Saying Yes to Life

The first question:

Question 1:

ANAND RENATA,

It is one of the greatest problems. Every human being has to face it, because the whole society up to now has been based on self-condemnation. All the religions, all the societies, all the cultures create a tremendous guilt in you that you are not what you should be. They give you perfectionist ideals to fulfill which are impossible. They simply drive you crazy.

Perfectionism is the root cause of all neurosis. Nobody can be perfect - nobody NEED be perfect; life is beautiful because everything is imperfect. Perfection is death; imperfection is life. It is because of imperfection that growth is possible. If you are perfect then there is no growth, no movement.

Then nothing can happen to you; all has already happened. You will be utterly dead.

Hence I say God is the most imperfect phenomenon because God is the most evolving factor in existence and evolution and perfection are against each other. It is because of this that all the religions have been against the idea of evolution. Christianity condemned Darwin and his philosophy as much as possible. The reason was this: Christianity believed in a perfect God, and a perfect God can create only a perfect world. How can imperfection come out of a perfect creator? Then there is no possibility of evolution. If the possibility of evolution is accepted, then the world, the creation, is imperfect and ultimately it will lead to the logical conclusion that the creator is imperfect.

No religion has dared to declare that God is imperfect, but I declare that God is imperfect because imperfection means evolution, imperfection means life, imperfection means flow, growth. And God is infinitely imperfect; he will never become perfect. The moment he becomes perfect the whole existence will disappear into nonexistence.

But because of this idea of a perfect God we have all been trying for centuries to be perfect, and there are two outcomes of it. One is: if you are simple, innocent, you will start TRYING to be perfect and you will go neurotic. And you can never become perfect, hence you will carry a mountainous burden of guilt. It will crush you, it will destroy all your joy in life, it will poison you. It won't allow you to celebrate, to sing, to dance. It is suicidal. Or if you are not innocent and simple, if you are cunning and clever, then you will become a hypocrite. You will talk about perfection; that will be just a facade, a mask, and hidden behind the mask you will go on being whatsoever you are.

Both are ugly phenomena. Going crazy, becoming, neurotic, guilt-ridden is ugly; becoming a hypocrite is ugly. But your so-called religions leave you no other alternative: they all talk about saying yes, but they all teach you saying no. They all think they are theistic - they are all atheistic, because to me atheism means a deep-rooted no and theism means a fundamental yes to life.

Theism has nothing to do with God, nor has atheism anything to do with the denial of God. Theism is saying yes to life with all its imperfections, as it is, saying yes to it with no conditions, with no strings attached. And atheism to me means saying no to life as it is and trying to make it better, trying to make it perfect.

Renata, you say: WHY CAN 'T I SAY YES TO MYSELF?

Because you have been told you are all wrong, you are nothing but a sinner. Everything that you do is wrong, everything that you think is wrong, everything that you are is wrong - how can you say yes to yourself? You have been given ideas, great ideals, shoulds: "You should be like this, like that..."

And you go on comparing yourself with those stupid ideals. Of course, you fall very short, and when you fall very short you start feeling a deep no to yourself you want to destroy yourself; you cannot love yourself.

You have been told to love others, but you have neVer been told to love yourself. And you can love others only if you have loved yourself in the first place: if you don't love yourself you cannot love anybody else in the world. Loving yourself, you learn the art of love. And if you can love yourself with all your imperfections you will be able to love other human beings with all their imperfections.

If you cannot love yourself with your imperfections, how are you going to love others with their imperfections? You will hate them!

Parents hate their children, children hate their parents, wives hate their husbands, husbands hate their wives, for the simple reason that they can see the imperfections. Everybody is in search of a perfect person and you will not find a perfect person anywhere, except some fools who go on claiming that they are infallible, perfect. Pope John Paul the Polack, he is infallible! Popes are infallible. They represent God - how can they be fallible? In India Satya Sai Baba claims to be infallible. Now, to me these are utter idiots! They have no sense of any manners, of any etiquette even; they don't have any intelligence. Otherwise they could see - it is so simple. But it is a traditional thing.

Jainas in India have claimed that Mahavira is all-knowing. Buddha laughed at the whole idea. He was an intelligent man, a really penetrating intelligence, but he never claimed that he was infallible.

No intelligent person can do that. He laughed at the whole idea that Mahavira was infallible. We don't know what was Mahavira's own statement about it because according to the Jaina tradition he remained silent, he never said a single word. There were interpreters of his silence who were telling people what he meant. I cannot conceive that he would have ever meant that he was infallible. A man of such intelligence as Mahavira could not do that.

Buddha says, "I have heard: Mahavira going for a morning walk steps on a dog's tail, and when the dog barks then he comes to know that there is a dog - because it is still dark in the morning.

And this is the all-knowing man who knows past, present, future, and he does not know that he is stepping on the tail of a dog!"

Buddha has said, "I know that Mahavira has many times stood begging in front of a house where nobody lives; the house has been empty for years. Only when people say to him that 'This house is empty, nobody lives here,' will he move to another house to beg."

And the followers claim that he knows past, present and future, that he knows everything, that he is omniscient, that he is omnipotent, that he is all-powerful. But he suffered throughout his life from stomach diseases, he died of stomach diseases - it may have been something like a stomach cancer, the word "cancer" was not known in those days - and he is thought to be omnipotent and he is thought to be omnipresent: all the qualities of God. But these are the claims of the followers.

That I can understand: followers are stupid people, otherwise why should they follow?

I don't have any followers here. You are all my friends. I don't want any followers because I don't want to live surrounded by fools!

But Satya Sai Baba declares that he is infallible, that he knows all, that he has never committed a mistake that he cannot commit a mistake. Now these are ali maniacs. Ego cannot be more mad.

Perfection is not possible. You are imperfect, and there is nothing wrong in being imperfect; this is the only way to be. Once you accept your imperfection you have accepted your humanity, and in that acceptance the yes arises. And then you can love yourself and you can love others too, because they are as imperfect as you are.

Renata, you are still trying to live according to the ideas given by your parents to you. In that way all parents have poisoned their children for thousands of years; that poisoning still continues. And once a child is poisoned, from the very beginning he starts thinking it IS his own idea. It gets so deep-rooted - it goes to the very guts - that you completely forget that it has been implanted from the outside. And then you try to live it out. You cannot manage it, and it will mess up your whole life.

One Indian friend has asked: "Osho, nothing moves without the will of God, not even a single blade of grass..." These are his actual words:

Question 2:

The questioner is Prakash Singh Madhuban. It is because of his will! If not a single blade of grass moves, how can the metal detector move? It is so simple! If not a single blade of grass moves, how can so many guards move? But he thinks he is asking a very wise question. He must be thinking he is asking something which is unanswerable.

You know nothing of God nor of his will, but you go on repeating cliches. You have heard these things and you start repeating them like gramophone records. You don't see the absurdity of it. If it is your understanding, the question cannot arise. The question is absolutely meaningless if it is your understanding. But it is not YOUR understanding; somebody else has planted it in you. And all parents are doing it. and I am not saying that they are doing it knowingly; they are as unconscious as you are. These ideas have been planted in them by others, their parents, and so on and so forth.

But you have to jump out of this vicious circle.

Renata, your name is so beautiful - it means rebirth. Being here with me you have to go through a process of being reborn, and the first step will be to drop all the ideas that have been imposed upon you. The roses are beautiful because they are not carrying the idea that they have to be as big as the lotus flowers; otherwise they will be miserable, they will stop growing - they will shrink in shame, ashamed of themselves. They are beautiful, fragrant, for the simple reason that whatsoever they are, they are. The marigold flowers are not worried why they are not roses. Even the blades of grass are not at all ashamed of not being big trees like the cedars of Lebanon. They are perfectly happy as they are.

A man came to a Zen monk and he asked, "Why are you always so blissful? Why am I not so blissful?"

The Master said, "Wait. When everybody else has left, then I will answer your question."

The man waited and waited because people were coming and going and there was not a single moment of aloneness. He was getting tired and impatient and many times he thought to leave, because "When is this thing going to stop? People are still coming."

But by the evening when the sun was setting, everybody had left and he was alone with the Master.

He reminded him, "Now please tell me."

He said, "Look outside the window. You see this big tree?"

He said, "Yes, I see it."

And he said, "You see that small bush by the side?"

He said, "Yes, I see that too."

The Master said, "I have never heard the bush saying to the big tree, 'Why are you so big and I am so small?' That's why both are happy. The tree is big and the bush is small, but so what? Both are unique. They don't compare themselves - and they are standing side by side. And for fifteen years I have been trying to find out why they don't compare themselves. They are perfectly happy; BOTH are happy.

"You are unhappy because you are comparing, you are living in comparison. And I am happy because I have dropped all comparison; I have simply accepted myself as I am. That is my simple secret."

And you are constantly comparing. Somebody else is more beautiful than you, somebody else has more beautiful eyes than you, somebody else has more beautiful hair than you, somebody else is more strong than you, somebody else seems to be more intelligent than you, somebody else has something else, and so on and so forth... there is no end to it! You will become more and more miserable.

And you have been told: "Become like Jesus." "Become like Buddha." "Become like Krishna." You will be miserable. Buddha never tried to become like Krishna, that's why he was happy. Krishna never tried to become like anybody else, that's why he was happy. Krishna never tried to become like anybody else, that's why he was happy. Jesus never tried to become like Moses, that's why he was happy - even on the cross he was happy. And you are constantly trying to be somebody else.

These ideals have to be dropped; they have to be destroyed completely. And then, Renata, a deep and profound yes will arise from the depths of your being. It will fill you with tremendous fulfillment.

And, to me, this is religion. This yes filling your whole being, overflowing you, is religion. Right now you are full of no's thousand and one no's; about everything there is a no, and that's what is making your life a hell. You have to be alert because you have to get rid of all this rubbish that has been poured upon you by your parents, by your society, by your church. And it hurts if something is taken away because you have believed in it for a long time; it has become almost part of your blood, your bone, your marrow. It hurts, although it is just pus and nothing else; but to take it away hurts.

One old woman took sannyas in America; she must have taken sannyas for wrong reasons. Many people take sannyas for wrong reasons. They become aware of it only later on when there arises some clash between their idea of sannyas and my vision of sannyas. And she was writing beautiful letters, very poetic. The reason deep down that she became a sannyasin was because she was reading my books on Jesus; THE MUSTARD SEED was the thing that moved her deeply. But it was not me; it was because of Jesus. She became convinced of Jesus' truth, and because I had helped her, she became a lover of me.

Then just yesterday her letter arrived. She is very disturbed: what to do now? Because in some tapes she has heard that I have said that in old days there were rt cords, there are written records, about Jesus' physical appearance saying that he was an ugly man, that his height was only four feet five inches, and not only that, he was a hunchback and his face was disgusting. Now she is shocked. Now she says, "I want to go back to my old Master Jesus. I don't want to remain a sannyasin anymore. Now this was the time for her to get free of a conditioning. She missed the opportunity. Going back she will be the same as has always been. A moment had come when a door opened, but she turned away.

Many of you are here for wrong reasons, and if you are here for wrong reasons you will be in trouble sooner or later. I am going to disturb you, disturb all your dreams, disturb all your ideals. I am going to put dynamite inside you! My whole work consists in sabotage. Once I can destroy all your ideals that you have carried all along, once I can make you free of all the jargon that you have learned from others, once I am able to uncondition you, then you will be able to say yes to yourself.

Every tree says yes to itself; every animal, every bird says yes. Nobody is needed to teach it. The no is taught; yes is natural. Yes is part of Tao; no is a conditioning.

Renata, you have felt rightly that: I HAVE THE FEELING THAT ALL MY MISERY IS ROOTED IN THIS INCAPACITY.

That is true. That is the beginning of a tremendous journey; you have felt the right direction. Now go on moving into it. It will take time and it will take effort and it will be an agony; before the ecstasy can happen you will have to pass through many agonies. That is the price we have to pay. But once you have gathered courage enough to drop your whole past - Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist - once you are unconditioned, your life becomes a flow, a beautiful flow. And then the ocean is not far away. Every river reaches to it with no maps, with no guides. Every river reaches to it naturally, spontaneously. That is the way of Tao.

The second question:

Question 3:

ANGELO,

WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME? Do it yourself! What is the need to know my opinion? And if you don't want to take sannyas, why the question at all in the first place? There must be some deep hidden desire in you to take sannyas; otherwise, the question is irrelevant - it cannot arise at all.

The very question shows that some longing has arisen in you to take the jump. But you are afraid to accept the longing, you are trying to rationalize that you can do it yourself, you are trying to repress a certain desire that must be becoming more and more strong every day.

Sannyas simply means a quantum leap into the unknown. The mind lives in the known; it moves within the known. It goes in circles, round and round; it is repetitive. It cannot enter into any communion with the new, with the unknown, with the unknowable. Sannyas is a jump. It is like a snake slipping out of its old skin. You must be getting tired of your old skin, you must be dragging it.

And you must be seeing people here rejoicing in their new birth. And the longing must be arising in you too: why not take the jump?

But the courage is lacking. The desire is there, the courage is not there. But you want to deny the desire because nobody wants to accept that he is a coward. It is better to deny the desire itself; then you can avoid the idea of being a coward. Everybody wants at least to pretend to others, and to himself too, if possible, that one is a courageous man - if one wants to do something one will do it: "But I don't want to do it in the first place. That's what is preventing me, otherwise nobody can prevent me."

But why are you asking? From where does the question arise? I have not asked you to become a sannyasin. I didn't even know that you were here. You could have gone without making yourself known, without asking the question. And if you cannot gather enough courage, at least be honest enough to accept that you are a coward.

The desire is there. Don't repress the desire, because the first act of courage is to accept your cowardice. Once you accept it, it starts dying. It can remain only if it is not accepted. Once it is brought into the light of acceptance it can't exist for long; it becomes impossible for it to exist for long.

You say: I BELIEVE IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF DO-IT-YOURSELF.

How will you do it? What will you do? You don't know anything about sannyas. It is an absolutely new concept. Nothing like it has ever existed in the whole history of humanity. Yes, there have been Hindu monks, Buddhist monks, Christian monks, Jaina monks, but they were all life-negative.

My sannyas is life-affirmative. Nothing like this has ever flowered on the earth. It is a totally new phenomenon. All the old ideas about sannyas were based on escapism, on renunciation. My sannyas has nothing to do with escape, it is AGAINST escape, because to me God and life are synonymous. It has never been said that God and life are synonymous. God has always been put AGAINST life: you have to drop life to attain God. And I say to you, you have to live as totally as possible, as intensely as possible, as passionately as possible if you want to know God at all, because there is no other God than life.

God to me is not a person; it is another name for life energy. This distant call of the cuckoo, this is God. Your silence, this is God. The birds chirping, this is God. God is not "somewhere", God is everywhere. In fact, "God" is not the right word; but all our languages are addicted to nouns - they always change verbs into nouns.

My effort here is to do just the opposite: to change every noun into a verb. There is no God as a person, but there is godliness - a quality, a certain flavor, a certain experiencing; alive, flowing, not confined within boundaries.

You don't know what it is. How are you going to do it? Yes, I have heard about the philosophy of doing-it-yourself...

The main trend of the fifties was to do-it-yourself.

Around Easter time, an ad appeared in The New York Times: "Do Easter at home for only five thousand dollars!"

Mr. Jones sent the five thousand dollars and received a parcel with: a box of nails, two wooden beams, one measuring three meters and the other measuring one meter and eighty centimeters, and a blonde Jew, thirty-three years old.

Angelo, what will you do by yourself? You don't know even the abe of it. You will need to become part of a Buddhafield. You will need to become part of a place where many many people are growing.

Alone in a desert you cannot bloom; you will need to become part of a garden.

This is the garden of a Master where many trees are growing, here many trees are coming to a flowering, to fruition. The seed in you will start having a tremendous confidence in itself that "If it can happen to other seeds, if this miracle is possible, then it is possible for me too."

It is possible only in a certain commune. That's why all the awakened ones have always created communes, simply so that you can see what is possible and you can see people in all kinds of stages: the beginners, the people who have gone a little ahead, the people who have gone far, the people who are almost reaching the climax, and the people who have blossomed.

When the seed sees all this it becomes confident. Otherwise there persists a self-doubt. "Who knows whether I have the potential or not?"

To be a sannyasin simply means to fall into a kind of synchronicity. Musicians are aware of it. You can do a small experiment. In an empty room, close the room completely. In one corner of the room, an absolutely empty room, put one sitar, and you sit exactly in the opposite corner and start playing on another sitar. And you will be surprised that as you start playing on your sitar, the other sitar, which is just resting against the wall in a corner - and there is nobody to play it - starts falling into a certain synchronicity. Its strings start vibrating; it starts creating certain sounds. This is a well known fact. And if the musician is really great he can almost create music on the other sitar also, which he has not even touched. But what happens to the other sitar? The vibration that is filling the whole room is caught by it.

When a commune gathers around a Master, a certain vibration is there - very tangible to those who are sensitive, aware, loving, surrendered, committed; who are not just outsiders, observers; who are not just standing by and trying to see what is happening but who are courageous enough to become part of it. Then your heart starts falling in tune with the heart of the Master. And where thousands of hearts are functioning in the same rhythm, beating in the same rhythm, you cannot resist the temptation. That's the only way to grow towards the unknown. Sannyas is a mysterious journey.

And, Angelo, in your ordinary, unconscious state you will not be able to do it by yourself.

Four drunken Italians stumbled into a funeral parlor. After bumbling around for a half hour, one of them fell over a piano.

"Here's the coffin," he advised his friends.

One of them peered at the piano.

"Do you recognize him?" the first one asked.

"No," admitted the other drunk, "but he sure has a good set of teeth!"

Angelo, you are an Italian... forget all about doing it by yourself!

Two Italians were going home after a night full of wine to discover that the last bus to Rome had left.

For a few moments they staggered around the big hall in which all the buses were parked and then one of them said, "Why don't-a you get-a inside and-a steal a bus. I'll keep-a an eye on-a the street to see if-a the police is-a coming."

The first one agreed and disappeared in the hall. Soon an awful screeching, bumping and crashing was heard. This lasted for half an hour, when the doors swung open and a bus drove out.

"What the hell-a took you so long-a?" exclaimed the one who had been waiting outside.

"Well," replied the other, "the bus-a to Roma was all-a the way in the back!"

The third question:

Question 4:

DHEERENDRA,

JUST BECAUSE I AM NOT MAD!

Jesus was standing in front of a full-length mirror admiring his complexion and clear eyes. He brushed his long hair, oiled it and arranged it in a braid. Then he plucked his eyebrows and combed his blonde moustache.

Mary was watching him. 'My son' she sighed 'you are so handsome... you should really get married!

"

"Me! Married?" cried Jesus. "I would rather be nailed to a cross!"

The fourth question:

Question 5:

ANAND SATYAM,

I CAN UNDERSTAND - jokes are dangerous. That's why no Master before me has ever touched them. But I love danger. Jokes have a tremendous beauty if you can allow them to enter into your very innermost core. No sutras can reach there, because when you are hearing a sutra you start falling asleep. It is very difficult to keep oneself awake hearing sutras for the simple reason that sutras are serious, dry, like the desert. How long can you look at the desert? Sooner or later you will start yawning, because it is the same desert going up to the very horizon - on all sides it is all sand and sand and sand, and the scene is exactly the same. The sutras are exactly the same; they are desertlike. They create sleep: they function like lullabies. If you suffer from sleeplessness, then reading a few sutras of Buddha or Patanjali will be very helpful. Just read a few sutras - you are bound to fall asleep. When all tranquilizers fail, sutras work.

That's what the hypnotists go on doing: they simply repeat a certain sutra. Anything repeated again and again creates such boredom that you have to escape from it. And the easiest escape is into sleep.

Mulla Nasruddin suffered very much from sleeplessness. All efforts failed - all the tranquilizers, the sleeping pills; nothing worked. His sons were getting very worried. Finally they found a hypnotist who said, "Don't worry, I will come tonight." And he came, and he started simply repeating: "You are falling asleep..."

Nasruddin was lying down on the bed with closed eyes, the lights were out, and the hypnotist was repeating again and again, "You are falling asleep... your eyelids are becoming heavier, heavier, heavier... you are falling asleep, falling asleep, falling asleep... a deep sleep is taking over..."

Nasruddin started snoring. The hypnotist tiptoed out of the room.

The sons were very happy. They handed him double his fees, thanked him very much. They went in to see. Nasruddin opened one of his eyes and said, "Has that idiot left yet or not? He would have killed me, hence I had to pretend! That snoring was just false. I was faking it so that he would leave me!"

Sutras are boring. That's why only old people who are already dead go to religious discourses. You can see them in all the churches and temples.

When people come to visit this ashram they are surprised to see so many young people. It is unbelievable because young people are not supposed to be in such places. Only old people, dead, rotten, leading some kind of posthumous existence, are supposed to be in such places. So many young people - what are these young people doing here? They are not here for the sutras, Satyam.

I am here for the sutras, they are not here for the sutras. So we have made a compromise: they have to listen to a few sutras and I have to tell a few jokes. They will be here for the jokes, I am here for the sutras! If I stop telling jokes, they will disappear. If I have to tell only jokes, I will not be needed. I can leave a big collection of jokes and Teertha can read the jokes; there will be no need for me to be here. If you want me to be here you will have to hear a few sutras, and if I want you to be here, I have to tell a few jokes too. This is understood, this is a contract.

Jokes are tremendously important in a way. Jokes are not simple phenomena; they are really mysterious, their mechanism is mysterious. You don't know how a joke works, how it goes deep into your depths, how it brings laughter to you, how it brings wakefulness to you. The mechanism IS mysterious.

A joke functions almost like a sexual orgasm. It is not accidental that many jokes ARE concerned with sex. Jokes as such are basically sexual for the simple reason that the joke creates a build-up of energy in you, a great curiosity about what is going to happen, because a joke is a joke only when something unexpected happens, when it takes such a sudden turn that logically you could not have conceived it; it was inconceivable. And it takes the turn so quickly and so suddenly that it does not give you time enough to think about it. Because there is no time to think... Mind needs time.

The joke goes on towards the south and then suddenly turns towards the north: your mind goes on moving towards the south, but the joke has taken a turn towards the north so suddenly that the mind halts. In that very halt there is an experience of silence, of meditation.

The same happens in sexual orgasm: a certain energy is built up in you, a certain tension is built up in you. You go on moving upwards, upwards, upwards, and then comes a sudden relaxation, a sudden release. It is so sudden - it happens in a single moment - the mind stops, the mind disappears for a moment. It is not conceivable for the mind. The mind needs time.

If you understand the joke you will miss the whole point. If you can understand where it is going, what the logical end of it will be, then it will not be a joke for you. Whatsoever you understand from the very beginning is not going to be the end; the end is going to be absolutely unpredictable.

That's the beauty of a joke; it shocks you, shakes you, it wakes you up. It is impossible to remain asleep when a beautiful joke is being told.

Buddha goes on telling his disciples, "Wake up!" What is the need? I simply tell a joke and they wake up! And that is far more existential.

An aircraft bound for Florida with two hundred and forty passengers on board ran into some engine problem. The plane was sure to crash so the pilot alerted all the crew members about this sad state of affairs and told them all to get hold of a parachute each and jump off the plane.

A young steward asked the captain, "What about the passengers, sir?"

"Fuck the passengers!" the captain replied.

Said the steward, "What! Do we have time for that?"

You say, Satyam: YOUR JOKES MAKE ME AFRAID...

Because they must be shattering many things in you. You must be thinking religion is serious.

It is not - at least my vision of religion is not serious at all. My religion is rooted in playfulness, in non-seriousness; sincere, of course, but serious, never. My religion is laughter, love. It is not renunciation, it is rejoicing.

I am not concerned with God at all, and you are asking me for one of Buddha's sutras about God.

In fact, Buddha never believed in God; he has no sutra about God. Buddha is absolutely atheistic in that sense: he never believed in God. Buddha was not so childish as to believe in God the Father who created the world and who lives in heaven. These are all fictions, fairy tales.

Every month St. Peter and Lucifer meet to divide the newly arrived souls between them.

"What is your name?" St. Peter asks.

"Karl Marx," replies a white-bearded soul.

"Ah! You are an atheist. Therefore you will be going to hell."

The next month, to St. Peter's great amazement, Lucifer is late. This had never happened before.

After a few hours Lucifer arrives in a horrible state - one of his horns is broken, his tail is burnt, his complexion is pale.

"What is the matter with you?" St. Peter asks.

"Oh my God! That Marx, you know? He has created fucking hell! He began by complaining that it was too hot, and then that there was not enough air and then that the place was unhealthy. To make a long story short, after a few strikes, protests and demonstrations, I had to follow air conditioning, massages in the breaks between torture sessions, thermostats to keep the heating system under control! Peter, I am at a loss. Help me! Could you take care of him for the next month to give me some space?"

"What! Marx in heaven! Have you gone crazy or what?"

"Do it for my sake, Peter! Remember, we have been friends for eternity!"

"But I just cannot!" replies St. Peter. "Marx amongst all the angels and saints! Can you imagine it?"

"One month only, Peter, please."

"Well, okay. Just because you are my friend I will keep him - but for one month only!"

Next month St. Peter and Lucifer are both punctual. Lucifer eagerly asks, "So, Peter, how are things going?"

"Oh, fine thanks, Lucifer."

"Fine? What about Marx?"

"Oh, that Marx! Nice chap!"

"You mean he did not raise any protest?"

"Oh never! We had many pleasant discussions together. He is a cultured man."

"Indeed? But what does God say?"

"Oh, come on, Lucifer, You know God doesn't exist!"

Satyam, Buddha has not sutras about God. He was the first mature religious person in the whole world. He talks in terms of maturity, not in terms of childishness.

And you say: I AM LEAVING FOR ITALY TOMORROW...

Then it will be good if you take this joke with you:

Two village boys from Sicily go to visit their cousin in New York. On the third day of being shown around downtown New York they somehow get separated from the cousin. After looking for him for a few hours they finally end up in a police station.

"Please-a, sir, can-a you fin-a our cousin?"

"What's his name?" the police officer asks.

"Gino."

"Gino who?"

"Don't-a know-a"

"Where does he live?"

"In New York-a."

"What does he look like?"

"A man-a."

"Where did you lose him?"

"Don't-a know-a."

"Is there anything special about his features? A flat nose? One eye? Something like that?"

The two boys think hard but sadly shake their heads. Then the face of one brightens slowly and he says "Ah, yes-a sir, he has-a two assholes!"

"Two assholes!" exclaims the policeman "Are you sure? How do you know?"

"Well-a," replies the boy, "every time we go to eat-a spaghetti or dance-a at the disco, his friends say-a, 'Look! There's Gino with-a the two-a assholes!'"

Satyam, go to Italy, but come back soon, because the whole of Italy has come here! All the juicy people have disappeared from Italy; they are here.

Just the other day I was reading a newspaper report from Italy about so many young people, young men and women, having disappeared from Italy that the government has become concerned about what is happening to them. They need not be concerned, they need not go anywhere to look for them, they can come here - they are all here! Either they have come or they are on the way, but they are all going to end up here. What will you be doing there Satyam? Come back soon - as soon as possible!

Italy will look very non-Italian to you. We have made a compact Italy here, and far more juicy!

Slowly slowly my jokes will help you to come to your senses; they will help you to come out of your confusion. There is nothing more healthy than a good laughter, there is nothing more sane than a good laughter. Laughter is very vital.

I would like my sannyasins to be laughing sannyasins. I would like the world to know my people as the most laughing, dancing, singing people. I don't want any sad, serious-looking people here. I don't want any long faces here. Yes, when you come you come with a long face, but then I have to hit you and sooner or later you lose your mask - because that is only a mask.

No child is born with a long face; every child is born with laughter, with a great joy which is ready to explode. We destroy his joy. My effort here is to release that joy again, to bring your childhood back to you.

The fifth question:

Question 6:

DHARMA CHETANA,

IT IS TOO LATE! YOU have been killed already, but the recognition comes always too late, when the work is finished. I do my surgery in such a way that you become aware only when you start missing your appendix, tonsils, and head, and everything... when you are just a hollow bamboo!

Now Dharma Chetana is a hollow bamboo. Now she is ready. Now the whole can sing any song through her. The only way to be reborn is to be crucified.

The eastern scriptures say the Master is death, and they are right. The Master is a death, but that is only a half-statement. The other half is that the Master is also a resurrection.

The sixth question:

Question 7:

PREM PANKAJA,

IT IS THE SAME QUESTION. I have taken it out! Now you will never find it. Everything has to be taken out because all that you are carrying inside - your mind, your heart - is just junk! You call it antique furniture, maybe; I call it simply junk. I am not interested in antiques at all, no; my whole interest is in the absolutely new.

Mukta wanted to bring an antique Rolls Royce for me. I said, "Mukta, I am not interested in antiques at all!"

She said, "Osho, it is very beautiful! It is a 1939 model, with gold," et cetera.

I said, "Forget all about it! I am interested only in the latest."

Now Sheela is bringing a Lincoln Continental for me. I told her, "Bring a 1981 model."

She said, "Osho, where will I find a 1981 model? It is 1980!"

I said, "You try! By the time you find it it will be 1981!"

And the last question:

Question 8:

A YOUNG MAN once came to a venerable Master and asked, "How long will it take to reach enlightenment?"

The Master said, "Ten years."

The young man blurted, "So long?"

The Master said, "No, I was mistaken. It will take twenty years."

The young man asked, "Why do you keep adding to it?"

And the Master answered, "Come to think of it, in your case it will probably be thirty!"

Dharmesh, there are no shortcuts. And if you are impatient you will never find. Patience is the only way, and if you are absolutely patient you can find right now. This is the ultimate paradox of religious inquiry, of the search for truth, for God, for NIRVANA: if you are impatient you will have to wait for eternity. That venerable Master must have been a very polite man; he said only thirty years. But to tell you the truth, if you are impatient you will have to wait forever and forever. If you are patient, totally patient, then it is possible even now - THIS VERY MOMENT, HERE AND NOW!

Don't ask for any shortcut, Dharmesh. There has never been any shortcut; there cannot be any shortcut to truth. You cannot have it cheap. And patience means love because only love can be patient. Love can wait - love knows how to wait. It can wait forever, and because it can wait forever it becomes capable of receiving the gift right now.

Two students were talking to each other. One of them bragged about all the women he got to go to bed with him.

"How do you get so many women do to it? What is your secret?" asked the other student.

"Well, this is how I do it. All I do is paint a white circle on my dashboard. The girl will usually ask about it. Then we'll start talking. I'll start referring to the color white and all the things associated with it - virginity, purity, chastity. Then the conversation will expand. We'll talk about the purity of the saints and Tantra Yoga, etcetera. It all depends on how good you can talk. Just use the white circle and go on from there. You shouldn't have too much trouble getting them to do it."

The friend followed his advice and painted a white circle on his dashboard, then went and picked up his date. When she got into the car she noticed the white circle on the dashboard.

"That's really an interesting circle on your dashboard," she said.