Into the Open Sky

The first question:

Question 1:

GAUTAMI,

Intelligence is not something that is acquired, it is inbuilt, it is inborn, it is intrinsic to life itself. Not only children are intelligent, animals are intelligent in their own way, trees are intelligent in their own way. Of course they all have different kinds of intelligences because their needs differ, but now it is an established fact that all that lives is intelligent. Life cannot be without intelligence; to be alive and to be intelligent are synonymous.

But man is in a dilemma for the simple reason that he is not only intelligent, he is also aware of his intelligence. That is something unique about man, his privilege, his prerogative, his glory, but it can turn very easily into his agony. Man is conscious that he is intelligent; that consciousness brings its own problems. The first problem is that it creates ego.

Ego does not exist anywhere else except in human beings, and ego starts growing as the child grows. The parents, the schools, colleges, university, they all help to strengthen the ego for the simple reason that for centuries man had to struggle to survive and the idea has become a fixation, a deep unconscious conditioning, that only strong egos can survive in the struggle of life. Life has become just a struggle to survive. And scientists have made it even more convincing with the theory of the survival of the fittest. So we help every child to become more and more strong in the ego, and it is there that the problem arises.

As the ego becomes strong it starts surrounding intelligence like a thick layer of darkness.

Intelligence is light, ego is darkness. Intelligence is very delicate, ego is very hard. Intelligence is like a rose flower, ego is like a rock. And if you want to survive, they say - the so-called knowers - then you have to become rock-like, you have to be strong, invulnerable. You have to become a citadel, a closed citadel, so you cannot be attacked from outside. You have to become impenetrable.

But then you become closed. Then you start dying as far as your intelligence is concerned because intelligence needs the open sky, the wind, the air, the sun in order to grow, to expand, to flow.

To remain alive it needs a constant flow; if it becomes stagnant it becomes slowly slowly a dead phenomenon.

We don't allow children to remain intelligent. The first thing is that if they are intelligent they will be vulnerable, they will be delicate, they will be open. If they are intelligent they will be able to see many falsities in the society, in the state, in the church, in the educational system. They will become rebellious. They will be individuals; they will not be cowed easily. You can crush them, but you cannot enslave them You can destroy them, but you cannot force them to compromise.

In one sense intelligence is very soft, like a rose flower, in another sense it has its own strength. But that strength is subtle, not gross. That strength is the strength of rebellion, of a non-compromising attitude. One is ready to die, one is ready to suffer, but one is not ready to sell one's soul.

And the whole society needs slaves; it needs people who function like robots, machines. It does not want people, it wants ancient mechanisms. Hence the whole conditioning is: make the ego strong.

It serves a double purpose. First: it gives the person the feeling that now he can struggle in life. And secondly: it serves the purposes of all the vested interests. They can exploit him; they can use him as a means to their own ends.

Hence the whole educational system rotates around the idea of ambition; it creates ambitiousness.

Ambitiousness is nothing but ego. "Become the first, become the most famous. Become a prime minister or a president. Become world known Leave your name in history." It does not teach you to live totally, it does not teach you to love totally, it does not teach you to live gracefully, it teaches you how to exploit others for your own purposes. And we think that the people who are clever are the ones who succeed. They are cunning, but we call them clever. They are not intelligent people.

An intelligent person can never use another person as a means; he will respect the other. An intelligent person will be able to see the equality of all. Yes, he will see the differences too, but differences make no difference as far as equality is concerned. He will have tremendous respect for others' freedom - he cannot exploit them, he cannot reduce them into things, he cannot make them stepping stones to the fulfillment of some absurd desire to be the first. Hence we go on conditioning children, and the question arises...

Your question is relevant, Gautami, because it is not only I who am saying that children are intelligent, it has been said by Buddha, by Lao Tzu, by Jesus, by all the awakened ones. Jesus says: Unless you are like a small child there is no hope for you. Again he says: Unless you become like small children you cannot enter into my kingdom of God. Again and again he repeats one of his most famous beatitudes: Blessed are those who are the last in this world, because they will be the first in my kingdom of God. He is teaching non-ambitiousness - to be the last. He says: Blessed are the meek, for theirs is the kingdom of God - the meek, the humble, the people who are standing last in the queue. It was natural, very natural that the society he was born in was against him because he was destroying the very roots of their ambitiousness.

And Jews have always been very ambitious people, so much so that for centuries, against all hazards, they have carried the idea in their minds that they are the chosen people of God. A thousand and one calamities have happened because of this stupid idea; if they can drop it they will be more acceptable in the world. But they cannot drop it - their whole ego is involved in it. And it is an ancient ego, at least three thousand years old. Since Moses they have been carrying the idea that they are the chosen people of God.

And here comes this man who says, "Be the last"! "We are meant to be the first, and he says, 'Be humble and meek'! And we are the chosen people; if we are humble and meek then those who are not chosen will become the first!" And Jews are earthly people; they don't bother much about the other world. They are worldly. "Who knows about the other world? He is saying, 'If you are the last here you will be the first in my kingdom of God.' But where is your kingdom of God? It may be just a fiction, just a dream."

Jesus looks like a dreamer, a poet maybe, but he is destroying their very foundation. They cannot forgive him; they have not even forgiven him yet. They still carry the idea that "we are the chosen people." They have suffered much for it; the more they have suffered the stronger the idea has become - because if you have to face suffering you have to become more and more egoistic, more rock-like so that you can fight, struggle, so that nobody can destroy you. But they have also become very closed.

Jesus was creating an opening for them; they refused him. He was telling them to come into the open sky. He was telling them to be just ordinary: "Drop this nonsense of being special." If they had listened to Jesus their whole history would have been different, but they could not listen Hindus have not listened to Buddha for the simple reason - the same reason - that Hindus are also carrying the idea they are the holiest people in the world and their land is the holiest land. Even gods long to I e born in India! No other country is so holy. And Buddha said, "This is all nonsense!" They had to reject him. Buddhism was thrown out of this country. No society can tolerate such people, who are telling the truth, because they seem to sabotage the very structure.

But now the time has come when we have suffered enough. All over the world, in different ways, people have suffered much, and it is time to have a look at history and its stupidity and its ridiculousness and drop the whole idea of these egoistic patterns.

Watch small children, Gautami, and then you will not ask me - you will see their intelligence. Yes, they are not knowledgeable. If you want them to be knowledgeable, then you will not think that they are intelligent. If you ask them questions which depend on information, then they will look not intelligent. But ask them real questions which have nothing to do with information, which need an immediate response, and see - they are far more intelligent than you are. Of course your ego won't allow you to accept it, but if you can accept it it will help tremendously. It will help you, it will help your children, because if you can see their intelligence you can learn much from them.

A Sufi mystic, Hasan, was dying. When he was dying a man asked him, "Hasan, you have never told us who your Master was. We have asked again and again; you always somehow managed not to answer it. Now you are leaving the world. Please tell us who your Master was. We are very curious."

Hasan said, "I never answered the question for the simple reason that there has not been just a single Master in my life, I have learned from many people. My first teacher was a small child."

They were puzzled. They said, "A small child! What are you saying? Have you lost your senses because you are dying? Have you gone mad, crazy?"

He said, "No, listen to the story. I went into a town. Although I had not known the truth up to that time, I was very knowledgeable. I was a scholar. I was well known all over the country; even outside the country my name was spreading. People had started coming to me thinking that I knew it. I was pretending that I knew it, and I was pretending without knowing that I was pretending - I was almost unconscious. Because people believed that I knew they convinced me that I must be right, I must be knowing, otherwise why should so many people be coming to me? I had become a teacher. Without knowing, without experiencing anything of truth, without ever entering into my own inner world, I was talking about great things. I knew all the scriptures; they were on the tip of my tongue.

"But for three days I was moving in a country where nobody knew me and I was very much hankering to find somebody to ask me something so that I could show my knowledge."

Knowledgeable people become very exhibitionistic; that is their whole joy. If a knowledgeable person has to remain silent he would rather commit suicide. Then what is the point of living in the world?

He has to exhibit his knowledge. Only a wise man can be silent. For the wise man to speak is almost a burden; he speaks because he has to speak. The knowledgeable person speaks because he cannot remain silent. There is a vast difference; you may not be able to know it from the outside because both speak. The Buddha speaks, Jesus speaks, and Hasan was also speaking. And they all say beautiful things. Sometimes the knowledgeable people say wiser things than the wise people because the wise persons may speak in contradictions, in paradoxes, but the knowledgeable person is always logical, consistent; he has all the proofs and arguments, he has all the scriptures to support him.

But for three days he had to keep silent. It was almost like fasting, and he was feeling hungry - hungry for an audience, hungry for somebody. But he had not come across anybody who knew him so nobody asked anything.

He entered this town. It was just getting a little dark, the sun had just set. A small child was carrying an earthen lamp, and he asked the child, "My son, can I ask you a question? Where are you taking this earthen lamp?"

And the child said, "I am going to the temple. My mother has told me to put this lamp there because the temple is dark. And this has been my mother's habit: to always put a lamp there in the night so at least the god of the temple does not have to live in darkness."

Hasan asked the child, "You seem to be very intelligent. Can you tell me one thing - did you light this lamp yourself?"

The child said, "Yes."

Then Hasan said, "A third question, the last question I want to ask you: if you lit the lamp yourself, can you tell me where the flame came from? You must have seen it coming from somewhere."

The child laughed and he said, "I will do one thing - just see!" And he blew the flame out and he said, "The flame has gone just in front of you. Can you tell me where it has gone? You must have seen!"

And Hasan was utterly dumb; he could not answer. The child had shown him that his question, although it looked very relevant, meaningful, was absurd. He bowed down to the child, touched his feet.

He said to the inquirer, "That child was my first Master. That very moment I realized all my metaphysics, all my philosophy was meaningless. I didn't know a thing on my own. I didn't even know from where the light comes into a lamp, where it goes to when the light has been put out - and I have been talking about who made the world, how he made the world, when he made the world!

For that moment I have always remembered the child. He may have forgotten me, he may not even recognize me, but I cannot forget that incident.

"And since then thousands of people have taught me. I have avoided the question again and again because there is not a single person I can call my Master. Many have been my Masters, I have learned from many sources, and from each source I have learned one thing: that unless you know through your own experience, all knowledge is futile.

"Then I dropped all my learning, all my knowing; all my scriptures I burned. I dropped the idea of being a scholar, I forgot all my fame. I started moving like a beggar, absolutely unknown to anybody.

And slowly slowly, going deeper into meditation, I discovered my own intelligence."

Even though the society destroys your intelligence it cannot destroy it totally; it only covers it with many layers of information.

And that's the whole function of meditation: to take you deeper into yourself. It is a method of digging into your own being to the point when you come to the living waters of your own intelligence, when you discover the springs of your own intelligence. When you have discovered your child again, when you are reborn, then, only then will you understand what I have been meaning by emphasizing again and again that children are really intelligent.

But start watching children, their responses - not their answers but their responses. Don't ask them foolish questions, ask them something immediate which does not depend on information and see their response.

The mother was preparing little Pedro to go to a party. When she finished combing his hair she straightened his shirt collar and said, "Go now, son. Have a good time... and behave yourself!"

"Come on, mother!" said Pedro. "Please decide before I leave which it is going to be!"

You see the point? The mother was saying, "Have a good time... and behave yourself." Now, both things cannot be done together. And the child's response is really of tremendous value. He says, "Please decide before I leave which it is going to be. If you allow me to have a good time, then I cannot behave; if you want me to behave, then I cannot have a good time." The child can see the contradiction so clearly; it may not have been apparent to the mother.

A passerby asks a boy, "Son, can you please tell me what time it is?"

"Yes, of course," replies the boy, "but what do you need it for? It changes continuously!"

A new transit sign was put in front of the school. It read: "Drive Slowly. Do Not Kill a Student!"

The following day there was another sign under it scribbled in a childish writing: "Wait for the Teacher!"

Little Pierino comes home from school with a big smile on his face.

"Well, dear, you look very happy. So you like school, do you?"

"Don't be silly, mom," replies the boy. "We must not confuse the going with the coming back!"

While slowly walking to school the little boy prays, "Dear God, please do not let me arrive at school late. I pray you, God, let me arrive at school on time..."

At this moment he slips on a banana peel and slides on the path for a few meters. Pulling himself up he looks at the sky annoyed and says, "Okay, okay, God, there is no need to push!"

A little boy is having a test with a psychologist. "What do you want to do when you grow up?" asks the shrink.

"I want to become a doctor or a painter or a window washer!" replies the boy.

Puzzled, the psychologist asks, "But... you aren't very clear, are you?"

"Why not? I'm very clear. I want to see naked women!"

The father was telling stories to his sons in the living room after dinner. "My great-grandfather fought in the war against Rosas, my uncle fought in the war against the Kaiser, my grandfather fought in the war of Spain against the Republicans and my father fought in the Second World War against the Germans."

To which the smallest son replied, "Shit! What's wrong with this family? They can't relate to anybody!"

The second question:

Question 2:

DEBEN,

I AM JUST A MIRROR - nothing more, nothing less. If you come close to me you can see your face as it is. Many people will see ugly faces and they will become angry at me. They will think that this ugliness is part of me. Many people will see beautiful faces; they will become infatuated with me.

They will think that this beauty is part of me. Both are wrong.

Just a few days ago THE SUNDAY STATESMAN published an article about me. The title of the article is "Rajneesh - Sage or Satyr?" The writer is a famous Bengali scholar, a follower of Sri Aurobindo. He has written many books, particularly on Aurobindo's philosophy. He cannot come to a conclusion; he wavers. I enjoyed his article. One moment he thinks I am a saint, another moment he thinks I am a sinner. One moment he feels I am divine, another moment he thinks I am just the devil incarnate. The whole article is an exercise in utter confusion! That shows HIS face: he must be a man living in confusion. The confusion may have surfaced through reading my book because he must have been reading Sri Aurobindo his whole life.

I don't see anything important in Sir Aurobindo's philosophy because it is only a philosophy. He was a great scholar, a man of great intellectual talents, a genius, but not a Master, not a Buddha.

He has written a great system of thought, very logical. His approach is as it should be: academic, scholarly, logical. And he tried to live according to the Indian ideal of the sage, and he managed to live it as far as it is possible to manage it from the outside. He cultivated a great character around himself, but it was only a character without any consciousness in it, it was a conscience without any consciousness in it. He was simply following the Hindu ideal of the sage.

This writer also has a certain idea of the sage. I don't fit into that category. I cannot fit into any category - Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist. I don't belong to the past, I belong to the future. I am creating a new category of my own; in future there will be people who will fit MY category. It is a new phenomenon, hence it has no history behind it. It has a future but no past.

Because he cannot make me fit according to the Hindu ideal of a sage - obviously, the logical mind thinks in terms of either/or - then I must be a devil! But he cannot fit me into that category either; about that too he seems to be shaky and wavering. That too is not possible because the sage and the devil are polar opposites to each other. They both belong to the past - I don't belong to the past at all. So he goes on moving continuously from one point to the other and he ends in confusion, inconclusively.

But if he can see the point... the point is that he has come face to face with a mirror in which he can see his own conflict, in which he can see his conflict between the past and the future, in which he can see his conflict between his own conscious and unconscious, between his conscience and consciousness, between his character and his reality. But he may not be aware of that at all. He thinks that he is thinking about me - he is simply looking at his own face.

Deben, you ask me: WHO ARE YOU?

But YOU can understand it - you who are here, who are with me. You can understand this fact: I am just a mirror. Sometimes you become angry. Remember it, that anger has something to do with you, it has nothing to do with me. Sometimes you become very happy and very blissful; that too belongs to you, it has nothing to do with me. I don't take any credit. If you become enlightened that is up to you; I will not take the credit for it. You need not even feel any thankfulness to me. I don't expect even a thank you from you; on the contrary, I will be thankful to you because now you will not need my mirror and my mirror can become available to others You will become a mirror yourself and you will start mirroring others' faces, their realities.

I want all my sannyasins to become mirrors so they can help millions of people in the world. If you can remember this, great things will start happening to you; otherwise you will go on blaming me because each time I assert something it is going to hurt you. If you have carried a certain idea for a long time and it has become deep-rooted in you and I start hitting... And I can do only that. Anything wrong, and the mirror is bound to show it to you. The mirror is not at fault. If your face is looking sad the mirror will show it. Don't destroy the mirror.

That's what the poor man was doing here who threw the knife to kill me. He could not tolerate the mirror. He had listened to me for only three, four days, but he became so agitated because what I was saying showed his fanaticism, showed his Hindu chauvinistic attitude, and it became intolerable for him.

Jesus became intolerable to the Jews for the simple reason that he was showing their faces.

People are carrying ugly faces and without mirrors they cannot see their faces so they remain perfectly contented. When you can't see your face you think you are beautiful. And people are polite, nobody says anything to you. That's why they have to say things when you are not there, they have to talk about you behind your back. They gossip, but they never gossip when you are present.

They gossip about others with you and with others about you - and you do the same.

Psychologists say that if every person in the world decides to be absolutely authentic and true for twenty-four hours - just for twenty-four hours the whole world decides: "We will not be polite and we will not tell lies and we will not be formal; we will simply say the truth as it is, as it appears to us" - then there will no longer be any friendship in the world, no more husbands, no more wives, no more lovers. All will be finished!

That's why to my sannyasins I always suggest that if you want to continue your relationship with somebody it is best not to live together, because if you start living together, how long you can be polite? How long you can be formal? Sooner or later the truth starts surfacing.

Just a few days ago Vasumati wanted to live with Krishna Prem. Their relationship has lasted for almost one and a half years. It is such a long long time in this commune - almost impossible! - for the simple reason that they are not living together so they meet only once in a while. They cannot even meet every day because Vasumati is sharing with other people, Krishna Prem is sharing with somebody else. So only once in a while, when they can manage some privacy, they can meet - only for a few hours per week, twice or thrice per week. So it remains a love affair; it has not yet become a marriage. Otherwise it would have been finished long ago!

But when she wanted, I told Vivek... Vivek came to me and said, "Vasumati wants to live with Krishna Prem." I said, "That's what every woman wants and that's how every woman destroys. And the man cannot say no because if he says no that means it is immediately finished! But," I said, "if she wants to, then we will manage it in some way."

There was one opportunity - I inquired of Krishna Prem. He proved to be really wise. He wrote a letter, he said to me, "Osho, you decide, because I don't know what is right. My desires say, 'Be together,' but I am an unconscious person - I don't know what will happen out of it. I can't see very far into the future, but you can see so you decide."

So I decided that they live separately.

Just a few weeks ago Radha went to Italy with her lover, Amito, just for four weeks. And immediately I told Vivek, "This relationship is finished!" I told her not to say such things to anybody because let them enjoy at least four weeks, but this is finished. Four weeks together, and in Italy... there is no hope, no future for this relationship.

And that's what has happened. Just the other day Radha wrote a letter saying that now she wants to move with Asang. I knew that this was going to happen, it was as absolutely clear as things can be, because when you live together for twenty-four hours a day you have to put aside your masks. At least sometimes, when you go to sleep, you have to put the masks aside; your real face starts showing. And for one, two, three days you can somehow manage: you can act nice, good, beautiful, but for how long? One cannot act twenty-four hours a day for many days; it becomes tiring, it becomes boring. One has to say the real thing.

And I can perfectly understand the psychologists' idea that if we decide to be true, absolutely true, only for twenty-four hours, everything on earth will fall apart. Every relationship will fall apart because truth is truth and there are very few people who can absorb truth; they have become so accustomed to lies. That's why so much gossiping goes on all around, because you have to say the truth somewhere, otherwise it becomes a burden on you. You have to unburden yourself. So when you have told somebody you feel unburdened, you feel better. And the other person can unburden himself to vou. and this goes on and on. everybody is helping as a psychoanalyst to everybody else.

In the West psychoanalysis is needed, not in the East, for the simple reason that in the East people have enough time to listen to each other. In the West nobody has time to listen to anyone - you have to pay for it. The psychoanalyst does nothing; his whole art consists of pretending to be attentive to you.

One psychoanalyst went to a pet shop. He wanted a parrot which did not talk. The owner was puzzled. He said. "You are the first customer who wants a parrot which does not talk. Everybody comes for a parrot which talks!"

He said. "I am tired of talking parrots!"

The owner said, "Have you got many talking parrots?"

He said. "No, many talking patients, but they are parrots. They almost all repeat the same thing.

Every husband is talking about his wife and every wife is talking about her husband. Every parent is talking about his children and every child is talking about his parents. I am tired! And I have to pretend that I am listening attentively because that's what they are paying for - and they are really paying too much."

Now it is one of the best professions in the West, one of the most profitable businesses - and with no investment. You just need a couch... And Freud was very inventive about the couch, because if you are facing, the patient your face may start show ing boredom, you may start yawning. Who is concerned with all that nonsense and rubbish about their lives that people go on talking? And the psychoanalyst has been listening to so many people and the story is almost the same. It is always the same because it is the story of the unconscious mind; it can't be much different.

Only conscious people have uniqueness. One Buddha absolutely differs from another Buddha. If you have to listen to the story of Jesus it is going to be tremendously different from the story of Gautam the Buddha or the story of Lao Tzu. They are unique people. But unconscious people, what is their story? The same sexuality, the same repression, the same greed, the same anger, the same hatred, destructiveness, suicidalness, possessiveness, jealousy. It is almost the same story.

Only persons differ, but the role they play is the same. The same triangles - two women and one man or two men and one woman - the same triangles. One is bound to get tired.

Freud invented one of the great things of this century: the couch. The patient has to lie down on the couch and the therapist sits behind him so that the patient cannot see his face. The therapist can go on smoking, yawning or reading or he can plug his ears and there is no need to bother about what the person is saying - let him talk. But the person feels immensely relieved. When after one hour's analysis he comes out, he looks fresh, unburdened, younger, less tense, more at ease, collected, calm. He has said many stupid things which he cannot say to anybody else because people will think he is mad. And here you are supposed to be mad so there is no problem!

This psychoanalyst said, "I want a parrot which does not talk."

The pet shop owner was in a little difficulty because he had all kinds of parrots but they were all talking parrots; this was the first customer who had asked for a non-talking parrot. But he went in and brought out a dumb crow.

The psychotherapist said, "Is this a parrot?"

He said, "Yes, it is an African parrot. It is a nigger! And he cannot talk because he knows no English."

So he said, "That's perfectly all right," and took the crow.

After a month the pet owner met the psychotherapist in the park one morning and he asked him, "How are things going? How is the parrot?"

And the psychoanalyst said, "You have given me really a beautiful parrot. He never says a single word and whatsoever I say he listens so attentively that I talk to him for hours! I am feeling so unburdened, so free. I rejoice in him! The whole day I am looking forward to the evening. I rush home.

"There are many people who suspect that it is not a parrot - my wife says, 'You are a fool! This is not a parrot!' - but it doesn't matter whether it is a parrot or not. He pays attention, he listens so attentively! That's the only thing, that is the quality I was looking for!"

In the East psychoanalysis is still not part of the style of life and I think it will take a long time for it to become part of life, because everybody is functioning as a psychoanalyst to everybody else. People can talk to each other and unburden themselves. In the West there is no time. Nobody is ready to listen to you; you have to pay professional listeners.

A Master is not a psychoanalyst, he is a mirror. He simply reflects you with all your burdens, tensions, anxieties, anguish, with all your problems, with all your miseries. And naturally you can become offended.

One sannyasin has just written to me: "Osho, whenever you talk about differences between man and woman I become very resistant." But why should you become resistant? What can I do if there are differences? The rose is different from the marigold. If somebody becomes resistant that means something is wrong in his inner world; something is repressed and that repression starts uncoiling itself. Maybe you have been carrying the idea that man and woman are not different; maybe that has become your fixation. There are many people who think men and women are not different and they find a thousand and one rationalizations to explain why they are not different: that it is only psychological conditioning that makes them different otherwise they are not different. They ARE different. Psychological conditioning can reduce their differences or can enhance their differences, but differences are there, basic differences are there, and those basic differences should not be overlooked.

A kind of unisex is being born in the world. This sannyasin must be a believer in unisex. Men and women are wearing almost the same clothes, trying to look alike. And of course if psychologically you become conditioned, your biology also, your physiology also follows suit.

In the East the differences have been always accepted, not only accepted but strengthened. There is great wisdom in it because the farther away they are, the more attraction there is between them; if they become alike the attraction will be lost. And in the West it is happening: for the first time in the history of humanity sex is losing its appeal. And once sex loses its appeal you are at a loss - what to do? Where to go?

Sex is a natural phenomenon which gives you glimpses of meditation. From sex you can go to meditation, but if sex loses its appeal the doors for meditation are closed because you won't have any glimpses of meditation. It is only in sexual orgasm that you melt, merge, disappear. And those few moments of disappearance, dissolution, give you the first taste of what it will be to dissolve forever. Those drops of nectar can give you some idea of the ocean that a Buddha carries in his being. But if sex loses its appeal, then even those drops become impossible. And a person who has not even tasted a drop of nectar cannot conceive that there is a possibility of any oceanic experience.

For him Buddha will become a fiction.

Try to understand my approach. I want you to transcend sex - but through sex, not by becoming indifferent to it, not by dropping it in an immature way.

The East has always emphasized the difference between man and woman for the simple reason that the East knows the immense value of orgasmic experience. It gives you a glimpse of meditation and then from there you can move on; that can become a jumping board. But in the West sex is losing its appeal, and one of the causes of its losing Its appeal is that the differences are being reduced to zero. And it is affecting the physiology also.

In the East you will see women and men have more prominent physiological differences than in the West. Western women are becoming more and more flat-chested; their breasts are becoming smaller and smaller. There is a possibility in the future that they may almost disappear! In the East you can see it very clearly, very prominently, that the women have bigger breasts than western women. The same is the case with the buttocks too. Western women are becoming almost straight lines with no curves; all the curves are disappearing. And then if you are wearing the same clothes pants and shirt it becomes almost difficult.

Even for me sometimes it is difficult. Every evening Mukta has to go on looking to see what I am writing, "swami" or "ma", because she has to correct me many times: "Osho, this is a ma! This is a swami!" I don t think any Buddha had this problem before. I must be the first one who is encountering this problem also feel puzzled sometimes utterly puzzled. No spiritual insight helps! I have to depend on Mukta: if she misses, then almost every day there will be at least one case: a ma will become a swami, a swami will become a ma.

But this sannyasin who has written to me: "There is great resistance whenever you talk about differences..." The resistance must be coming out of the idea that men and women are equal. I am not saying that they are not equal, I am simply saying they are not similar. Never confuse equality with similarity. They are perfectly equal but they are absolutely dissimilar - and that is their beauty.

If you have this wrong notion that similarity means equality then you will be feeling a resistance.

I am just a mirror - don't be angry with me. And there will be ninety percent of cases when you will feel anger against me because I will have to bring out much pus in you; I will have to open your wounds. You may have forgotten about them, completely forgotten; you may have started believing that they no longer exist. And I will have to reopen them to show you where you are, because unless you know where you are you cannot move a single inch, you cannot grow. You can move only from where you are.

And there will be ten percent of cases when you will feel ecstatic. Then don't think that I am giving this ecstasy to you - nobody can give truth to you. I can inspire you, I can challenge you. I can invite you, I can seduce you into the journey, but I cannot give the truth to you. You have to find it yourself; I can only show your face.

I am simply a mirror, Deben.

Fanfani is on an official visit to France and he is taken to the Louvre. The museum director shows him around and they stop in front of a painting.

"Cezanne?" Fanfani asks.

"No," replies the director, "Renoir."

They come to another painting and again Fanfani asks "Pizarro?"

"No, Your Excellence, Degas."

After walking around a little more he stops in front of another one and asks, "Is this a self-portrait of Toulouse-Lautrec?"

No, Your Excellence this is a mirror!"

My sannyasins have to remember always that you are here to discover your real faces, your original faces. And the Master not only reflects your so called face, he reflects your original face too. But he begins by reflecting your mask, and it hurts to know that you are wearing a mask. And you are not wearing only one mask, you are wearing many masks - masks upon masks. You have to be peeled like an onion and it hurts. But unless your original face is discovered the work that I want to do will remain incomplete. God will recognize you by your original face, not by any artificial mask, howsoever beautiful it is.

Three Cambridge dons were walking by the river one beautiful hot summer day. Coming to a secluded spot, they could not resist the temptation to have a dip. Not having costumes with them they went in the buff.

Unfortunately just as they came out, a punt full of pretty female undergrads came round the bend, whereupon in some consternation, two of the dons grabbed some clothes around their middles while the third threw something over his head. After the girls had gone the two who had covered their middles turned on the other and said, "Why on earth did you do that?"

Whereupon he answered, "Where I come from, we recognize people by their faces!"

God will recognize you by your original face; nothing else will be recognized there. No degrees, no fame, no money, no power, no prestige, nothing else will be recognized there but your original face; and you will have to stand utterly naked before him.

The Master simply represents God on the earth. You have to be utterly naked before the Master, only then will you be capable one day of facing your God. If you are capable of facing your Master you will certainly be able to face your God.

The third question:

Question 3:

AMRITO,

WHAT, AGAIN? Just the other day I was talking about meditation. Where have you been? - must have been fast asleep! In fact, whenever I talk about meditation, many of you go into sleep - you think you are going into meditation. You wake up only when I am telling a joke! Then I don't see a single person asleep.

Amrito, meditation is a member of the Tate family.

In a church bulletin the following was read:

"Do you know how many members of the Tate family belong to your parish? There is old man Dic Tate who wants to run everything, while Uncle Ro Tate tries to change everything. Their sister Agi Tate stirs up plenty of trouble, with help from her husband Irri Tate.

Whenever new projects are suggested, Hesi Tate and his wife Vege Tate want to wait until next year.

Then there is Aunt Imi Tate who wants our church to be like all others. Devas Tate provides the voice of doom, while Poten Tate wants to be a big shot.

But not all members of the family are bad. Brother Facili Tate is quite helpful in church matters. And a delightful, happy member of the family is Miss Felici Tate. Cousins Cogi Tate and Medi Tate always think things over and lend a helpful, steadying hand.

And, of course, there is the black sheep of the family Ampu Tate, who has completely cut himself off from the church."

The last question:

Question 4:

ATULYO,

EXCEPT MY JOKES, don't be serious about anything else. But about jokes I am not joking!

Having come from a small village, Giovanni had never been a train in his life. So one day he decided to go and see one. Standing on the rail he heard the train whistle, "Tooo-tooo!" Before he knew what hit him, the train was upon him and knocked him off the rail. The last thing he could remember was flying through the air.

When he gained consciousness, Giovanni found himself laid up in the hospital for several months.

During this time his wife used their accident insurance money to buy a well-equipped, modern flat in the city.

Once fully recovered, Giovanni went to his new home. His wife made a cake to celebrate his recovery and put the new kettle on the stove to make some coffee to go with the cake. As the water boiled, the kettle whispered, "Tooo-tooo!" Startled, Giovanni jumped up, rushed to the kitchen, grabbed the new kettle and smashed it on the floor, kicking it several times.

"What the hell are you doing?" cried out his wife.

"These things!" shouted Giovanni, "You've got to kill them while they're young!"

Atulyo, it is good that in the very beginning you have asked this question that "I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF THERE IS ANYTHING THAT I SHOULD BE SERIOUS ABOUT."

Only be serious about jokes; about everything else, from the very beginning, beware, don't get serious. Whatsoever I say, all the sutras have to be forgotten. And you have to forgive me for all the sutras. Just remember me for my jokes, but take them very seriously. They will help you immensely.

A drunk sat alone at one end of the bar watching the well-dressed playboy smoothly talking to one woman after another. Finally he slithered over to the man: "Hey, mister, how come you get to talk to all these women?"

"Well," said the man, "I have a special technique I figured out. It works every time. Look!"

They waited for a buxom redhead to walk by.

"Tickle your ass with a feather?" whispered the playboy.

The woman wheeled around, "What! What did you say to me?" she stormed.

"Particularly nice weather," said the man coolly "Won't you join us for a drink?" The woman sat down and before she left the man had her phone number and a date.

Then a pretty brunette came along. Again the man said, "Tickle your ass with a feather?"

"I beg your pardon!" exclaimed the lady.

"Particularly nice weather!" cooed the man.

Charmed, the lady joined them for a while. When she left, Mr. Suave-and-Debonair said, "So you see how it works now?"

"Yeah, I get it," slobbered the drunk.

"Now you try it on the next broad," said the playboy.

So when a gorgeous blonde walked in, the drunk gathered up his courage and yelled, "Hey, lady, stick a feather up your ass?"

"What!" she raged. "What did you say?"

"Pretty fuckin' nice out, ain't it?" replied the drunk.

I know you are absolutely in a drunken state. Everything is upside down in you, everything is in a mess. You don't know what you are doing, why you are doing it. You don't know why you are here in the first place! But I know perfectly well why I am here and what I am doing. I am trying to wake you up - you are fast asleep.

Just take one thing seriously and that is to become more and more alert of your sleepiness. And all my efforts here, sutras or jokes, are nothing but means to wake you. Sometimes a joke can wake you up more easily than a serious sutra because listening to a serious sutra you tend to fall deeper into sleep; it is so serious that you can't be awakened by it. But a joke is so light that you don't want to miss it; you listen attentively .

And between the jokes I go on dropping a few dangerous things into your head - just small bombs, between the jokes! Just remember to take the jokes seriously and the remainder you leave to me; the remainder I will do. If you are just awake between two jokes, between the two jokes I am there to drop a bomb inside you which will explode sooner or later. And the moment it explodes you are finished!