Discover your own God

The first question:

Question 1:

TIM GREEN,

Religion for centuries has become associated with a life-negative attitude, and obviously any life negative attitude cannot be creative; it becomes intrinsically impossible for it to be creative. Creativity needs a life-affirmative philosophy, creativity needs a tremendous love for existence, and the so- called religions have been teaching people to renounce life, to escape from life; they have been against life.

Because of this, no creative person can be interested in such religions. If he becomes interested he will lose his creativity; if he wants to remain creative he will have to sacrifice his religiousness.

Religions have not left any other choice. Because of this, only uncreative people became interested in religion.

I am not talking about Gautam the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, Jesus, Mohammed, Mahavira, Krishna, Kabir, Nanak; leave aside these few names. They are immensely creative, they are poets of existence. They are far greater poets than your so-called poets - their whole life is poetry. They are great musicians. They may never have played on any musical instrument, but their heart is full of harmony, music, melody. Their very heartbeat is that of rhythm, of music. Their life is a dance, it is a song, it is a celebration. Hence, please leave aside these few people.

But the religions have nothing to do with them. Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, these organized religions have nothing to do with their own founders. If you look deep, if you meditate over the matter, you will be surprised. This is my observation: that the people who call themselves Christians are not at all concerned with Christ and his message; in fact, they are against everything which Christ stood for and sacrificed his life. The people who call themselves Hindus have nothing to do with Krishna; although they worship him, worshipping makes no difference in their lives. They have not learned the art that Krishna represents; in fact, they have interpreted Krishna according to their own ideas. And the same is the case with the Buddhists and the Jainas and other religions. they have all gone against the original founders. They have fallen victims of priests - and priests have nothing to do with religion at all.

Priests and politicians are in a conspiracy to exploit people, and the best way to exploit people is to destroy their intelligence. Of course, people like Bertolt Brecht cannot support such religions. These religions have enslaved humanity. They have not helped people to be free, to be independent, to he their own selves; on the contrary, they have reduced them to slaves; in the name of religion they have created great prisons. And the strategy is subtle - very subtle, very cunning. The basic strategy is the same one used all over the world by all the religions.

The first and the most fundamental principle of that strategy is: destroy people's love for life, love for joy love for celebration. Once people s roots are cut away from existence they start shrinking in themselves they start losing the sources of nourishment. Their whole being becomes poisoned.

They cannot really escape from life - nobody can really escape from life. Even the people who escape to the mountains have to depend on people who work in the marketplace. Nobody can really escape from life. The people who have gone into the monasteries are dependent on people who live outside; they depend on their support.

If all the world, if the whole of humanity renounces life, it will be committing a global suicide. The Buddhist monk has to beg from those who are not yet monks. The Christian monk has to live on the donations of the people who are still in the world. Nobody can really escape from life while he is alive; it is impossible. But your sources can be poisoned. You cannot escape from life and you cannot live your life totally. You start feeling guilty about being alive: you start feeling as if to be alive is a sin. You start cutting your life as much as you can; you start living at the minimum. That too you accept only as a necessary evil.

That s why laughter has disappeared, wholeness has disappeared. People look sad; their existence has become meaningless. They are uncreative; they are in a kind of limbo, neither here nor there.

This is what your religions have done.

I am in agreement with people like Bertolt Brecht. I am also not in support of the so-called religion and spirituality. But I cannot agree totally with Bertolt Brecht for the simple reason that whatsoever religions have done, that is not the work of true religion. The true religion has yet to arrive, the true religion has yet to he born. Be against Christianity, be against Hinduism, be against Mohammedanism, be against Buddhism - I can agree - but don t be against religiousness as such because that means you have made organized religion synonymous with religiousness; it is not so. Condemn the priests, condemn the Pope, condemn the Shankaracharya, but don't condemn Buddha and Lao Tzu and Jesus and Mohammed. They have contributed immensely to man's inner growth; they are absolutely creative. Of course, they have been interpreted by wrong people, but what can they do about it? They need people like Bertolt Brecht to interpret them.

So I can agree with Bertolt Brecht up to a certain point and then we part. The so-called religion has to be eradicated from the earth because that is the only way for the real religion to arrive, for the authentic to arrive, but the authentic religiousness cannot be condemned. If you condemn it, then the result will be this... Tim Green himself says in his question:

... YET WHOSE POWERFUL CREATIVE LOVE SHINES LIKE AN ANGRY LIGHT IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

Now, love cannot be angry. Anger is destructive, love is creative. Anger is part of hatred; it is never part of love. That's where Bertolt Brecht has missed the point. If you are against religiousness then you will be creative, but your creativity will be pathological. It will be ill at ease, it will not be beautiful.

And you can see it. The whole of modern art is ugly for the simple reason that it has no spiritual origins, it has no meditative quality in it. You can look at Picasso's paintings: they show something insane in the man. Picasso is a genius - with just a little spirituality he would have surpassed Michelangelo. He has the capacity, he has the talents, he has the intelligence, but something is missing. He is in a chaos he has no inner discipline.

That's why while Michelangelo creates beautiful art Picasso creates ugly art. Looking at Picasso's paintings one is bound to be struck by the fact that there is some insane note in it.

There are so many stories about Picasso...

An American millionaire came to Picasso. He wanted two paintings and he wanted them immediately. And he was ready to pay any price - money was not the question. Picasso was a little puzzled because he had only one painting left. He asked such a price that he thought the millionaire would say, "I will purchase only one. "

But he said, "Okay, I will pay the price. Where are the paintings? Bring the paintings, and here is the cheque! "

He went in, cut his painting in two and he gave the millionaire two paintings.

In fact, you can even cut his paintings in four; it will not make much difference.

I have heard another story:

One rich woman wanted him to paint her portrait; he did it. When she came, she looked at it and she said, "Everything is okay, only I don't like the nose. You will have to repaint the nose."

Picasso said, "That is impossible."

She said, "Why is it impossible? I am ready to pay for it. If you need more money for it I am ready to pay for it."

He said, "Money is not the question. I don't know where the nose is!"

A man was looking for a wife. He asked an agent. The agent said, "I have a beautiful woman just for you, a very rich widow. Of course, she is a little older than you, but with so much money that I don't think you would like to miss the opportunity. And she is beautiful! Come along with me. I will show you the woman."

The man went to see the woman. Looking at her he could not believe his eyes - he had never seen such an ugly woman. One eye was looking in one direction, the other eye was looking in another direction. Her nose was crooked, her teeth were coming out, her hair was false, one leg was longer than the other. It was just disgusting to see her!

He whispered in the agent's ear, "You call this woman beautiful?"

The agent said, "There is no need to whisper - she is deaf also! You can say out loud whatsoever you want to say. And I can't help it if you don't like Picasso. That's not my fault!"

Modern art is ugly for the simple reason that it has no spirituality in it. Modern poetry is ugly.

Modern music is just noise - very sexual, because when spirituality is not present, all that is left is sexuality. Spirituality is the same energy as sex but at the highest peak, at the most refined peak.

Sex is also the same energy but very rough, at the lowest point. Sex is animal energy; the same energy passing through the art of spirituality becomes spirituality, becomes SAMADHI, becomes superconsciousness; it becomes divine energy.

Hence Bertolt Brecht is angry. That anger can be understood. But anger cannot be creative; even if it creates, that creativity will carry something destructive in it.

You will be surprised to know that Adolf Hitler when he was young, wanted to become a painter. He was refused admission to an art academy. Then he wanted to become an architect, but again he was refused. And the same man became the most destructive man this century has known - not only that the century has known but the whole of history. If he had been admitted to the art academy he would have become another Picasso; his paintings would have been destructive.

He painted a few things - those paintings still survive. They say much about him. He uses the blood-red color out of all proportion. His most loved colors are blood-red and black; with these two colors he worked, he painted. He has left a few drawings, his architectural ideas; they don't look like the Taj Mahal, they look like madhouses! But the man became powerful, he became a politician, and he really did his painting and his architecture and his artwork with living humanity, on the vast canvas of humanity. But those two colors remained his colors: dark black, the color of death, and blood-red, the color of murder, anger and rage.

Bertolt Brecht would have been a Buddha, just as Friedrich Nietzsche would have been a Buddha.

But they became too obsessed with so-called religion. And going against so-called religion, they went against religion as such. That's where they missed, they went wrong.

I am against so-called religion, but I am all for religion as such. In fact, I am against so-called religion because I am in favor of, because I am FOR, true religion.

The real religion is in danger not because of irreligion, remember. The real is never in danger from the unreal; it is always in danger from the pseudo-real because the pseudo gives the appearance of being the real. We have to change this whole pattern that has dominated humanity for centuries.

My approach is that of life-affirmation. I teach my sannyasins to be loving, to be joyous, to be creative, to be aesthetic. The old so-called religions have all been sad and serious. I teach my sannyasins to love and to laugh and to celebrate. Celebration is the only true prayer; it is the only way we can show our gratitude to God. Renouncing life is complaining against God. God gives you life as a gift and you renounce it! Life is a great gift; you have to be thankful for it. And that thankfulness brings spirituality.

People like Bertolt Brecht are beautiful people. They would have become of tremendous value if they had been able to see what is pseudo in religion and what is real, if they had been able to discriminate. They condemned without any discrimination.

That's where the whole western mind is wrong. For one hundred years after Friedrich Nietzsche, all Western intellectuals have been condemning religion. Nietzsche declared; "God is dead and man is free," and since that moment this has been the constant slogan of all the intellectuals. And I can understand why. But Nietzsche should have said, "The God of the priests..." Even if he had put it in brackets "[of the priests]" things would have been absolutely clear - because the God of the priests is not the God of the mystics. And the God of the priests need not be dead - he has always been dead! The God of the priests has never been alive. The alive God is that of the mystics.

I teach you the God of the mystics.

The God of the mystics can be found not by belief but by a deep going inward. It has nothing to do with theology; it has something to do with an inner search an insight into your own being. The moment you know who you are you have found God, and in that very finding you find freedom. It is good that the God of the priests should be dead, should be thrown away so that you can discover your own God. Your own God is your freedom, your truth.

Without your truth you are bound to remain angry and your life is bound to remain empty, meaningless. And whatsoever you create will not be beautiful creation; it will not be like roses and the song of the birds and the sunset and the stars, it will be something out of a mad mind. It may help you in a certain way because your own madness will be thrown onto the canvas or on the stone and you will be relieved of it - it will be something like catharsis - but it will not be good for others. Those who will see your work of art will get infected; it will be contagious.

Look at the statue of a Buddha. Just sit in front of the statue of a Buddha, silently watching it, and you will be surprised: something in you also starts settling; something in you also becomes quiet, still, silent.

Gurdjieff used to call this "objective art", because the person who has created the statue has created it out of his own meditation; it is a work of meditation. It may not represent exactly the physiology of Gautam the Buddha - it does not really represent it; it is symbolic. It represents his meditation, not his body; not his mind but his very being. It represents his stillness.

"Sitting silently, doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself." It represents that silence.

He is not doing anything. Sitting in front of a Buddha statue you will fall into a deep silence. Sitting in front of a Picasso painting you will be in a turmoil; you will start getting angry, you will start getting restless. You cannot move into meditation; it is impossible. If you keep Picasso paintings in your bedroom you will have nightmares!

The second question:

Question 2:

VIRAMA,

WHAT PHILOSOPHY are you talking about? It is not philosophy at all, it is living truth! I am not teaching you any doctrine; I am simply sharing my joy, my insight, my love, my light with you. A philosophy is something of the mind and I've dropped the mind long ago. It is a COMMUNION that is happening here; it is a communion of hearts. I am using words because you won't understand silence, but all my words are to help you to understand one day my silence. The words are just fingers pointing to the moon. Look at the moon; don't start biting my finger!

It is not a philosophy at all. Philosophy is a very ordinary thing; it is thinking about truth. It is like a blind man thinking about light: he can go on thinking, but do you think he will ever come to any conclusion about light? Will he have any experience of light through thinking for a long, long time about light? He may come to know everything about light, but to know about light is not to know light; to know light is a totally different phenomenon. It needs eyes, not thinking.

I am not a philosopher, I am a physician. I would like to help you to open your eyes. You have kept them closed for many many lives and you have become addicted to closed eyes; you have forgotten that you can open them. I am here just to remind you that nothing is wrong with your eyes - just open them! And whatsoever you will come to know, that is God. God is not a belief but an experience.

Philosophers have spent their lives defining their philosophies.

Jean-Paul Sartre says, "To be is to do."

Albert Camus says, "To do is to be."

And then comes Frank Sinatra who says, "Do-be-do-be-do."

This is my no-philosophy: "To be is just to be."

There is nothing to be done about it. There is no question of doing, it is a question of BEING. YOU need not try to understand it.

That's where you are going wrong, Virama. If you try to understand it you are bound to misunderstand it because understanding means an effort of the mind.

And your mind is a confusion, your mind is a chaos. Your mind is full of a thousand and one ideologies. Your mind is utterly fucked up!

Two hippies, having shared a joint, are walking down the street. Suddenly a police car goes by at sixty miles per hour with its red light flashing and siren screaming.

One hippie slowly turns to the other and says, "Man, I thought that fuzz would never leave!"

The mind is a kind of drug; it keeps you drugged. You have to get rid of the mind; you have to put it aside. Then there is no question of understanding; you simply see the truth of it. It is a question of SEEING, not of understanding.

I am leading you towards the state of no mind and you are trying to understand it THROUGH the mind; that is impossible. Mind has no capacity to understand the no-mind - the no-mind is incomprehensible, obviously, the mind cannot grasp it, it can only deny it.

Put the mind aside. While listening to me, don't try to understand, just listen silently. Don't figure out whether what I am saying is true or not true. Don't be bothered with its truth or untruth. I am not asking you to believe in it so there is no need to think about its truth or untruth. Listen to me just as you listen to the birds singing or the wind passing through the pine trees or the sound of running water.

But you remain hung up in the head. The head keeps you almost drunk with thoughts, ideas, interpretations.

Every time he got drunk, Mario could not find his house, so his friend told him to put a lantern outside his door. Mario did so and that night, when he came back drunk, he saw the lantern and said, "This must be my house!"

Then taking the lantern with him, he climbed the stairs, entered the bedroom and said, "Right - this is my bed, that is my wife and there I am sleeping next to her! But who the hell is this guy with the lantern in his hand?"

Beware of your mind! You have never thought about it as a drug - it is a very subtle drug. And the society goes on drugging you from your very childhood. It becomes part and parcel of your life and it colors everything. Whatsoever you see, you see through it; whatsoever you listen to, you listen to through it - and it is quick at interpreting for or against.

Listening to me, if you are thinking about for or against, you will go on missing me.

A drunkard accidentally found his way into a luxurious swimming club and was standing by the pool when he was approached by the manager.

"Excuse me, sir, but we are forced to ask you to leave," the manager told him.

"Why should I leave?" asked the drunkard.

"Because you are pissing in the pool!" exclaimed the manager.

"Are you telling me that I am the only person in this club who has been pissing in the pool?" asked the drunkard.

"From the diving board, yes!" answered the manager.

You don't know where you are standing, what you are doing, who you are. My whole effort here is to bring you to your senses - from your mind to your senses.

Mind keeps you in a kind of madness. Mind is madness; the difference is only of degree. The mad people have gone a little ahead of you, that's all.

Maybe you are in the mind to ninety degrees, somebody else to ninety-nine degrees, and somebody else has crossed the borderline of a hundred degrees; then he is mad.

But the only sane man is one who has come out of the mind because then your vision is clear, unclouded; your consciousness is pure, like a mirror without any dust on it.

Two madmen are crouching on the branch of a tree when suddenly one falls down.

"But what are you doing?" exclaims the one sitting on the tree branch.

"Well, I had to fall - I was ripe!"

A man is strolling in a park. Suddenly a man comes up to him and without saying one word slaps him on the face.

"Why!" exclaims the man. "You are mad!"

Says the other very quietly, "Yes - do you mind?"

Your mind keeps dreaming - day in, day out, it goes on dreaming. In the day, the dreams are known as thoughts; they are verbal dreams. In the night, thoughts are known as dreams; they are pictorial thoughts. But there is no difference. And even while you are awake, if you just close your eyes and look inside, you will find a subtle stream of pictorial dreams continuously going on like an undercurrent.

Meditation means dropping out of this stream: neither thinking nor dreaming, just being. And then, suddenly you will see what I am saying. It will not be a question of being convinced of its truth; it will be a realization. And truth is never a conclusion; it is always a realization, a revelation.

"Every night I have the same awful nightmare," says one man to his friend. "I dream that Sophia Loren enters my room... stark naked!"

What! You call this a nightmare?"

"Of course I do! Every time she comes in she slams the door so violently that I wake up!"

An American Indian and a hippie are sitting next to each other in a bar. After a few moments the hippie turns to the Indian and says, "Listen, man - you've been staring at me for more than an hour!

Mind your own business!"

And the Indian replies, "Many moons ago I lay with a skunk... I keep thinking you may be my son!"

When you are with me, stop all this kind of nonsense! I am not here to help you to think more clearly, to think more logically, to think in a more sophisticated and philosophic way. My whole effort is to make you aware of the stupidity of all thinking as such. Then silence comes, and with silence comes seeing. When all is still within you, when nothing stirs within you, you will be able to know what I am saying, what Buddha said twenty-five centuries ago what Ko Hsuan said two thousand years ago.

You will not only understand me, you will understand all the awakened ones of all the ages, past, present and future, too, because you will have been able to realize yourself, you will have been able to taste it yourself. It is a question of tasting it.

The third question:

Question 3:

DEVESH,

I HAVE GOT only one hundred fifty thousand sannyasins in the world - that is just a drop in the ocean of humanity. And if you want to transform the consciousness of man it is nothing; it is just the beginning, it is just a seed. We have to go on spreading this new message - new in a sense, because of the so-called religions, and yet the ancientmost, because whenever anybody has known he has known the same truth.

Truth never changes; it is always the same. Who knows it makes no difference, when one knows it makes no difference. Time and space don't matter.

And this is a very special moment in the history of humanity: either man will destroy himself totally or a new man will be born. It has never been so important to transform the consciousness of man, to bring a radical change in the very vision of man as it is today. And we have to do it quickly because time is short. The politicians are piling up atom bombs, hydrogen bombs and whatnot. Just within ten years the power to destroy man has increased seven hundred times. Ten years ago it was enough to destroy humanity; now it is enough to destroy seven hundred earths of the same size. It seems to be simply mad. What is the point? - because we don't know any other earths yet. Yes, scientists say there are fifty thousand planets with life, but that is only a hypothesis. We may never reach them - we have only reached the moon.

And those planets are far, far away. The nearest is four light years away; that means if a spaceship goes at the speed of light - which is impossible or next to impossible because the speed of light is immense... Light moves at the speed of one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. If we can create a spaceship which can move at this speed, then it will take four years to get there and four years to come back. But it seems not possible to create such a spaceship because when anything moves at such a speed it becomes light; it melts and becomes light. The spaceship will melt and become light and the people traveling in it will become light; they will disappear. At such speed such heat is created that everything becomes light. We don't know of any metal, not yet, which can resist heat at such a speed.

And those planets which the scientists think have life are thousands of light years away so there seems to be no possibility to destroy them. Then why go on piling up more and more atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, super bombs, death rays? For what? Do you want to kill each human being seven hundred times? Human beings die only one time. They are not Jesus Christs who will resurrect so you have to kill them again and they will resurrect and you have to kill them again - seven hundred times. But politicians make arrangements just in case!

In such a mad world where mad politicians are so powerful, meditation can be the only way to defend life on earth.

Devesh, the inner revolution has to be spread as quickly and as fast as possible. Moreover, I am a twentieth-century man - I don't believe in bullock carts. You can see my Rolls Royce!

But even Buddha tried every possible way in order to reach as many people as he could. Of course, there was no other way so he traveled from one village to another; that was the only possible way to reach people. But how many people could he reach? He could never go beyond one single province, Bihar. In fact the name "Bihar" comes from the fact that he traveled there; the name "Bihar" means the place where a Buddha travels, where the awakened one has traveled. The boundaries of the province are the boundaries of his travels. But he could not reach all parts of Bihar either; he could reach only the important places and villages on the way.

Forty-two years he traveled; old, ill, but he traveled. He was so old - he died when he was eighty-two - and continuously traveling in the hot climate of Bihar, a physician had to continuously follow him to keep him healthy, to look after him. Why did he travel? For what? - to reach as many people as possible.

Mahavira did the same. They each tried in their own ways.

Two monks were talking to each other.

"Do you know why Jesus, after his resurrection, appeared to women?"

"No, I don't," replied the other.

"So that the news of his resurrection could spread more quickly!"

I don't go anywhere; there is no need now - that is out of date. I cannot reach many people by traveling, but now we have the media available. My word can go to the farthest corner of the earth - it is reaching already. Books are also old ways of reaching people; their days are also over. New methods have been evolved.

A videotape is a far better way to reach people because they can hear me the same way as you are hearing me. And just hearing the word without seeing the person is one thing; seeing the person also makes a lot of difference. It is totally different because when you are listening to me on a tape recording or on records you will not be able to see my hand, which says more than I can say with my words. You will not be looking at my eyes, which have much more to say than words can convey.

Something will be missing, something of immense value - the person will he missing. You will be hearing only a ghostly voice.

I will use films, television, videotapes, tapes, every modern technique to spread the message. I belong to the twentieth century totally, wholeheartedly. And I love this century; I am not against it.

I love science and its technology. It is in the wrong hands, but that always happens. Whenever something significant is discovered it always falls into the wrong hands first for the simple reason that they are very quick people, cunning people.

Even the discovery of atomic energy can be a blessing to the world. But it has fallen into the hands of the politicians. It should be in the hands of mystics; then there would be no need to be afraid of a Third World War. Then we could fill the whole earth with affluence; then poverty could disappear for the first time from the whole earth. Poverty could become a thing of the past. Much illness could disappear. Man's life could be prolonged to almost impossible limits. Three hundred years would not be a difficult target; each person could live three hundred years very easily because scientists say the body is capable of living far longer than it lives.

People die at the age of seventy just because they have always been dying at that age. It has become a fixed idea in the mind - in the collective mind it has become a fixed idea; it is a kind of auto-hypnosis It can be changed.

Even the very program in your cells can be changed; they have the program. When a child is born his cells have the program how long he will live, but that program can be changed. If we can split the atom we can split the living cell and change its inner program; we can give it a new program, we can make it live three hundred four hundred, five hundred years; we can give it a program which will keep it healthy forever, young forever. Old age can disappear. This is possible now.

Science has released tremendous power, but it has fallen into the wrong hands and the right hands are not there. We have to create the right hands; we have to create the right consciousness for that.

Hence, Devesh, I will go on working with all the modern media to reach as many people as possible.

I am already reaching. You can see here people from almost every country. There is not a single country in the world now where my sannyasins are not. And they are creating a stir everywhere.

They are hound to create a stir, they are bound to create a new kind of revolution - the real revolution.

Political revolutions are not revolutions; only spiritual revolutions are revolutions because unless the inner being changes, no outer change is going to help.

And, remember it, I am not an old type of saint: "Why bother about disciples and why bother about reaching many people? It is not a question of bothering at all - I am enjoying it tremendously! It is not in any way work for me; it is play. And it is urgently needed, too.

I can understand Devesh's question because he works in the film department in the commune. He is sitting there just behind the video camera. He must the getting puzzled - why? He has written many questions of the same type.

Just two days ago when Prem Chinmaya left his body he immediately wrote a question to me: "Osho, even Prem Chinmaya s departure and the celebration were videotaped. Can't a sannyasin die in peace?"

But he was already dead! Now you can do whatsoever you want - videotape him, film him... And K.B. was arranging his head for the right position - you can do anything now! Chinmaya must have been around laughing, enjoying. He must be saying to himself, "Gosh, had I known it before I would have died sooner! They are doing well!" He must have enjoyed it.

And he died in utter peace, he died in absolute peace. And your videotape cannot disturb him. His cancer was not disturbing him, how can your video-tape disturb him? He was in immense pain, but he remained a witness. He died a beautiful death. That's the way a sannyasin should die.

Now Nartan has come. Just yesterday he wrote a letter to me: "I was fortunate to come and to see Chinmaya s departure and the celebration because I am also suffering from cancer; the doctors have said, 'You have only two years left.' And I have come to be forever here." Nartan was happy to see the way Chinmaya died and the way everybody celebrated his death.

I teach you not only to celebrate life but death too, because death is the climax of life, the crescendo.

If you have lived your life really you will celebrate your death too.

And he died so beautifully, in such deep surrender. Even Nartan was immensely happy to be present. Now his fear of death is gone. In fact, he is looking forward to it.

So, Devesh, get ready!

The fourth question:

Question 4:

SANJAYO,

ARE YOU IN LOVE with some Italian guy? Otherwise why this question? And this is really a great question! When I read your question I had to consult the Akashic records because neither the Bible says anything about it nor the Koran nor the Vedas! And really it is something very important. The keeper of the Akashic records is Master Kuthumi, well known to the Theosophists as Master K.H.

He is the keeper - I had to ask his permission. "Let me see just a little thing, because I don't know the answer: Why and how did God create the Italians?"

He was also puzzled. He said, "Nobody has ever asked this, neither Blavatsky nor Annie Besant.

Who is this Sanjayo? Seems to be very esoteric!"

I said, "My sannyasins are very esoteric, very metaphysical! They ask such questions that if they were to ask any other saint, either the saint would escape or they would be thrown out! But they can ask me each and every thing."

I had to look hard enough, then I came across a little passage. It says: "In the beginning there was darkness and spaghetti. And God loved spaghetti. One day, in the darkness, he was eating spaghetti and an idea occurred to him. He took a little spaghetti in one hand and a little spaghetti in the other and clapped both hands together and said, 'Wop!' and the first Italian appeared." That's why they are called wops.

The only question remains - please don't put it to me - who made the spaghetti in the beginning? I could not find the answer even in the Akashic records. And when I asked Kuthumi again and again, he said, "Shut up! Such questions are not written and such answers are not given. And God can do anything, he can do any miracle. Why can he not make spaghetti?"

I said, "That seems to be difficult. Without an Italian there in the first place who will make spaghetti?"

And you ask, "Why..."

In the Akashic records it says: The day God created Italy was a day of grace. Even God stopped to contemplate his work with great satisfaction.

"I outdid myself! What a wonder! Look at that beautiful scenery! It is a blessed country!" said God to himself.

And then, to balance things, God created the Italians.

One thing is certain: without the Italians the world would have never been so beautiful, would have never been so interesting. Italians have contributed much. Another thing is absolutely certain:

without the Italians there would have been no commune here - impossible. I am dispensable, but Deeksha is not! Even if I am not here you can sit in silence, but without Deeksha how long can you sit in silence?

The lady was taking the census in a middle class Italian neighborhood. As she rang the bell, a naked man opened the door. She was a very professional type, so she made believe she had not noticed. But the guy explained himself.

"I hope you understand me - I belong to a nudist club."

"There is no problem," said the lady, "I just need some information, sir. Are you married?"

"Yes, for the third time."

"Do you have sons?"

"Yes," said the naked man. "I have seven from my first wife, twelve from the second and fifteen from the third."

"Well," said the lady, "it seems you are not a nudist, you just have no time to dress!"

Italians really have contributed great things to the world!

A very shy painter met a beautiful Italian woman in a bar and asked if she would pose for him. She agreed if he would pay her one hundred dollars.

So the painter borrowed money from all his friends and set up the appointment. Once they were together he said, "Miss, what I would really like to do is to paint your portrait with bare breasts."

She agreed for the price of two hundred dollars. So he sold everything he could and finally raised the money.

When she came to his studio and posed with her breast exposed, he became so excited that he couldn't resist asking her to pose entirely in the nude. She agreed, but asked for four hundred dollars.

Desperate, he sold his favorite paintings and even his art supplies in order to raise the enormous sum of money.

Finally she arrived at the studio and removed all of her clothes. The painter became so excited, he said. "Oh! The passion! I am dying with desire for you! What I really want is to make love with you!

Say how much... how much?"

"Ai!" she exclaimed. "The same price as for everyone else - ten dollars."

Maria has six sons, all dark-haired. The seventh, however, is born redheaded.

Giovanni is furious.

"I know you have betrayed me!" he shouts in anger. "Confess that this is not my son!"

"I swear, Giovanni, he is your son. I swear it - I swear it!"

But Giovanni, in a blind rage, shoots her. Before dying, the woman asks him to come close and whispers, "I have to confess something to you, Giovanni. He is your son - it's the others that are not yours!"

Roberto left for America with the promise of sending for Maria once he had settled. Before leaving they made a fidelity pact with each other.

Two years later Roberto sent for Maria. On her arrival day he said to her, "Wow, you look lovely!"

"And you, Roberto, you are so handsome!" said Maria.

Soon they were sharing confidences of the past two years.

"Do you know, Maria," said Roberto, "these two years have been a great sacrifice, but I have been faithful to our pact. Every time I went with a woman I would remember our vow and would get up from on top of her. What about you? Did you fulfill our pact, And Maria answered, "You know, Roberto, to get out from underneath is much harder!"

Four men are in a bar talking about their professions.

The first, a German, says, "I'm a coke-sacker at the coal yard. I fill sacks with coke."

The second, a Frenchman, says, "I'm a sock-tucker at the clothing warehouse. I tuck socks into packages. "

The third, a Dutchman, says, "I'm a cork-soaker at the barrel factory. I soak the corks so they'll make a good fit."

The fourth, an Italian, says, "I'm the real thing."

Without the Italians the world would not be the same; they are the most earthly people. And I love the earthly people; they are the most rooted in the earth They are not abstract people, like Indians; they are not metaphysicians. That is their beauty.

And my work here is to create a synthesis of the sky people and the earth people. I would like my sannyasins to be as earthly as the Italians and as unearthly as the Indians, because unless your roots go deep in the earth your branches cannot reach to the stars. The deeper the roots go into the earth, the higher is the reach of your branches. Then you can whisper with the stars.

Up to now there has been a split. The earthly people have been condemned by the religious people as materialists and the materialists have been condemned by the spiritualist as hocus-pocus. Both are true in a way, but both are half. And a half-truth is far more dangerous than a lie because it looks like a truth.

The whole truth is that a real, authentic man, the whole man, will contain contradictions. He will be vast enough to contain contradictions. He will be a man and a woman together. He will be earthly and unearthly together. He will be materialist and spiritualist together, with no conflict. Unless this synthesis happens the world is going to remain schizophrenic.

My sannyasins are not to be unearthly, they are not only to be earthly either; they have to be both.

I am giving them the hardest task ever: they have to be materialists AND spiritualists, spiritualists AND materialists. They have to drop the whole division of this world and that, of this shore and that, of THIS and THAT. They have to make a bridge between the two. And once that bridge is made, man will be whole for the first time. And a whole man is holy. Neither the spiritualist is holy nor is the worldly man holy because both are not yet whole. They are unholy because they are half, and any person who is half is bound to suffer. He cannot rejoice, he cannot celebrate, he cannot know what a blessing life is.

You have to know that even dust is divine, that your body is a temple. You have to become Zorba the Buddha!