.

But when people are happy they will live their life. When they are happy they will become woodcutters, gardeners, farmers, fishermen, they will be singers, dancers, poets, painters. Or if somebody enjoys being a clerk it is another thing. Then he chooses it. But it is his CHOICE.

And people will not be so mad after money. Money is a substitute for love. When you don't get love you start trying to have more money, more money. Money is a substitute for love. That's why people who are very miserly about money are very loveless people. They cannot afford to be loving. If they are loving they cannot be miserly - these don't go together. A loving person is never a miser and a miser is never a loving person. He need no love. His love is money, his God is money, he worships money. That's enough.

Then there are power addicts who spend their whole life trying to get more and more powerful - how to reach New Delhi or Washington or Moscow. Their whole life seems to be just an effort to reach the capital. For what? Why do people enjoy power so much? Why this madness, this political madness? The reason is that they don't have any power over themselves. They need a substitute.

They can feel happy if they have power over others. A man who has power over himself need not bother. Why should he bother to have power over others? It is enough, it is more than enough that he has power over himself.

That's why in India we call a sannyasin 'swami'. 'Swami' means one who has power over himself.

His whole search is that 'I should be myself. It is enough, it is immensely satisfying, that I am a master of my own self.' That's enough. Why should you bother to be master of others?

But people are missing that basic mastery, hence they are driven into mad ways, into mad paths - politics, money, power, prestige, fame. These are all ugly things. These are neurotic things.

And religions have not only condemned it, they have created a subtle mechanism for you to condemn yourself. The priest cannot follow you everywhere, the parents cannot go with you everywhere, so they have created a very subtle mechanism - almost like an electrode of Delgado. They have put a conscience in you that goes on condemning. If the parents have said, 'Don't make love to this woman, she is not yet your wife and love is prohibited,' you may be alone with the woman, it may be a full moon night and you may be feeling like loving and she may be feeling like loving and the parents are no more there - they are far away, miles far away, maybe dead - but the conscience is there. Deep in your heart somebody goes on saying, 'Don't do this. This is wrong.' Even if you do it you will not enjoy it because the parents will go on interfering. If you don't do it you will be miserable, if you do it you will be miserable - either way you will be miserable.

I have heard....

Parents nowadays, particularly in America, are too busy even to punish their kids! Mothers are running to bingo games, fathers are running off to golf courses and bowling alleys. And mothers have their boyfriends and fathers have their girlfriends. Before they leave the house they just say, 'Son, we left a strap on the bed. If you do something wrong, hit yourself six times.'

It may not be done actually like that but that is what conscience tries to do. Hit yourself. Whenever you do something which has been taught as wrong, hit yourself, punish yourself. This is the most criminal thing to do to a child. To create a policeman in him against himself, that's what conscience is.

My whole effort here is to kill your policeman. I am not saying become irresponsible and I am not saying go mad or insane, I am saying be freed of the policeman. Rather than having a conscience, have consciousness - which is the true thing. Let consciousness decide, not conscience.

Conscience is borrowed, it is parental, it is suicidal, it is political. A man who has a conscience is never a free man, he is a slave. He is not inside a prison but the prison is inside him; the prison is there inside him. The jailor is sitting there just in his own heart, pulling his strings.

Drop this policeman. Say goodbye to it forever. Become more alert, become more loving, become more natural, become more ordinary, drop ideals. Don't try to be extraordinary - that's how you have been befooled. And don't try to become perfect images of something which does not exist in reality.

Don't try to become a Christ or a Buddha or a Krishna. Just try to become yourself - that's what God wants you to be. If he had wanted Buddhas he would have created more Buddhas. He never creates again. Once is enough. He has created you as a unique human being. Respect this unique human being that you are and live it authentically.

Drop all guilt, fear, greed. Enjoy each moment of life as a great blessing from God, a BARAKA.

The last question:

Question 5:

Who will be studying? You will be studying. When you read a statement of Jesus, who will interpret it to you? You will interpret it. The statement will no longer be Jesus', it will become yours. You will have pulled it down to your level.

How can you read scriptures unless you attain to that consciousness out of which the j flowed? If you want to understand Krishna, his Geeta, you will have to attain to Krishna consciousness. There is no other way, otherwise you will corrupt the scripture. when I say 'Please burn the scriptures' I am not against the scriptures, I am trying to save them, otherwise you will corrupt them. If you want to understand Jesus you will have to attain to Christ consciousness - at least a little bit. When a little window opens in your heart that gives you a vision of the sky that was fully available to Jesus - only then. Otherwise you will go on interpreting in your own way.

That's what is happening always. Rather than learning the word, learn the ways of being more conscious.

The young convert worked as a clerk in a store operated on strictly Christian principles.

One day an elegant lady came in to buy some tapestry. Producing a roll from the lowest shelf, he said, 'This is 1.98ayard, madam.

'Young man, I can afford the very best and I want the very best,' the prospective customer declared.

'Well, this is

'Young man, I don't think you understand - I want the very best!' the customer said emphatically.

The clerk reached another roll of 2.98qualitymaterial. W ehavethisoneat9.98 a yard,' he said.

'Fine,' responded the customer, 'that's just what I want!'

The owner came into the store later and was told of the transaction.

'But how can you reconcile a deal such as that with the scripture?' he asked - because the store was run strictly on Christian principles.

Scratching his head, the young man replied, 'She was a stranger and I took her in.'

He is quoting a scripture!

Or this beauty....

It was somewhat disconcerting to the minister's wife to hear him exclaim, 'Oh Jesus, sweet Jesus!' every time he reached orgasm and she finally asked him about it.

'It is perfectly proper, my dear, and in accordance with the Bible,' he answered her. 'Don't you remember where it says "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord"?'