While I Am Here, Enjoy Me

The first question:

Question 1:

THE FIRST and the most important thing to remember is: never think of the future, and never be entangled with the past. While I am here, enjoy me. While I am here, don't miss this opportunity.

This is mind playing games. You are not enjoying me. You are not delighted - you are creating a worry for yourself. Now the worry is about the future - who are you to be worried about the future? And how can you manage to control it? - - there is no way. The future will take its own course. We cannot manage the future in a certain way, that it should be so or should not be so. All efforts have always failed.

Buddha tried that there should not exist any organized religion in his name. He tried that there should not be any image made of him, but there are more images of Buddha than anybody else in the world. There are a few temples which are called 'thousand Buddha temples' - one thousand images and one. There is one temple in China, a cave temple, which has ten thousand Buddha images.

Even Buddha couldn't manage it. There is no way to manage it. The only way is to use the present, and leave the future for the future. There will be people; we will not be here - what they are going to do with my words, it is their freedom. If they want to make chains out of them, that is their freedom. If they want to be liberated by these words, that is their freedom. If they want to make a prison out of the temple that we are creating, then it is their freedom! and it is their choice.

Who are we to interfere?

Now, Krishnamurti tries to interfere with the future. He thinks continuously about what will happen in the future, so no clue should be left for the future, so the religion cannot be organized. But to be constantly concerned so much about the future is wrong. Who are we? The future belongs to the future and will belong to future generations - they will do whatsoever they like to do.

One thing I can say: it is their freedom, whatsoever they do, and I have nothing against them. If they want to live in prisons, they will live in prisons. They will find a way to make a prison out of anything - they have always done so.

I am not concerned with the future at all. I am totally herenow. And this is what I would like you to be also, here and now. Whatsoever is transpiring between me and you, don't allow any interference. This idea is just a trap of the mind. This is the first thing I would like to say.

THE SECOND THING: even organized religions play a positive role. The positive role consists in provocation, in challenge. Even the prison plays a positive role: it provokes the spirit of the courageous; it becomes a challenge for freedom - it has its role, its function.

I am not saying to live in the prison. In fact, the prison itself forces you to get out of it. The prison itself can be used in a positive way. If you are thrown in a prison, your spirit will continuously meditate and think about how to get out of it, how to find ways and means to escape. In a prison the courageous soul will start brooding and dreaming about freedom. The bigger the prison, the greater the enforced structure of it, the more the challenge will be. Only cowards will accept it.

But cowards, even if they are out of prison, will remain in prison because they are not going anywhere - they are imprisoned in their cowardice. And the courageous, even in a prison, will try to break through, they will try to get out.

And in that very effort to get out, a strength is born. In that very struggle to get out, a new being is born; they have a new sense of urgency, a new force and power.

Nothing is wrong. But remember, when I say nothing is wrong I am not saying to relax and go to sleep in a prison. I am saying the prison can be used in a positive way. Even your home can become a prison if you use it in a negative way - that's what it has become for millions of people. They live in their homes, but they live in a prison. They call it their home, but it is their cowardice. They have lost the adventure of the soul. They are no longer adventurous. They are no longer wanderers. They are no longer interested in the unknown, in the unfamiliar. They always carry their maps wherever they go. They always have their guides wherever they go. They live a borrowed life. They don't have any passion to live fresh, to live young. They don't have any passion to move into the uncharted territory, to go to the ocean, to go into danger, and to face life.

When you are in danger and you are facing life, you are for the first time in contact with your soul. The soul is not cheap. You have to put everything at stake. That's why I say even an organized religion can be a positive thing.

Buddha was born as a Hindu. Hinduism became the prison. He tried hard to get out of it, and he succeeded. Krishnamurti was trained in a certain discipline, was an inmate of a prison called theosophy - but he tried hard, broke out of it, became free of it. If you ask me I will say one thing: if there had been no theosophical imprisonment for him in his childhood, it would have been difficult for him to become a free man. Annie Besant and Leadbeater and other theosophists created the whole situation - unknowingly, of course, they were not meaning it. They were trying to do something else. They were creating a dogma around him, a cult around him. And they were so hard upon him that it became really impossible to live in it. He HAD to get out of it. The credit goes to those people - Leadbeater and Annie Besant.

If the prison had been a little more comfortable, if the prison had not been so hard and if the discipline imposed had not been so arduous, if the ideals had not been so superhuman, if he had not been asked to play a role so unnatural to him, he might have relaxed, he might have accepted it. That's what has happened to you.

A Christian remains a Christian because Christianity is no longer a great pressure. On Sunday you can go to the church - it is a formality. It remains the life of a non-Christian. You go on fulfilling the formalities of being a Christian.

Your Christianity is not even skin-deep, and the church does not demand much.

The church says, "You just come on particular days to the church: when your child is born come to the church for the baptism; when somebody dies, come to the church; when there is marriage, come to the church - these three things will do and you will remain a Christian. Sometimes on Sundays come and participate in the ritual."

Nothing much is asked. The prison is not much of a prison. It is almost as if you are free, only on Sundays you go to the jail and sit there for one hour and come home and you are again free. Who bothers? Who will fight against it? It is so convenient and comfortable.

That's why so many people are Hindus and Mohammedans and Jains - nobody is asking. These religions are just formal rituals; they don't challenge you.

Nothing is at stake. Very difficult to get out of them - because the prison is very lukewarm. You have become adjusted to it. It is so convenient and comfortable that you have become adjusted to it. It looks almost like a good policy, a good compromise.

Krishnamurti fell into the hands of a very fanatical group - theosophists. It was a new religion. Whenever a religion is new, it is very fanatical. By and by, it relaxes and compromises and becomes just a social phenomenon; then it is no more religion. Theosophy was just in its beginning, and Krishnamurti was only nine years old when he fell into the hands of those fanatics. They tried hard. They wouldn't allow Krishnamurti to meet and mix with ordinary children - no - because they had a goal that he had to become the world Teacher, JAGADGURU.

He had to become the coming-Buddha; he had to become the incarnation of Maitreya.

He was not allowed to move with any girl, because he might have fallen in love and the whole dream of the theosophists would have been shattered. He was constantly guarded. He was not allowed to move alone; somebody was always with him, watching him. And he was forced to follow very strict rules: three o'clock in the morning he had to get up and take a cold bath; and then he had to learn Sanskrit and he had to learn French and he had to learn English and he had to learn Latin and Greek - because a World Teacher should be well cultured, sophisticated. Just a nine-year-old child!

When he was twelve years old, they started forcing him to write a book. Now what can a twelve-year-old child write? In fact, the teacher, Leadbeater, he was writing in his name. Krishnamurti would write and Leadbeater would correct it and make it perfect. The book still exists. A beautiful book, but you cannot expect it of a boy just twelve years old. It is not from him. Even Krishnamurti cannot remember it. When he has been asked he has said, "I don't remember when I wrote it - I don't remember at all how it came into being."

And they were talking nonsense - esoteric nonsense: "In his dreams he goes to the seventh heaven, and there God Himself is teaching him." And just a twelve- year-old child - very vulnerable, soft, receptive; he would trust. And these people were world-famous; they had great names. And the movement was really big and worldwide; thousands and thousands of lodges were opened all over the world.

Just a twelve-year-old boy had become a world-famous personality. Wherever he was going, thousands of people would gather just to see him. If you look at those pictures, you feel pity for him, compassion. He was continuously in a cage. And it was natural, I think it would have happened to anybody - it had nothing to do with Krishnamurti. Anybody in his place, if he had any spirit left, would have renounced this whole nonsense, and would have come out of it. It was too much of a prison.

He could not write letters to anybody because he might have made some relationship through the letters. A World Teacher needs to be completely unattached. He started feeling a little love for a woman who was old enough to be his mother, but even that was stopped. It was nothing to do with sexuality or anything; he just started feeling love from the woman. The woman was already a mother of three children - but the theosophists wouldn't allow it. They stopped it.

He was completely in seclusion, never allowed to move into the outside world.

He was not allowed to enter in any school, in any college, because there he would meet ordinary people and he would become ordinary. Special teachers were appointed; he was taught specially. And all around him, just a nine-year- old boy, all around him such big talk - of Masters, Master K.H. sending messages, letters falling from the roof. They were all managed! Theosophists were caught later on - they were all managed: the roof was specially made and a letter would drop suddenly, and it was for Krishnamurti - a message had come from the unknown.

Just think of a small boy.... No freedom allowed became a great urge to be free.

One day - nobody was expecting it, that he would renounce it - the theosophists had gathered from all over the world for the first declaration in which Krishnamurti was expected to declare that he was the World Teacher and that God had entered into him.

Suddenly, without saying anything to anybody.... He could not sleep the whole night. He brooded over it: he has become a slave, and they are all do-gooders; they have made you a slave because they want to do good to you; and they love you and their love became nauseating; and their well-wishing became poisonous.

The whole night he brooded: what is he to do? Whether he has to continue and become part of this nonsense, or get out of it?

And blessed he is that in the morning when they had gathered and they were waiting for God to descend in him and to declare that he is now no more Krishnamurti but Lord Maitreya - Buddha has entered in him - he suddenly declined and he said, "It is all nonsense. Nobody is descending in me. I am simply Krishnamurti and I am nobody's Master. And I am not a Jagadguru, not a World Teacher. And I dissolve this nonsense and this organization and the whole thing that has been made around me."

They were shocked! They could not believe it: "Has he gone mad, crazy?" They had put much hope in him, much money; it was a great investment, years of training. But it was going to be so. If he had been absolutely a dead man, then only would he have accepted it. He was alive. They could not kill his life, that aliveness exploded.

If he had been a dull, mediocre mind, maybe he would have accepted - but he has an intelligence, a tremendous awareness. He got out of it. That whole movement and the whole organized thing functioned as a positive challenge.

As far as I see, nothing can hold you. If you are alert, you will use organized religion as a challenge. If you are not alert, then organized religion or no organized religion, wherever you are you will create an imprisonment around you. You carry it around you - in your cowardice, in your fear, in your urge to be secure and comfortable.

The second question:

Question 2:

EITHER EVERYBODY IS A MESSENGER OF GOD, OR NOBODY. The whole idea that somebody is a prophet and somebody is a TEERTHANKARA and somebody is a messenger or a Christ is absurd. You all come from the same source. We all come from the same root. Nobody is special. And this is what a religious man tries to live.

A religious man is one who sees that he is ordinary. A religious man is one who sees that he is exactly the same as others, and he does not pretend to be special - because the very idea that "I am special" is foolish; the very idea that "I am the chosen one" is egoistic. And a religious man cannot claim that - a religious man has no claim.

He simply accepts and he realises that he is a part of this cosmos as you are a part of this cosmos. He never puts himself above you. This is his superiority, that he never puts himself above you. This is his 'aboveness', that he never thinks that he is extraordinary or special in some way. He never carries the attitude of 'holier than thou'. He knows that you are also gods and goddesses. Maybe you don't recognize it - that's the only difference.

The difference between me and you is only one: I recognize who I am; you don't recognize - but there is no other difference. You are exactly the same as I am.

You are a Buddha asleep, but there is no question about any difference. A Buddha is a Buddha, whether asleep or awake. You may not have come across your divineness, you may not have tried, you may not have opened the door of your inner treasures, but the treasure exists. You may think that you are not special and I am special, but how can I think the same way? You may think that - - it is natural.

People may have thought that Christ was special - that is natural, because Christ LOOKS special. He IS special in a way, because he has recognized his godhood, and in that very recognition he has become luminous, a clear light without any smoke, a pure flame. People recognize that he is special. But how can Jesus say he is special? In recognizing his own inner flame, in recognizing his own inner godhood, he has recognized everybody's godhood - not only about human beings but about trees and birds and animals, even rocks. Even rocks he knows now are gods - fast asleep, snoring. Some day or other rocks will awaken and will become gods!

You may not see who you are, but I am seeing who you are. The day I recognized who I am, I recognized everybody's innermost core. A religious person cannot think he is special. And a religious person cannot think that you are condemned, that you are sinners. A religious person starts laughing. He laughs at you because you are a saint and thinking yourself a sinner. He laughs at you because you are God and thinking yourself somebody else. The whole thing seems to be absurd - what a drama! Everybody is having a mask and has completely forgotten his own original face. Your original face is God's face.

So whosoever tries to prove that he is special, whosoever - Ellen G. White or Reverend Moon or Satya Sai Baba - whosoever says that he is special is simply asserting that he has not yet known.

Satya Sai Baba said, "How can ants know the depth of the ocean?" Now this is foolish, this is stupid, because ants are as much gods as Satya Sai Baba. If you ask me whether Satya Sai Baba is a god or not, I will say yes, he is a god - he is a FRAUD god but God all the same. He is a magician god, he is lost in magic.

Somebody may be a fool, then he is a foolish god - but I cannot deny that he is a god, I cannot say that. Everybody is God playing different roles.

You cannot say that somebody else is just like an ant - even ants are not ants.

That's what a religious person recognizes. He said, "Dogs can go on barking but the stars will not fall down." Now you are looking at the dog in a very condemnatory way. And 'dog' is nothing but 'god' read backwards. And who is dog? About whom are you talking? Dogs exist not, because a dog is also a god - pretending to be a dog, playing the game of being a dog.

A religious person, one who has come home, recognizes that the whole existence is divine, unconditionally divine. There are not 'gods' and 'not gods' - the whole existence is made of one fibre and that fibre is divinity.

But there are people who go on searching new trips for the ego. Sometimes it is money, sometimes it is politics, sometimes it is religion, but the search is the same - the ego. And religion happens only when there is an ego-loss; when the ego is lost, when the ego is shattered, and you are suddenly there with no idea of any 'I'. You are, but there is no 'I' in it.

I am not saying become humble, because the ego can even try that - it tries! It can become humble. It can pretend to be humble, but then look in the humble man's eyes: he says "I am nobody," but he is waiting for you to say "You are the greatest man." He says, "I am humble, I am just dust on your feet," but don't accept him. Don't say, "Yes, we know - we have always known. You are not saying anything new to us," otherwise he will never be able to forgive you. He will take revenge. He's not saying that you have to accept it. In fact, he is saying, "Look - how humble I am! Look, here is the most humble man in the world!" But the game is the same: "I am the most humble man in the world - but 'I' am."

Somebody says, "I am the richest man in the world." Somebody says, "I am the most powerful man in the world." Somebody says, "I am the most humble man in the world." Where is the difference?

I am not saying become humble. Ego can become humble. I am talking about ego-loss. You have to see into the ego: its complexity its subtle games. You have to become aware of all its games. One day when you have looked into all its games, it simply disappears. Just by looking into them, just a clarity, just an awareness, and it disappears. It disappears as darkness disappears when you bring light into the dark room. Just bring awareness.

I am not saying practise humility, and I am not saying become a humble man. I am saying, whosoever you are, just bring light to your life, bring a little more awareness, and you will see that ego is like darkness disappearing. One day when there is no ego, there is no humbleness either.

A really religious person is neither humble nor egoistic - he is simple. A humble person is very complex: he has practised humility. Anything practised is always complex, and anything practised is always false. Anything practised means simply a pseudo thing.

Practice means you are imposing something upon yourself which is not there inside you in the first place. Otherwise, what is the need of practising it? If you have understood, you have understood - there is no need for practice. Practice simply means you are trying to substitute understanding with practice. But nothing else is going to help except understanding, awareness.

I have heard:

Jesus is about to walk on the waters of the Dead Sea. He begins walking on the sea, and he turns to his disciples and says, "Trust in me, come follow me, and walk on the sea." Eleven of his disciples begin to follow him. Only Thomas remains behind on the shore.

When the others inquire of him, Thomas explains that he had better stay dry as the cold waters are liable to affect his rheumatism.

Jesus turns his head and says to Thomas, "Thomas, trust in me. Come follow me and walk on the sea."

So Thomas begins to walk and is quickly in water up to his knees. Thomas cries, "Jesus! Jesus!"

And Jesus once again says, "Trust in me, come follow me and walk on the sea."

This goes on with Thomas calling for Jesus' help as Thomas continues to walk on.

When the water has reached to the chin of Thomas, Peter turns to him and says, "Thomas, why must you always be different? Why can't you walk on the stones like everyone else?"

THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO CAN'T ALLOW THEMSELVES to be like everyone else. They have to be special in some way or other. This is a disease, a neurosis.

You canNOT be different. Basically, we all belong to one consciousness. All differences are superficial, just on the surface. Of course, you have a different skin and I have a different skin. Somebody has a white skin and somebody has a black skin, and somebody has a different nose, and somebody has a different colour to his eyes, and somebody has a different colour to his hair - but deep down, the deeper you go, the more we are the same.

The English word 'self' is very beautiful. Its original meaning is 'same' - self means the same. You use the words 'myself', 'himself', 'herself', 'themselves'.

Myself, yourself: 'my' is different, 'your' is different, but the 'self' is the same. The word 'self' means 'the same'. Self is neither mine nor yours. When it becomes mine, it is 'myself'; then the 'self' has something added to it, plus to it. When the 'my' is dropped, there is only 'self' left; when the 'you' is dropped, there is only 'self' left. When the body and mind and the superficial distinctions are no more there, deep in the innermost core we are one - we are just THE SELF, the same.

Don't try in any way to be special because all those trips are ego-trips and lead you into frustration and worry and fear.

But when somebody comes and claims, he can always find a few disciples. The reason is not that his claim is true; the reason is that people are in very deep uncertainty, people are in confusion. They want somebody to cling to. They want somebody to make them certain. When somebody comes and says, "I am coming as a special messenger from God"... and these people are almost mad people, and they will speak with such power, with such force, with such fire, that you will start feeling that there must be something in it. You start feeling because you are confused. You always wanted somebody to tell you how to live your life. You always wanted somebody to lead you. You always wanted somebody who is certain so you can get rid of your uncertainties. You always wanted somebody who KNOWS so you need not be worried about your ignorance.

Now here comes a man, and when he declares forcibly, fire in his eyes and magic in his words, a few people are bound to become victims of him - they will trust him. And if you say to these people, "You are fools," they will not listen to you.

Because it is not a question of whether their prophet is wrong or right; the moment you say their prophet is wrong, you are again bringing their uncertainty back, you are again making them confused. They were confused; now they are no more confused - they are following somebody.

Even a Muktanand can have followers, can get followers. Seeing it I am simply surprised. I cannot see how it is possible. A Muktanand getting followers? If it is possible, then you are unnecessarily waiting - you can become a great leader. If Muktanand can become, then anybody can become.

I knew a man in Jabalpur who was a follower of Muktanand, and I told him, "You are simply foolish. You yourself can become a leader."

He said, "How can I become? I don't know anything about religion."

I said, "You come with me." I was going to Calcutta. I said, "You just come with me - you keep quiet."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "We are going to play a game just to make you clear about how things happen."

He followed me. I said, "Just one thing: you are not to say anything; you just keep quiet. When people ask some question, you close your eyes, you start swaying, and I will see that things happen!"

So he came with me. The host where we were staying, he asked me immediately, "Who is this man?"

I said, "He is a PARAMAHANSA. He keeps quiet - he is a great soul."

The man said, "But we never heard about him, so how did you hear?"

"He never publicises, he is not a Mahesh Yogi, he does not believe in advertisement. He is very, very esoteric."

The man fell at his feet! The garland that he had brought for me... he forgot me completely. And that man, I had trained him in the train as to what to do, so he started swaying - the host also started swaying! I said, "Look, your kundalini is rising!"

He said, "I can feel something; in my spine there is some sensation. I have never felt it and I have been to so many saints - but this man is a miracle! Can't he say anything?"

I said, "He never speaks."

Within three days there was a great crowd - people coming and bringing money and flowers. And in the night the man would say to me, "This is incredible! You must be doing something," he said to me, "because how can I raise their kundalini? I don't know anything about kundalini - my own has not risen yet!

You must be doing something, you are playing a trick - otherwise, how can it happen? And one person can be a fool, but so many persons!" And rich people coming in their Cadillacs and Lincolns and Impalas, such.... And this man was an ordinary businessman.

Three days after when we came back I told him, "Now what do you want? Do you want to continue your old business?"

People need somebody to guide them. People need somebody to befool them.

People need somebody to give them certainty. People are so shaky, uncertain of everything. Just claim - just your claim... but it has to be very, very absolute. If you hesitate, you are gone; then in the spiritual world, in the spiritual supermarket, you are nobody. Claim absolutely, unconditionally, never hesitate!

And that is one of the qualities of fools: they never hesitate. To hesitate you need some intelligence. A very intelligent person is always hesitant.

Lao Tzu says: "I hesitate on every step. I must be confused. My whole town, everybody that I know, is so absolute; people are so clever - I must be muddleheaded, because I feel so shaky. Alternatives are there: what to choose, what not to choose?"

He is being ironical, he is joking. Always it has been so. An intelligent person is hesitant; an idiot, never hesitant. Have you ever seen buffaloes hesitant? They simply go on; on the road they don't bother about the traffic rules. You go on honking your horn - they don't bother about you. They simply go like spiritual saints.

People are insecure, uncertain. They need somebody to claim. And when you need, somebody is bound to claim and exploit you.

The third question:

Question 3:

IT IS A QUESTION AND A VERY SERIOUS ONE, because to me laughter is one of the greatest spiritual qualities.

Try to understand: only man, ONLY man, can laugh - no other animal. It is possible only at the stage of man that laughter happens. If you come across a donkey laughing, you will go mad. Or a horse laughing - then you will not be able to sleep again. Animals don't laugh. They don't have that much intelligence.

For laughter, intelligence is needed - the greater the intelligence, the deeper the laughter.

The laughter is a symbol that you are really human. If you cannot laugh, then you are below human. If you can laugh, you have become human. Laughter is a sure indication of humanity.

Aristotle says man is a rational animal. I don't believe it, because I have watched man and I don't see any rationality in him. My definition is: man is a laughing animal.

Laughter means you can become aware of the ridiculousness of things.

And also: man is the only animal who can get bored. Boredom and humour are two aspects of the same coin, two sides of the same coin. Only man can get bored and only man can laugh. These are the two specific qualities that exist in man.

They are the definition of humanity. Animals are never bored. They go on doing the same routine every day, year in, year out, from birth to death - they are never bored. You cannot see boredom on their faces, because for boredom also intelligence is needed.

The more intelligent a person, the more bored he is in the world. Buddha became BORED with the whole nonsense that is called life. He became bored with birth, he became bored with love, he became bored with death. In the East, religion is nothing but a search to get out of this boring existence, how to get out of AWAGAMAN - this constant coming and going, this continuous birth and death. It is boring! It has nothing new in it. And the idea of many lives makes it even more boring.

Christians are less bored, Mohammedans are less bored, Jews are less bored, because they have only one life. You cannot be much bored in one life. Once you are born, and then you die after seventy years. In seventy years, thirty years you sleep, fifteen, twenty years you work - continuously you are working - three years you waste in eating. First you eat and then you defecate; so man is just like a pipe: in one end you go on pouring things, from another end you go on throwing out.

If you count all the activities of man, then shaving, standing before the mirror.... I was just reading an article: a man stands before the mirror - and it is about men, it is not about women - seventy days continuously, if we take it continuously, in his whole life. Seventy days he has been just standing before the mirror. Now look at the absurdity of it. And this is about MEN - I think they have given the data about men and not about women because it cannot be counted. Women go on standing before the mirror, just looking at themselves. Once you have looked, finished! Now what are you looking for? Is something missing? Or can't you believe that it is you?

If you see the whole activity of life, it is boring. But if life is only one, it is not so boring. That's why Christians, Mohammedans and Jews cannot be very religious.

Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, have brought another quality to religion. They say it has been so millions of times: rebirth, again and again; reincarnation, again and again. It is not one life; one life is only one movement of the wheel. The wheel has been moving since a beginningless beginning. And you have done the same thing millions of times, and still you are not bored? Then you must be absolutely stupid. An intelligent person is bound to become bored.

Boredom is human. And because man can become bored, man can laugh also.

Laughter is another extreme of the same energy. The whole spectrum is between boredom and laughter.

That's why I use so many jokes - because I know religious truths are very boring. So first I take you towards boredom, I go into delicate matters - mm? - I take you into boredom. When I see now it is too much and you will not be able to tolerate any more, then I tell you a joke. The pendulum swings back. You are happy again. Again I can bore you. You are fresh, you are ready. You can still tolerate again ten, fifteen minutes. When I see that now you are coming to your limit, that you will get mad at me - I don't want to be killed - again, immediately I talk about something so you can laugh, and you can forgive me.

Boredom and laughter are the most important qualities of human consciousness, but people are not ordinarily aware of either. When you get bored, before you become aware, you simply get occupied into some other activity which gives a new thrill, sensation. You go to the movie, you sit before the TV; you go to a friend, you start talking to somebody, the neighbour. You don't have anything to say, he has nothing to say - you have talked about these things millions of times!

Again about the climate, again about the weather, again about how your children are and how your wife is - and you are not a bit concerned. But you are bored.

Something you have to do to forget it. You have to talk.

A person, in the usual daily routine, uses five thousand words. You may be thinking I am talking too much - you are wrong. Once I have talked, I keep quiet - but I never go beyond the limit of five thousand words. You spread it out over the whole day. I am finished in the morning. But I never go beyond the limit. I go on looking at the clock.

People go on talking just to avoid their being, avoid their boredom. The husband is bored with the wife, the wife is bored with the husband, the mother is bored with the children, the children are bored with parents - everybody is simply bored! But we keep it below consciousness, otherwise you will start committing suicide. What will you do?

Marcel has written that suicide is the only important question, the only metaphysical question. It is - because if the whole boredom becomes clear to you, what are you going to do then? If life is just a rut, then what is the point of it all? You go on avoiding it.

In a religious community it is brought to your notice; it is not allowed that you should avoid it. In a Zen monastery they have a very boring routine - fixed, fixed for ever, for centuries. Never a thrill, never a sensation. In the morning they get up, they do their za-zen, they take their tea, they do their walking meditation, they go for their breakfast. And everything is the same: the breakfast is the same, the tea is the same; again they do za-zen, again they go into the garden to work.

And have you looked at the Zen garden?

Around their meditation hall, they don't allow trees. They make a rock garden - to bore you completely. Because trees change: sometimes it is spring and there are flowers and greenery, and sometimes it is fall and the leaves are dropping.

Trees change! Trees are not monks. Trees go on changing round the year. In a Zen monastery they make a rock garden, so nothing changes. You go on doing the same thing every day, and you look out and there are rocks and sand, and the same pattern. Why?

Boredom has been used as a technique, it is a device. In Zen, boredom is used as a device: you are bored to death, and you are not allowed to escape. You are not to go outside, you are not to entertain yourself, you are not to do, you are not to talk, you are not to read novels and detective stories. No thrill. No possibility to escape anywhere.

And all the monks look alike: shaved. Have you noticed it? If you shave your hair, moustache, beard, you become almost a non-entity. Your face loses individuality. The monks look all alike, you cannot make out any difference. You see the shaven heads and you are bored. Hair gives a little style, a little difference - all heads shaven look alike; with hair you can have a style. Somebody has a long hair-style, somebody a short hair-style; somebody is a square and somebody is a hippie. And there are a thousand ways to do something with hair.

What can you do with the head? It is just the same - the dress is the same, the head is the same, the food is the same, the rock garden is the same, and the meditation is the same. Year in, year out, for twenty years.

The work is to bring boredom to such a point where no escape is possible and you have to go through the breakthrough. When it is unbearable, when it comes to a crescendo and you cannot bear it, then it explodes. From that extreme, you jump. Suddenly all boredom disappears, because the mind itself disappears.

Boredom is an indication of mind. That's why animals are not bored. If you go to the very extreme, if you go on putting pressure, more and more pressure, then there comes a climax when you simply cannot tolerate any more, and the boredom disappears - and with the boredom, the mind. That's what in Zen they call 'satori'.

Laughter can also be used in the same way. Bodhidharma used it. There have been Sufi Masters who have used it. There are a few Zen sects which use laughter also. If you can go on laughing at the ridiculousness of things, one day or other you will come to the extreme when suddenly you will see that laughter is not coming. That's the point. You go on laughing, still you go on trying to laugh - laughter is not coming. Everything seems to be stuck, but you go on trying. Much effort is needed now; force it to the very extreme, and one day laughter disappears, and with the laughter disappears the human mind.

Boredom or laughter, both can be used. I use both together. First I bore you, then I help you to laugh. And I go on throwing you from one extreme to another, just like a tightrope-walker: when he is falling towards the left, he leans towards the right; when he leans towards the right too much and feels now he will fall, he leans towards the left. And by and by a balance arises. Now this is the third point of transcendence.

Either you go to the left, FAR left, as much as you can go; or you go to the right, far right - or, you just be in the middle, FAR in the middle, extreme middle. And there is transcendence. These three points are the points of transcendence. Either birth or death or love - these three are the transcendence points. My whole effort is not to use any extremism, but to give you a balance.

So I go on moving from left to right, but the whole idea is to keep you balanced on the rope. One day, balancing will bring you to a point where suddenly you are so balanced that the mind cannot exist. Mind can exist only either leaning to the right or leaning to the left. Mind can exist only with extremes. Mind can never exist with the middle, with the balance.

Buddha has called his path MAJJHIM NIKAYA - the middle way. My path also is the middle way. In many, many ways I am trying to help you to come to the absolute middle where everything disappears.

NOW, YOU SAY "When I laugh at your jokes in the lecture I feel it is just a reflex, that my laughter is happening on the surface and not penetrating into my being."

Go on trying. Don't be worried. Let it be a reflex. Go on trying. Sometimes you will even feel that the laughter is just in the body or in the mind and you are a witness - those are beautiful moments. You have become a little transcendental to your laughter - and that's good.

"I am laughing less and less" - it will happen, but you have to try hard. It is one of the most arduous things, to try hard for laughter, because how should one try?

Laughter seems either to be coming or not coming - how can you try for it? The more you try, the more you will find it is difficult to bring; but try, let it be difficult.

Listen to my jokes now more consciously, more deliberately. When I am telling a joke, just forget the whole world. Meditate deeply on it so you can have the whole flavour of it and it penetrates to your very heart. And when laughter comes, even if it is slight, just a flicker, a ripple, cooperate with it, allow it to become a big wave. Sway with it, go with it - be in a let-go. It will take you over.

Sometimes it is possible, listening to me so much, laughing with me so much, by and by even laughing may look like a boredom. Every day laughing again and again - that too creates boredom. Every day listening to jokes again and again, and you have a very small quality of laughter, a very small quantity of laughter in you - it feels exhausted. But you have to learn now a few more things.

Listen to the joke more alertly, and when the ripple arises in you cooperate with it, even exaggerate it, go with it. The question is from Bodhi, and I will suggest for him a special meditation: every morning he has to laugh for three minutes for no reason at all. When you get up, the first thing - don't open your eyes first.

When you feel the sleep is gone, just start laughing in your bed. For the first two, three days it will be difficult, then it comes - and then it comes like an explosion.

First it is difficult because you feel foolish: why are you laughing? there is no reason. But by and by you will feel foolish and you will start laughing at your foolishness - and then it takes over. Then it is irrepressible. Then you laugh at the whole absurdity. And then somebody else - your wife, your girlfriend, the neighbour - may start laughing seeing that you are a fool, and then that will help you.

Laughter can become epidemic. You just try, and you report to me after one month. Laugh every morning, and if you enjoy it then every night before you go to sleep. Then there is a possibility that in your dreams I may tell you a few jokes.

Now let me tell you a few jokes for no reason at all:

The beautiful girl was one candidate for the job at the zoo as a lion-tamer. The other was an eager young man. The manager said he would give them both a chance and told the girl to go into the cage.

The girl, wearing a big fur coat, did so. The huge lion was let in with her and he immediately started to charge at her. Suddenly she stood upright, opened her fur coat and stood there completely naked. The lion stopped dead, spun around, and went meekly back to the corner.

The manager was properly amazed. He turned toward the young man. "Well, pal, do you think you can top that?"

"I'd like to try," said the guy. "Just get that crazy lion out of there."

The father took his two teen-age sons to Miami for their first visit. "I want you to get plenty of sunshine," said the old man, "and to make sure you do, I'm going to fine you a dollar an hour if you're out after midnight."

The first son arrived home at two a.m. and the next morning gave his dad two dollars, saying, "It was worth it. Was she beautiful! Was she romantic! Was she passionate!"

The next day the second son came home at five a.m. and gave his father five dollars, sighing, "It was worth it. Was she beautiful! Was she romantic! Was she passionate!"

The third night the father stayed out all night - twenty-four hours. When he got home he threw his wallet on the table and said to his sons, "Take the whole thing.

It was worth it. Was she beautiful! Was she romantic! And boy - was she patient!"

The fourth question:

Question 4:

LOVE IS PAINFUL, BUT THE PAIN IS CERTAINLY A BLESSING. Sex is not painful. Sex is very convenient, comfortable. People use it almost as a sedative, a tranquillizer.

Love is painful - because love brings growth. Love is painful because love demands. Love is painful because love transforms. Love is painful because love gives you a new birth.

Sex does not touch you at all. It is mechanical. It is just physiological. Love brings your heart into relationship - and when the heart is in relationship there is always pain. But don't avoid the pain. If you avoid the pain, you will miss all pleasures of life.

In sex there may be relaxation. In sex there may be physiological health and hygiene. But there is no growth. You remain animal. With love you become human. With love you become upright. With love you stand erect on earth. With sex you are again animal, you are horizontal on the earth, just moving like other animals, crawling. With love you are erect, vertical.

With love are problems. With sex there is no problem at all. But with problems is growth! The greater the problem, the greater the opportunity.

So you ask me: "Is love painful?" Certainly love is painful, but that pain is a blessing. And you have felt it, the questioner has felt it. The question is from Deva Saguna.

She says: "I am confused. When you talked about the two-arrowed love I felt pierced to the heart and a beautiful pain arose in me."

She IS aware that it was beautiful. Now don't recoil back from it. More and more blessings are waiting for you, but, of course, more and more pain too.

That's why many people never love - it is so painful. They choose not to love, but then they remain animalistic; they never become human, they never become vertical. They never take their life in their own hands. They are never of any worth - they are worthless. Love makes you precious.

And if you are in love, then you will see that there is a still deeper pain that is of prayer. It shatters you completely. Love never shatters you completely. It simply shatters you a little, a little bit. It shatters the crust of your ego, but the centre of the ego remains intact. Then there is a deeper pain, deeper than love, and that is of prayer - it shatters you utterly. It is a death. When you have learnt how to love, and you have learnt that the pain that love brings is a blessing in disguise, it is beautiful, it is tremendously beautiful, then you become able and you take another step - that step is prayer.

With a human lover you can exist, but with God as your love you cannot exist.

That passion is so great, it simply burns you utterly. No residue is left. In love you are simply burnt, but you are there. Lovers remain, overlapping each other, burning each other a little in their fire, but not burnt completely. That is the beauty of love, and that is its misery too. Unless you are completely shattered, no residue remains, the ego is gone, totally gone, there will remain a little misery.

All lovers feel a little miserable. They would like to disappear completely, but it is not possible in human relationship. Human relationship is limited. But one learns from it, that there is a possibility: if it can happen so much in a human relationship, how much more can happen in a relationship with the Divine?

Love makes you ready to take the final jump, the quantum leap. That's what I call prayer, or you can call it meditation. If you use Buddhist terminology, it is meditation; if you use Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian terminology, it is prayer.

But the meaning is the same. You have to disappear for God to be. Love is a training ground, a school, to learn first lessons - of the beauty, of the blessing and benediction of disappearance; to learn that pain is blessed. And then a desire arises to feel the ultimate pain. The Hindu devotees have called it VIRAH - ultimate pain; the pain that will remain unless one is consumed by God, consumed in God.

So when you are in love, or when love arises, cooperate with it, don't try resisting. People come to a compromise. Lovers - I have watched thousands of lovers. Every day they come to me; they bring their problems. But the basic problem that I have been looking at is that lovers by and by come to a compromise. The compromise is: You don't hurt me, I will not hurt you. That's what marriage is. Then people become settled. They become so afraid of pain that they say, "Don't hurt me and I will not hurt you." But then when pain disappears, love also disappears. They exist together.

I have heard:

The male patient complained to the dentist that he was in terrible pain, but he insisted on saving the tooth. The dentist put on his white coat, adjusted the light on his forehead, started his drill, and said, "Okay, now open your mouth and we'll see what we can do."

Just then the patient grabbed him below the belt. "What the hell are you doing?"

the dentist screamed.

"Now," the man said quietly, not letting go, "we're not going to hurt each other, are we?"

Now this is what happens. When you are in love, love hurts. It hurts terribly.

Then you grab each other and you say, "What...! Make a compromise: let it no more be a love affair - let it be a marriage. Make it legal. And I will not hurt you if you don't hurt me." Then husbands and wives live together without being together. They live together alone. They tolerate at the most. They are patient with each other, but love has disappeared.

Love is painful. Never resist, never create any barrier for pain. Allow it. And by and by you will see that it was a wrong interpretation. It is not really pain. It is just that something is going so deep in you that you interpret it like a pain. You don't know anything else. You are only aware of pain in your past life, in your past experience. Whenever something penetrates deep, you interpret it as pain.

Don't use the word 'pain'. When love and love's arrow goes deep into your heart, close your eyes and don't use words - just see what it is, and you will never see it is pain. You will see it is a benediction. You will be tremendously moved by it.

You will feel joyous.

Don't use words. When something new happens to you, always allow a deep look into it without any language.

The last question:

Question 5:

I AM - BECAUSE ONLY A RICH MAN CAN COME TO ME. But when I say 'a rich man' I mean one who is very poor inside. When I say 'a rich man' I mean one who is rich in intelligence; I mean one who has got everything that the world can give to him, and has found that it is futile.

Yes, only a rich person can become religious. I am not saying that a poor person cannot become religious, but it is very rare, exceptional. A poor person goes on hoping. A poor person has not known what riches are. He is not yet frustrated with it. How can he go beyond riches if he is not frustrated with them? A poor man also sometimes comes to me, but then he comes for something which I cannot supply. He asks for success. His son is not getting employed; he asks, "Bless him, Osho." His wife is ill, or he is losing money in his business. These are symptoms of a poor man, one who is asking about things of this world.

When a rich person comes to me, he has money, he has employment, he has a house, he has health - he has everything that one can have. And suddenly he has come to a realisation that nothing is fulfilling. Then the search for God starts.

Yes, sometimes a poor man can also be religious, but for that very great intelligence is needed. A rich man, if he is NOT religious, is stupid. A poor man, if he is religious, is tremendously intelligent. if a poor man is not religious, he has to be forgiven. If a rich man is not religious, his sin is unpardonable.

I am a rich man's guru. Absolutely it is so. Let me tell you one anecdote:

They were married for twenty-five years and had their biggest argument on the day of their silver anniversary. She never hit harder or lower: "If it weren't for my money, that TV set wouldn't be here. If it weren't for my money, the very chair you're sitting on wouldn't be here!"

"Are you kidding?" he interrupted. "If it weren't for your money - I wouldn't be here!"

And let me say this to you: If it were not for your money, you would not have been here. You are here because you are frustrated with your money. You are here because you are frustrated with your success. You are here because you are frustrated with your life. A beggar cannot come because he is not yet frustrated.

Religion is luxury - the last, ultimate luxury I call it, because it is the highest value. When a man is hungry, he does not bother about music, cannot. And if you start playing sitar before him, he will kill you. He will say, "You are insulting me! I am hungry and you are playing sitar - is this the time to play sitar? Feed me first! And I am so hungry I cannot understand music. I am dying!" When a man is dying of hunger, what use is a Van Gogh painting? or a Buddha's sermon? or beautiful Upanishads, or music? - meaningless. He needs bread.

When a man is happy with his body, has enough to eat, has a good house to live in, he starts becoming interested in music, poetry, literature, painting, art. Now a new hunger arises. The bodily needs are fulfilled, now psychological needs arise.

There is a hierarchy in needs: the first is the body; it is the base, it is the ground- floor of your being. Without the ground-floor, the first storey cannot exist.

When your bodily needs are fulfilled, psychological needs arise. When your psychological needs are also fulfilled, then your spiritual needs arise. When a person has listened to all the music that is available in the world, and has seen all the beauty, and has found that it is all dream; has listened to all the great poets, and has found that it is just a way to forget yourself, just a way to intoxicate yourself, but it does not lead you anywhere; has seen all the paintings and the great art - amusing, entertaining, but then what...? Then hands remain empty, more empty than they ever were before. Then music and poetry are not enough.

Then the desire to meditate, the desire to pray, a hunger for God, a hunger for truth arises. A great passion takes possession of you and you are in search of truth, because you now know: unless you know what the secretmost truth of this existence is, nothing can satisfy. All else you have tried and it has failed.

Religion is the ultimate luxury. Either you have to be very rich to come to this luxury, or you have to be tremendously intelligent. But in both the cases you are rich - rich with money or rich with intelligence. I have never seen a person who is really poor - poor in intelligence, poor in riches - ever become religious.

Kabir becomes religious. He was not a millionaire, but he was tremendously intelligent. Buddha became religious because he was tremendously rich. Krishna and Ram and Mahavir became religious because they were tremendously rich.

Dadu, Redas, Farid, they became religious because they were tremendously intelligent. But a certain sort of richness is needed.

Yes, you are right: I am the rich man's guru.