The Original Signature

The first question:

Question 1:

First, I have never come across an ordinary person; they do not exist. They are only created by egoistic people. The egoist has to create the ordinary - that is the only way the ego can exist, persist. Not a single human being is ordinary because each human being is so unique. Each human being is created by God - how can he be ordinary? God never creates the ordinary. All his creation is rare. Each individual is so unique that he is never repeated. You never were before, you will never be again. You cannot find anybody who is just like you.

Forget about human beings.... Not even animals, not even trees, not even pebbles on a seashore - not even two pebbles - are alike. Wherever you find God's signature, it is always the original, never the ordinary.

God is not a manufacturer, he is a creator. He does not manufacture people like Cars on an assembly line. You can have many Ford cars exactly alike - that's the difference between a machine and a man. A machine can be duplicated, a man cannot be duplicated. and the moment you start duplicating, imitating, you become more like a machine - then you are no longer respectful towards your humanity. That's how robopathology is created.

You ask me: SURELY MEDITATION IS FOR MYSTICS. It is for mystics, surely, but everybody is a born mystic - because everybody carries a great mystery within him which has to be realised, everybody carries a great potentiality which has to be actualised. Everybody is born with a future.

Everybody has hope. What do you mean by a mystic? A mystic is one who is trying to realise the mystery of life, who is moving into the unknown, who is going into the uncharted, whose life is a life of adventure, exploration.

But every child starts that way - with awe, with wonder, with great enquiry in his heart. Every child is a mystic. somewhere on the way of your so-called growing you lose contact with your inner possibility of being a mystic, and you become a businessman or you become a clerk or you become a collector or you become a minister. You become something else. And you start thinking that you are this. And when you believe it, it is so.

My effort here is to destroy your wrong notions about yourself and to liberate your mysticism.

Meditation is a way of liberating the mysticism, and it is for everybody - without any exception, it knows no exception.

SURELY MEDITATION IS FOR MYSTICS. WHY DO YOU PROPOSE IT FOR ORDINARY PEOPLE AND THEIR CHILDREN?

There is no one ordinary, and children are the most capable. They are natural mystics. And before they are destroyed by the society, before they are destroyed by other robots, by other corrupted people, it is better to help them to know something of meditation.

Meditation is not a conditioning, because meditation is not indoctrination. Meditation is not giving them any creed. If you teach a child to become Christian you have to give him a doctrine; you have to force him to believe things which naturally look absurd. You have to tell the child that Jesus was born out of a virgin mother - that becomes a fundamental. Now you are destroying the natural intelligence of the child. If he does not believe you, you are angry, and of course you are powerful and you can punish the child. You can torture the child in many ways. If he believes you it goes against his intrinsic intelligence. It looks like nonsense to him, but he has to compromise with you.

And once he has compromised he starts losing his intelligence, he becomes stupid.

If you teach a child to be a Mohammedan, then again you will have to teach him a thousand and one absurdities. And so is the case with Hinduism and with all kinds of creeds, dogmas. If you teach a child meditation you are not indoctrinating him. You don't say he has to believe anything, you simply invite him to an experiment in no-thought. No-thought is not a doctrine, it is an experience. And children are very, very capable because they are very close to the source. They have just come from God! They still remember something of that mystery. They have just come from the other world, they have not yet forgotten it completely. Sooner or later they will forget, but still the fragrance is around them. That's why all children look so beautiful, so graceful. Have you even seen an ugly child?

Then what happens to all these beautiful children? Where do they disappear to? Later in life it is very rare to find beautiful people . Then what happens to all beautiful children? Why do they turn into ugly persons? What accident, what calamity happens on the way?

They start losing their grace the day they start losing their intelligence. They start losing their natural rhythm, their natural elegance and they start learning plastic behaviour. They no longer laugh spontaneously, they no longer cry spontaneously, they no longer dance spontaneously. You have forced them into a cage, a strait-jacket. You have imprisoned them.

The chains are very subtle, they are not very visible. The chains are of thought - Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan. You have chained the child and he cannot see the chains, so he will not be able to see how he is chained. And he will suffer his whole life. It is such an imprisonment. It is not like throwing a man into a jail. It is creating a jail around a man, so wherever he goes the j ail continues around him. He can go to the Himalayas and sit in a cave, and he will remain a Hindu, he will remain a Christian - and he will still think thoughts.

Meditation is a way to go within yourselves to that depth where thoughts don't exist, so it is not indoctrination. It is not teaching you anything, in fact, it is just making you alert to your inner capacity to be without thought, to be without mind. And the best time is when the child is still uncorrupted.

The second question:

Question 2:

Perfection, the idea of perfection, is an ugly idea. A perfectionist is a neurotic. Perfectionism is a psychological disease.

So the first thing to be remembered is that I am not for any kind of perfection. I want you to be whole, but not perfect; 1 want you to be total, but not perfect. Avoid perfection because per-fection means death; perfection means that now there is no more growth. Perfection means an existential cul-de-sac - you have come to the end of your tether. Now there is nowhere to go, you are stuck and stuck forever - you are perfect.

Just think of the horrible situation - that you are stuck, nowhere to go, nothing to do, no possibility to grow, no direction to flow. You are just there like a rock.

Life is a flow. Imperfection is beautiful. Be total, and never strive for perfection. What is the difference? When I say, 'Be total' I mean that whatsoever you do, do it totally, not perfectly - these are two different dimensions. You have been taught to be perfect.

For example, if you are angry the perfectionist will say, 'This is not right. Drop anger.' Anger cannot be allowed in a perfect human being; a perfect human being cannot be angry. That's why in India the so-called religious people cannot respect Jesus very much because there are moments when he became angry. In the temple he became angry. He turned over the boards of the money-changers, all alone. He threw them all out of the temple. He was really angry. Now Hindus will say, 'This is not perfection. Jesus getting angry? This simply means he is an imperfect human being.'

Perfectionism will say 'no anger'. In fact, the perfectionist's idea is no love either - because if you are loving that too shows some need. So Jainas don't say that Mahavira was loving, they simply say he was non-violent. Now this is a very ugly way to describe such a loving man - to describe him through a negative, just to say that he was non-violent, that he would not hurt anybody. That's all. But he would not love. How could he love? He was perfect. He had no need for any human relationship, all his needs had disappeared.

Love is a need. You want to love and you want to be loved. This is how imperfection goes. Mahavira is perfect, he cannot love. So Jainas depict him as being almost cold. That coldness is the coldness of death.

Perfectionism goes on denying all that is human. Perfectionism is a kind of inhuman ideal. You cannot think of Buddha crying, you cannot visualise tears coming to Buddha's eyes.

It happened that a great Zen Master died, and his disciple - the chief disciple - started crying.

Thousands of people had gathered and they had all believed that this disciple had attained to enlightenment. And now he was crying. So a few of them told him, 'This doesn't look good. It goes against your prestige. People think that you have become enlightened, and you are crying!

What will they think about you?'

The disciple said, 'I can drop being enlightened, but I cannot be untrue.'

They said, 'But you have been telling us that the soul never dies. So if your Master is still there, why are you crying?'

The disciple said, 'I am not crying for the soul - the soul is eternal - but I am crying for his body. His body was so beautiful, and it will never be again. Can't I even cry for it? I will never see my Master's body again!'

Now the traditional Buddhist will not accept this - that an enlightened person can cry. These are the perfectionist ideals. You have to take away all that is human - then what is left behind is just a marble statue.

I teach totality. If you are crying, then be total in it, then let your whole heart cry. Then don't be so-so, don't be lukewarm, just go into it. In that moment let crying he your total being. Let tears come from every pore of your being. If you are angry then be totally angry - as Jesus was angry in the temple.

Whatsoever happens, be total in it!

And now I would like to say something very paradoxical: if you can be totally in anger, by and by it disappears. If you can be totally in anything, there comes a great transformation; the whole energy changes because you start understanding what anger is. It is not that you drop it by conscious effort, deliberately, but simply because of understanding it is no longer relevant. Or, if sometimes it is needed, there is no hindrance either. You can be angry. I love Jesus because he could be angry.

He was so human. Buddha looks inhuman - at least eh way he is depicted is inhuman. Mahavira is utterly inhuman - at least the way he is described in the Jaina scriptures. That's how he looks... as if he has no heart.

But that is the goal of the perfectionist. Jesus is more human. Many times Jesus goes on saying in the Bible 'I am the Son of Man.' Sometimes he says 'I am the Son of God' and sometimes 'I am the Son of Man.' He says both things. He is saying, 'I am both - as perfect as God and as imperfect as man. As high as God and as low as man - I am a bridge between these two.'

I teach you totality. Be total - whatsoever you are doing. If you love, love totally. If you are angry, then be totally in anger. Cold anger is a sin! Hot anger is perfectly human. Cold anger has to be avoided. But that's what happens when you have the ideal, the perfect ideal of not being angry - that's what happens. Anger is there because you have never been able to understand it. How can you understand it if you have never been totally angry? Only in a total flame of anger does one understand, does one encounter it. So you go on repressing. On the surface you keep a mask that you are not angry, deep inside you go on boiling, ready to explode like a volcano. So what will you do? You will have to learn how to remain cold on the surface, ice-cold. And if you are ice-cold on the surface, you will go on doing things which are angry - only you will not show your anger. And in a hot anger there is something beautiful - it is a man in his energy, in his radiance. In a cold anger there is only death. If somebody gets angry and hits you, you can forgive him; but if somebody remains perfectly cold and hits you, you will be never able to forgive him.

That's why even in the courts a distinction is made. If a man became too angry, enraged, and murdered somebody, his crime is not that big. But if a man remained cold, calculating, arranged everything perfectly, and did the whole thing in a mathematical way, planned it in detail, beforehand, then he is the most dangerous man. It was not on the spur of the moment, it was a planned thing.

For months he calculated when to commit the murder, how to commit the murder, how to commit it perfectly so he would not be caught. All over the world courts make a difference - this man is really dangerous, this man is really a criminal.

In the spur of the moment sometimes you do something. You were not really trying to kill the other; it may have happened just accidentally - yes, you became angry. Remember, I am not teaching anger, I am simply teaching totality. Through totality anger disappears, but you never become perfect, you always remain growing.

Remain growing.

You ask me: IS THERE ANYBODY IN THE WORLD WHO IS PERFECT? I am reminded of this small story.

At a revival meeting tee evangelist exclaimed, Who is the most perfect man? Is there such a being?

If anybody has ever seen the perfect man, let him stand now.'

A small nervous man rose in the rear of the hall. The evangelist gazed at him in astonishment. 'Do you mean to say, sir, that you know who the perfect man is?'

'I certainly do!'

'Who may he be?'

'My wife's first husband!'

That is the only way to find a perfect man - your wife's first husband.

The perfect man is brought in only to condemn somebody - hence your wife's first husband. She wants to condemn you so she creates an image of her first husband as the perfect man. Then in comparison she can condemn you.

The priests have imagined Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira, as perfect men - to condemn ordinary humanity, to condemn natural human beings, to condemn you. Buddha was growing to the very last moment of his life; on the very verge of death he was growing. Growth is life, aliveness. But the Buddha imagined by the Buddhist is not the real Buddha, it is an image painted perfect in order to condemn you. You can only be condemned if there is an image to be compared with, otherwise how can you be condemned? Once the perfect man is painted you are in trouble. You will start feeling guilty. How am I to become a Buddha? When? And you can never become a Buddha because even Buddha was not Like that! Nobody has ever been like that. That is just in the scriptures. It is a strategy of the priests.

That's why when Buddha is alive you are not so interested in him. The priest is not interested at all.

People are not so interested when Buddha is alive, because he is alive with all his imperfections.

Life needs imperfections! He is fallible! And you will go and you will have old ideas that Krishna was perfect and Rama was perfect and Moses was perfect, and you will compare Buddha with them - and he is still alive so he is still imperfect. And those comparisons will tell you, 'No, he may be a good man, but he has not yet arrived.'

Once he is gone then the painters are at work, then the dreamers and the poets gather together, and the scholars, and they create a perfect Buddha. Unreal - so unreal that it sometimes becomes ridiculous. Even the size.... They cannot depict Buddha as six feet tall. How can Buddha be six feet tall? He has to be bigger than all human beings.

In Ceylon there is a temple in Kandy where a tooth of Buddha is worshipped. It is preserved. And it is not the tooth of Buddha, it is not even the tooth of a human being. It must belong to some ape - it is so big! If Buddha had that kind of tooth he would have been a very ugly man. But it is worshipped and you cannot point out to them what a ridiculous thing they are doing! This is not a human tooth. Now scientists have been working on it and they have proved that this is not human - but who listens? They say Buddha was so big - the size!

If you go into Jaina scriptures you will be surprised. Their ancient Masters, old ancient TEERTHANKARAS, are depicted as a thousand feet, two thousand feet, three thousand feet high.

And they lived for thousands of years! Just false ideas. But why have these false ideas been created? To condemn you. The priest needs some way to make you feel guilty.

Mahavira does not perspire. He stands naked in the hot north Indian sun and he does not perspire.

How can Mahavira perspire? No perspiration ever comes. He has never to relieve himself, he does not go to defecate or urinate, no. Everything simply disappears in him. This seems to be the most chronic case of constipation. He never goes! How can the priest afford, how can the priest allow Mahavira to do such ordinary things like sitting on a toilet? It will look so absurd. Just imagine...

Mahavira sitting on a toilet? It doesn't look good, it doesn't look good at all. He looks perfectly good in a yoga posture sitting under a tree. Foolish ideas. And this is how all thinking has continued down the centuries .

Remember, life is growth. Growth is possible only when you are imperfect. There is nothing wrong in being imperfect. There is no need to try to become perfect. If you try to become perfect you will create anguish for yourself, anxiety; you will create great tension for yourself; you will start living in hell.

The very idea of perfection brings the future into the mind. You cannot be perfect right now. You can be total right now but you cannot be perfect right now. For perfection you will have to work hard - many, many lives. One life will not be enough. Then after thousands of lives you may be perfect. So perfection is in the future, and you can only go on postponing. Today you have to live like an imperfect human being and tomorrow you can hope that you will become a perfect being. You remain the same. Your idea of perfection simply makes you guilty, it does not transform you.

The idea of totality transforms you immediately because it can be done right now. If you are listening to me, listen totally. If you don't want to listen to me, don't come at all. Nobody is forcing you to come.

Then be somewhere else. Sit in a movie house or in a hotel, but be total there. Sitting in a movie house, don't think about me; sitting here, don't think about the movie house. Wherever you are, be totally in tune there, and then you start growing fast and your life starts becoming richer. Each moment of totality brings new treasures.

But I will tell you one thing again: you will never become perfect, you will always remain open to more growth. That is the meaning when we say that God is eternal. Let me say it to you - even God is not perfect. A perfect God is a dead God. God is also growing. God is exploding every moment into new creativity, new songs, new joy. God is evolving.

Because of the Christian concept of perfection there was great conflict between the idea of evolution and the Christian Church - because Christians thought that when God created the world, a perfect God was bound to create a perfect world, so how could there be evolution? That was the basic problem between the Church and the Darwinians - 'How can God create an imperfect world - and then it starts evolving? No. God has created it perfect, it is the same world. Now there is no need to grow, it cannot grow. How can it be better? It is the most perfect world as it is.'

Darwin brought in this concept of evolution. Christians were very angry with him. He was destroying the very roots of their perfect God and the perfect world. But by and by they had to accept defeat - because the idea of evolution is a true idea. Darwin never dared to say that God is also evolving, but I would like to say to you that it is not only that the world is evolving, even God is evolving. It is not only that the creation is evolving, the Creator is also evolving. In fact, everything goes on evolving, and there is no end to it. The journey is eternal. There will never come a moment when things will stop and somebody will declare, 'Now everything has become perfect.' And it is good that perfection is not possible. Feel blessed that perfection is not possible.

The third question:

Question 3:

First, you are not, not yet, so you cannot take any respon-sibility for yourself First you have to be to take responsibility for yourself. You are carrying only a false idea of the ego; that ego is not you.

And the true you has nothing to do with the ego.

The idea of surrendering creates a problem in the mind only because you can't make a distinction between the real self and the unreal self. When you surrender, you surrender only the unreal; the real cannot be surrendered. You surrender only the ego, you don't surrender the self. And by surrendering the ego you become for the first time yourself. It is not paradoxical, it is not contradictory, because you never were the ego. That was just an illusion in the mind. Who are you? Do you know exactly who you are? If you try to ponder over it you will find that you don't know, and all that you know means nothing. That you belong to a certain family, that this is your name, that this is your caste, that this is your religion - that makes no sense at all. It does not say anything about you. You can change your Church, and one day you can come across some papers that prove that your father was not your father, that somebody else was your father, but still you will remain you.

One day you can come to know that the mother who was pretending to be your mother was not your real mother - you were adopted by her when you were a child. But that will not make any change in you; you remain the same. So who are YOU? Your name can be changed very easily and you will not change.

So there is something inside you which you are not yet aware of. By surrendering you surrender only this so called ego - this false idea of oneself. And when you surrender it, the possibility to be your real self opens. So there is no contradiction really, it is only apparent.

You ask: I CAN'T FIND THE SYNTHESIS BETWEEN SURRENDERING AND TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR ONESELF.... There is no need for any synthesis because there is no contradiction. They are not opposite, they are one phenomenon. You surrender the false and you become the real. By surrendering the false you become the real. And only then can you take responsibility for yourself, only then can you grow mature.

But one thing.... You ask: I CAN'T FIND THE SYNTHESIS BETWEEN SURRENDERING AND TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR ONESELF OR GROWING MATURE AND INDEPENDENT.

Maturity knows nothing of independence. Imma-turity knows two things: dependence and independence. Both are immature states of mind. Maturity knows interdependence. In maturity you disappear so utterly that you become part of the whole. A mature person is neither dependent nor independent. A mature person has no claim to any separation from existence, he is one with existence.

Please don't try to create any synthesis. Just look into the fact that you are not yet.

A man came to Gurdjieff and said, 'I would like to serve humanity.'

Gurdjieff looked at him and laughed. And he said, 'But where are you? I don't see you anywhere. I am sorry to say it to you but you don't exist! Who is going to serve humanity?'

A similar case is reported in Buddhist scriptures.

A man came to Buddha and said, 'I have much money. I have much power.' He was one of the richest men of those days. And he said, 'Just tell me how to serve people, how to serve humanity.'

And it is said Buddha became very silent. He closed his eyes. The man was disturbed, confused.

He became restless. He asked, 'Why have you closed your eyes, and why do you look so sad?'

Buddha opened his eyes and he said, 'I feel great compassion for you. You want to serve humanity, and you are not. First be!'

That is a basic requirement: first be! By surrendering, for the first time you attain to that beinghood.

You surrender all that you are not, you surrender only the false, you surrender only the PERSONA, YOU surrender only the mask, you surrender that which you think you have but you don't have.

And by surrendering that which you think you have and you don't have, you attain to that which you already have and you have had always. The false has just to disappear for the real to be revealed.

This is growth.

But growth never makes you independent. The very idea of independence is still a hangover from those days of dependence. You are still thinking in terms of dependence or independence. A mature person is not separate, he is not an island. He has merged with this infinite continent of existence.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

See the dictionary under the letter 'h' - only there will you find happiness always. In life things are very mixed up. Day and night are together, so are happiness and unhappiness. Life and death are together, so is everything. Life is rich because of polar opposites. The very idea that one would like to be happy forever is stupid. the very idea will create only unhappiness and nothing else. You will become more and more miserable because more and more you will be missing your so-called eternal happiness. Your greed is too much.

Then who is the happy person? The happy person is not one who is always happy. The happy person is one who is happy even when there is unhappiness. Try to understand it. The happy per-son is one who understands life and accepts its polarities. He knows success is possible only because failure is also possible. So when failure comes he accepts it.

I remember one incident of my childhood. A great wrestler had come to my town. Everybody was very interested in wrestling, so the whole town had gathered. I have seen many people and many wrestlers in my life but he was really rare. He had something of Zen in him.

For ten days the wrestling continued, and every day he defeated a famous wrestler. Finally he was declared to be the winner. The day he was declared to be the winner he went around and touched the feet of all the ten persons whom he had defeated.

Everybody was puzzled about why he did it. I was a small child, I went to him and I asked him, 'Why did you do that? This is strange.'

He said, 'It is only because of them that I am victorious. It is only because of them. If they had not been defeated, if they had not allowed themselves to be defeated, I would not be victorious. So I owe it to them. Without them how could I be victorious? My victory depends on their defeat, my victory is not independent of them. So really I feel greatly thankful to them. There was only one possibility: either I was to be defeated or they were to be defeated. And they are good people, they accepted defeat.'

This is a very Sufi or Zen idea. Things are interdependent: failure/success, happiness/unhappiness, summer/winter, youth/old age, beauty/ugliness - all are interdependent, they exist together. And the man who starts seeking one pole against the other pole is getting into unnecessary trouble. It is not possible, he is desiring the impossible; and he will get very frustrated.

Then what should the attitude be? When happiness comes, enjoy happiness; when unhappiness comes, enjoy unhappiness. When there is happiness, dance with it; when there is unhappiness, cry with it. That's what I mean when I say 'Enjoy'. Unhappiness is a must. If you can accept unhappiness as smoothly as you welcome happiness, you will transcend both. In that very acceptance is transcendence. Then unhappiness and happiness will not make much difference to you, you will remain the same. When there is sadness you will have a taste of it; and when there is joy you will have a taste of it. And sometimes bitter things also taste beautiful.

And sadness has something of depth in it which no happiness can ever have. Happiness has something shallow. Laughter always looks shallow, tears always look deep. If you want to be happy always you will become a shallow person, a superficial person. Sometimes it is good to fall into the depths, dark depths, dismal depths of sadness. Both are good. And one should be total in both.

Whatsoever happens, go totally into it. When crying, become the crying, and when dancing, become the dance. Then the ultimate happens to you. By and by you forget the distinction between what happiness is and what unhappiness is. You enjoy both! So by and by the distinction disappears.

And when the distinction has disappeared, there arises something which is eternally there, which remains always there. That is witnessing, that is SAKSHIN. And Sufis say that if you can become a witness of all that happens to you, you have arrived home.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

Because there are so many types of people, because there are so many different kinds of people.

Religion is one, but the languages of religion are different. The Jew understands one language, the Christian understands another language. The difference is of language. The Hindu speaks still another language - but all differences are linguistic. Just as English can be translated into French and French can be translated into Italian and there is no conflict, so Christianity can be translated into Hinduism, Hinduism can be translated into Judaism - there is no problem. One just needs clarity to see.

A religious person will see that there is only one religion in the world - although many are the manifestations. And there is nothing wrong. It is good. If these religions don't fight with each other and don't nag each other, it is perfectly good, it is enriching. It makes the world more livable, more lovable. Just think of a town where there are only temples and no mosque and no church and no synagogue. The town is a little less rich. When there are all kinds of temples and all kinds of shrines and all kinds of prayers going on, it is beautiful. God can be worshipped in many ways. And you have to choose your way.

The problem is not why there are so many religions, the problem is their conflict, their constant antagonism about each other, their constant enmity. That is the problem. If this enmity disappears I don't see any problem. In fact, in a better world there will be even more religions than there are now, because basically each person is so individual and so unique that he will have his own religion, he will have his own version. In fact. that's how the reality is: two Christians are not alike. Even while praying in the same church and reading the same Bible, two Christians are not alike. Their approaches will remain a little different. Their approaches will keep something of their individuality, something of their colour. Something of their minds will be there.

Conflict should disappear; there should arise a friendship. They are all working for God, why should they be in conflict? The conflict comes because of the politics in it. The Christian priest wants the whole world to be Christian. In just the same way the communist wants the whole world to be communist. Why bother about the whole world? If there are a few beautiful Christians that is more than enough. They should be Christians, that is the thing. They should live in Christ, that is the thing. Now that you have a big crowd behind you, what does that crowd matter, how does it matter?

But the crowd creates power in the world of politics.

If you have many Catholics, Catholicism is more powerful. Then the pope of the Vatican becomes more powerful. If you have more Hindus, then the Shankaracharya of Puri becomes more powerful.

It is really power-politics.

People are different and they all need different approaches towards God. One should remember only one thing: that one is moving towards God. How he is moving, in what garb, with what language he prays, is irrelevant. But the conflict is there, the politics is there, and the politics is a shadow of egos.

So many religions are not the problem, many egos are the problem.

I have heard....

A Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Methodist and a Roman Catholic met by agreement to dine on fish. As soon as grace was said, the Catholic rose, armed with knife and fork, and taking about one third of the fish, including the head, removed it to his place saying, 'The pope is the head of the church.'

Immediately the Methodist minister stood up and helped himself to about one third, including the tail, saying, 'The end crowns the work.'

The Presbyterian taking the remainder of the fish to his plate, exclaimed, 'Truth lies between the two extremes.'

The Baptist had nothing before him but an empty plate and the prospect of a slim dinner. So seizing a bowl of melted butter, he dashed it over them exclaiming, 'I baptize you all!'

This is what goes on. These are egos in conflict - not reli-gions. How can religions be in conflict?

These are egos, subtle egos. Beware of these egos, these egos are working in you too.

If you are a lover of truth then all manifestations of truth will be welcome to you. You would not like to convert a Hindu to Christianity or a Christian to Hinduism. Your whole prayer will be that the Christian should really become a Christian and the Hindu should become a real Hindu. And a real Hindu and a real Christian are exactly the same thing, precisely the same thing.

Remember, if the world becomes almost of one religion there will be such monotony, it will be so boring. It will not be good. Just think if the whole world were to become of one religion, were to come under one Church and one fold. It would be sheer boredom, intolerable. There is much joy because of the variety. In everything variety is good. There are so many trees. Just think - one kind of tree all over the earth.... Who would look at those trees? Even if it is rose bushes all over the earth - who would look at the rose bushes? The variety is a kind of celebration. Thousands of colours and thousands of kinds of animals and trees and birds - everything is rich with difference, with distinction.

And this should be the case in every dimension of life.

Rabbi Hirsch was sitting in the confessional box with Father Dolan to learn the principles of the Catholic religion. Two woman confessed to having made love with their boyfriends, and when questioned further, admitted that it was not once but three times. As penance they were told to say three prayers and put ten dollars in the poor box.

Just then the phone rang and Father Dolan was called away to give the last sacraments to a dying man. 'You stay here and confess the rest of these people,' said the priest to the rabbi. 'It is Saturday night and they won't otherwise be able to take communion tomorrow. After all, it is all one God, just be sure to get the ten dollars.'

He left and Rabbi Hirsch sat nervously in the box. The first girl to enter confessed to having relations with her lover. 'Three times?' asked the rabbi.

'Just once, Father.'

'You are sure it was not three times?'

'No, Father, just once.'

'I will tell you what. Go back and do it twice more. We have got a special this week. Three for ten dollars.'

But this variety is good! Or, listen to this....

A priest and rabbi happened to find themselves sharing a first class carriage on a long rail journey.

They argued without rancour about the truths of religion until the priest, feeling he was getting the worst of it, said rather sharply, 'Look here, Rabbi, on your oath as a man of religion, can you swear you never enjoyed the taste of pork?'

The rabbi coloured up, wrestled with his conscience a moment, and said, 'Very well, Father, I will admit it. I have eaten pork. '

'And it was very nice, wasn't it?' exclaimed the triumphant man of Rome.

The rabbi retired behind his Jewish Times in a long and thoughtful silence. suddenly, re-emerging he said, 'I say, Father.....'

'Yes, Brother, what is it?'

'Can you swear as a Christian priest that you have never enjoyed sex with a girl out of the flock?'

The priest tried to beg off, but the rabbi insisted. 'The truth, come on, the truth!'

'Well, Rabbi, I confess it, I have.'

'Nicer than pork, isn't it?'

It is good - different kinds of people, different varieties of religion, different standpoints, different approaches - all is good. Just there should be no conflict. There need not be. Egos should disappear, not religions. If egos disappear then there can be as many religions as you like. and it will be very fulfilling because everybody can find his own way, choose his own way.

My own idea about religion is that nobody should be given a religion by birth. Birth should not be involved in it. A child should be given a chance to watch all kinds of religions possible. He should be allowed to go to the synagogue, to the church, to the temple, to the GURUDWARA. He should be helped in every way; he should be introduced to all kinds of religious varieties going around so that he can choose on his own. The parents should help him to become alert about all the varieties of religion - they should not try to impose any religion on him. Then if he finds that he would like to become a Sikh, perfectly good. With all blessings he should become a Sikh; he should start going to the GURUDWARA . If he thinks he would like to become a Buddhist, that's perfectly good.

In a better world with more understanding there will be many religions in every family - the father is a Buddhist, the mother is a Christian, the son is a Hindu, the daughter has become a Mohammedan, and so on, so forth. Each family should have all kinds of varieties, and it will be a richer life. And the family will have more understanding, more religiousness, because all the people searching in different ways will bring new understandings and pour them into the pool of the family. There is no need to create politics; there is no need to be so afraid of each other. One should be more available.

And if you are not feeling good being a Hindu, if you don't feel that it fits with you, it is perfectly right to become a Christian or to become a Mohammedan. Or if you are not feel-ing good being a Mohammedan, it is perfectly good, you can choose. It is not a betrayal! In fact, if you don't like being a Mohammedan and you remain a Mohammedan you are betraying God because your search will be betrayed. If you hate the whole idea of Mohammedanism and you remain a Mohammedan because you have been brought up as a Mohammedan, because accidentally you were born in a Mohammedan family, then you will be a religionless person. Your Mohammedanism will not make you joyous and you cannot change your Mohammedanism. And maybe the Hindu temple was the right place for you - where you could have danced, where you could have come closer to God.

Religion should be by choice, not by birth, and there should be as many religions as there are types of people.

The sixth question:

Question 6:

First: the creation of a new tradition is the only way to perpetuate the old, the only way. The old has to become new again and again. Only then can it be perpetuated. It is like Buddha attaining enlightenment sitting under a Bodhi tree near Bodhgaya.... That tree has existed, not exactly the same tree, but again and again branches of the tree were planted - three times it has happened.

The old tree died and when the tree was dying a branch was planted. Then that tree also died, but before it died another branch was planted. It comes in the same conti-nuum. It is not the same tree in a sense, just as your son is not you in a sense, but it is the same tree in another sense - just as your son is another you in a sense, your continuity.

Each time the world consciousness takes a new turn, a new religion has to be born - and this new religion will in a sense be absolutely new, and in a sense absolutely old. It will contain all that is true in all the old traditions but it will be a new birth, a new body. The wine will be old but the bottle will be new.

Truth cannot be new or old, it is the same truth always. It has no difference in time. That truth Buddha attained is the truth I have attained. That truth I have attained is the truth you will attain. It is not that truths are many - truth is one. But Buddha's language is no longer relevant; my language is relevant. Buddha was talking two thousand five hundred years ago to a different kind of people, to a different kind of society, to a different kind of mind. Naturally, he had to speak a language that those people were able to understand. I speak to a different kind of world, to a different kind of time, to a different kind of mind. I have to speak a different language. Truth is the same, the wine is the same, just the bottle is different.

You ask me: OSHO, YOU ARE QUOTED AS BEING HERE TO PROCLAIM A NEW TRADITION, NOT TO PERPETUATE THE OLD. To proclaim a new tradition is the only way to perpetuate the old.

If you go on insisting on the old, you insist on something dead. If you cling to the old, you cling to the past. Each time, each age, has to discover truth on its own, has find its own way of expressing it, its own way of dancing it, its own way of singing it, its own gospel, its own scripture, its own Master.

Each age has to find truth again and again. It is the same truth but it has to be found again and again.

It is not like science. In science you discover one thing and it is discovered forever. Then there is no need to rediscover it. Religious truth is utterly different; it has to be rediscovered again and again. Only then does it remain alive. I am proclaiming a new religion. But how can religion be new? It is the ancientmost truth. But this is the only way to give it a new body and a new dress and a new language and new concepts, and a new stir and a new thrill - to make it alive for you. I am bringing the same religion for you that was brought by others for others. It is new in a sense; it is the ancientmost in another sense.

So those who understand me, they will find.... If they have loved Jesus, they will find Jesus in me; if they have loved Buddha, they will find Buddha in me; if they have loved Mohammed, they will find Mohammed in me. That's why so many people have gathered around me. It is a rare phenomenon.

Hindus are here, Jainas are here, Buddhists are here, Muslims are here, Christians are here, Jews are here. You can find all varieties of all kinds of people around here. It is rare; it has never happened this way before.

It could not happen this way before because it is only in this twentieth century that the consciousness has become so alert about stupid things. It has become so alert about superstitions that is ready to drop them. If I had spoken the language that I speak in a Mohammedan country one thousand years ago, I would have been killed the first day, the very first day. It was not pos-sible, but now it is possible. You can ask Krishna Mohammed, you can ask Radha Mohammed.... I have Mohammedan sannyasins here. This is a rare phenomenon. They love me; they don't find any conflict between me and Mohammed. In fact, they find Mohammed in me. Through me they become better Mohammedans.

Jews are here, a great number of Jews are here. Jews are ordinarily very orthodox people. They have persisted in their own idea that they are the chosen people of God, that the real religion belongs to them, that God has spoken only to them. Jews could not accept their own son, Jesus, but fifty per cent of you here are Jews. You will be surprised - fifty per cent! And it is not an exaggeration, it may be more. This is rare. You could not accept Jesus, your own son, but you can accept me. What has happened?

This twentieth century brings a new consciousness into the world, it is a quantum leap. Now you can see. now you are no longer bothered by language and words. You can see deep into my eyes and you can see the same truth as is revealed in Moses or as is revealed in Baal Shem.

I am proclaiming a new religion - the essential religion. In Islam it is known as Sufism, in Buddhism it is known as Zen, in Judaism it is known as Hassidism - the essential core. But I speak your language, I speak the way you understand, the way you can understand. I speak-a very religionless language. I speak as if I am not religious at all. That's what is needed in this world. This twentieth century needs a religion completely free from all kinds of superstitions, utterly nude, naked.

This century is trained in the ways of science, is trained very logically. Never before was any other human society so logically trained. I am talking about something which is basically illogical but I have to talk in a logical way. If you go to a Sufi he talks about the illogical in an illogical way. I talk about the illogical in a logical way. If you go to a Zen Master he simply talks in an illogical way. You will not be able to make a bridge between you and him. With me, the bridge is very easy. I go with you to take you with me further.

First, I go with you. I make you perfectly happy that I am coming with you. Sooner or later you forget when things change and you start coming with me. I am ready to come into your valley - the darkest valley, wherever you are - I am ready to come into your unconscious cave... and in the way you want. I am ready to come there. Once I have entered there I can bring you out. That is the only meaning when I say, 'I proclaim a new religion.'

And you ask me: HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE? The future is great because the present is great. I don't think about the future, the present is more than enough. But if the present is so beautiful then the future is going to be great - it will be born out of this present. That future will contain this present. We need not worry about the future, we need not be prophetic about the future, we need not say a single thing about the future. We should be joyous and happy in this moment, and the next moment will be coming out of this moment. It will be suffused with the celebration of this moment, and, naturally, it will lead you into a higher celebration.

The future is going to come out of this present.

There are two kinds of people: one who goes on thinking about the future, not bothering about the present at all. That future is not going to come, that future is just a fool's imagination. I don't think about the future. I am a totally different kind of person. I don't think about the future at all, it is irrelevant. My whole effort is how to beautify this present moment, how to make people more celebrating, how to make people more joyous, how to give them a little glimpse of blissfulness, how to bring laughter to their life. And then the future takes care of itself. You need not think of the morrow, it comes. It comes out of this moment. Let this moment be of great celebration.

The last question:

Question 7:

Love is always preferable to lovelessness - that is the first thing to be remembered. Love in any kind and any form is more preferable than lovelessness. That is a basic assumption with me. But there are three planes of love. They have to be understood.

The first is auto, the second is homo, the third is hetero.

One can be very narcissistic; narcissism is masturbatory. It has many dimensions to it. That is the first kind of love, the most primitive. Every child passes through that state of being narcissistic - he loves only himself, he is his own world. It is good as far as it goes. One has to love oneself; that should be the foundation. If you don't love yourself you cannot love anybody else. If you can't even love yourself, how can you love anybody else?

So the foundation is auto-erotic. Each child has to love himself, and parents down the centuries have been preventing it. That's wrong. Children should be allowed to have fun; nothing is wrong in it. In fact, they are learning the first basic lesson of love - and they can love only themselves. Their consciousness is not so developed that they can bridge with anybody else. They have a small circle of energy; it moves within themselves.

So the first is auto; that is natural. It has been disturbed, it has been disturbed so much that the disturbance persists the whole life. Then other kinds and other planes of love are never as perfect as they could have been. It is only in this century that psychological investigations have proved that auto-love is perfectly natural, normal, and each normal child will be interested in it and he is not to be prevented. Each child has to play with his own body so that he starts loving his body, so that he becomes sensuous about his body, so that he becomes more and more sensitive about his body, so that he has sheer joy in being in the body. That joy is missing.

If you have not loved your own body ever, then when somebody else loves your body you will shrink because you don't know how to open. And if you have never loved your body and you have been taught to hate it, despise it, condemn it, when somebody else starts loving your body you will feel, 'How foolish. How is it possible? How can anybody love MY body?' And you will not be able to love somebody else's body either, because bodies are bodies - yours or others, does not make any difference. Body is body.

First the body has to be loved, in deep reverence. In a more enlightened age, children will be taught how to love their body with respect, reverence, because the body is the temple of God. And from there their love will start flowering and will take a right direction.

The second kind of love is homo. That too is normal, natural. First the child loves himself, and then, naturally, he loves somebody who is like himself - that is a natural growth. A boy cannot suddenly love a girl, that is going too far. The girl is so different, another kind of animal. The girl cannot love the boy immediately, a bridge is needed. To move from oneself to the opposite polarity one has to go through somebody like oneself. So from the masturbatory stage love moves to the homosexual stage. The boy will love a boy, the girl will love a girl. This is perfectly natural; there is nothing of pathology in it.

Pathology comes in only when somebody is stuck. If somebody is stuck at the first stage and is not able to love anybody, then there is some pathology. Then somebody can be stuck at the second stage - the second stage is better than the first but lower than the third. One should take the jump and the man should be able to love the woman, and the woman should be able to love the man.

That is the hetero stage - the polar opposite. This is the natural course.

And then there is the fourth kind - the transcendence.. When you have passed all these three stages naturally, totally, a moment comes when you transcend sexuality. You are no more interested in sex - sex as such - your body, somebody else's body . Men's or women's bodies don't interest you. Not that you have any condemnation about the body; in fact, bodies disappear - there are only souls.

The body is just the outermost core of it. It is a great shift in your consciousness. That is the fourth stage, the stage of the SIDDHA. In India we have called the fourth stage BRAHMACHARYA - the state of being divine.

But that comes not by denying the third, not by denying the second, not by denying the first. It comes only if you go on fulfilling each plane in its own right.

Now there are a few things to be understood. The hetero relationship is the most difficult relationship, the most inconvenient, conflicting, because two opposite polarities are there - man and woman.

They exist differently, hence they are attracted to each other... because they are so different, so mysterious to each other. Man has never been able to understand how the mind of the woman functions, and so is the case from the woman's side too. They are such different dimensions, hence the attraction to explore each other. But the difficulty is also there. Men and women love each other and hate each other; are together and are continuously nagging, fighting, struggling. There is a constant effort to dominate the other.

So the hetero relationship is the most inconvenient, although the most fulfilling too. So there is a danger, but there is a thrill. The danger is that there will be conflict, continuous fight. But only through that fight is one fulfilled, and only through that fight does one transcend sex.

The second stage - homo - is far better as far as convenience is concerned. Two men or two women are perfectly at ease with each other; they belong to the same mind, the same quality of energy; they are similar. The homosexual relationship is less troublesome. That's why homosexuals look gay and heterosexuals look very sad. They are happy people because they are not in a constant fight and struggle and nagging. They understand each other. Lesbians are also happier women - because there is no problem, they function on the same wavelength, so things fit together, there is a rhythm, a kind of harmony. But fulfilment is also less.

Always remember: for the higher you have to pay higher. If you want deep fulfilment you have to take the trouble and you have to stake your life. It is risky.

Because of too much risk, many people have turned homosexual in the world - this world, this century, particularly. People have become alert about heterosexual relationship as being ugly.

Continuous fight - who bothers? The whole life is so troubled. One wants to be happy somewhere at least. And even in love there is the same trouble and the same conflict and the same ego struggle.

People are turning towards homosexuality. That is relapsing back. It is not good.

The first, the auto-sexual relationship, the relationship with yourself, masturbatory sex, is the most convenient, but there is no fulfilment. With the first there is no inconvenience but no fulfilment - at the most a sexual release. With the second there is a little trouble and a little fulfilment. With the third there is great possibility of both - trouble and fulfilment. They grow in the same proportion.

And one should be alert to move from the first to the second, and from the second to the third. Then only can you move to the fourth, BRAHMACHARYA, celibacy.

Now, all over the world religious people have tried for celibacy, but they have not tried it in a scientific way. Somebody simply jumps into celibacy from his childhood. Then your so-called monks remain masturbatory. It is a suspicion of the psychoanalysts - and I think they are right - that the Buddhist monks, the Catholic monks, and all kinds of monks and nuns become masturbatory. Or, the second possibility is that they will turn to homosexuality. Because monks are not allowed to mix with nuns and nuns are not allowed to mix with monks, there is every possibility that they will turn homosexual.

That's what happens in schools, colleges, hostels, in the army, wherever there is only one sex available - people tend to become homosexual. Army people are homosexual.

If you want to avoid homosexuality in the world the army should not be monosexual - there should be women and men together. And the hostels should be for both together, not separate. Then homosexuality will disappear.

Homosexuality has a function to fulfil in the growing child. Somewhere from the first year to the seventh the child remains masturbatory. From the seventh year to the fourteenth the child turns homosexual. From the fourteenth onwards he should, if things go naturally, in a natural way, turn heterosexual. And by the age of forty-two he will start being a celibate. And that celibacy will be a natural, spontaneous phenomenon, not a repression.

You ask: WHEN TWO WOMEN OR TWO MEN ARE MAKING LOVE TO EACH OTHER, DOES IT DO ANY HARM TO THEIR ENERGIES? It does not do any harm but it does not do any benefit either. It is not harmful and it is not beneficial. Masturbation is harmful - beyond a certain stage it is harmful, it is destructive. A masturbatory person loses all contact with the world, he becomes unrelated, he becomes very egoistic because he feels he is enough for himself. there is no need to depend on anybody, not even for love. It is harmful.

Homosexuality is neither harmful nor beneficial. Heterosexuality is very beneficial.

I would like to tell you one anecdote.

'There are those in this congregation,' shouted the revivalist, 'who have committed the unutterable sin of he-ing and she-ing. Stand up and repent!' Three quarters of the congregation stood up.

'And those who have committed the double sin of sins: he ing and he-ing. Stand up!' The rest of the men got up.

'And I positively know that there are those who have committed that triplest of triple sins: she-ing and she-ing!' The remaining women all rose, sobbing hysterically. No one was left sitting but one old man.

'Elder,' he muttered, 'how do you stand on me-ing and me-ing?'

These are the four possibilities, in fact, three possibilities of your sexual energy. Either, auto - but auto becomes closed, you become an island. Or, homo - you make a bridge, but you make a bridge man with man, woman with woman. It is not much of a bridge because both are the same. Not much difference is there. Or, hetero - the real pole, polarity, and the real bridge. And only when you have bridged your sexual energies with the polarity does a new kind of integration arise in you, and that integration can become BRAHMACHARYA, can become celibacy.

Don't think these are sins! These are natural growth points. The only thing to be remembered is:

don't get stuck anywhere. The goal is BRAHMACHARYA, one has to go beyond sex. It is not that there is something wrong in sex, but that which through sex you will have only glimpses of, can be attained totally when you go beyond. In a sexual love moment, for a single second, time disappears, space disappears. For a single moment ego disappears. For a single moment you are lost into the cosmos. That's why there is so much joy, so much ecstasy. That's what orgasm is - the individual is lost into the whole.

But this happens only for a single moment, and not even always. So sex only opens a window and closes it again. You have to go beyond sex. Going beyond sex means going beyond the house, the confinement, going under the sun, going into the open sky. Then that ecstasy is yours, and it is constantly yours. A real saint, one whom I call a saint, is continuously in orgasm - that is my definition of a saint. His ecstasy is a natural phenomenon like breathing.

You may not have ever heard a definition like that, but that's my definition. Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed are continuously in an orgasm. They don't need anybody, they don't need to connect with anybody, they don't need any kind of sexuality. Their energy is constantly orgasmic because they have disappeared into the whole. The part no more exists, no more claims to be the whole.

The part has become the whole, the wave has become the ocean - and that is their orgasm, that is their ecstasy.

Out of this ecstasy great songs have been born - Upanishads, Dhammapada, Jesus' sayings.

They are nothing but ecstatic ejaculations, ecstatic expressions. They have tremendous beauty and poetry.

Remember this. These three stages are normal, there is nothing to be condemned in them, but don't get stuck anywhere. Always go beyond. You have to go beyond, you have to go beyond all kinds of sexuality. Sex is natural, beautiful, but to get stuck in it is to become dormant. Sex gives you glimpses of God. It makes you aware of God. Then one has to seek God in its purity.