For the Sake of Harmony

The first question:

Question 1:

FIRST, IF CONFLICT IS YOUR THING then let it be so. Then don't try to impose any false harmony on top of it because false harmony will never be true, it will never be satisfying. It is ugly. A true conflict is beautiful - more beautiful, far more beautiful than an imposed harmony, because deep down the conflict continues. You are deceiving nobody, you only think you are deceiving. The reality cannot be deceived and you have to suffer the consequences.

If conflict is your thing then let it be so. That is the message of Tao. It has nothing to do with harmony, it has to do with let-go. If conflict is your thing and you allow it, then that is harmony for you - because you will be in harmony with your nature.

It is difficult because you immediately make ideals. You think Tao is harmony. It is, but not as an ideal. When you relax and you do your thing - whatsoever it is, mind you, WHATSOEVER, I say - then you are in harmony.

So the first thing is that you are not to impose anything upon yourself otherwise you miss the path of Tao.

IT IS ALL JOLLY FINE FOR EVERYONE TO 'DO THEIR THING' BUT WHAT SHOULD BE AN ATTITUDE WHEN OUR 'THINGS' CONFLICT? Let there be conflict. Whatsoever happens, happens. What can you do? The conflict has to be accepted with great respect. You would like to have no conflict but this liking is your ego. If God wills the conflict to be there then it has to be that way. Relax and let the conflict be there.

To move on the path of Tao is to move relaxedly. Whatsoever happens, there should be a total acceptance of it - both of the act and of the consequence. If the conflict brings misery then that has to be accepted. You have to flow with the river wherever it leads. If it goes south, good; if it goes north, good; if it does not go anywhere, good; if it drowns you, good. This is total trust.

I AM ALWAVS GIVING IN.... Then you are not in a let-go. If you give in; you are giving in against yourself. Never give in. There is no need. It is better to be defeated, it is better to be cursed than to give in. To 'give in' means that you are reluctant but still you are doing it - for harmony's sake.

But harmony is missing from the very beginning. So if you give in to your wife she will never forgive you, if you give in to your husband he will never forgive you, because your whole being will vibrate with antagonism. You will say something in words, it will be on the lips, but your being will deny it, contradict it. And that is what is being broadcast continuously - from your eyes, from your face, from your gestures, from everything. Your words cannot hide it.

So nothing is attained by it. You give in, you lose your inner harmony, but no outer.harmony is created out of it. Outer harmony comes only when there is an inner harmony. If you are angry then be angry, be totally angry. Risk all. Then you will be in harmony. And this will be difficult to understand but let me say it: if you are really angry with your wife she will be happy, more happy than when you give in, because you are authentic. Who does not love an authentic person? Now she can trust you - when you are angry you are angry, you are not false, you are not pseudo. And when you are loving you are loving, you are not false, you are not pseudo. Now you are reliable.

Otherwise even while you are making love she will feel you are not reliable. Perhaps you are thinking of making love to some other women, or at least thinking of some other woman. This woman may not be there at all in your mind. Making love to this woman you may think of other women and you will not be there, and it will be felt and it will hurt - because all the time the woman knows that you are false. When you are smiling you are not smiling, when you say 'I love you' you are not really saying it. You are always giving in for harmony's sake. You are not true. But if you are not in harmony within yourself how can you be in harmony with your wife, with your friend, with your husband, with anybody? First be in harmony with yourself - that means allow whatsoever is to be the case.

This is the new revolution that is happening all over the world, the new psychology of man. Gone are those days of repression, gone are those repressed people. They never lived, they only pretended.

They were empty gestures. There was no substance in their life.

This is your life, live it - and live it in all the climates, don't try to fix a climate. Year round you can see that sometimes it is raining, sometimes it is hot, sometimes it is winter, sometimes the sun is there and sometimes it is very clouded. That's why the earth is so beautiful. It is not monotonous, it is rich.

A man's life should be one of many climates, of many colours. A man's life should be a rainbow, an orchestra. It should not be a single note. A man who has a single note in his life is a monotonous man, he is a poor man, a dull man. He will not enjoy his life - and he will not allow anybody else to enjoy their life either. Wherever he is he will be a dead weight, he will make people serious, sombre, unloving, unliving. Don't become that, that is to be a sinner - at least, in my definition. That's what I call sin.

A virtuous man is a man of many climates. A virtuous man is a man of tremendous richness. He has a whole orchestra, all possible notes, in his being. And you can only love a man who has all notes possible, all the potentialities flowering. He's always new, never old.

While angry, be angry. Don't give in. While loving, love; while hating, hate. Just be true, in harmony with yourself - that's what Tao is. And then a miracle happens: when you are in harmony with yourself you start being in harmony with other people and they start respecting you. You are authentic, you are a solid man. You are not hollow, you are substantial, you have a backbone.

How can a wife respect a man who always gives in? Impossible. No wife can respect such a husband. How can you respect a man who has no backbone, is always ready to crawl on the floor, always saying yes? It is impossible. This is not a true man.

Never give in. Don't give in, live your life, whatsoever it brings.... If sometimes it brings conflict then that is needed. Then storm is also needed. The storm is needed as much as silence. Anger is needed as much as compassion. Life needs all the polarities.

And then the miracle happens. When the other person starts feeling that you are true, then by and by, through that respect, through that love, conflict drops. When you love a person, when you respect a person, when you see the person is true and authentic, there is less and less conflict.

Between two false persons there is always conflict. Conflict is a consequence of two false persons being together. When two true person live together, conflict by and by disappears because they start understanding each other and there is never confusion, there is no possibility of any confusion.

Everything is clear, transparent. Then conflict by and by disappears. Without risking any of your inner harmony the conflict disappears. And then you and the other are also in harmony.

But the first step is to be in inner harmony with yourself. Only then can you be in harmony with others, otherwise not. If you have not attained an inner harmony how can you attain the outer? The basic thing is missing.

The question is from Anando. He can become a very authentic person, hence the question. He knows where he is missing, his question is not just intellectual. I understand. I have looked into his being deeply. This is his problem. Anando, you have to drop it, you have to be true. And whatsoever the cost is you have to pay it. Life has to be paid for. Each single moment of beauty, of joy, has to be paid for enormously. It is not free, it has to be earned.

TO DO ONE'S THING UNDER CONSTANT THREAT TAKES THE JOY OUT OF IT. Certainly, it creates misery. That's why so many people are miserable in the world. It is very rare to come across a person who is happy because it is very rare to come across a person who has lived authentically, who has lived rebelliously, who has lived his own life and who has not bothered to make any compromise. To compromise is to poison your being. Never compromise. It is better to die than to compromise. Die if need be but die uncompromised - then you are unpolluted, unpoisoned.

Then you are a beauty. Then you have dignity.

You will have the same dignity as Jesus had when he was crucified. What was he doing, this man?

Why were people so angry about him? He was trying to live his life, that was his crime. That has always been the crime. What was Socrates doing? Why were people so angry about him? He was trying to live his life.

These miserable people cannot tolerate any happy person. These miserable people are so deep in misery that any happy person creates great jealousy, creates great restlessness in their being - they cannot tolerate it. The very presence of a happy and a rebellious person shows them how unreal they are. The happy, the true person becomes a comparison.

I am not saying that by relaxing, by accepting your being, by being in a Taoist attitude, you will not have any misery - I am not saying that. You will be happy. You will have much pain, you may have to suffer many sufferings, but still you will be happy. And all those sufferings will add to your taste, they will give salt to your life.

I am not saying that the path is full of roses - there are thorns, they always come with the roses.

Wherever you find one rose you will find a hundred thorns. But still I say, go for the roses. The thorns have to be suffered but it is worth it. Those roses are so valuable that the suffering is nothing. If you want to avoid the thorns you will never have roses - that's what you have been doing, Anando, up to now. You have been avoiding the thorns so you are missing the roses. They always come together.

You will be miserable - and only miserable. Your misery will be empty misery.

Jesus also goes through pain but his pain is full of joy - that is the difference. Three persons were crucified on that same day - two thieves were also crucified. On either side of Jesus was a thief.

They were both crying and weeping but Jesus was silent. And people were throwing stones and saying ugly things and insulting Jesus as much as they could, but Jesus was silent, as silent as if nothing was happening.

One of the thieves became interested. This was rare. He was crying and weeping and he was not being insulted. Nobody cared about him. The whole insult was directed towards Jesus. And then he heard Jesus saying to God, 'Father, forgive these people because they don't know what they are doing.' When the thief heard this he could not believe his ears. He said, 'So it seems you really are a son of God. Bless me before you go.' And Jesus said, 'Don't be worried. You will be with me in the company of God, in the kingdom of God, today.' In that moment of illumination, in that moment of understanding, the thief became transformed. He died silently, and a peace surrounded him. He was happy to die with Jesus. He became part of Jesus. Then he did not cry, then death didn't matter, then he was moving into a deeper and higher life.

The other thief was crying and weeping - and also dying. Both the thieves were dying but in a different way. One was simply dying, .another had a vision of a higher life. One's misery was empty, another's misery became full of joy.

This is the difference between people. There are miserable people, painful people, whose misery is empty, for nothing. And there are tremendously happy people who are very rare, they also suffer.

Sometimes they suffer more than other people because they never avoid anything, they go headlong into things.

Anando, do your thing and do it truly. Never compromise. Never compromise with anybody, not even with God. No compromise. You be yourself. That is the only prayer there is.

The second question:

Question 2:

THE question comes from the parable I told you - the parable about Bodhidharma and Hui Koju.

Bodhidharma sat for nine years facing a wall. People would come to him and ask questions but he would not answer. And people would say to him, 'Why do you go on looking at the wall?' And he would say, 'I am waiting for the right man to come. When he comes I will turn and look at him.' Then came Hui Koju. It was a very cold morning and snow was falling. He stood there in the falling snow and the snow gathered all around his body and he was freezing.

One day passed and then he said to Bodhidharma that now he would make his offering. He cut off one of his hands with his sword, gave it to Bodhidharma and said, 'Now turn towards me otherwise I will cut off my head.' Bodhidharma turned immediately and said, 'Wait! There is no need to go that far. So you have come. I was waiting for you for nine years. I have a message to deliver to you.

Once the message is delivered I will disappear.'

Hui Koju became the second Zen Master in China. The message was delivered.

After four years, when Bodhidharma was departing from his disciples, he asked four disciples the question, 'What is truth?' The first disciple answered that truth is not in the scriptures, not in the tradition, not in the words. And Bodhidharma said, 'You have my skin.'

And he asked the second and the second said, 'Truth has to be experienced, it is not a concept, it cannot be thought about. It is not philosophy. It is existential.' And Bodhidharma said, 'You have my flesh.'

And he asked the third and the third said, 'Truth is when you are not, when the ego disappears.

Truth is when the mind is no more. Truth is a state of no-mind.' And Bodhidharma said, 'You have my bones.'

Then he asked the fourth disciple - this disciple was the same Hui Koju who had given his hand to him. When he asked Hui Koju, he looked at the Master, fell down at his feet and remained silent.

Bodhidharma took him up, hugged him and said, 'You have my marrow. And now I am ready to depart. You have all that I have. To a question about truth, only silence can be the answer.'

The others were sad but still they were saying something. Without saying anything the fourth disciple said it. This was Hui Koju.

The question comes from this same parable. WHEN WILL I BE READY TO CUT OFF MY HAND AND GIVE IT TO YOU AS A SIGN?

The first thing: I am not as gross as Bodhidharma, he was a barbarian. In fact, in China he was known as the Hindu barbarian from the south. I am not a barbarian like that. And this is the twentieth century, sir, these things are not needed. You will have to bring more subtle gifts to me. A hand?

What will I do with your hand? I will get into trouble with the police! So please never do it.

And a thing that has been done once is meaningless now.

You will be repeating it, it will not be original. It will not be original at all, it will be imitative. You are doing it because you know the parable. It is not coming out of your being, it is not your response.

And you are even asking me: WHEN WILL I BE READY TO CUT OFF MY HAND? Hui Koju never asked. He did it. You ask me, 'When?' You are certainly after me. You will get me into trouble. You ask me, 'When?' Even if I say that the time has come you will not be ready, because this question is a question out of greed not out of understanding.

A parable is always a symbolic thing. Always remember that when I tell you parables don't be too literal. They are metaphoric. Cutting off the hand is symbolic. What is the symbol? The hand is the symbol of action. When Hui Koju cuts off his hand he says, 'Sir, I am ready to drop all my activity, all my action. I am ready to drop my "doer-hood".' That's what he is saying. The hand is symbolic.

So if you can drop your 'doer-hood' that will be the real thing. Immediately, the moment you are no longer a doer, you will become a being, you will become a God. You are lost in your actions - doing this, doing that; you are thinking about having done this and not having done that; you sometimes feel successful and very egoistic, sometimes a failure and very inferior. And there is misery and happiness - and you just go on. You move in a wheel.

To become a meditator means to drop out of the wheel of activities. I am not saying don't do anything, I am saying let God do it, you just be a vehicle. That is the meaning of cutting off your hand.

One further thing which I have never told you about this parable is that Bodhidharma gave the hand back and again Hui Koju was whole. Now, if you cut off your hand, it cannot be given back and you cannot be whole again. Hands don't grow like trees.; If you cut a branch it grows again. No, even to a person like Bodhidharma, nature will not change its laws; it never changes its laws. Nature is very neutral, that's why miracles never happen. Nature never gives way to exceptions. It is absolute.

This simply means that Hui Koju gave up his activity, surrendered his activity, and Bodhidharma gave it back again because Hui Koju was now no longer a doer so he could be allowed to do. Now God or the total, or the whole, or Tao, would be the doer through him.

These parables have to be meditated upon. They are not just to be literally understood, otherwise you will miss the meaning. They are great metaphors, they are poetic. They are not logical things, they are symbolic. They indicate something. In Zen they have a saying coined by a very great Zen Master, Lin Chi, which is, 'Don't bite my finger. Look where I am pointing.'

This is biting my finger.

The third question:

Question 3:

IF it has not happened it will not be true to say so, and if it has happened it will be futile. What is the point of saying it when it has happened? Either way it is meaningless.

If it has not happened I will not say it and if it has happened why should I say it? You know, I know - it will be a tacit understanding. I am not going to say to anybody that it has happened, remember.

I will never say to anybody that it has happened. It is happening tO many, it will happen to many; in fact, it has never happened to so many people as it is going to happen this time.

But I am not going to say anything to anybody. You would like me to say something because then you can create great politics around it. If I say to Maneesha 'Maneesha, it has happened to you' then everybody else will be jealous. Then you will start finding fault with Maneesha. Then you will start trying to prove that it has not happened to her. How can it happen to Maneesha before you?

Impossible!

Do you know that when Bodhidharma gave his robe to Hui Koju he told him a second thing? 'Escape now. Take this robe and escape as far away as possible otherwise the other disciples will kill you.'

There were five hundred disciples. So four hundred and ninety-nine would be against this Hui Koju, who was just a simple poor man. They would kill him, certainly they would kill him. They followed him. The moment they became aware that it had happened to Hui Koju and the robe had been given to him, they followed him. Where had he gone? He had moved past a mountain retreat, running as far away as possible - as the Master had told him to.

They got hold of him. The greatest scholar, who had been expecting that it would happen to him, got hold of him first. He was a very dangerous man. He said, 'Give me the robe.' Hui Koju said, 'You can take the robe, because the robe is not the thing. You can take it.' He dropped the robe on the ground and said, 'You can take it. But remember, if you are not yet capable of taking it, it will be a crime against the Master.'

And the scholar started trembling and shaking and perspiring, because he was certainly not ready.

He had an ego. He tried to get the robe but he could not pick it up, it was so heavy. It was not that the robe became heavy, he must have become too shaky, nervous.

Remember, I say again: miracles never happen. If you ask the Buddhists they will say that this was a miracle. The robe became so heavy that the man could not pick it up. That is not right. The man became very shaky, naturally. Hui Koju was standing there as a witness - in pure silence, in great meditation, in great ecstasy watching. And he said, 'Remember one thing: you will be committing a crime against the Master if you are not ready for it. You can take it if you are ready.'

How can you deceive a man like Hui Koju who has become a mirror? He must have seen all this scholar's ignorance hidden behind the so-called knowledge. He must have trembled. He must have tried to take the robe but could not pick it up from the ground. He fell down at the feet of Hui Koju and he said, 'I am sorry. I am not after the robe. Tell me what he has transferred to you.'

For years Hui Koju was pursued and efforts were made to kill him.

This has been so always. I am not going to say to anybody that it has happened to them, because I am not interested in creating any politics. When it has happened, it has happened. You will know, I will know, and there is no need for anybody else to know about it. You will know that I have said it to you in deep silence. Not a single word will be uttered but the message will reach you. You will know my recognition - that I have recognised, that I have blessed, that I have patted you on your back and said, 'Yes, it has happened.' But it will not be in so many words; not a word will be uttered.

It will be a gesture and you will understand and nobody else will understand.

This is going to be the way.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

DON'T think you can do it, because you don't have any.

What you call self-confidence is just a lack of it, hence you need it. A man of real self-confidence never carries so much luggage. Why should he carry it? Why should he be concerned about self- confidence? He has it. Nobody can rob him of it, nobody can steal it. There is no way of losing it, you will not need to carry it. When you carry it you show only one thing - you don't have it.

People who don't have any self-confidence create a false self-confidence as a substitute. They are trembling inside, they are afraid inside. Deep down is cowardice but on the surface they pretend that they are brave people, very courageous. Deep down is ignorance but on the surface they are very knowledgeable. Deep down they don't know anything and on the surface they are ready with all the answers possible to every possible question.

What do you need self-confidence for? If you are, self-confidence will be like a shadow to you. It will follow you. You don't carry your shadow, you don't look back again and again to see whether it is coming or not, you don't get an insurance for it. You don't care. It follows. Self-confidence is always there when you have become a self.

You are not yet a self, you are just an ego. Remember this difference between the ego and the self. The self is divine, the ego is human. The ego is manufactured by education, society, ambition, politics, morality, and all that; the self is not manufactured, it is discovered. The ego is an invention, the self is a discovery.

You have to manage the ego, because if you don't manage it, it will be gone within hours. If you don't manage it continuously, if you are not on guard continuously, it will be lost. So you have to be on guard. Of course, it creates great tension, great heaviness in the head. You become a heavy person and you become very up-tight. Your flow stops. You become frozen.

It is very foolish but it is what you have. That is why you are afraid, that's why you ask: SHOULD I THROW AWAY ALL MY SELF-CONFIDENCE? That which can be thrown away is not. How can you throw away your shadow? Or can you? What are the ways to throw away a shadow? There are no ways. Nobody has ever been able to throw away a shadow. When your self has been discovered, when you have become an integrated soul and you have come to know your centre, self-confidence follows like a shadow. You cannot throw it away.

A Buddha has it, a Mahavir has it, a Lao Tzu has it - you don't have it. Hence you are always afraid it may be taken away. And sometimes you even start thinking about dropping it. It cannot be taken away if it is there; it cannot be dropped if it is there. It can be taken away only if it is not there, it can be dropped only if it is not there. This will look paradoxical but this is one of the fundamental laws of life. You think only of that which is not; that which is needs no thought to hold it, that which is, simply is, on its own accord.

So, if you want to drop it, you don't have it. And please drop it. Please drop it because it is meaningless, it is useless, it is not, it is bogus, it is a false coin.

Now I would like to make the paradox even deeper. First I say you don't have it, so how can you drop it? Then I say you don't have it, so please drop it. It is a wastage of energy to carry it. You are just carrying an idea; it is not there. And the moment you drop your so-called self-confidence, you will be able to discover yourself. The false has to be understood as false, only then does the real reveal itself. The false understood as false is the first step towards reality. Let the false cease to be and the real will enter in. Carry the false and you will not allow the real to penetrate your being.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

YES, it is, but it kills all the same.

Just the other day I was reading somebody's memoirs. And he writes that once, in Sannen, J.

Krishnamurti was conducting a small discussion. A few people had gathered to ask questions, which he was answering. Suddenly a man arose and he said, 'Stop all this. It is almost as if we are blind, in a dark night, searching for a black cat which is not there.' And Krishnamurti stood up and said, 'Sir, but it is there.'

Let me repeat it. Krishnamurti said, 'Sir, but it is there.'

I would like to tell you, yes, the bullet is a blank but it kills. It cures, it kills, it destroys, it recreates. In fact, because it is a blank it kills, because it is empty it kills. It comes out of my emptiness, it is part of my emptiness. If you allow my emptiness to enter you it will kill you and revive you on a totally different plane, in a new dimension. Yes, it will be a cross, a crucifixion - and a resurrection too.

It kills only because it is a blank. It is like a blank cheque - the value depends on you. If you accept it totally it has tremendous value; if you reject it, it is just a piece of paper.

You will have to write the amount on it. I simply give you a blank cheque. It will depend on your courage as to what amount you can write on it.

And don't be miser when you are writing out a blank cheque.

The sixth question:

Question 6:

THE other is hell only to the extent that you feel the other as the other. There is a way to feel the other not as the other but as your extension - that is true too, that is what reality really is.

The other is not the other. When you love, what do you mean by love? Love means only this experience: that the other is not the other. What else is love? What is love all about? Love is an experience in which you feel that the other is no longer the other, the other is me, the other is my being. Maybe on the bodily plane you remain separate, on the mental plane you remain separate, but further down the centres start overlapping, merging, losing definition. That's what love is.

The other is hell if you are only pretending love - then the other is really hell. If you are only playing a game and just trying to exploit the other as a means then he will also try to exploit you as a means.

Nobody wants to be reduced to a means, everybody is an end unto himself. Hence so much misery in the name of love arises. It does not come out of love, it comes out of false love, pretended love.

Love, and then you will know the other is not the other. If you can love deeply, infinitely, you will by and by become aware that even the trees are not the other, even the stars are not the other.

This is what I call becoming a sannyasin - to fall in love with the total. That's what Lao Tzu calls Tao - to fall in love with the total, to make love to God. That is the ultimate tantra - to make love to God, to be in love with the whole.

Naturally, when you make love to a woman or a man it is bound to be momentary because when two small tiny individuals make love you cannot expect more than that. Even that that much happens is a miracle. If you really want eternal orgasm, a continuous orgasm, then you have to love the whole and you have to fall in love with the whole. Make love to God, then God is not the other. Wherever love comes in, the other disappears. That is the sign of love - that the other is no longer there. And when the other is not there as the other, there is heaven - paradise regained. When the other is as the other, there is hell - paradise lost.

The eighth question:

Question 7:

THE moment you ask 'how' you are asking again for a discipline. The moment you ask 'how' you ask for methods, techniques. Why can't you simply live? Are not animals living? Are not trees living and birds living without asking any 'how'? Why do you carry on continuously about everything with this 'how'? How to love? How to pray? How to be friendly? How to be compassionate? How to be silent? How to live?

Drop the 'how' and let life take its own course. It will. It is not waiting for any 'how'. That's what Tao calls spontaneity, TATHATA, suchness. Let life take its own course. Who are you to interfere continuously? Can't you simply eat? Why do you ask how to eat and how to taste? Can't you simply taste? Just eat, chew well, and enjoy.

Let life move, don't try to manage it. By trying to manage, you have mismanaged enough. By trying to improve you have destroyed all its beauty. With all your goals and ideologies you have poisoned your being. Be natural.

But that is very difficult for the ego. The difficulty comes from the ego, not from life. Life can be lived without any 'how' but the difficulty comes from the ego. The ego says that then you will be like an animal. So what! Be an animal. What is wrong in that? Man is an animal. There's nothing wrong in being an animal. No animal is as ugly as man. No animal has done so much violence on earth as man. No animal has destroyed nature as man has. What is wrong with animals? Have you ever heard of any animal becoming Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Mao Tse Tung? They have not killed.

They have not murdered and butchered. They have not created wars. It is man who brings ugliness into the world.

But the ego says you have to be higher than the animals. In trying to be higher than the animals you fall lower than the animals. Be natural, don't try to improve, and you will find a great transformation happening. Through nature God comes - not through improvement, not through any effort of the ego, but through effortlessness, through deep trust and surrender.

Can't you trust God, who has given you birth? You did not ask the same question when you were in a womb - 'How to live for nine months?' You lived well, you did well, perfectly well - otherwise you would not have been here. And there was no yoga teacher to teach you to be in a certain posture, to teach you how to breathe, how to do PRANAYAMA and PRATYAHAR, and which ASANA will be the best. You didn't ask anybody. There was nobody to ask. You lived in the womb naturally and you grew. God was taking care, the whole was taking care, everything was provided.

Then you were born and then you became a child - you did not ask how to breathe, how to walk, how to talk. Everything came by and by. Can't you trust life? One day you became a young man, youth came, and love started arising in your being. One day you will become old, life will start disappearing, and then one day death will come and the circle will be complete.

Why are you always trying to interfere? Tao says you should be in WU-WEI, non-interference. Let the whole do things. This is a very radical attitude, this is the greatest revolutionary attitude ever.

'How?' is very childish. Yoga is for children, Tao is for grown-ups.

So don't ask: BUT THEN HOW IS ONE TO LIVE BEFORE BECOMING ENLIGHTENED? Just live.

And just living, I tell you, is fantastic. It is far out!

The ninth question:

Question 8:

You can be a Taoist anywhere; nobody can hinder you, no obstacles can prevent you - because to be a Taoist means taking the ultimate risk. I am not saying that you will not be in trouble, I have never said that. You will be in trouble, certainly you will be in trouble, but that trouble is good, beneficial. It is a birth pain.

Yes, when you become natural you will be continuously in trouble - the trouble will come from everywhere. Nobody is natural, so everywhere you will h an odd person. Nobody will feel at ease with you in the beginning. Because you are at ease with yourself, nobody will feel-at ease with you - because they are not at ease with themselves. They are very tense people. They fit with a tense person, but with a non-tense person they are simply at a loss. What to do?

Once I was travelling in a train and there was only one other passenger in the compartment.

Naturally he wanted to talk to me and he wanted to somehow get into conversation with me. Seeing his restlessness I remained very cool. When he tried to ask something I simply answered yes or no.

And I didn't take any interest. When he offered me a PAN I said, 'I don't take it.' When he offered me a cigarette I said, 'I don't smoke.' When he prepared a drink - he was a doctor - I said, 'I don't drink.' Then he went crazy. He said, 'Then how can I be friendly with you? How? We are going to be here in this compartment for forty-eight hours together and there seems to be no bridge.' I said, 'There is none.'

And I watched him. He started becoming more and more crazy. He would open his suitcase and close it again and arrange his clothes and then arrange them again and open the window, close the window, read the same newspaper again, and in-between he would look at me as if to say, 'What is the matter?' And I sat there cool and silent, and I enjoyed it.

After two hours he called the conductor and said, 'I want to go into another compartment.' The conductor asked if there was something wrong. He said, 'Nothing is wrong but this man is too silent.

It hurts. It drives me crazy. He is just sitting there and I have to see him because I am here alone.

And there seems to be no possibility of communicating with him.'

Now, I was not doing any harm, I had not said even a single word to him - but he had become very much disturbed.

When you are silent you will find that people become very uneasy with you. Your silence brings a totally different world, a world that they are not attuned with. You bring a totally new music, a music they don't know at all. You introduce them to a new way of being for which they are not ready.

You ask me: HOW TO BE A TAOIST PSYCHOTHERAPIST WITHIN A VERY CONFUCIUS- ORIENTED MENTAL INSTITUTION? The whole world is a Confucius-oriented mental institution.

Confucius is the master of millions, of the whole world really. And the whole world has become a mental institution. It is very difficult to find a man who is sane. Insanity is normal.

So if you are in a mental institution don't be worried very much, because whether you are in the institution or in the world it is the same. There is not much difference - just a little difference of degree.

You can be Taoist anywhere because Taoism has no conditions to be fulfilled. The first thing you will have to understand is: don't think of the mad people as nuts, don't think of them as mad. That is disrespectful. Their family thought them mad, hence they were hospitalised or institutionalised.

The politicians thought them mad, the priest thought them mad, everybody thought them mad. But I tell you they are only different, not necessarily mad. Certainly they are different but who knows who is mad? Jesus was thought to be a madman, Mansoor was thought to be a madman, Francis was thought to be a madman, Ramkrishna was thought to be a madman. But who is mad?

These people are different, that much is certain. Be respectful. Maybe by being respectful you will help them to come back, to become more alert.

Now this has to be understood: when a person goes mad it simply shows that he was the weakest link in the group in which he used to live - for example, in a family. If the family is neurotic - as families are - then the person who is the weakest in the family will become neurotic. And through that person the whole neurosis of the family will start flowing. He will become the scapegoat. He may be weaker, he may be more fragile, he may be more sensitive than the others. He may be of a softer heart and a softer build. So the whole neurosis of the family will start flowing through him and the whole family will start calling him mad. And they will start thinking about taking him to the psychiatrist, to the institution.

And he was helpful, he was a safety valve for the neurotic family. The family's neurosis created the neurosis of the person because he was the most vulnerable in the family. Maybe he was the most intelligent, the most sensitive, the softest of them, so he became affected first. The others were more hard, more insensitive, more stone-like - he was more like a rose so he was crushed.

Then he comes to the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist is ready to label him: he is a schizophrenic, or a manic-depressive, or this or that. He is labelled. The family is happy - they were right. And he cannot say anything because the family says he is mad and the people where he works say he is mad and now, finally, the psychiatrist confirms that he is mad.

The psychiatrist is in the service of the society. The psychiatrist is part of the politics. Just as in the old days the priest was in the service of the society, now the psychiatrist is in the service of the society. Now the psychiatrist is doing the same function as the priest. The old conspiracy continues.

The priests and the politicians were together - they conspired against man - but now the priest has lost his prestige so he is being replaced by the psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Now he is in service and the politician is using him.

You force the person into a mental hospital. The moment you force a man into a mental hospital you fix the idea that he is mad in his mind absolutely. The idea that he is mad, which you have given him, is irreversible. Now everything will prove that he is mad - the treatment, the medicine, the doctors, the nurses, the whole atmosphere. You are hypnotising him into madness.

The first thing to do - if you really want to be a Taoist in a mental institute - the first thing to do is to help the person to feel that he is not mad, only different. Do you see the difference it will bring?

Just the word 'different'. Nothing is basically wrong with him, he is just not like others. Then you are not destroying his self-respect, then you are not destroying his dignity, you are helping his dignity.

Then you are not giving him a hypnotic idea that he is mad, you are helping him to be dehypnotised.

Help him as a person but not as a patient. Nobody is a patient. Help him with respect, not with any derogation on your part.

Don't label him, because persons cannot be labelled. People are so infinite people are so glorious - how can you label them 'manic-depressive or schizophrenic'? These labels are dangerous, very dangerous. And nobody knows exactly what schizophrenia is, nobody knows exactly. There is no exact definition of who is abnormal, who is mad. So don't play with words.

Help the person to understand that he is different. Help the person to understand that he will be existing in a crowd which is totally different from him so he has to be a little careful - that's all. If you can bring a little more awareness into him, you will be a great blessing to him. That's all that IS needed.

In the East we have done it for centuries. In the East, in the old days, if a person was going mad they would not take him to a doctor, to a physician, they would take him to a certain sacred place, to a temple. Why? Because madness was thought to be something divine. It is beautiful to think of madness as divine. It has something in it of the divine of the divine spontaneity, of the divine chaos.

It has something that transcends ordinary intellect. They would take him to the temple and in the temple he was not thought to be a mad person, he was thought only to be in a higher stage.

People would pray for him and he would be left surrendered to God. And in almost all cases people were helped. They would again become normal - whatever that means. They would come back home, they would be able to fit with people more easily.

In Japan, in Zen temples, they still do that. They don't consider a person to be mad, they simply accept him as a person in trouble, a person who is different. They help him to be in the monastery but nobody does anything else for him. He is left alone. His needs are fulfilled. And by and by, within three or four weeks, he settles. The stirring that was inside him settles. In fact, to take a person out of his family reference and context is to help him.

But mad-institutions should not be called mad-institutions. They should be houses to help different kinds of people, with respect.

Don't think of yourself as a doctor, think of yourself as a friend. Don't think of yourself as higher than the patient. You are nobody to prescribe; you have just to understand the person and help him come to more awareness.

Many things can be helpful. Music will be more helpful than medicine. Meditation will be more tremendously helpful than anything else and dynamic meditation particularly will be helpful. Just help him to cathart. He has gathered much rubbish in his heart which he has not been allowed to throw off anywhere. Help him to throw it off. Don't repress him any more. His family was repressive, his society was repressive, now at least you can help.

What I call the dynamic methods of meditation can be of tremendous value to future psychiatry. Just help him to bring his madness out, whatsoever he feels like. If he wants to scream, let him. And don't let him feel guilty that he is doing something wrong. It is perfectly okay. In screaming nothing is wrong. He must have been waiting from his very childhood. He wanted to scream and scream and scream and nobody allowed it. Now the scream has become too much of a burden. It needs release. Let him scream. Let him cry and weep. Let him roll on the ground. And by and by you will see all violence disappearing By and by he will cool down, he will settle down. Then give him silent methods of meditation - za-zen, vipassana, and other methods. First give cathartic methods, then silent methods. These two things.

And be respectful. Serve him, don't treat him - and you will be able to treat him.

The tenth question:

Question 9:

THE first thing: it has a content but it has no form; it is not formal. That is the first basic difference.

The second thing: it cannot be taught, therefore, as a subject. It is not a subject. You cannot make a curriculum out of it. It cannot become a textbook.

Then what can be done? In universities, in colleges, in schools, facilities can be made available where people can meditate. It has no form, so you cannot teach it - but it has a content, it can be learned. And you cannot impose it. Meditation cannot be imposed. You can only make facilities available: a temple on the university campus, a meditation hall, underground cells where people can go and sit silently and be with themselves. You can provide dynamic meditation to allow people to cathart and then you can give them facilities where they can sit silently and be alone, centred, grounded in their being.

This cannot be a subject to be taught, it cannot be made compulsory. Only those who are interested, who have a desire a longing, only they will be able to come there. You can have a guide who can give indications of how to cathart and how to be silent and sit silently - general guidance. That too has to be very vague. If you try to be very, very concrete it becomes a pattern, and no meditation is possible in a pattern. Meditation is a fluid phenomenon, you cannot give it a pattern. So just fluid patterns can be given.

And each one has to develop his own pattern because each individual is so different from everybody else that one's meditation cannot be another's meditation. Buddha's meditation cannot be Jesus' meditation. Of course, the meditation is the same, but each one will have his own way.

It is like when you go to a tailor. He may cut out of the same material but he will have to make different clothes for different people. The material is the same but the dresses will be different.

The meditation, the quality of meditative consciousness, is the same.

These are things to be remembered. Firstly, people have to be helped so that they can throw off their repressions unconditionally. Nobody must condemn them. If they want to shriek and shout and scream, they have to be allowed. If they want to' jump and run, they have to be allowed. If they want to dance, they have to be allowed. If they want to go almost crazy, they have to be allowed. And this is the beauty of it: when a person goes crazy on his own he is not crazy, deep down he always remains in control. Tremendous control arises and he becomes unburdened.

When a person has become unburdened then he can start the second step - vipassana, za-zen- type silent methods. Just tell them to sit silently. If thoughts come, watch. Don't fight with thoughts.

They will come less if the person has really been cathartic. Not so many thoughts will come, the traffic will be very, very slow. Ordinarily your mind is always in a rush hour but now a thought will pass sometimes and then there will be a gap. You will be more silent. Thoughts will come and go but you need not be worried. Just watch. You have nothing to be worried about - good or bad, no judgement is needed. Just be a watcher.

These small instructions and a guide who will give the instructions is all that is needed. If people bring problems the guide can solve them. This guide has, of course, to be a meditator himself otherwise he will not be able to help. It is not that he knows about meditation and can be of help, no.

It is not that he has read about meditation and can be of help, no. He will have to be a meditator.

That's what I am trying to do here. I am not interested in the universities, in the education system, because I know that unless I have thousands of meditators that is futile, that is not possible, that cannot be done. So the first thing is to create thousands of meditators. Once I have those thousands of meditators then my interest will be moving towards universities. Then those meditators can go to the universities, to the colleges, to the schools, and they can create facilities there. Their presence will help and their own experience on the path will be a help to others.

But the basic thing about meditation is freedom. It cannot be imposed. You cannot force everybody in the school to come and meditate at a particular time. That will destroy meditation forever.

That is being done with poetry. Poetry is destroyed by the universities and colleges and schools because people are forced to read it. Once they are forced to read it they lose all interest. Then never in their life again will they read poetry. Poetry is so beautiful it cannot be forced. You should make possibilities available. Poets can be called to be there to read their poetry. People can ask them questions and they can explain. Or you can ask poets to be there and create poetry before school children or before college and university students so they can see how poetry arises in a being, how poetry descends, how a person pours out poetry:

They can sing with the poet, they can dance with the poet, they can enjoy the poetry, but there can be no examinations. Poetry is such a big thing that examinations cannot be given on it. You can examine mathematics. It is such an ugly thing that if you destroy it, nothing is destroyed. But poetry no, please, no. Never touch poetry. Examinations are destructive.

Just make possibilities available. Poets should be moving from one university to another university.

Poets should be called from one university to another university. They should be there and people who are interested in poetry should sit by their side and wait, should sip tea with the poet and wait.

If the poetry arises they should be able to see the birth of it. Then they can sing with the poet and they can ask questions of the poet.

Meditation will also be like that because meditation is still higher than poetry. Poetry at least has words, meditation has no words. Meditation is a wordless poetry; poetry is meditation in words.

Music is meditation with instruments, poetry is meditation with words but meditation has no words, no instruments - only sound, only silence. It is the highest peak of human consciousness. You cannot teach it, but people can learn it.

The question is from Brian Lewis. He is a professor in England. A beautiful person. He can be of much help in creating a possibility in his own university.

But remember, textbooks are not possible and this is not a subject matter, you cannot make a curriculum out of it, it has no form. It has content. It's content is God. That's what God is all about - the content of meditation.

And the last question:

Because of Divya's question at least half-a-dozen questions have come. Now everybody wants to have a special spot for himself. And I am not going to allow anything to anybody because these are imitative questions, they have not come out of your own experience. You are simply jealous of Divya. Jealousy has to be dropped. Listen to the questions and you will understand.

Question 10:

IT is from Amida.

Now Divya's question was totally different. She was not interested in any row - neither first nor the second. And she was not demanding. Her question was that she was feeling guilty about clinging to her seat. She wanted to be freed from that possessiveness. Her question was totally different.

You have completely forgotten her question. Her question was: Osho, why do I cling to this spot?

Why can I not drop it? I have dropped everything, why not this spot? Why am I so possessive about it? Why can I not let it go? That was really a totally different question. She was not asking for this spot, remember. She was not asking for permission to sit here forever and always, she was asking for help to drop it. Hence I have given the spot to her.

To Amida, no. Your whole idea is of jealousy. Your whole idea is of competitiveness. This is ugly.

The second question:

Question 11:

THIS is from Vidya. So your seat is three hundred and twenty-sixth. That is your spot.

And the third question:

Question 12:

IT is from Devesh. No, never. You will have to surrender to Shiva and wherever he gives you a seat that is your seat. And I would like him to change your seat every day.

Never be imitative. Then you miss the whole beauty of it. Never ask a question because others have asked. Can't you even create a question which is originally yours? Even the question has to be borrowed. At least be that much creative. At least ask your own questions.

And never refer to anybody else, because whatsoever I have said to one I am not going to say to anybody else. Whatsoever is right for one may be wrong for the other. The thing that is medicine to you may be poison to somebody else. My answer is always going to be different.

Keep it always in mind - let your own question come. Be authentic. And never become a victim.

These are all victims. The spot is not important to these questions, something else is - the ego.

Hence the very formulation of the question .

Devesh asked for the next seat to Divya. Do you know that Divya is going to hell? Are you ready to have the next seat there too? How long will you follow Divya and how are you concerned with Divya? Next seat? Do you want to be a carbon copy? Be an original . God loves originals. Carbon copies are never loved, carbon copies are ugly. Find your spot. Why next to Divya? How does Divya come in? Never think in terms of anybody. You are here directly related to me, not through Divya or somebody else.

My sannyasins are not an organisation. Each sannyasin is related to me. You are related to other sannyasins only because you are related to me and they are related to me. But you are not directly related to me, naturally you are related together - but that is secondary. Your eyes should be directly on me, nobody should come in-between. You have to face me, you have to encounter me, and the encounter has to be absolutely immediate and direct.