Existence is God's expression

The first question:

Question 1:

ANUDEYA,

They are as distinct as the earth and the sky. The distance is so great between the two, that it is unbridgeable. Repression is just the opposite of discipline, but for thousands of years repression has been misunderstood and thought of as if it were discipline. It gives a pseudo appearance of it.

And remember one very fundamental thing: that the real is never in danger from the unreal; the real is always in danger from the pseudo. The unreal cannot harm it, but the pseudo can harm it because the pseudo looks like it. It is not it and yet it has the mask of it, the appearance of it.

Repression is cheap. Any stupid person can do it - it needs no intelligence to repress. Discipline needs great intelligence. Discipline means awareness. Discipline comes from your innermost core; it is not an imposition from the outside. Nobody can discipline you.

The very word "discipline" is beautiful: it means the art of learning. Hence the word "disciple": one who is ready to learn, one who is capable of learning. Learning is an inner process. One has to be always alert, only then can one learn. One has to be awake, only then can one learn. One has to watch all that goes on happening around you and one has to deepen this watchfulness so that you can see even the inner processes of your body, mind and heart. You have to become a mirror. You have to witness everything within yourself, then only do you learn from it, and that learning brings discipline. Then a deep harmony arises in you, because whatsoever is wrong starts falling away from you of its own accord. You are not to drop it. If you have to drop it through effort, then it is repression; if it falls like dry leaves falling from the tree, then it is discipline.

Discipline has to be effortless; it has to be out of sheer understanding. Repression has nothing to do with understanding, with learning. Others tell you what to do and what not to do; others give you the Ten Commandments. You have simply to follow, you have to be obedient. And who are these others? They are the powerful people - politically powerful, religiously powerful. They may be the rich people, the people who own the state or the church, the dominant people. They have their vested interests; to safeguard their vested interests they create a certain kind of slavery, a mental slavery. They want people to be obedient, they don't want people to be rebellious; hence they cannot allow intelligence.

Intelligence is basically rebellious; it is radical, it is revolutionary. To be intelligent is the most dangerous thing for those who are in power. Hence every child has to be crippled and paralyzed; no child can be allowed to live his life according to HIS light. Every child is born intelligent, but twenty-five years of conditioning from the primary school to the university creates a stupid person out of an intelligent child - so much conditioning that the intelligence disappears. He becomes so afraid to say no to anything, he becomes so afraid, so frightened of the crowd that he simply follows like a sheep; he is no more a man. The only way to do it is to teach him how to repress himself. First he has to repress his intelligence, then he has to repress all that can be a danger to the status quo.

For example, every society talks about peace but lives for war. Hence sex has to be repressed because sexually repressed people can be changed into soldiers very easily; there is no problem about it. The sexually repressed person is always ready to fight, he is always on the verge of violence. His sex becomes violence, he loses all tenderness, all loving qualities, and the instinct for love becomes perverted; it becomes the instinct for hatred. Up to now all societies have basically been warring societies, always preparing for war; they cannot allow sexual freedom. If a society is sexually free and a person is allowed to live his sexuality totally, then his violence will appear. Then he will not be ready to do such utterly stupid things as killing people for no reason at all; it will be impossible for him even to conceive. He will ask, "Why? Why should I kill? There seems to be no reason. Just because a few power maniacs want to dominate the whole world we have to be victims and we have to turn the whole world into a chaos?"

The sexually free person will be loving, tender; war will become impossible. Unless sex is free, war cannot disappear from the earth.

All psychological research shows one thing very conclusively: that weapons are nothing but phallic symbols. Hence societies which are preparing for war are bound to be repressive. Intelligence has to be crippled, sex has to be repressed. All that can make you capable of being an individual has to be discarded. You have to be forced to be a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Jaina or a Buddhist for the simple reason that if you are part of a crowd you lose your individuality, you start functioning according to the collective mind - and the collective mind means the lowest mind. The collective mind functions through the lowest common denominator.

It is said that the best teacher in the schools, in the colleges, in the universities, is one who can make himself understood, who can help the students understand him in such a way that the most mediocre student is also capable of understanding him. If only the first grade students understand him he is not a good teacher. The third-rate should be capable of understanding him, then he is a good teacher. But to make himself understood by the third-rate he has to fall that low. He has to speak the language of the mob, of the crowd. And the crowd consists of the mediocre people.

It is because of centuries of conditioning, otherwise it would not have been so; it is a man-made calamity. So many people need not be so mediocre and stupid. They are not born that way, they are manufactured. Individuality has to be effaced, completely effaced, because individuals seem to be dangerous to the power-holders because individuals will think, and they will say yes only if they agree with it, otherwise they will say no.

I have heard:

It happened in the Second World War. Many people were needed in the army so all kinds of people were being recruited. Everybody was asked to sacrifice for the country, for the motherland, for the fatherland and all that nonsense. A professor of philosophy was also recruited.

The first day the corporal calls the newly enlisted men for their first training and starts shouting, "Platoon, attention! Platoon, halt! Platoon, attention! Platoon, about face! Platoon, halt! Platoon, right face!"

The professor steps out of formation and starts to walk away.

"Hey! you!" shouts the corporal. "Where are you going?"

"To the pub," says the professor, "I'll come back when you've made up your mind."

Naturally, a man who thinks will see the whole nonsense of it. What is the point of it? Why should one do all these things? But they have a certain reasoning behind it: this is how your intelligence is killed, this is how you are slowly transformed into a robot, into a machine. The man is slowly killed; then you start functioning like a machine. "Right turn!" and you need not think, you simply turn right.

Not that you think why - there is no question of why - no question arises in you. In fact, your body functions almost mechanically. Just as you push a button and the light goes on or off or the machine starts functioning. So when the soldier hears "Right turn!" he simply turns right without paying any attention to what is being done by him; it simply happens.

I have heard about William James - one of the most significant psychologists that America has contributed to the world. He was sitting with a friend in a restaurant talking about conditioning. It was the talk all over the world because just recently the Russian psychologist Pavlov had discovered the conditioned reflex: that a man can be conditioned so deeply that he starts functioning like a machine.

And Pavlov has become the father of Russian psychology and communists have been following his ideas for all these sixty years.

William James was talking to his friend, but the friend was not willing to accept the idea so easily - it was so new.

At that very moment a retired soldier was passing along the street with a bucket full of eggs. To demonstrate, William James shouted, "Attention!" and the poor old soldier simply went into the attitude of attention. The bucket fell; all the eggs were destroyed. He was very angry. He said, "Who has done this?"

William James said, "But we didn't say that you had to follow!"

He said, "It is no longer a question of following, it has become my nature. Attention means attention!

I was in the army for twenty-five years: attention means attention; it does not mean anything else.

And it is not a question of my deciding whether to follow or not; it has become automatic."

This is what all the societies have been doing and all the so-called religions have been doing:

they have been automatizing you. And this is done through the process of repression - repress everything that can be dangerous to the establishment.

That's why Jesus is crucified and Socrates is poisoned and Al-Hillaj Mansoor is killed, for the simple reason that these people were bringing rebellion, these people were releasing others from their bondage, from their mental slavery. They were telling people to be intelligent, to be individuals, to be a light unto themselves. That's the message of Gautam the Buddha: Be a light unto yourself. Follow your own light, follow your own intelligence. Don't listen to those with vested interests because they are working for their own purposes. They have nothing to do with your welfare, they are not concerned about it.

And once you repress anything, the energy that is being repressed starts turning sour in you. The same energy that would have become a flower becomes a thorn. The same energy that would have helped yoU to grow becomes stagnant, starts stinking. Energy needs to remain in a flowing state; repression makes your life stagnant.

People's mental age is not more than twelve years. That means at the age of twelve they stopped growing psychologically They may be eighty years old, but their minds are childish - remember, not childlike but just childish. It is beautiful to be childlike but it is ugly to be childish.

And why have they stopped at the age of twelve? For what reason? How does it happen? And this is the average all over the world. It is the same in the East, in the West; it is the same for the Hindu and for the Christian. All the societies in their own ways have been able to repress everybody before the age of twelve - why? Because the age of thirteen is the dangerous age. At that time a person becomes sexually mature; before then all his growth has to be stopped. Once he becomes sexually mature then it will be very difficult to repress him. He will have so much energy that all your measures for repression are bound to fail. So repression has to happen before thirteen.

All kind of nonsense has to be put in people's minds before they are thirteen; by the time they reach twelve the work should be finished. Then they will only be growing old but not growing up.

In an oral exam in biology the teacher asks a student, "Which organ of man's body once stimulated can grow up to three hundred times its size?"

The girl replies, "I am not going to answer such questions!" and she walks out.

So the teacher asks the same question of another student who answers, "The pupil of the eye."

"Very good!" replies the teacher. "Now go and tell your friend that she's going to be disillusioned!"

This is the work of repression: if you repress something your mind slowly slowly becomes colored by it; everything becomes colored by it. A sexually repressed person is constantly concerned with sex. He may talk of celibacy, he may try to be a celibate, but his whole mind is full of sexuality; he dreams of sex and nothing else. And it is not so only when you are young...

Mahatma Gandhi writes in his autobiography that even at the age of seventy he was suffering from sexual dreams. That is bound to happen - it is a seventy-years-old repression; otherwise, by the time one is seventy one should be mature enough to drop all these toys. Repression keeps things hanging in the air. The repressed person, even when he is dying, will be thinking of the thing that he has repressed his whole life.

I am against repression, I am all for expression.

Express yourself. Existence is God's expression - that's what creativity is all about. Express yourself, and don't condemn anything. Nothing is wrong with you; all that is is beautiful. It may need transformation, but it is not wrong. It has not to be dropped, it has to be transformed. And transformation happens through discipline; discipline comes through meditation. Become more aware, watchful. But don't carry conclusions, a PRIORI conclusions.

If you are already convinced that sex is wrong then you cannot watch your mind. How can you watch if yoU have already concluded? Whenever a sexual thought arises you will shrink back; you will want to throw that idea out of your being. You will immediately jump upon it, you will start struggling and fighting. You cannot be simply watching; you will start evaluating.

A meditator has to be absolutely unprejudiced, with no conclusions. He has to be an utterly scientific observer. He simply observes, takes note of whatsoever happens in his mind. Notice, don't let anything go unnoticed, that's all. And the beauty of watchfulness is that whatsoever is meaningless starts disappearing of its own accord and whatsoever is meaningful starts growing. Your energies start gathering around the meaningful and they start deserting the meaningless. Then a certain discipline is born, not imposed by anybody from the outside.

Many people, particularly Indians, write to me asking why I am not giving a certain discipline to my sannyasins. I cannot - I am not their enemy. I am not in any way here to dominate anybody, I am not here to dictate. I can help you to understand, then it is up to you. Out of your understanding if something happens in your life, good, but if it happens because I have said it then it is ugly. Then sooner or later you will repent, then sooner or later you will take revenge on me.

I am your friend. I can help you to be more alert; that's my whole function. And then whatsoever is good follows so silently, just like your shadow. It makes no noise and it does not give any ego to you. As you become more aware, all ego disappears. YoU become more and more humble, more and more simple, more and more ordinary. And that ordinariness is divine, that simplicity is sacred.

But discipline has to arise in you. I can commune with you my understanding, I can share with you my experience, that's all; then it is for you to decide what to do and what not to do.

My sannyasins have to learn how to live in freedom. I know it is very difficult for you, too - even my sannyasins ask: "If you give us definite rules it will be easier for us to follow them." I know it will be easier because that's what you have been doing your whole life. Somebody has been giving you orders and you have been following; that has become your habit. YoU would like me also to be a father figure, just to tell yoU that this has to be done and this has not to be done. That makes things cheap and simple you need not bother, you can simply depend on me. But that creates dependence and you lose something immensely valuable: you lose your freedom, you lose your independence, you lose your individuality, you lose yourself. And that is not my purpose here.

My purpose here is to make you more and more unique individuals, more and more authentic individuals. I would like you to take the responsibility of your life upon your own shoulders totally so that you become completely free of all kinds of father figures. That brings great blessing and great benediction.

The second question:

Question 2:

PREM SAMADHI,

THE First THING about Prem Chinmaya s death is that it was not a death at all. He died very consciously. Ie died so beautifully! It was rare. Ten years ago when he came to me I was afraid that he might die before he could taste something of deathlessness, because he was suffering from such a disease... it was incurable.

But he was a rare individual. He lived for these ten year.s by the simple strength of his individuality.

His body was not capable of living. The doctors were puzzled, the physicians were unbelieving, but I knew the secret. He was not afraid of death, but he wanted to grow to a certain point before death happened. And he managed it!

And the moment he was ready I allowed him to go. I had to tell him, "Now you can drop your body."

A deep communion had started between me and him. Because of illness he was not able to come to see me - and that's how sometimes blessings come in disguise. Because he was not able to physically see me, slowly slowly an inner communion was established.

The day before yesterday I called Sheela to my room just to tell her, "Now it is time. Chinmaya can go - he is ready. Now there is no need for him to suffer anymore in the body. He has done whatsoever was needful, he ha.s attained to a certain integrity. Yes, he will be born once more, but that is a great achievement."

He died from his sixth center. To attain to the seventh would have been almost impossible in such a condition; even this was almost a miracle to achieve - to die from such a height.

The moment Sheela reached Chinmaya's room he immediately said, "Did Osho call you to his room?" She was surprised because it is very rare that I call anybody into my room. In these six years I may have called Sheela only thrice, so it was not an every-day thing. And Sheela may be the only one besides Vivek and Laxmi who has ever been called to my room? But immediately he asked, "Did Osho call you to his room? What did he say? What is his message?"

A deep communion had started happening lately. And when Sheela told him, "Now Osho has said that you must rest, relax, go deep into yourself and forget about the body"... It was very difficult to forget the body because his body was in immense pain; it was not an ordinary pain. No pain-killer was of any help. Great doses of pain-killers were being given to him, but nothing was helping him. It was even impossible to help him to go to sleep; the pain was so great that it was keeping him awake.

He laughed and he said, "Yes, I will do it!"

Thrice in the night, again and again he asked Sheela, "Please tell me again what is the message of my Master? I don't want to forget his message at the last moment."

And whenever she said, "He has said only three words: 'Rest, relax, go deep into yourself,'" he would say, "Yes now I remember," and fall asleep again.

He told Sheela that he wanted to listen to this series - that he hoped at least he would be able to listen to the first lecture. And he managed! Yesterday he listened to the whole lecture - and fully conscious. With all that pain he listened to the lecture. Then he asked for the last time about the message, and then he closed his eyes and disappeared.

This is not death, this is something far more beautiful. This is let-go. This is surrender. This is love!

He trusted me so totally. He died beautifully, silently, in utter relaxation. I am happy about him.

I was afraid that he may not be able to survive even these years, but it was through his sheer determination, his sheer will power that he survived. The body would have died at least six years ago; for six years he lived a kind of posthumous existence. He would have still lived - he could have still managed at least for three months - but I saw no point in it because it was not possible to attain more in this body than whatsoever he had attained. The body was getting rotten, absolutely rotten, and he was in such a good space that I did not want him to get disturbed as far as his inner space was concerned; I wanted him to leave. There are moments when one should depart. He was in such a positive mood in such a negative body, he was in such a healthy mood in such an unhealthy body.

Just the other day when I was telling you a joke about Jesus and the man who was suffering from cancer I was remembering Chinmaya and he was listening! And he must have laughed because he loved jokes.

The angels who must have carried him must be puzzled because he is at least six years late.

Three Italians arrive in paradise. St. Peter asked the first one, "Who are you?"

"I am-a Carletto from Milano." 'Very well, you are on time - come in," says St. Peter. Then he asks the second one, "And you, who are you?"

"I am-a Genaro from Roma."

"You are six hours late. How come?" asked St. Peter.

"Well-a, San Pietro, from Roma to here it is-a a long-a journey. I stop-a to rest-a a little on the way."

"And you, who are you?" asked St. Peter to the third man.

"l am-a Pasquale from Napoli."

"Pasquale," says St. Peter, "this is too much! You are two months late!"

"Don't-a get-a angry, San Pietro. I have-a been-a in bed-a sick."

I don't know what Chinmaya is going to say because six years is really too much! They may have completely forgotten about him. They will have to look in the files - it will take days for them to find oUt who this man is! But I think by now they must be becoming acquainted with orange people - that they are not reliable people. They come at all kinds of odd hours, they don't bother about time, they don't follow any rules, they don't know anything of discipline!

He used to love jokes. He used to write me beautiful jokes. In his memory I will tell a few jokes to you.

A man enters a police station and says that his wife has disappeared.

"When did she disappear?" asked the policeman.

"Five or six years ago," he answers.

"Five or six years ago!" exclaims the policeman. "Why didn't you come earlier?"

"Well, you see," says the man, "I just couldn't believe it!"

In Moscow a communist chief sees an old man kneeling in front of an icon. He stops and asks him, "Are you praying, old man?"

"Yes, I am praying," answers the old man.

"You are praying for us, aren't you?"

"Of course."

"And you pray now for us just as in the old times you were praying for the Czar?"

"That's true," replies the old man.

"Now tell me, were your old prayers of any use?"

"Well, yes, they killed the Czar, didn't they?"

And this one he would like the most:

It is a bank meeting. The president, heated by the discussion, gets up and starts pacing up and down. His secretary notices that his fly is open so she whispers to him, "Mr. President, the garage is open. One can see everything."

"Ah yes, and what can you see? - my new Mercedes?"

"No," replies the secretary, "a Fiat with flat tires!"

Samadhi, yesterday you celebrated his departure. Always remember him. He should be a light to you all. He loved deeply, he laughed deeply. He was a man who knew how to celebrate. Of course the body was not willing at all, but he never bothered about the body.

Yesterday he wanted to come to the discourse. I had to stop him, but still he heard the whole discourse. And he said to Sheela, "I wanted to hear the whole series, but when Osho says that I have to go then I have to go. Then this is the time, then this is the right time, and I don't want to miss it." He never wanted to let me down. He loved me tremendously.

His name, Prem Chinmaya, means love and consciousness. He was both. He was love and he became consciousness. He died with great love and with great consciousness.

It is not death at all, Samadhi - it is transcendence of death.

Soon he will be back, and whenever he comes you will know because whenever I .see that he is back in the womb of some sannyasin of mine I will call him Ko Hsuan in memory of this series of which he wanted to hear the whole but could only manage to hear the first lecture. So whenever I call any child Ko Hsuan you will know that Prem Chinmaya is back to fool around!

The third question:

Question 3:

NIHARIKA,

I CANNOT BELIEVE IT EITHER!

ONCE THERE WAS A MAN whose name was Unbelievable. He was married to a very nice woman and the two of them were a very contented couple.

One day Unbelievable was so sick that he knew he was dying, so he called his wife and said to her, "Darling. I have spent my whole life being called by this idiotic name. Now that I am dying please promise me one thing - not to put this name Unbelievable on my gravestone. You can put a saying or a picture, anything, but not my name. I do not want to carry it into eternity."

So the wife agreed. When he died she put a saying on his gravestone which read "Here lies a faithful husband who never betrayed his wife."

From that day people would pass by and read the gravestone and say, "It's unbelievable!"

Niharika, either your husband is dead or insane - or maybe you have stumbled upon a Buddha! But what is a guy like Buddha doing with you?

At a beach resort two friends are talking. "Of course, all these young, almost-naked girls are a constant temptation for our husbands..." says one.

"Maybe," replies the other, "but I trust mine absolutely. He is madly in love with me."

"Oh," replies the first one, "and doesn't he ever have some sane moments?"

If a man loves a woman he is bound to love many other people too, or if a woman loves a man she is bound to love many people too, because love cannot be confined to one person. If it exists at all it cannot be confined; if it does not exist at all, then there is no question.

Love is like breathing. If a person says, "I breathe only when I am with you and the remaining time I never breathe," you will not trust him. How can yoU trust him? He will be dead if he does not breathe when he is not with you. Love is the breath of your soul.

But that's what we have done: for centuries we have conditioned people with .such stupid ideas and created so much misery in the world and so much jealousy and so much possessiveness and so much hatred for not reason at all. We have conditioned people with this stupid idea that love can only be between one person and another, one to one: if it is true then it is one to one, otherwise it is untrue. Just the opposite is the truth: if it is one to one it cannot he true. Then it is false, pseudo; then it is only a make-believe. Then the persons are pretending and they are being untrue to themselves - not only to the other person but to them.selves, too.

If a man is interested in beauty how can he avoid not seeing beautiful women and how can he avoid not being interested in them? The only way is to kill his interest in beauty totally - but then he will no longer be interested even in his own wife. That's what has happened: because of this idiotic idea that love has to he one to one, love has disappeared from the earth. The only possible way to manage it is that the husband should not love the wife. He should kill the very instinct of love, he .should repress the very idea of beauty, he should forget that beauty exists in the world. But then, remember, he cannot love his wife either. Then he will pretend, then he will go on acting - empty gestures with no content. If a woman is told "You have to he only in love with your husband and you cannot even feel interested in other people," she is bound to lose interest in the husband.

That's why husbands and wives lose interest in each other. They are constantly quarrelling; they go on finding excuses to quarrel. The real phenomenon is that they are quarrelling because their love energies are not being allowed to flower, but they have forgotten about it because the conditioning is so ancient. Their parents were conditioned the same way and their parents' parents; it comes from Adam and Eve's time. It has become so much part of us, almost part of our blood, bones and marrow, that we are not even aware of it; it has gone deep into the unconscious.

So husbands and wives are constantly angry at each other - sometimes more, sometimes less - and always finding excuses to be angry. And they look sad. They are bound to be sad, they are bound to be angry, for this simple reason. All other excuses are false. I am not saying that they are falsifying knowingly - they are unaware of the whole phenomenon.

The simple truth is that a man who is interested in beauty will remain interested in many women; a woman who is interested in beauty will remain interested in many men. Maybe she is more interested in one person - that is possible - maybe she is so interested in one person that she would like to live with that person, but that does not mean that her interest in other people simply disappears; it remains. But if you are going with your husband or with your wife for a morning walk and your husband says to you, "Look at that woman. How beautiful she is!" immediately there is trouble - he cannot say it! There is nothing wrong in it; in fact you should be happy that your husband is still alive and sane, that his tires are not flat yet! You should be happy that he is lively, young, that his eyes can still see beauty, that he can still be sensitive to all that is beautiful. There is no need to feel jealous.

But the husband cannot say it; in fact he will pretend that he has not looked at the other woman at all. He HAS looked, he is looking - he may be using sunglasses only for that purpose! He will find excuses to look at the woman: he may start talking about the beautiful tree. He is not concerned with the tree but with the woman sitting under the tree! And the wife knows perfectly well why he is suddenly interested in the tree; otherwise he is never interested in the tree.

The wife cannot say to the husband, "This man looks so beautiful!" The husband will feel offended - his ego is hurt. Everybody carries this idea that "Nobody is more beautiful than me." Now everybody knows that this is sheer nonsense Everybody is unique, that is true, but everybody has a few things that nobody else has. Maybe this man has more beautiful eyes than you have; you may have a beautiful nose and his nose is ugly, but what about the eyes? You may have a beautiful face, but what about his whole proportionate body?

People should be more intelligent and they should appreciate; they should help each other to appreciate. They should say to each other, "You are right. That woman looks beautiful, that man looks beautiful." And there is nothing wrong in it. And it is not going to destroy your love; it is, really, enhancing it, strengthening it. To communicate with each other so authentically is always a nourishment for love. Whenever you start pretending, whenever you are forced to pretend, whenever you are forced to say something which you don't want to say and you are not allowed to say something which you wanted to say then love starts disappearing, then distance is created.

Niharika, please help your husband to be alive again, help him to be sane again, help him to be sensitive again. You must have contributed much towards his dullness. This is not good, this is not healthy. This is a state of pathology. If he says that he has never thought of another woman in his life, then remember perfectly well that you are also a woman - nothing more, nothing less. Just by becoming a wife you are not more than a woman. And if he has no more interest in any woman - and this earth is full of beautiful women - then he has nothing to do with you either; then he is finished with you - or maybe you have forced him to be finished with you.

That's why you say: I CANNOT BELIEVE IT ALTHOUGH IT IS TRUE.

You cannot believe it because you must be thinking of other men - how can you believe it? If you are still thinking of other men, how can you believe that your husband is not thinking of other women?

In fact whenever a man and a woman, particularly husband and wife, are making love, then in the bed there are never only two people, there are always four. He is thinking of some other woman and the woman is thinking of some other man. The woman is thinking of Mohammed Ali, he is thinking of Sophia Loren, and then things go well!

It is always good for wives and husbands not to make love in the daytime and even in the night to always put the light out so you can have free imagination; you can think of whomsoever you want to think. In fact, there is not much difference - basically there is not much difference. Different models, little differences in the bonnets, et cetera, but basically there is not much difference. When you come to the fundamentals it is the same - and when you are making love to a woman or a man you have come to the fundamentals, you have come to the very rock bottom; now there is no further to go.

And this is good about nature: that about fundamentals it is very communist; there are not many differences. All differences are superficial.

But nothing is wrong in being interested. Help him - he needs your help, because my own experience of thousands of couples is that it is always the woman who destroys the man. The man pretends to be the master, but he is not. And women are so utterly confident of their mastery that they allow him to talk about his mastery, but they don't bother about it.

They say, "You can say it. That's a good division: you talk about it - that freedom is given to you - but we are the real masters."

One day I went to see Mulla Nasruddin. He was sitting under his bed. I asked Nasruddin, "What is the matter? Why are you sitting under your bed?"

He said, "Why not? I am the master of the house, I can sit anywhere!"

And then his wife came and she said "You coward! You come out and I will show you who is the master!"

He said, "Nobody can force me to come out! I am the master so I can sit anywhere I like!"

Now the wife is very fat and she cannot go under the bed, so I asked the wife, "What are you going to do now?"

She said, "You wait! Lunch time is coming closer - he will have to come out! And under the bed he can go on talking about his mastery; above the bed I know who is the master!"

Help your poor husband. You must have destroyed him - not knowingly, unknowingly; feminine strategies are very subtle. Revive him, bring him back from his grave. And only then will he be interested in you. And he will be grateful to you.

All couples should remember it: that by becoming a couple you are not becoming masters of each other - just companions, friends. And don't take your relationship for granted; it has nothing to do with possessiveness. Men or women are not things to possess, they are people; they have to be respected. They are not means to be used. Husbands are using wives as means, wives are using husbands as means, and that's why the whole world seems to be so ugly and so insane and everybody seems to be so miserable.

There is no need for so much misery - ninety-nine percent of it is our creation. One percent will of course remain because there are the limitations of the body. The body has to become old, sometimes it will be ill, some day it has to die, but that is only one percent. And if ninety-nine percent of misery can disappear, that one percent can be accepted, joyously accepted; there is no problem about it.

The last question:

Question 4:

ANUBHUTI,

I KNOW YOU are not suffering growing pains, not at all, because you are not growing!

Anubhuti has been in Gurdjieff's work for many years - not with Gurdjieff himself but with somebody who had been with Gurdjieff. Now, to be with a Master is a totally different matter. If you had been with Gurdjieff your understanding about Gurdjieff would have been totally different. But you have never been with a living Gurdjieff, you have been with somebody who has been with Gurdjieff - and that somebody is not yet enlightened, that somebody is in the same boat as you are. But she - the person Anubhuti has been with - has conditioned your mind in a certain way: her own understanding of Gurdjieff.

Gurdjieff used to say that even the people who understood him the most had not understood him - even a man like P.D. Ouspensky was rejected by Gurdjieff. In fact, the whole credit goes to P.D. Ouspensky for making Gurdjieff world-famous; nobody would have known about him without Ouspensky. It is through Ouspensky's books that Gurdjieff became well-known - he might have died an obscure mystic. It was Ouspensky and his great capacity to philosophize, to argue, to write, that made Gurdjieff one of the greatest known Masters of the world.

But Gurdjieff was not happy even with Ouspensky's understanding of him: he used to .say that Ouspensky had misunderstood him totally. Ouspensky was of course very angry, and finally he departed from Gurdjieff and became antagonistic. Even to mention Gurdjieff's name in Ouspensky's presence was an offense. No disciple of Ouspensky was allowed to mention Gurdjieff's name although what Ouspensky was teaching was Gurdjieff's teaching according to him. And if you read Ouspensky and Gurdjieff you will be more convinced by Ouspensky than by Gurdjieff because Gurdjieff is not a philosopher. He is not a good writer either - his writing is so tedious, so boring that if you can finish his whole book that will show great will power. I have come across many people who have been deeply interested in Gurdjieff, but they have not read his books; they all have read Ouspensky, Nicoll and others.

Anubhuti, whatsoever you know about Gurdjieff is not about Gurdjieff; you don't know anything about him. Even the people who lived with him for many years were not capable of understanding him - he was a very mysterious man. And to each disciple he was saying different things because each disciple's need was different. He said one thing to Ouspensky and another thing to Nicoll, just the opposite of it because their needs were so different that the same thing could not be said to them.

To a few people he said, "Surrender everything to me..."

It happened once:

A very rich Russian woman came to him and the first thing he asked was: "You surrender all your valuable ornaments to me immediately. If you want to be my disciple give all your diamonds and jewels." And she had really beautiful things with her; she was one of the richest women of those days. She became very afraid - naturally. She went in her room to think over it, "What to do? Is it right to surrender everything? "

She was sharing the room with another woman one of her old acquaintances; she was also rich.

She asked about the matter - what to do.

The other woman said, "There is no problem - the same thing happened with me. When I came he asked me, "Give all your valuables to me first. If you cannot sacrifice that much then forget all about me and my work; then your search is not authentic. You have to pay for it.' And I immediately surrendered then and there all my ornaments. And do you know what happened?" the woman said.

"The next morning he came to my room and gave everything back to me!"

So the new woman was very happy. She went and surrendered everything - and Gurdjieff never came back! She waited and waited, and she asked the other woman, "What is the matter? He has not Come back!"

The woman said, "I don't know what the matter is, but that was what happened with me. I don't know why he is not coming."

The woman became very distrustful, left Gurdjieff. and started spreading rumors about him: "That man is a charlatan. He is exploiting people."

The other woman asked Gurdjieff, "Why did you return everything to me and not to her?"

Gurdjieff said, 'You surrendered so immediately, without a thought, that there was no need to keep it. She thought over it, she asked you about it. Only when she was certain that her things would be returned to her did she give them to me. That was not surrender at all, that was calculation. And I don t want calculative people around me. If I had returned those things to her she would have stayed here. So I have killed two birds with one stone: we have that money - we needed it for the work - and we got rid of that stupid woman. And now she is spreading rumors about me, so other stupid people won't come to me."

Anubhuti, you are not going through growing pains, you are simply in a confusion because my work is totally different from Gurdjieff's work; it is bound to be so. Your problem now is what to do?

Anubhuti has entered many groups and left every group because they do not fit with her understanding of work; they are below her. She knows far better - she has worked for years.

But my work is totally different.

Gurdjieff depended on crystallization and my work is of dissolution; you have to dissolve, not to crystallize. Both are valid means; through both doors you can enter the ultimate. Either you have to enter through will power - and that was Gurdjieff's work, or you have to enter through surrender - that is my work.

You ask:

PLEASE SPEAK ON THIS FOR A SANNYASIN SUFFERING GROWING PAINS.

You are just trying to understand me with your Gurdjieffian jargon. That won't work. If you want to understand me you will have to put Gurdjieff aside. I love the man, I love him immensely, I respect the man, but my ways are totally different.

But old habits die hard...

An American teacher is tired of seeing her white students fight with the black ones who are forbidden to use the school bus. So one day she calls them together and says, "Boys, what are all these discriminations? I won't have any more of this! Remember, we are all equal. Everybody is equal black or white! So from now on we can think of ourselves as blue! Have you understood? We are all blue!

"And now, the light blues will go on the bus and the dark blues will go home on foot!"

Old habits...

Heaven is in a havoc. God asks St. Peter the reason for it and St. Peter replies, "Well, it's that man, Adolf Hitler. He is impossible. He keeps shouting at everyone, 'Jew! Jew!' But don't worry, I'll tackle him myself! "

After a while peace and harmony reign in Heaven again. Curious, God asks St. Peter, "How did you do it? "

"Well, it was easy," says St. Peter. "I just gave him a brush and now, instead of shouting, "Jew! Jew!' he is busy writing 'Jew' on all the clouds!"

Old habits...

You have come here, you have waited to come here for months, you have longed to be here, you have disappointed your so-called teacher, you have disappointed your whole group, but you are not here either. You are neither there nor here; you are in a limbo.

If you want to work according to Gurdjieff, escape from here as quickly as possible. If you want to work according to me then you will have to learn different ways.

You ask:

I HAVE HEARD FROM MANY SANNYASINS THAT WE NEED TO DO NOTHING AT ALL...

That is the most difficult thing in the world - to do nothing at all. Don't think it is the easier way; it is the most difficult thing, to do nothing. You can do anything; the problem arises when you are told not to do anything.

SITTING SILENTLY, DOING NOTHING, THE SPRING COMES, AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF.

Gurdjieff's work is work; my work is not work, it is play. And there is a great difference between the two. Gurdjieff wanted you to force yourself to the extreme; he was a hard taskmaster. I don't want you to be extremist, I want you to be exactly in the middle. I want you to be exactly in the middle, remember it, because only through that its balance possible, is equilibrium possible. You are not asked to do anything at all.

You say: And your sannyasins say, "LET OSHO DO IT." I don't do anything at all - that is just d way of speaking. I don't do anything and I want my sannyasins not to do anything either. But their old habits are there so I tell them, "Leave it to me. I will do it!" I don't do anything at all - I have never done anything in my life. I am the laziest man you can find in the world! Can't you see? - I don't even walk a hundred yards! And I have told Laxmi, "In the new place the car has to come on top of the stage!" I am the laziest person in the world - why bother with these steps? I don't do anything.

But my sannyasins are accustomed to doing, so just to help them I say, "Don't be worried, I will do it. Leave it to me." That is just an excuse for them to leave doing - and then things start happening on their own. I want you to be natural.

GurdjiefF's work is extremist: it creates tension in you It depends on friction: it creates friction in you. My work is not work; it is relaxation, it is rest, it is becoming more and more silent, utterly silent.

Even if you art doing something you are not to be the doer of it; you have not to take it seriously.

Gurdjieff's work i.s serious. My work is not serious at all; it is playfulness, it is fun, it is dance, it is song. I don't call it work. Work is a dirty word, a four-letter dirty word here!

But you are misunderstanding me for the simple reason that you have your own understanding.

Either you will have to drop the understanding that you are carrying with you or you will have to drop me. You will have to choose. You cannot ride on these two horses.

A beautiful looking tomcat is strolling down the road. On the way to the park, he meets a little white tomcat.

"Hey, Tommy, where are you going?" asks the little cat.

"I'm going to the park to fuck around!" answers big Tommy, "What's that? Something like fish?" asks the little one.

"Come with me and you'll find out!" says Tommy.

Soon the two tomcats come to the big fountain in the park, and there sits Jolly, the most beautiful cat in town, her golden fur shining in the sun. She sees the big tomcat coming closer with a mischievous smile on his cat face. "I'm in trouble!" she exclaims, jumps up, and starts running around the fountain.

"Come on, boy! cries Tommy and he starts running after her. One round, two rounds, three rounds.

"Come on, faster!" Tommy screams. Round and round the fountain they run.

The little white cat, hardly keeping up with Tommy, exhausted, gasping for air, trembling on his little legs, cries: "Hey, Tommy, listen - I'll fuck one more round and that's enough for me!"

You say: GURDJIEFF HAS TAUGHT THAT ONLY THROUGH ONE'S OWN EFFORTS, STEMMING FROM A DEEP WISH, DOES AN AWARENESS OF BEING GROW.

That is true, but then you have to follow the whole Gurdjieffian method, and for that you will need a Gurdjieff; without a Gurdjieff it is impossible to do it. Without a living Master no method, howsoever beautiful it is, works. In fact it is the .'MASTER, HIS PRESENCE, that is the real thing, not the methods. With an alive Master everything works; with a dead Master nothing works. Let it be settled forever in your consciousness.

That's why beautiful methods later on are found to be bogus. It is not the methods, it is the Master, it is the man behind them, it is the golden touch, the magical touch of the Master, it is his charisma that works.

When I am gone, then Sufi Dancing will continue and there will be Kundalini and there will be Chaotic Meditation, and all the things will continue in the same routine way, but something will be missing - something which was the very soul of them. Then they will be just rituals.

That is how the Christian Church goes on, Hindus go on, Mohammedans go on, Buddhists go on.

And these methods did work once. They worked when Jesus was alive, they worked when Krishna was alive they worked when Buddha was alive. Being with a living Master is what works; it is not the method.

That's the difference between science and religion: religion is magic. Science depends on method; religion depends on Masters, on the presence of those who have become awakened.

Only if you can get attuned with me here is something possible - even the impossible is possible.

But you will have to get attuned with me. Gurdjieff will be a hindrance.

If you choose Gurdjieff, choose Gurdjieff, but remember you are choosing a dead Master. You can go on repeating his methods your whole life - nothing is going to happen through them.