Even Angels Don't Sing All the Time

The first question:

Question 1:

RELIGION UNDERSTANDS MIND in a totally different way from psychology.

Their approach is different; their goal is different; their methodology is different.

Psychology studies the mind as an object, from the outside. Of course, it misses much. In fact, the most essential is missed. Only the periphery can be understood that way. The innermost is not objective, the innermost is subjective. You can study it from the within, not from the without.

Psychology is as if somebody wants to study love and watches two lovers hugging each other, holding hands, sitting together, making love - goes on collecting data about how two lovers behave. This won't give him any idea of what love is, because love is not on the surface. The surface can be very deceiving, the appearance can be very deceiving. Love is something very inner.

Only by being in love do you know it - there is no other way to know it.

Psychology tries to understand mind from the outside. The very approach makes mind material. Only matter can be understood from the outside, because matter has no inside to it. The mind can only be understood from the inside, because mind has no outside to it - the first thing.

That's why psychology goes on becoming more and more behaviouristic, more and more materialistic, more and more mechanical - and more and more suspicious about the soul of man. The soul is completely denied by psychology.

Not that the soul does not exist, but because the very approach prohibits it, the very approach becomes a limitation. The conclusion depends on the approach. If you start wrongly, you end wrongly.

The second thing to be understood is that psychology tries to understand mind, not to go beyond it - because psychology thinks there is no beyond to it, it is the end. Religion also tries to understand mind - not to understand mind itself, but to go beyond it. The understanding is to be used as a stepping-stone.

So religion is not concerned with the details of the mind. An essential understanding of the functioning of the mind will do. If you go into details there is no end to it. Religion also studies dream, but just to make you awake, that's all.

Dream itself is not the concern. It does not go deep into the dreaming structure, and it does not go ad in-finitum analysing dreams. It simply tries to find the essential structure of the dream in order to transcend it, so you can become a witness. It is totally different.

For example, if I give you a seed of a beautiful tree, and you become too much concerned with the seed, and you try to understand it, and you dissect it, and you go on and on trying to understand and dissect, and dissect more - the chemical structure, the physical structure, the atomic structure, the electrons, the neutrons - and you go on and on, you completely forget that the seed was meant only to become a tree.

And howsoever deep your dissection, by dissecting a seed you are never going to come to the tree. You will come to the atomic structure of the seed, you will come to the chemical structure of the seed; you may come to the electrical structure of the seed, but that has nothing to do with the tree. And the more you dissect the seed, the farther away you are from the tree. Your dissection is not going to bloom. Your dissection is not going to spread its fragrance. And one day, if you have dissected it too much, and then you put it in the soil, it won't sprout. It is already dead. In dissection you killed it, you murdered it.

Psychology is interested in mind just like you being too much obsessed with the seed. Religion is also interested in the seed, but not for itself - interested in the seed because it carries in it a potentiality, a possibility of becoming a beautiful tree, a possibility of blossoms, a possibility of fragrance, a possibility of song and dance, a possibility that many birds can come and make their nests on it and many travellers can rest under its shade. But the concern is not the seed - the concern is the tree.

I hope you can see the difference. Religion's concern about the mind is only as a stepping-stone. The mind has to be understood because we are entangled in it.

Let us take another example.

You are thrown in a jail, in a prison cell. The religious person tries to understand the structure of the jail only to find out ways how to escape from it. Is there a gutter that can be used to escape? Is there a stupid guard who can be befooled? Is there a window which can be broken? Is there a wall you can climb over? Is there a right moment when guards change and the gap exists? Is there a right time in the night when guards fall asleep? Or are there other prisoners who are also interested in getting out of the prison, so you can be together and help each other? - because climbing alone may be difficult, getting out of it alone may be difficult. A group can be created and the group can become a power. You try to understand the structure of the jail just to get out of it.

But if you get too much interested in it and you completely forget the goal, and you go on studying the jail - the walls and the warden and the prisoners and the guards, and you go on making maps about the structure - then it is stupid.

Modern psychology is a little stupid.

In the East we had also developed a tremendously significant psychology. I call it the psychology of the Buddhas. But their whole interest was in how to get out of the prison of the mind, how to use its structure to go beyond it. Modern psychology is absolutely obsessed with the structure of the mind and has completely forgotten the goal.

These two differences, they are very vital. Religion understands from within. Of course, then it is a totally different thing. When you study mind from the outside, you study somebody else's mind. It is never yours. And if you go to the labs of psychologists you will be surprised: they go on studying the minds of rats to understand the human mind. It is humiliating, it is very disrespectful. The understanding that is based on the rat's mind cannot be of much help.

When a meditator watches his own mind, he watches the human mind alive, throbbing, beating. And he watches his own mind because that is the closest you can get to the mind. From the outside you can never get very close to the mind; from the outside you can infer, but it will remain inference. It can never become knowledge, because even rats can deceive you, and they have been found to deceive. Even rats are not just on the surface; their innermost core remains inaccessible.

Why do psychologists go on studying rats? Why not man directly? Because man seems to be so complex. They study elementary structures. It is as if you want to study Einstein and you go to a primary school and you study a small child; and from that understanding you develop the understanding of an Einstein. It is simply absurd. It is not right at all, the direction is wrong. Every child is not going to become an Einstein. If psychologists were right, then every child would develop into an Einstein. But every child is not going to become an Einstein.

Only a certain child has flowered as Einstein. If you want to understand Einstein, the only way is to understand Einstein.

But how to understand an Einstein? From the outside he is as ordinary as anybody else. His distinction is inner, his uniqueness is inner. If you study his blood, his blood is just like anybody else's. If you study his bones, they are just like anybody else's. In fact, Einstein's brain was studied after his death - nothing special. That is something to be noticed. Nothing special has been found, but certainly he was a unique man, you cannot deny it. Maybe there has never existed such a subtle mind on the earth before. Nobody ever had such glimpses as he had, but the brain seems to be as ordinary as anybody else's.

Brain is not the mind. It is as if one day I am gone and you go into my room and you study the room; and you try to find out what type, what manner of man this was who lived in this room. Mind is the guest, the brain is the host. When the mind is gone, the brain is left. The brain is just the room you used to live in. If you study from the outside you can dissect, but you will find only the brain, not the mind. And to study the brain is not to study the mind.

Mind is elusive, you cannot hold it in your hand. You cannot force it into a test- tube. The only way to know it is to know it from within, from your witnessing self. The more you become aware, the more you can watch your mind - its subtle functioning. The functioning is tremendously complex and beautiful.

Mind is the most complex phenomenon on the earth, the most subtle flowering of consciousness. If you want to really understand what the mind is, then you will have to detach yourself from your mind, and you will have to learn how to be just a witness. That's what meditation is all about.

Psychology can become helpful to religion, but then psychology will have to change tremendously. A radical change will be needed. And psychology will have to become more meditative, introspective; and psychology will have to listen more to the East, to the great meditators - Patanjali, Buddha, Mahavir. It will have to listen to their understanding.

ONE THING MORE I WOULD LIKE YOU TO NOTICE, to keep in mind:

psychology has developed through the study of the pathological mind. That too is something unbelievable, ridiculous. Psychology has developed through the study of the neurotic, psychotic, schizophrenic - the ill mind. Because who goes to the psychoanalyst? A healthy person never goes to a psychoanalyst. For what will you go to a psychoanalyst if you are healthy? You go only when something goes wrong, you go only when some illness takes possession of your mind.

When you are not normal, then you go to the psychoanalyst. Then he studies the pathological mind. Studying the pathological mind he come's to certain conclusions. Those conclusions are applicable only to the ill mind. They are not applicable to the normal mind, and certainly not to a mind which has gone beyond mind. They don't say anything about a Buddha. They cannot say. No Freud, no Jung, no Adler, has ever studied a Buddha. In fact, the fault is with the psychoanalysts, because Buddhas have always existed.

When Carl Gustav Jung came to the East, there was a Buddha alive - Raman Maharshi - but he wouldn't go to see him. It was even suggested, many friends suggested to him, that he go, but he wouldn't go. Maybe a subtle fear that his knowledge would prove futile there, a certain ego that he is a great psychoanalyst - why should he go to anybody?

But Buddhas are certainly not going to come to your laboratories; you will have to go to them. You will have to be respectfully close to them to understand them.

They are not going to lie down on your couch. You will have to develop different methods, you will have to develop different structures, to understand them. And if you don't go, they are not at a loss - psychology suffers.

Psychology has remained at the level of the pathological. It is not even at the level of the normal man.

For example, if you ask a psychoanalyst, "What do you say about Mahavir - because he threw his clothes and became naked?" certainly they will say, "He is a certain type of psychotic. Many mad people suffer from that disease." Or, "He is an exhibitionist; he wants to show his naked body to people - a sexual pervert."

Is this right about Mahavir? And whatsoever they are saying, they are saying after a long study - but they have studied mad people. And they are true! The wrong comes only because they are stretching their understanding too far away.

Mahavir used to pull his hair out, he wouldn't go to a barber - because he said, "Even to depend for that on a barber is a dependence." So when the hairs were too long, he would simply pull them and throw them.

Now ask the psychoanalyst what he says. He will say, "This is a sort of madness.

There are mad people who pull their hair out." You may have also observed that when your wife goes mad she starts pulling her hair - becomes angry and wants to pull her hair. A certain craziness - and they are right! And yet not right. Their understanding remains at the pathological level.

Ask them about Jesus. Many books have been written about Jesus because Jesus seems to be closer to them than Mahavir. They have neglected Mahavir, and it is good for Jains that they have neglected Mahavir - otherwise they will prove certainly that he is a neurotic. About Jesus they have written many books - that he is mad, that he is a megalomaniac. Why do they say this? Because there are cases in madhouses - somebody says, "I am the only prophet of God."

Have you heard the famous anecdote? In Baghdad it happened:

A man declared, in the days of Calipha Omar, "I am the real prophet. After Mohammed I have been sent to the world." Of course, Mohammedans cannot tolerate such a thing - at least not Mohammedans. If he had been in India he would have been tolerated, but Omar could not tolerate it. He was thrown in the jail.

But after seven or eight days another man declared that he was God Himself.

Now this was going too far. That man was thrown into jail.

After a few days Omar went to the jail to see them because both were beaten badly, punished badly. He thought, "Now they may have come to their senses."

He went and he asked the man who was declaring himself the new prophet - and he was laughing! His whole body was covered with wounds, blood was flowing out of the wounds, but he was laughing loudly. Omar said, "Why are you laughing?"

He said, "When God told me, 'You are going to be my last prophet, the final prophet,' He told me also that 'They will treat you badly - they always treat prophets very badly.' And now the prediction has come true. So I am laughing - it simply proves that I am the prophet!"

While this dialogue was going on, the other man who was tied to another pillar, started laughing even more loudly. Omar asked, "What is the matter with you ?"

He said, "This man is a liar. I never sent him. In fact, after Mohammed I have not appointed any prophet to the world.

Mohammed is my last prophet!"

You can find many people in madhouses, and the psychoanalysts' understanding depends on them. And when Jesus declares that "I am God's only Son, the only begotten Son!" of course he is mad. Certainly! - because there are mad people who declare such things. He is also mad.

When Krishna declares that "I am the Creator and the Destroyer of the world!"

certainly he is mad. This is the ultimate in being an egoist. How can you be more egoistic than this: "I am the Creator and the Destroyer of the world"?

And Buddha says, "I have attained to the Ultimate, and even gods come to my feet to have instructions from me." Now these are mad people!

Psychoanalysis still remains at the level of the pathological. It has not even known the normal human mind, and it has not even touched the super-normal.

But sooner or later, a great revolution is going to happen, because if psychology does not change itself, then it will be in a rut, then it will go stale and die. It HAS to move. Everything alive has to move ahead. And this much I can say about psychology: it is very much alive and there is hope. Much work is going on, and by and by psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, are becoming more and more interested in meditation.

You will be surprised. I have got ALL sorts of people here. From different professions people have come, but the most sannyasins have come from the profession of psychology, psychoanalysis. I have got hundreds of psychotherapists as my sannyasins. This is very significant. Not so many doctors have come, not so many engineers have come, not so many bankers have come, not so many politicians have come. The greatest number from any single profession is that of psychotherapists.

That is a great indication. That shows psychology is moving beyond itself, psychology is moving into religion by and by. Sooner or later, psychology will become a very firm foundation for a religious leap. And unless it becomes a firm foundation for the religious jump, it will not have any meaning. It will get its meaning only when it becomes a step to the temple of God.

But when I say "when it becomes a step towards religion," I mean simply religion. I don't mean Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism; Mohammedan, Jain, Buddhist, I don't mean. Those are not really religions, they have become politics.

They are political organizations.

A religion is very much individual. Religion is basically individual. It is a transformation of the individual consciousness; it has nothing to do with organizations. You are a Mohammedan or a Hindu or a Christian because you are born in that organization. Nobody can be born into a religion. Religion has to be consciously chosen. In the very conscious choice it becomes significant; otherwise it is meaningless.

You have been brought up as a Christian. You can't have any personal relationship with Christ. You don't know Christ. You know only the Pope and the Church. And the Pope and the Church, and the priests, and the Shankaracharyas - they are not religious people. They have very subtle politics hidden behind them - racial, national, sectarian. And once a religion becomes an organization and people start being born in it without any personal contact, without any personal search, without any personal encounter with the Master - when people simply are born in it, when religion becomes accidental, it is no more religion. Then it becomes a sort of opium for the people, an exploitation.

So I don't mean Jew, Hindu, Christian. I mean simply religion. Religion has no adjective to it.

Let me tell you one anecdote. Listen to it very carefully.

Sigmund Steinberg, the well-known importer of ladies' gloves, paid an unexpected call on the rabbi of his temple. The rabbi was more than pleased to see his fabulously wealthy congregationer, who more than made up in contributions what he lacked in attendance and religious zeal. This time, however, the trip to the temple was for a completely religious, if rather unusual, reason.

"Rabbi," Steinberg commenced after the usual amenities, "I am here to see you about someone most near and dear to me. Mine own, mine darling, mine three times a champion Westminster Abbey the Third, mine little poodle-la, is this coming Tisha Bov thirteen years old, and I want, Rabbi, you should Bar Mitzvah The rabbi was completely taken aback. "But my dear Mr. Steinberg, that is impossible! Who has ever heard of a dog being Bar Mitzvahed? There has never in the history of the Jewish religion been any mention of such a thing. It would be a scandal. The temple would be a laughing-stock. My orders would be revoked, the sisterhood would be abandoned, the building campaign would be halted, the gentiles would be hysterical, and the board of directors would have my neck!"

Steinberg was unmoved. Without so much as the bat of an eyelash, he addressed the rabbi again. "For the occasion, I am donating to the temple the amount - in cash! - of five thousand dollars."

"Mr. Steinberg," the rabbi beamed, "why didn't you tell me in the first place the dog is Jewish?"

When it comes to money then even a dog becomes Jewish. When it comes to money and politics, then your Popes and your Shankaracharyas are no longer religious. Their religion consists only of rituals, dead rituals. It is a facade, it is not the reality. A real religious person has always found it difficult to exist in any organization.

Jesus was born a Jew but could not remain in the Jewish fold. It was impossible.

The priests wouldn't allow him. He fell out of it. Not only that, they killed him.

Buddha was born a Hindu, but Hindus wouldn't allow him, the priests wouldn't allow him - because whenever there is a religious person, he is such an alive revolution, he is rebellion incarnate. The priests wouldn't allow him. He was thrown out of the Hindu fold. Buddhism was destroyed from India.

Jews killed Christ, Hindus killed Buddhism - which is more subtle and more cunning. By killing Christ nothing is killed. Hindus are more clever. They never killed Buddha. Had they killed Buddha it would have been very difficult to destroy Buddhism in India. You can see: Christianity is there, and Christianity has flowered out of the crucifixion. Without the cross there would not have been any Christianity. By crucifying Jesus, they made Jesus so important, so historical.

Hindus are more clever and cunning, very clever. They say Buddha is our tenth avatar, but they do it in such a clever way. They have a story in their PURANAS that when God created hell and heaven, millions of years passed. And then the Devil went to God and said, "Sir, why have you created hell? - because nobody comes there. It remains empty. Not a single soul has turned up; people are so religious that everybody dies and goes to heaven. So what is the point of keeping it? Relieve me, I am just getting fed up and bored!"

God said, "Wait, I will do something." And he took an avatar; he descended on the earth and became Buddha to destroy people's religion, to destroy people's honesty, to destroy people's truth. To confuse them he became Buddha. And since then hell is overflowing.

Now this is very tricky! On one hand they accept that Buddha is an avatar - an incarnation of God. On another hand they say, "Beware of him, because he has come only because the Devil had appealed. So if you listen to him you will go to hell. Of course, he is a God."

You see the cunningness? Even Jews have been defeated by Hindus. They raised Buddha to the tenth avatar and they destroyed Buddhism completely.

This has always happened. This will always happen. Try to understand it. Just being born in a household, in a certain religion, is accidental. You have to choose, you have to move on your own! It is an arduous journey, it is a great challenge and adventure, and there is great risk.

The second question:

Question 2:

FOR A GOD everything is possible.

Question 3:

THIS SIMPLY SHOWS that not only man but elephants can also go mad.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

HE LAUGHS, BUT NEVER BEFORE HIS DISCIPLES. He laughs when he is alone.

Listening to me on Hassidism is half of the LEELA. And unless you can go with laughter while listening to me on Buddha, your laughter is not very deep.

Listening to me on Hassidism, of course you were laughing and enjoying and you were thinking that life is LEELA. Immediately I have chosen Buddha. There is a mathematics to it. It is a dialectics. I never choose haphazardly.

Things were going too sweetly with Hassidism. You need a little bitter medicine also. It was daylight with Hassidism, now it is night. With Buddha it is night. But unless you can enjoy the night also, your enjoyment of the day is not complete.

Unless you can be happy even seeing the futility of life, you have not learnt what LEELA means. If you are happy only when you are happy, you have not learnt anything. When you are happy even when there is no happiness, then you have learnt the secret of it.

Do you follow me? It is a very simple mathematics. When I am singing a song of life, you enjoy it. But when I start singing a sad song about death, then you cannot enjoy it. Then you will remain partial - then you will choose the good, the sweet, the light part. What will happen to the bitter part? What will happen to the dark part? Then you will never be a whole, and if you are not whole you can never be holy.

With me, sometimes it is life singing and sometimes it is death. And I would like you to learn both. I would like you to become so happy, so playful, that even when there is despair there is no despair. Even when things are going rough, you can laugh; even when things are going very heavy, you can dance. So try to laugh with Buddha also.

To laugh with Hassids is very easy, to laugh with Buddha is difficult. It is an uphill task. But to laugh with Hassids, anybody can do that. It requires no effort on your part; it requires no growth on your part. To laugh with Buddha great growth, maturity is needed.

And life consists of these polarities: good and bad, success and failure, day and night, summer and winter, birth and death, marriage and divorce, love and hate.

The whole life consists of these diametrically opposite polarities - and you are the whole. You cannot choose half of it. If you choose half of it you will remain half, and the other half will remain repressed.

And the other half will take revenge some day or other. And if you cannot be really sad - happily sad, I say - then your happiness cannot go very deep, because you will become afraid of depth. In depth, the other is waiting. So your happiness will be shallow; you will not allow it to go very deep, because the other is waiting there. You know that if you go a little deeper, you may touch sadness.

Have you watched it? In villages in India mothers say that a child should not be allowed to laugh too much, because if he laughs too much then he starts crying.

It is a great insight. Have you watched it? If you laugh too much your laughter tends to turn into tears.

All happiness tends to turn into unhappiness. All life tends to turn into death.

Youth tends to turn into old age. Health tends to turn into illness, disease. This is how things are. And if you learn only that "I will be happy while I am happy," what will you do with your unhappiness that is also there? If you say, "I will be happy only with the rose-flowers," what will you do with the thorns which are almost always there? and more than the flowers - they are part of the game.

With Hassidism I talked about the roses, now let me talk about the thorns. And if you can understand both and still be playful, then you know what LEELA is.

LEELA means playfulness - playfulness in success, playfulness in failure; playfulness when you are winning, playfulness when you are being defeated.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

YOU CANNOT BE - CERTAINLY NOT. Otherwise the question will not arise.

The very question says something is wrong somewhere, otherwise who will bother to ask it? 'Okayness' is such a feeling that when it is there you know it. It is just like a headache: you never ask anybody else, "Have I got a headache?"

And if you ask they will laugh. They will say, "Have you gone mad?" If you have, you have, and you know! If you don't have, you don't have, and you know.

Okayness is an inner well-being. A great, beautiful feeling arises in your being, and goes on spreading - ripples upon ripples. Everything seems to be light.

Everything seems to be weightless. You don't walk - you run. You don't run - you dance. You feel as if gravitation does not exist. You start flying. You move in unknown bliss. You go on drifting, very peacefully, towards the shore of the unknown. And everything seems to be beautiful, a blessing - you are blessed and you can bless others.

When it is there, there is no question. When it is there, you need not have any certificate from anybody. You know it! It is self-evident. And if okayness is also not self-evident, then nothing can be self-evident.

Mulla Nasrudin and his wife were on a row-boat. The wife was shivering in the row-boat while Nasrudin was fishing: "Tell me again," she cried between blue lips, "how much fun we are having - I keep forgetting."

Nobody can go on forgetting if there is bliss.

A man purchased a secondhand car, and then after seven days he went back to the place he had purchased it from and he asked the salesman, "Please tell me again about this car.

He said, "Why?"

He said, "I go on forgetting. You praised it so highly, and it gives me so many troubles. Just to encourage me, tell me again. I need a little encouragement."

Why do you ask, "Am I okay?" Do you need some encouragement? Remember: I am not a secondhand car salesman. And I am not going to encourage you. If you are unhappy, then my suggestion is: be unhappy - there is no need to be okay.

Be unhappy. Go into it to the very rock bottom of it. Let it be there! Listen to its message - there must be a certain message in this unhappiness, because God never sends anything without any message in it. Don't try to hide it.

Unhappy? - then be unhappy. Be truly unhappy - go to the very hell of it. And if you can go WITHOUT any rejection on your part, without any fight on your part; if you can simply relax and let it happen, you will gain tremendously out of it. You will see that unhappiness is there, but you are not unhappy - you are the witness of it, you are the observer. It is there! Certainly it is there, but it is like a cloud that surrounds you - you are not the cloud. And once you realise that, you have transcended. Then a totally different kind of okayness arises in you which is spiritual, which cannot be taken away from you.

But people don't go deep in their unhappiness. This is what I call real sadhana: to go into your unhappiness. Don't avoid, don't escape. People don't look into their moods; people try to deceive themselves. People want somehow to carry on smiling always and always. But do you know? - even in heaven, angels don't sing all the time. There are moments when they cry and weep. And you can believe me - I am an eye-witness. But nothing is wrong with tears. Tears can be beautiful, if you welcome them.

Go deep in your unhappiness; it is going to reveal many things to you.

I have heard:

A farmer was driving his horse laboriously along a dusty road. He came to a man sitting beside the road, pulled his team to a halt and called out: "How much longer does this hill last?"

"You ain't on no hill," the stranger called back. "Your hind wheels are off."

But people don't look deep down in their being. They think they are on a hill - the hind wheels are no more there. You can go on a flat road, on a superhighway and you will feel you are on a hill, always going up, and it is difficult and more difficult. And, of course, without wheels you will always be in turmoil; rough will be the road.

Don't ask me whether you are okay or not. The very question decides that you are not. But people are such questioners; they go on asking everything. Maybe you are okay, but you cannot remain without a question; that too is a possibility.

Mulla Nasrudin went to the hills on the suggestion of his psychotherapist, and from there he wired back after a week: "I am feeling happy - why?"

Now you cannot even feel happy without asking; now analysis is needed - why?

The mother went to see the analyst and asked, "Tell me - I gotta daughter in college - she doesn't use drugs - she's not pregnant - she doesn't drink - she got the highest marks in her class and she writes to us every day - tell me - where did we go right?"

Where did we go right? Now that becomes the problem. Questioning has become such a deep-rooted habit that sometimes when it is not needed at all, then too, you go on making questions. You cannot allow your being to remain without questions. Allow it! Because that is the moment when the answer will come to you - when there is no question.

Don't go on questioning and questioning and questioning. It is meaningless. I answer you only so that you learn how not to question. I don't answer you so that you can become more knowledgeable. I answer you only as a help, so that one day you can remain without questions. That very day a great revelation will open its doors to your being.

When there is no question, the answer arises from your innermost depths. If you are too much concerned with the question, the answer will never arise - you won't allow it space to arise.

The sixth question:

Question 6:

IT DEPENDS. IT DEPENDS ON YOUR OUTLOOK. Nothing is good, nothing is bad. It depends on your interpretation, on how you interpret. It depends on your mind.

Mind always divides things in two - the good/the bad, the clean/the dirty, God/the Devil. The mind continuously divides. Mind is a divider. The truth is undivided, the truth is one. It is neither good nor bad, neither clean nor dirty.

I have heard:

A priest went into a tailor's shop and ordered a new suit. When he asked how much it cost, the tailor said, "There is no charge. I never charge the clergy." So the next day the priest sent the tailor a beautiful crucifix.

Then a rabbi went into the tailor's shop and ordered a new suit. When he asked how much it cost, the tailor said, "There is no charge. I never charge rabbis." So the next day the rabbi sent the tailor two more rabbis.

It depends on you, on how you look at things. Your mind is finally the decision- maker.

A successful cloak-and-suiter had finally found the girl of his dreams, and he made preparations for a wedding the garment district would never forget. His own designers prepared a wedding-gown for the bride of the finest imported silks and satins, and his own marital raiment was truly a sight to behold.

The affair was nothing less than breathtaking. No expense had been spared.

Then, as the newly weds were about to embark on their honeymoon trip to Canada, an urgent message arrived in the form of a telegram.

It is from my partner," the groom explained. "Urgent business. I'll have to attend to it immediately."

"But what about our honeymoon?" the bride asked tearfully.

"Business comes first," he said. "But you go ahead. I'll catch a later plane and be there by tonight."

"But what if you can't make it by tonight?" she moaned.

"Then..." he blustered, "start without me."

A businessman is a businessman. His whole outlook about life is that of a businessman.

Nothing is good, nothing is bad; nothing is beautiful, nothing is ugly. It is you who decide.

In India we have a certain stage of consciousness called PARAMAHANSA. The state of paramahansa means the state of no division - when ugly and beautiful, clean and dirty, good and bad, both are alike. You can find a paramahansa eating, sitting by the side of the road - the gutter is overflowing, the dogs are running around him. Or even the dogs also eating from the same bowl! Very difficult - very difficult for the mind to understand. The mind will say "What type of man is this? How dirty!"

But you don't know the state of a paramahansa. Don't condemn, don't be in such haste. There is a state of consciousness where divisions disappear, when the mind is totally dropped. Then one simply lives in a oneness with existence.

But, I am not telling you to BECOME paramahansas - remember. You cannot become a paramahansa; it descends on you. If you try to become a paramahansa, you will simply go mad. I am not saying to drop distinctions. I am saying become more and more aware so one day distinctions disappear. You can drop distinctions without becoming aware - then you will be a madman, not a paramahansa. And sometimes paramahansas and madmen look very alike.

The seventh question:

Question 7:

It is from Vandana. But about the same discourse somebody else has said:

Question 8:

NOW WHAT TO DO? WHOM TO ANSWER? The same discourse can be tremendously beautiful to one; to another it can be terribly boring. It depends on you; it has nothing to do with the discourse. You are not saying anything about the discourse - Vandana or Maneeshi. You are saying something about you.

Vandana must have been in a flowing state; Vandana must have been in a 'beautitude'. Vandana must have been open - I could enter into her. My words went deep into her heart and became songs.

Maneeshi must have been closed - too much in the head. Maneeshi must have been without heart, at least in that discourse. Then everything went wrong. It depends on you. Whenever you feel something like that, always remember it depends on you.

Now Maneeshi asks: "Why do you go on chattering...?" I go on chattering because there are Vandanas also - so I have to go on chattering for them.

And you say: "I am fed up with you and I am bored...." But, who forces you to be here? This is something beautiful! There are two guards on two gates and Shiva with his big nose is there to smell you. And you have to pay to listen to me. Have you ever heard? - in the history of India it has never happened - religious discourses are always free. And you ask me: "Why do you go on chattering?"

Why do you pay in the first place? You need not come. All the management that I can make to prevent you, I have made.

It is your mind. But I know Maneeshi, I know his heart also. The heart goes on pulling him here; the head does not allow. That is the conflict. When heart and head meet there is a synchronicity. When head and heart meet there is a harmony. That's what happened to Vandana.

Maneeshi has lost contact with his heart. His heart goes on pulling him, so he cannot escape. Because he cannot escape he is annoyed with me - as if I am doing something to him, as if I don't allow him to escape. You are completely free, Maneeshi - though I know you cannot escape. It is impossible because wherever you are you will hanker for this chattering. I will haunt you because as far as your heart is concerned, I am in possession of it. The head will not allow you totally to be here, but it cannot help you to go away either.

Listen from the heart because what I am saying has nothing to do with the head.

What I am saying is not logical, what I am saying is not rational.

Just the other day I was reading a letter in CURRENT written from some Rationalist Association in South India, that they would like me to become a member of their association.

Now, I am overwhelmed. This is such a great honour. Even if a Nobel Prize was given to me I would not have been so much overwhelmed - because Nobel Prizes have been given to so many people, hundreds. Who has ever heard about this Rationalist Association? that it has invited anybody else to become a member? This is without precedent. In fact I have never heard the name of the village either. Must be a very esoteric association. There are esoteric groups who work completely hidden behind, who don't believe in publicity.

Such a great privilege! I hope the village has a post office and a primary school, and at least a bus stop - because in India every village that has a bus stop and a primary school and a post office starts claiming for a university. It is enough to open a university. That's why every day universities are being opened, hundreds of universities. Sooner or later every village is going to have its own university.

Just one condition they have made that is very simple, and I can fulfil it immediately, at the drop of a hat. One condition they have made: IF you drop being called Bhagwan. That I am ready to do, absolutely ready. Because in the first place I am a Bhagwan, so whether you call me or not makes no difference - a rose is a rose is a rose. You can call it by another name, that makes no difference. I can pretend that I am not a Bhagwan - there is not much of a problem in it - but I cannot lose this membership.

The trouble arises not by their condition; the trouble arises because it is a rationalist association. And I am absolutely irrationalist. I am almost absurd. I play with reason, certainly, as a toy. I enjoy reason certainly, but as a toy. But I am not a rationalist.

Those who hear me from their heads will go on missing me. And when you hear me and you miss me, of course you will be fed up. You won't be able to see:

"What is the point of it all? Why does this man go on talking?" - because you don't get anything out of it. I go on nourishing you and you are there without being nourished. Then certainly you will feel bored.

But boredom is your problem, and you have to learn how to listen from the heart. If you listen to me from the heart you can go on listening to me eternally - and there will be no boredom at all. The more you listen to me, the more you will enjoy, because from the heart a tremendous revolution happens.

Have you observed small children? You tell them one story, next day they come; they say, "Again, tell the same story!"

And you say, "But I have told you."

They say, "Okay, but you tell me again."

And they are so thrilled. Again listening to the same story, and they know, and sometimes they will tell you ahead what is going to happen. But they are so thrilled, so enthusiastic about it. What is happening? They hear it from the heart; they hear from innocence, not from knowledge. They hear from a tremendous purity, from love. They hear for the hearing's sake.

Howard, who was one of New York's leading custom tailors, went to Rome for a vacation. While there, his wife, who was a firm believer in 'when in Rome do as the Romans', insisted that they have an audience with the Pope. It was arranged through the American Embassy and they were granted their audience.

When they returned to New York they told one and all of their trip and of course about the visit to the Pope. Howard's father asked, "Howard, tell me, what is the Pope really like?"

His son replied, "He's a 42 short."

A tailor is a tailor. That is his understanding - 42 short.

Jack came home in the middle of the afternoon. He was met at the door by his wife and his son. His son exclaimed, "Dad there is a bogey-man in the closet."

Jack rushed to the closet and flung the door open. There huddled among the coats was his partner Sam.

"Sam," shrieked Jack, "why in hell do you come here in the afternoon and scare my kid?"

Get it? It depends on your mind, on you, what attitude you will take. You can listen to me year in, year out, and you can remain thrilled.

But I am not worried about that. At least I am always thrilled. If nobody comes to listen to me I will go on talking here. I love to say that which has happened to me, and I love to say it a thousand and one times. And that is the only way to convey it. Because one time you may miss, second time you may miss, but how many times can you miss? One day out of sheer boredom you will say, "Let us now listen to this man."

The last question:

Question 9:

THIS IS FROM MANEESHA. The first thing:

Morris came home from work early one day and found his wife in bed. She said she was not feeling well. He went to the closet to hang up his hat and coat, and to his surprise he found a man hiding in the closet.

He looked at him and shouted, "What are you doing in my closet?"

The man shrugged and said, "Everybody has to be somewhere."

So what about my robe? I have to be in my robe! Everybody has to be somewhere. But the question was going to come - whether from Maneesha, or from somebody else. I was waiting for it.

The towel was like a buffer-state. Let me tell you about a buffer-state first. In diplomacy, in politics, the clever nations always have buffer-states around them.

For example, the Britishers in India used to have Tibet as a buffer-state between China and India.

China is the greatest power close to India. A buffer-state they always maintained - Tibet was the buffer-state. If China ever wanted to attack India, first China would have to attack Tibet. It could not approach directly. And once it attacked Tibet, the British would fight on Tibetan ground; so India remained untouched.

When India became free, China attacked Tibet, and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru missed. He was not a diplomat, he was a poet, he was a visionary - a great soul, but not a politician at all. He thought, "It doesn't matter to us. Why should we be worried about it? It is between China and Tibet."

Britishers wouldn't have allowed that. It was not between China and Tibet.

Basically it was between India and China - Tibet is nothing. Once China took possession of Tibet, of course, the next step was bound to be India.

If, instead of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira had been there, she would not have allowed it. She is more down-to-earth, less visionary, less of a poet. She would have fought there in Tibet. But Jawaharlal thought, "There is no point. It is for them to decide." Once Tibet was possessed, of course India became vulnerable - the next step was India. And China attacked India. It was just natural, it was simple diplomacy.

My towel was my buffer-state. I knew it well, that once I dropped it you would ask about the robe. So it is better that I should take my towel back. Vivek, bring a towel... because it is better to keep it, it is safe, it is my Tibet.

The joke has already been stretched too far - three days have passed - and a joke should not be stretched too far, otherwise it becomes dangerous.

Maneesha, are you satisfied...?