The Taste of Eternity

The first question:

Question 1:

DINESH,

Meditation has nothing to do with mind; meditation simply means a state of no-mind. The functioning of the mind is the only disturbance in meditation. If you are trying to achieve meditation THROUGH mind you are bound to fail, doomed to fail. You are trying to achieve the impossible.

A Zen initiate was meditating for years and whenever he would come to his Master, whatsoever experience he would bring to the Master, the Master would simply reject: "It is all nonsense. You go back and meditate again."

One day the Master came to the but of the disciple - he was sitting in a Buddha posture. The Master shook him and told him, "What are you doing here? If we needed stone Buddhas we have many in the temple! Just by sitting like a stone Buddha you will not attain to meditation. Do what I have been telling you to do. Just by stilling the body, your mind is not going to disappear, because it is through the mind that you are enforcing a certain discipline on the body. Anything done by the mind is going to strengthen the mind. It is a nourishment for the mind."

A year passed. The Master came again. The disciple was sitting almost in a kind of euphoria, enjoying the morning breeze and sun with closed eyes, thinking that he was meditating. The Master took a brick and started rubbing it on a stone in front of the disciple. It was such a disturbance that finally the disciple had to shout, "What are you doing? Are you trying to drive me crazy?"

The Master said, "I am trying to make a mirror out of this brick. If one goes on rubbing it enough I think it will become a mirror."

The disciple laughed. He said, "I always suspected that you were a little mad - now it is proved! The brick can never become a mirror. You can go on rubbing it on the stone for lives together; the brick will remain a brick."

The Master said, "That shows some intelligence! Then what are you doing? For years you have been trying to make meditation out of the mind; it is like trying to make a mirror out of a brick."

And the Master threw the brick in the pond at the side of the tree the disciple was sitting under.

The brick made a great splash in the pond, and the very sound of it was enough to do the miracle.

Something awakened in the disciple. A sleep was broken, a dream was shattered: he became alert.

For the first time he tasted something of meditation.

And the Master immediately said, " This is it!"

It happened so unexpectedly - the disciple was taken unawares. He was not waiting for this to happen, that the Master would suddenly throw the brick into the pond, and the splash...

Basho has a beautiful haiku:

The ancient pond.

The frog jumps in.

The sound...

That's all. The sound can awaken you.

Meditation is not a question of effort because all effort is going to be through the mind, of the mind, by the mind. How can it take you beyond the mind? You will go round and round IN the mind.

You have to wake up! Mind is sleep. Mind is a constant process of dreaming, desiring, thoughts, memories.

Dinesh, you ask me: PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW I CAN MEDITATE OVER SOMETHING WITHOUT USING MY MIND.

Can't you see something just with your eyes? Can't you watch something without bringing your mind in? The birds chirping, this silence... What need is there of the mind? It is a question of watchfulness not of concentration.

But it is not only your problem, it is the problem of millions of people who become interested in meditation all over the world. They all mistake concentration for meditation. Concentration is something of the mind. It is being taught in the schools, colleges, universities. It has its uses - I am not saying it is useless. It is focusing on a certain object.

In science it is needed. You have to focus your mind on a particular object totally so that you can observe deeply. You have to exclude everything else, you have to break it out of everything else.

You have to narrow down your consciousness; you almost have to make a pinpoint of it That's a scientific way as far as the objective world is concerned.

But as far as the subjective world is concerned it is of no help, not at all. There you are not to focus your mind on anything - on the idea of God or on some inner light, flame, love, compassion - you are not to concentrate at all; you have to be simply aware of all that is.

The man of concentration can be distracted easily; anything can become a distraction because he is trying to do something unnatural. Just a child crying, and he will be distracted; the traffic noise, and he will be distracted; an airplane passing by, and he will be distracted; a dog starts barking, and he will be distracted. Anything can distract him. And of course, when he is distracted he will feel miserable, frustrated - he has failed again. The man of meditation cannot be distracted for the simple reason that he is not concentrating in the first place.

Existence is not linear, it is simultaneous. For example, I am speaking here, the birds are chirping, the traffic noise is there, the train is passing by - all these things are happening together. You have to be simple, silent, watchful, witnessing all that is - no need to exclude anything because the excluded thing will try to distract you. If nothing is excluded, if your awareness is all-inclusive, then what can distract you? Can this bird distract you? In fact, it will enhance your silence. Nothing Can distract you because you are not in a tense state.

Concentration is tension, hence the word "attention". It comes from the same root, "tension".

Awareness is not attention; awareness is relaxation, it is rest.

So rest silently. Thoughts will pass; there is no need to he worried - what can they do? Desires will come and go. Watch them coming and going. Don't have any evaluation. Don't say, "This is good; this is bad." Don't say, "Aha! This is something great, spiritual, far out!" Some sensation in the spine - it may be just an ant crawling up and you start feeling your kundalini is rising, or just imagination - you see some light inside, which is not difficult... You can see light, you can see colors, psychedelic colors. You can experience beautiful things, but it is all imagination, howsoever colorful, howsoever beautiful.

Don't start saying that this is good that Jesus is standing in front of you or Krishna or Buddha and that now you are starting to feel you are coming closer and closer to the ultimate realization. Buddha says, "If you meet me on the Way, kill me immediately!" He means: If I come in your meditation, don't start feeling very good about it, because if you start feeling good about it you will start clinging to the idea - and it is only an idea. Just watch it with no preference, with no choice. If you can be choicelessly aware of everything outside and inside, meditation will happen one day. It is nothing that you have to do.

You can do only one thing and that is to learn the art of watching, watching without any judgment.

Then one day you simply relax, and in that total relaxation there is pure awareness. All thoughts disappear, all desires disappear; the mind is found no more. When mind is not found, this is meditation. A state of no-mind is meditation.

So you have been misunderstanding me. When I say "Meditate", I mean "Watch". If I say "Meditate on the songs of the birds", I am simply saying "Watch". I am not saying "Concentrate" - I am against concentration. And because I am for watchfulness you can watch anything. You can sit in the marketplace and watch people and that will be meditation. You can sit in the railway station and you can watch all kinds of noises: the trains coming and the passengers getting down and the coolies shouting and the vendors, and then the train goes away and a silence falls over the station. You simply watch, you don't do anything.

And slowly slowly you start relaxing, your tensions disappear. Then insight opens up like a bud opening and becoming a flower. Great fragrance is released. In that silence is truth, is bliss, is benediction.

The second question:

Question 2:

DHARMA,

KNOWLEDGE HAS ITS USES, it is not absolutely useless. But if you are going inwards it becomes more and more useless; the deeper you go the more useless it is. If you are going outwards, the farther you go into the world the more useful it becomes. The world respects the knowledgeable person. It needs experts; it needs all kinds of people carrying information, knowledge, expertise.

But in the inner world the question does not arise: in the inner world the same knowledge becomes a hindrance. That which is useful in the outside world becomes a barrier to the inner. It is a bridge to the world; it is a barrier to the inner exploration.

Whenever I say anything against knowledge I simply mean that for those who are pilgrims, explorers of their subjectivity, it is utterly useless. There, something else is needed: not knowledge but wisdom. Knowledge is information; wisdom is transformation. Knowledge is borrowed; wisdom is your own. Knowledge is ego-fulfilling; wisdom happens only when the ego is dropped, utterly dropped, totally dropped. Knowledge gives you the feeling that you are higher than others; it is a certain kind of power, just like money. Knowledge is power. So if you have a postgraduate degree you feel better than those who don't have postgraduate degrees. If you have a Ph.D. you feel a little more egoistic. If you carry a D. Litt. of course you become very special. If you have many degrees, then you start feeling that you are not an ordinary person.

Once in Varanasi a man came to see me; he was known all over the world because he had twenty M.As. He was the only person in the whole world who had twenty postgraduate degrees, but I have never come across such a stupid man. He was utterly stupid, obviously; he had wasted his whole life in acquiring knowledge. And he was moving from one subject to another; his whole effort was to have as many M.As as possible. When he came to see me he was almost sixty-five years old; he was preparing for still another examination. When he died he had acquired thirty M.A.s. But when I talked to the man he was very childish, very mediocre - no sign of intelligence, but very egoistic.

In fact, an intelligent person cannot be egoistic; it is impossible. If your intelligence cannot show you the simple thing that ego is a false phenomenon then you don't have intelligence at all. But people love to brag about their knowledge.

In the inner world humbleness helps, simplicity helps. In the outer world these certificates and degrees are certainly of some use.

A distinguished man enters Harrod's in London asks for a hippopotamus and insists that the animal should be delivered that same afternoon.

"You see," he explains, "I terribly need this animal... if I don't have it by this afternoon I'll go crazy!"

Curious, the clerk asks, "And where should we put it?"

"In my bathtub," replies the man.

Even more curious, the clerk exclaims, "You mean, sir, that you want a hippopotamus in your bathtub?"

"Yes! You see, it's for my wife. Whenever I say something she invariably replies, 'Yes, I know it already.' And so tonight when she comes to me saying, 'There's a hippopotamus in the bathtub!' I will finally be able to reply, 'Yes, I know it already!'"

Dharma, if you want that kind of stupid ego to be fulfilled, knowledge has a use; otherwise it is useless. But the outside knowledge has even corrupted religions. I can understand a scientist acquiring knowledge, because he cannot function without it. Science depends on tradition, remember. Religion does not depend on tradition, although people think just the reverse. They think religion depends on tradition and science is a rebellion against tradition. That is not so, not at all.

Science is traditional. Without Newton there would have been no Edison. Without Edison there would have been no Albert Einstein. That's what I mean when I say science depends on tradition: it depends on the past, and you have to be well informed about the past, otherwise no work is possible in scientific inquiry. First you have to know whatsoever is known already, only then can you proceed to discover something which is not known. If you don't know what is already known you may be trying to discover something which has been already discovered and you may come to know it only later on. Then all your effort has been a waste.

But religion is non-traditional. It is rebellion, it is pure rebellion! There is no need for Krishna to be for Buddha to happen; Buddha can happen without Krishna. Christ can happen without Moses, Mohammed can happen without Christ, Ramakrishna can happen without Buddha. Religion is individual; science is collective. Because science is collective it has to depend on knowledge.

Religion is individual; you have to make the whole discovery again. You cannot depend on Buddha, you cannot depend on Christ, you cannot depend on anybody else. You always have to start from abe; you cannot take things for granted. You cannot say, "This has been discovered by Buddha so what is the need for me to discover it again?" Yes, Columbus discovered America, now there is no need for you to discover it. Even if you go to America you cannot call it your discovery. People have reached the moon; now even if you go to the moon it won't be of any great value - you won't be a pioneer. But the same is not true about your inner being.

Your inner being has not been discovered yet. Buddha discovered HIS being; that is not YOUR being. If you believe in him you will remain only knowledgeable, and the knowledgeable person is always false as far as the inner is concerned.

And my whole concern is the inner. I am not teaching you chemistry, physics or mathematics here, I am teaching you only one single thing: how to discover yourself. That's why I condemn knowledge.

A rabbi and a cantor are praying together in the synagogue, beating their breasts and crying, "O Lord, I am nothing, nothing, nothing!"

The synagogue janitor, hearing them, puts down his broom and joins them, beating his breast and crying, "O Lord, I am nothing, nothing, nothing!"

The cantor turns to the rabbi and says, "Look who thinks he's nothing!"

Just a janitor, just a nobody - and thinking he is nothing? Even to be nothing you have to be somebody special. You see the stupidity of it?

Borrowed knowledge is of no help at all.

A thief and a theologian decided to escape from the prison.

As the thief climbed over the wall, the guard heard some rattling. "Who's there?"

"Meow," said the thief, imitating a cat, and passed safely.

Up came the theologian and again the guard heard some noise. "Who's there?"

"It's nothing," answered the theologian. "Just another cat!"

Knowledge is of no help at all in the inner world. You will have to know yourself. Unless you know yourself, all your beliefs will create a burden; they will not help you to be unburdened, they will not help you to be liberated.They will create new bondages, beautiful bondages.

The bride-to-be is taken by her mother to the chicken roost where she is shown the rooster "doing his work".

"It is going to be something more or less like that, my dear!" exclaims the mother.

On the wedding night the young husband comes into the bedroom wearing pajamas, and is surprised by the scene he sees: the young bride is lying on the bed naked, with a helmet on her head.

"What is this all about, baby?" he asks.

"You can do whatever you like with me, but you are not going to peck my head!" she answers.

Borrowed knowledge is always going to create that kind of state in you. You can repeat Jesus, you can repeat Krishna, you can repeat Moses, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, but repetitions won't help; you have to learn on your own. Yes, imbibe the spirit of the Masters, of the awakened ones, but remember it is not knowledge that is going to help you but wisdom. And wisdom comes when all knowledge has been put aside. Call it knowledge or call it mind, it is the same thing. Mind is knowledge. When you have put aside all knowledge you have put aside the mind itself; you are in a state of not-knowing. And to be in a state of not-knowing is the most beautiful experience because it is innocence. You will be full of wonder and awe. You will be a child again. This will be a rebirth.

Only this rebirth can release the hidden splendor of your being.

You are carrying within you a great light, a great treasure, the very kingdom of God, but you are clinging to borrowed things. Rather than clinging to borrowed things, Dharma, go in and discover your own center. Knowledge keeps you on the circumference. Jump from the circumference.

Renouncing knowledge is the greatest renunciation.

I don't tell you to renounce your money, your house, your family, because they are not the problem.

Renounce your knowledge, your mind; that is the real problem, because that is something that is hindering the path. It is blocking your way in reaching your own center.

Renounce knowledge and rejoice in the state of not-knowing, and great wisdom will be released in you. The Buddha within you will be awakened. Only that can give you the taste of eternity - not words, not scriptures, not beliefs, not knowledge.

The third question:

Question 3:

KRISHNA GOPA,

YES, I HAVE BEEN telling you again and again that you can be together only when you know how to be alone, but by "alone" I don't mean "lonely". You must have misunderstood me. Everybody can be lonely, but to be alone is a tremendous achievement, it is a great realization. Loneliness is very ordinary. People suffer from loneliness. You can manage not to suffer: you can put up a face, a facade, you can cultivate certain things so that you don't feel the pain of loneliness, but that is not the art of being alone.

It is not just a question of avoiding suffering while you are lonely. Aloneness means positively enjoying it, being positively ecstatic about it, being positively blissful about it, so much so that if you are never together with anybody again no question arises, no problem arises, not even the desire, not even a lurking desire somewhere in the unconscious. When you are so contented - not just satisfied, remember... these words are totally different. One can create satisfaction without being contented.

Satisfaction is a kind of "accepting the inevitable". What else can one do? If one is lonely one is lonely; one has to live with it. And man is capable of adjusting to any situation. Even if you are thrown alone somewhere in a desert or on an island you will adjust to the life there; you will still survive. You may even create certain satisfactions there.

I have heard about a man, a Christian priest. His ship was drowned; somehow he survived. He reached a small island - there was nobody on the island. After twenty years another ship passed by. He waved, shouted - the captain heard. The captain saw the man; he stopped the ship and made arrangements to bring the man on board. He himself came in a small boat to take him to the ship.

The lonely priest told the captain, "Before we leave this island I would like to show you my work of twenty years."

He was also an architect; before he had become a priest he had been an architect. He had planned almost a small city, a miniature city.

The captain was delighted. He said, "Wait! let all the passengers of my ship come and see. This is a miracle! You have done something beautiful. Small houses, just like playthings, but beautifully designed. How did you manage this?"

He said, "I had to do something to keep myself engaged, occupied, to remain satisfied. And I was really satisfied. After a few years I completely forgot about the world. Even the desire to reach the world again left me - at least I thought it had left me. Seeing your ship, suddenly I realized that no, it had not left me; otherwise I was very satisfied. This island has everything that I needed to create these small houses." All kinds of houses...

And then he said, "The most beautiful thing is... I will show you." He took him to a church, he showed him the church, the Catholic church. He had made it a little bigger - you could enter it - because he used to worship there. Of course, he was alone, but the old habit...

When they came out the captain was puzzled and all other passengers were also puzzled, because just in front of the church there was another church, a Protestant church.

They asked the priest, "Isn't one church enough for one man? Why did you make another church?"

He said, "That is the church I don't go to, and this is the church I go to!"

Old habits... but he was perfectly satisfied. He said, "Nobody goes there; it is always deserted. I have never seen anybody go there."

There was nobody there in the first place except him and he was going to the Catholic church because he was a Catholic priest, but he was very happy and satisfied that the Protestant church was almost deserted. He had made it very ugly too, but he had made it - he himself had made it.

One can be satisfied with any situation. Man is immensely adaptable; that is one of the great qualities of man. That's why man can survive any kind of climate, any kind of temperature: extreme cold, extreme hot, too much rain, no rain. Man can survive everywhere, anywhere. Why? - because man is capable of it; he is liquid.

So you can be lonely and you can think yourself satisfied, but when you are together that is the test whether you were really contented. If you were contented in your loneliness it was not loneliness, it was aloneness. If being together brings no disturbance, no wanting, no desiring, no expectation, no jealousy, no possessiveness, no unconscious hankering to dominate the other, then it was aloneness. Otherwise it was only loneliness covered, disguised by a certain false sense of satisfaction.

Krishna Gopa, you have not yet been able to be alone, because if you are alone then this question will not arise at all. Then whether you are alone or together you are alone, and your aloneness is so immensely beautiful that who bothers to dominate? Why? For what? You are so full of joy that there is no need to possess anybody; it will be so ugly. You will be able to see the ugliness of it.

But if when you are together all these ugly desires start moving again, rising again, raising their heads again, if all these snakes and these scorpions start crawling upwards towards the conscious from the unconscious, that simply means they were waiting for the right opportunity. Now the opportunity is there. Only the opportunity proves where you are.

That's why I don't tell my sannyasins to leave the world and go to the mountains, because there you will simply be leaving the opportunities behind. You will start living in a cave, and you can deceive yourself your whole life thinking that you have known what aloneness is, what solitude is. You will only be lonely and solitary and you will start thinking that you are contented and blissful. And you will only be satisfied and not miserable, but not blissful. Just being not miserable is not equivalent to being blissful.

Not being ill is not equivalent to being healthy and whole. Health has something more to it than just not being ill: it has a certain well-being. There are many people who are not ill, but they are not healthy. Sometimes it can happen that a person may be ill and yet healthy because health has a totally different connotation. Health is not only a medical concept, it is something far bigger, far more comprehensive than medical science.

For example, Prem Chinmaya was utterly ill. What more illness can you have? He was suffering from cancer. The cancer was spreading every day, but he was healthy; he had a certain well-being.

His illness was only in the body, it was not reaching to his consciousness; he remained floating above it.

His nurse, Puja, wrote just the other day: "Osho, I am immensely blessed that I served Chinmaya. I have watched many people die in my life, but this death was totally different, qualitatively different. I have never seen any man die with such beauty, with such silence, with such meditativeness."

At the last moment, when he was hearing my last discourse... Puja has written to me - she was there: "He was in deep pain as far as the body was concerned. The pain was so great that even injections of morphia were not of any help. Even double, treble doses of morphia were not helping at all. The pain was so great that nothing seemed to help him. But when he heard the joke about Jesus and the cancer patient," Puja writes to me, "he smiled."

And she writes also: "I could see that that smile was not only of the body, because the body was not in a state at all to smile; it was coming from somewhere deep. And I could see and feel that deep down he was laughing. That smile was just a little bit of that laughter which had come up to the body."

He was healthy in a totally different sense, in a non-medical sense. There are many people who are healthy in a medical sense, perfectly fit medically, but utterly unhealthy. Deep down there is nothing but turmoil, emptiness, anguish. One can hide it, one can repress it, and one can not only deceive others, man is so capable of cunningness that he can deceive himself.

Krishna Gopa, you say: YOU HAVE SAID THAT TO BE TOGETHER ONE MUST KNOW HOW TO BE ALONE.

I repeat it again: yes, unless you know how to be alone your togetherness will become troublesome, your togetherness will create misery, because your togetherness will bring out everything that remains asleep in you while you are lonely. When you are together the other provokes it, the other becomes a challenge. You become a challenge for the other, the other becomes a challenge for you.

A man/woman relationship brings their unconscious to the surface; they come into their true colors.

Of course, in the beginning it is not so. In the beginning it cannot be so because in the beginning you keep the facade. When you meet only for a few hours on the sea beach or in the full-moon night you keep the facade because you still are not certain, the other is also not yet certain whether he can expose his reality to you. But once the honeymoon is over everything is over.

In fact, almost every marriage ends with the end of the honeymoon; then the reality starts. Then the mirage of marriage is over. Now both can take it for granted that the other cannot escape easily.

Now you need not be afraid; now you can come into your true colors. And both start exploding.

They have been repressive for so long that all their repressions start coming up and togetherness becomes ugly.

That's why for centuries people have escaped into the forests, into the monasteries, into the mountains, just to escape from togetherness. But that is not the true way of spirituality, that is not the true way of growth. That is escapist, that is out of fear, that is cowardly.

I would like you to be in the world. I insist: Be in the world and yet remain alert, aware, watchful. Don't be repressive. If you are not repressive in your aloneness, your aloneness will become a blissful, beautiful experience. Meet with the other person out of your bliss, not out of your misery. And then togetherness does not only double your bliss, it multiplies it. Togetherness always multiplies whatsoever you bring to it. If you bring misery to it, it multiplies misery. Two miserable persons together is not only a double misery, it is multiplied. Two persons blissfully together, the bliss not only doubles, it multiplies. Then togetherness is beautiful, but one should learn to be alone first.

And if you know how to be alone you will know how to be alone together, because it is not a question of learning it again in a different way; it is the same phenomenon. If you know how to be alone you will know it everywhere, whether in relationship or not in relationship. To be alone... Then togetherness helps spiritual growth, integrity, tremendously, because it gives you an opportunity, a great challenge. It exposes you to the full light and you can see yourself. The other becomes the mirror.

Relationship is a mirror. You cannot see your face without a mirror. You cannot see your reality without the other. The other becomes a mirror - mirrors are good.

I have heard about an ugly woman who was against mirrors - naturally - because her idea was that mirrors made her look ugly, that mirrors were in a conspiracy against her. Because this was her logic: "Whenever there is no mirror I don't feel any ugliness, I am perfectly, okay. It is only when there is a mirror that I immediately become ugly. The mirror must be doing something. "

She was so against the mirrors that she used to break mirrors. Wherever she would come across a mirror she would immediately destroy it because mirrors were enemies.

Her logic is not different from your monks and nuns; they are doing the same. Going into a monastery means escaping from the mirrors - condemning relationship, condemning love, condemning the world. All your saints are afraid of mirrors, that's all. But to be afraid of mirrors simply shows you are afraid of your own ugliness; you don't want to see it. And without mirrors of course you will not see it, but that does not mean that it has disappeared - it is there. Any time, anything... if not a mirror then maybe just a silent lake, and you will see it. And whether YOU see it or not, others will see it.

You can see your saints' faces, your so-called mahatmas. They are all sad, they don't seem to be blissful. They don't seem to be like lotus flowers, they look like rocks - almost dead, utterly dull, mediocre.

There seems to be no sharpness of intelligence, because they have escaped from where they could sharpen their intelligence. Their intelligence goes on gathering dust, but they think they have achieved satisfaction, they have achieved what God meant them to achieve. They have simply missed the opportunity.

God will ask them, "I had given you life and you escaped from life. You rejected my life, you rejected my gift. You were against me."

George Gurdjieff used to make a very strange statement - but only a man like Gurdjieff can tell the utterly naked truth - he used to say that "All your saints are against God." When you come across such a statement for the first time you cannot believe it. saints, and against God? But Gurdjieff is right. He really means it, he is not joking! Your saints are against God because they are against life.

I am NOT against life. I am in tremendous love with life.

Krishna Gopa, learn to be alone - and that will happen only through meditation - and then allow mirrors into your life so that you can see where you are, what you are, how much you have grown.

In this commune we are doing something new which has never happened ever before. There are growth centers in the world, particularly in the West, where therapy groups are run. There are meditation centers, particularly in the East, where people meditate. This is the only place where people meditate and go through groups, go through groups and meditate - together. On the surface it will look contradictory because meditation means learning how to be alone and group therapies mean learning how to be together. But this is my fundamental approach; you have to learn both.

And you are right, Gopa, that: THE PATH OF LOVE MUST BE TAKEN WITH TREMENDOUS AWARENESS.

And the same is true about the path of awareness: it must be taken with tremendous love. In fact, love and awareness are two aspects of the same coin.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

SWAMI BUDDHAPREM,

THE QUESTION SHOWS that you are not my sannyasin.

You say: I THINK YOUR SANNYASINS WOULD APPRECIATE IT.

You have fallen into wrong company, it seems. You are not meant to be here. You must have come with a wrong notion. You must have come here to learn philosophy. You must be a serious person - and seriousness is pathological.

Philosophy is all bullshit! I am not interested in philosophy; of course my sannyasins are not interested in philosophy either. Those who belong to me are interested in life, not in philosophy.

Life is the real thing; philosophy is the false thing. But philosophy has been praised for centuries and we live with this conditioning. Nobody tells you that philosophy is a false thing.

Buddha is not a philosopher: he loved to tell parables. Jesus is not a philosopher: he used so many parables.

My jokes are New Age parables - because to me laughter is one of the most significant things in life. People who are not capable of laughing become incapable of living.

But it happens. Many times - in fact, more often than not - you come here for the wrong reasons, thinking that you are going to some oriental philosopher. I am neither oriental nor a philosopher! I am not even religious in the old sense: I am not a saint nor a mahatma. In fact, you can't put me in any category. You will have to create a new category for me because no existing category will be adequate. I won't fit in it, and I don't want to fit in any category. THINGS fit in categories, not people, not REAL people.

A lady enters a clothing store and asks if they have falsies.

"Certainly, lady," answers the formal salesman.

"What I want to know," she continues, "is if you have the best quality falsies."

"Of course!" exclaims the salesman "in this store we don't sell imitations!"

All philosophies are false and all philosophies are imitations. I am existential. But you are certainly in the wrong place. Either you will have to change or you will have to leave - I don't leave any other alternative. If you want to be with me you have to understand what is happening here and you have to become part of it. If you feel that that is not possible, that you already know what is right, then this is not the place for you, then this is not the right company for you.

Do you know about the two scientists who first discovered the flying machine, the airplane, which could not leave the ground? Do you know their name? Their name was the Wrong brothers.

And these are Wrong brothers, and you seem to be a very right and righteous person. Either you have to become part of this strange company... This is a Noah's Ark - all kinds of animals are here!

In the new commune I am not going to call it Buddha Hall again, it will be Noah's Ark!

But if you are interested in philosophy you can go to any university; there are thousands of universities in the world. If you are interested in something false it is very cheap. But remember, all the time that you waste will simply be wasted and one day you will repent.

A tourist threw a coin into the wishing well at Disneyland. He had just expressed a sinful wish when a beautiful girl tapped his shoulder and told him to follow her. She took him to a luxurious flat, gave him silk pajamas, and after she put on some music and lit some candles, she handed him a martini.

Then she started undressing.

She took off her long blonde hair, which was a wig, she took off her false eyelashes, and then her beautiful false breasts. Then the tourist saw that she was not even a woman, and in despair he exclaimed, "What does all this mean?"

And the boy replied, "Now you will learn not to throw false coins in the wishing well, you darling little cheater!"

Buddhaprem, you ask me: INSTEAD OF GIVING PHILOSOPHICAL LESSONS, WHY DON'T YOU JUST TELL JOKES FOR A WHILE?

And what have I been doing here all along? Do you think I have been giving philosophical lessons?

Then you have not heard me at all. It is not the philosophical lessons that I am interested in, I am interested in the jokes. It is not to illustrate philosophy that I use jokes, just the contrary: to illustrate the jokes I use philosophy!

You think that I look at your questions? Nonsense! First I look at my jokes and then at your questions.

If your question fits with my jokes, okay, otherwise it goes into the waste basket. Those who really want their questions to be answered, they have learned the trick: first they send the jokes, then they send the question. Then they can be certain their question will be answered. But first, the jokes!

I am much more interested in your laughter...

You say: I THINK YOUR SANNYASINS WOULD APPRECIATE IT.

They love it! But for that they have to be my sannyasins. You are not yet a sannyasin, otherwise you would have said, "We would appreciate it." You say "your sannyasins". You are keeping yourself apart, you are excluding yourself from my sannyasins.

What, in fact, is philosophy? It is thinking about things which are unthinkable. It is trying to comprehend something which is incomprehensible. It is an absurd activity. The philosophers know it, but they enjoy the activity. It is like a game, like chess. Just as people enjoy chess there are people who enjoy philosophy.

A philosopher wanted to change the world. He thought that God had made many mistakes and that he should have thought a little longer before creating the world in seven days.

One day, as he was lying in the grass contemplating, some birds flew overhead, while a grazing cow passed slowly by his side.

"Look," he said to himself, "another mistake of nature! Cows, which are very utilitarian to humanity, must drag themselves down the road, while birds, which have no utility at all, can fly and move very easily!"

At that very moment, one of the birds overhead shat on his head.

The philosopher, stunned, contemplated for a few moments and then said out loud, "Excuse me, God, I really didn't mean that cows should fly!"

What is philosophy? It is just contemplating about useless things. For example, just the other day I was saying to you, "In the beginning was darkness and spaghetti." Now, if you are a philosopher you will torture yourself with the question: Who made spaghetti? From where did it come? And I know this is true because I know my Italian sannyasins. I know my medium, Radha. Whenever I touch her third eye there is no third eye... Layers and layers of spaghetti. I go on, go on... It has been years now! But still I like and love to touch her third eye - it is very soft! So I know the story is true.

But philosophers have been asking such questions: "God created the world. Then who created God?" And whatsoever answer you give will create another question. If you say xyz, or anybody, then they will ask, "Who created x? Who created y? Who created z?" It will go on and on; somewhere it has to stop.

So when Kuthumi shouted at me and said, "Shut up!" I immediately understood - he is right, because somewhere one has to shut up!

I am very existential. Rather than bothering about who created spaghetti I looked into Radha and found that it is true. The Akashic records are saying something absolutely right. And everybody should be jealous of it because to be full of spaghetti is far better than being full of cow dung.

Indians are full of holy cow dung! They used to drink cow's urine, and now much progress has happened: Morarji Desai drinks his own urine. This is progress! This is evolution! Nobody can deny this is evolution, moving from cow's urine to your own urine. It is a lesson in independence.

Buddhaprem, formally you are my sannyasin - REALLY become my sannyasin. Enjoy this great opportunity of being non-serious, of taking life as fun, of enjoying it. Life consists of small things, but if you learn how to enjoy those small things the ordinary becomes extraordinary, the mundane becomes sacred, the profane becomes profound.

Religion is not something that disconnects you from life and its joys, it deepens your joys. In fact, only a really religious person can eat, drink and be merry. It has been said AGAINST the irreligious; it has been said that it is the materialist philosophy, to eat, drink and be merry. But I tell you that the materialist cannot eat, drink and be merry, only the spiritualist, because he can think deeper. Then spaghetti becomes spiritual. Who bothers about the third eye? What is the need for the third eye?

Even the two are creating so much trouble! And three eyes will create more trouble; they will create a triangle in you!

But you must be here almost unconscious.

A philosopher enters a bar and asks for ten glasses of whisky.

"Ten?" exclaims the surprised bartender.

"Ten!" answers the philosopher.

So the bartender brings him all ten drinks, and to his surprise the philosopher drinks them all.

Next he asks for nine glasses of whisky. After drinking them he asks for eight, then seven, and so forth, until he finally asks for just one glass of whisky.

After finishing the last glass he somehow manages to mumble to the bartender, "T-t-tell me, br-bro- brother, w-why is it th-th-that the l-l-less I dr-dr-drink, the mo-more dr-dr-drunk I g-g-get?"

The last question:

Question 5:

ANAND TILOPA,

REPRESS and resist, how out of repression and resistance can trust and innocence grow? You will be making it more and more impossible. Innocence means a state of total nudity, of utter non- repressiveness. Repressed persons become complex, they cannot become innocent. Everything in them becomes crippled, paralyzed, devious. They start becoming split; in fact they become many, not just two They have one door to show themselves to the world and another door, a back door, through which they live. They say something, they do something - and they think something else.

They are always in a chaos, they cannot be innocent.

Innocence does not need repression, it needs spontaneity, it needs naturalness. Whatsoever you repress will become your problem. If you repress anger, anger will become your problem. Then in everything anger will be hiding. In fact, if there is too much repressed anger you will be angry twenty-four hours a day for no reason at all, because now it is not a question of having any valid reason for being angry, you are just boiling within - any excuse will do, or if there are no excuses to be found you will start inventing excuses.

A group of nuns were traveling to a convent in the interior of Africa when they were kidnapped by a ferocious tribe of Africans. The United Nations was immediately informed and some days later a military troop was sent by plane to the heart of the black continent.

It was a successful operation.The soldiers surrounded the tribe, rescued the nuns, and brought them to the plane.

All the nuns boarded the plane with torn clothes, swollen lips, hair a mess, and with their breasts exposed.

"It's so good that you came!" they said, "We couldn't bear it any longer. All those blacks with those enormous 'things' and all day long fucking, fucking, fucking!"

The soldiers tried to console them, one by one. Finally the last nun came on board. She was very pretty, with her habit in perfect condition. She was clean, combed and composed.

One soldier said to her, "What a pity, sister; how you ladies suffered... all those blacks with those big things' all day long fucking, fucking, fucking."

And the pretty one answered, "No, not with me."

"Why not?" he asked.

"I wasn't into it!" she said.

If you repress you will find some way. If you repress sex you will find some way to be raped so that the responsibility is not on you, so that you can feel completely free of the responsibility. It is out of repression that there is rape. It is out of repression that there are crimes of all kinds. It cannot lead you into innocence.

No, Tilopa, if you want to be innocent you don't need time, you need understanding, you need insight. Time won't help, because what will you be doing meanwhile? You will continue your old habits: you will go on repressing. You need immediate insight. You have already repressed for many lives - enough is enough. Now see the point and drop all your repressions. And this is the place! If you cannot drop your repressions here you cannot drop them anywhere in the whole world.

That's why I am condemned so much - obviously, because all the societies in the world exist on repression. And my whole approach is that of non-repressive spontaneity; only then can innocence come hack to you. It is your nature. Innocence is not something that has to be achieved; it has only been repressed deep down in you. If all the repressions are removed it will start surfacing. You will become a child again.

And Jesus is right when he says: Unless you are a child again, unless you are reborn, you will not enter into my kingdom of God.