Let go of the branch

the first question:

Question 1:

In fact, all efforts to become bring dis-integration.

Integration is already there at the deepest core of your being; it has not to be brought in. At your very center you are integrated, otherwise you could not exist at all. How can you exist without a center? The bullock-cart moves, the wheel moves, because there is an unmoving center on which the wheel moves. It moves on the hub. If the cart is moving the hub is there. You may know it, you may not know it.

You are alive, you are breathing, you are conscious; lire is moving, so there must be a hub to the wheel of life. You may not be aware, but it is there. Without it, you cannot be.

So the first thing, and very fundamental: becoming is not the issue. You are. You have just to go in and see it. It is a discovery, not an achievement. You have been carrying it all along. But you have become too attached to the periphery, and your back is to the center. You have become too outgoing, so you cannot look in.

Create a little insight. The word'insight' is beautiful - it means: sight in, to look in, to see in. Eyes open outwards, hands spread outwards, legs move away from you. Sit silently, relax the periphery, close your eyes and just go in... and not with effort. Just relax - as if one is drowning and one cannot do anything. We go on doing even when we are drowning.

If you can simply allow it to happen, it will come to surface. Out of the clouds you will see the center arising.

There are two modes of life: one is the action mode you do something; the other is the reception mode - you simply receive. The action mode is outgoing. If you want more money you cannot just sit. It is not going to come that way. You will have to struggle for it, compete, and you will have to use all sorts of ways and means - legal, illegal, right, wrong. Money is not going to come by just sitting. If you want to become powerful, if you want to become a politician, you will have to do something about it. It is not going to come on its own.

There is an action mode. The action mode is the outgoing mode. And there is an inaction mode too: you don't do anything, you simply allow it to happen. We have forgotten that Language. That forgotten language has to be learned again.

Integration has not to be brought in - it is already there. We have forgotten how to look at it, we have forgotten how to understand it. Move from the action mode more and more to the receptive, passive mode.

I'm not saying to leave the world of action - because that will make you lopsided again, You are lopsided right now. You have only one mode to your life, and that is action, doing something. There are people who cannot think of sitting silently; it is impossible. They cannot allow themselves a moment's relaxation. They are only interested in action.

I have heard....

Mulla Nasrudin's wife was standing near the window, and it was a beautiful sunset, and the birds were flying back to their nests. It was really a wonderful evening. And she told Nasrudin, "Look! Come here. See what a beautiful sunset!'' Nasrudin, never looking away from his newspaper, said "Now what is he doing, this sun?''

If something is being done; then he is interested. If it is just a sunset, then what is the point of looking at it?

You are interested only in action, if something is happening. This has become too fixed. This has to be relaxed a little: you have to go for a few moments, for a few hours, sometimes for a few days, totally to the other mode of life, just sitting and allowing things to happen. When you look at a sunset you are not expected to do anything. You simply look. When you look at a flower, what are you supposed to do? You simply look.

In fact there is no effort, even of looking at the flower. It is effortless. Your eyes are open, the flower is there... a moment of deep communion comes when the looked-at and the looker both disappear. Then there is beauty, then there is benediction. Then suddenly you are not the observer, and the flower is not the observed - because to observe there must still be some action. Now you are there and the flower is there, and somehow you overlap each other's boundaries. The flower enters into you, you enter into the flower, and there is a sudden revelation. Call it beauty, call it truth, call it God.

These rare moments have to be allowed more ana more. I cannot say they have to be cultivated, I cannot say you have to train for those moments, I cannot say that you have to do something - because again that will be using the language of the action mode, and will be very deeply misinterpreted. No, I can simply say to allow these moments more and more. Sometimes, simply don't do anything.

Relax on the lawn and look at the sky. Sometimes close the eyes and just look at your inner world - thoughts moving, floating; desires arising, going. Look at the colourful dreamworld that goes on within you. Just look. Don't say, "I want to stop these thoughts" - again you have moved into the action mode. Don't say, "I am meditating - go! All thoughts, go away from me" - because if you start saying that, you have started doing something. As if you are not....

There is one of the most ancient meditations still used in some monasteries of Tibet. The meditation is based on the truth that I am saying to you. They teach that sometimes you can simply disappear. Sitting in the garden, you just start feeling that you are disappearing. Just see how the world looks when you have gone from the world, when you are no longer here, when you have become absolutely transparent. Just try for a single second not to be.

In your own home, be as if you are not.

Just think, one day you will not be. One day you will be gone, you will be dead; the radio will still continue, the wife will still prepare the breakfast, the children will still be getting ready for school. Think: today you are gone, you just are not.

Become a ghost. Just sitting in your chair, you simply disappear, you simply think, "I have no more reality; I am not." And just see how the house continues.

There will be tremendous peace and silence. Everything will continue as it is.

Without you. everything will continue as it is. Nothing will be missed. Then what is the point of always remaining occupied, doing something, doing something, obsessed with action? What is the point? You will be gone, and whatsoever you have done will disappear - as if you had signed your name on the sands, and the wind comes, and the signature disappears... and everything is finished. Be as if you had never existed.

It is really a beautiful meditation. You can try it many times in twenty-four hours. Just half a second will do; for half a second, simply stop... you are not...

and the world continues. When you become more and more alert to the fact that without you the world continues perfectly well, then you will be able to learn another part of your being which has been neglected for long, for lives - and that is the receptive mode. You simply allow, you become a door. Things go on happening without you.

This is what Buddha means when he says: Become a driftwood. Float in the stream like timber, and wherever the stream goes let it take you; you don't make any effort. The WHOLE Buddhist approach belongs to the receptive mode. That's why you see Buddha sitting under a tree. All his images are of sitting, sitting and doing nothing. He's simply sitting there, he's not doing anything.

You don't have that type of image of Jesus. He still goes on following the action mode. That's where Christianity has missed the deepest possibility: Christianity became active. The Christian missionary goes on serving the poor, goes to the hospital, does this and that, and his whole effort is to do something good. Yes, very good - but he remains in the action mode, and God can only be known in the receptive mode. So a Christian missionary will be a good man, a very good man, but not, in the eastern sense, a saint.

Now even in the east a person who goes on doing things is worshipped as a MAHATMA - because the east is poor, ill. There are thousands of lepers, blind people, uneducated people; they need education, they need medicine, they need service, they need a thousand and one things. Suddenly the active person has become important - so Gandhi is a MAHATMA, Vinoba is a saint, and Mother Theresa of Calcutta has become very important. But nobody looks at whether they have attained to the receptive mode or not.

Now if Buddha comes, nobody is going to pay respect to him, because he will not be running a school or a hospital. He will again be sitting under a Bodhi tree, just sitting silently. Not that nothing is done by him - tremendous vibes are created by his being, but they are very subtle. He transforms the whole world by sitting under his Bodhi Tree, but to look at those vibrations you will have to be attuned, you will have to grow. To recognize a Buddha is to be already on the path. To recognize a Mother Theresa is very easy. There is nothing much in it.

Anybody can see that she is doing good work.

To do good work is one thing, and to be good is totally another. I'm not saying don't do good works. I am saying: let good works come out of your BEING good.

First attain to the receptive mode, first attain to the passive, first attain to the non-active. And when your inner being flowers and you have come to know the integration inside - which is always there, the center is always there - when you have recognized that center, suddenly death disappears for you. Suddenly all worries disappear because you are no more a body now, and no more a mind.

Then compassion arises, love arises, prayer arises. You become a showering, a blessing to the world. Now, nobody can say what will happen to such a man - whether he will go and become a revolutionary like Jesus and chase the moneylenders from the temple; or whether he will go and serve poor people; or whether he will just continue sitting under the Bodhi Tree and spreading his fragrance; or whether he will become a Meera and dance and sing the glory of God. Nobody knows; it is unpredictable.

You ask me, "How to become integrated?"

My whole effort here is to make you aware that nothing is needed, nothing more is needed. You have it already there, existing inside you. But you have to make approaches. doors, ways to discover it. You have to dig for it; the treasure is there.

So it is not a question of how to become integrated. "How to know that I am already integrated?" is the right question.

The question comes from Nisagar, and I can understand why it comes from her.

She has been related to Gurdjieff work in the west. Gurdjieff had a very strange idea; meaningful, but still strange. He used to say to his disciples, "The soul does not exist. The center does not exist; it has to be created. Man is not born with a soul"... a very strange theory. But I can understand what he was emphasizing:

man is not born with a soul, he has to crystallize his soul by effort. Hence Gurdjieff's whole system is called'the work'. It is work and work and work. It is effort - again the action mode.

In fact, in the west, it is very difficult to teach people the non-action mode. So he was teaching techniques. methods of how to become integrated. He would say, "There is no soul already there." Not that there is no soul, and not that he was not aware of it; but it was a device. People had become very lethargic about the soul.

They thought it was already there - So why worry, why bother? It is there. Any day we can find it, so let us in the meanwhile find other things which are not already there. Meanwhile, let us find beautiful women, more wine, more money, more power - things which are not there. So let us seek these. And the day we are fed-up with all this, at any moment, we will close our eyes and we will go in, and the soul will be there. It is never lost; you cannot lose it and you cannot gain it. It is already there." So people have become very lethargic.

You can see it in the east. The whole east has become so lousy and lethargic. The soul is there and everybody knows it, everybody has heard it. God is within the heart, He is already there, so why create any fuss about Him? People seek that which is not there.

Gurdjieff became aware of this fact: that the theory that the soul is already there had made people very lethargic, very uninterested in the soul; very uninterested, absolutely uninterested in the inner world. The mind is interested only in that which gives a challenge. which is an adventure. So Gurdjieff, to fit with the western mind, started saying that the soul is not there: "Don't sit patiently, do something - because when persons die, all persons don't survive. Only those who have integrated their centers will survive. Others will simply disappear like vegetables, So it is for you choose. You are taking a risk," Gurdjieff said. "If you do something - and doing means arduous doing, hard work, a whole life devoted - then only will you be able to survive death. Otherwise you are going to be discarded. You will be thrown in the junkyard. God is not going to choose you unless you are integrated. You have to EARN it. Only very few will be saved after death, not all."

This is a very strange theory, never propounded before, never in the whole history of humanity. There have been people who say, "There is no soul." We know them; they are atheists. They have always been there. There are people who say, "There is soul, and it cannot be destroyed. Even death cannot destroy it." We have heard about them; they have always been there. But Gurdjieff was saying something absolutely new, something which had never been said before.

He was saying, "Soul is possible; it is not actual. It is simply possible. You may attain to it, you may not attain to it - you may miss it. There is more possibility that you will miss it, because the way you are living, you are not earning it."

Gurdjieff said, "Man is like a seed. It is not necessary that the seed will become a tree. It is not necessary - the seed may not find the right soil. Even if the right soil is found, there may be no rains. Or even if there are rains, animals may come and destroy the plant. There are a thousand and one difficulties. The seed is not going to necessarily be a tree. If one thousand and one protections are taken, only then will the seed become a tree. You are not a soul; you are just a possibility. A thousand and one efforts have to be made; only then will you become a soul.

Only rarely: in one million, one person becomes a soul. All others simply vegetate, die, and disappear."

I say it is a strange theory, because it is not true. And I say it is very meaningful, because something like this is needed - at least in the west it is needed.

Otherwise, nobody bothers about the soul. But all the techniques that Gurdjieff was using are basically the same techniques that we have used in the east for discovering the soul. He simply changed the words. He called it'creating the soul', 'integrating the soul', 'crystallizing the center'. But those techniques are the same.

You are already integrated. Not on the periphery - on the periphery there is much turmoil. You are fragmented on the periphery. Move inwards, and the deeper you go, the more you will find that you are integrated. There comes a point, at the very innermost shrine of your being, where you suddenly find you are a unity, absolute unity. So it is a question of discovering. How to discover it?

I would like to give Nisagar a technique. It is a very simple technique, but in the beginning it looks very hard. If you try, you will find it is simple. If you don't try and only think about it, it will look very hard. The technique is: only do that which you enjoy. If you don't enjoy, don't do it. Try it - because enjoyment comes only from your center. If you are doing something and you enjoy it, you start getting reconnected with the center. If you do something which you don't enjoy, you are disconnected from the center. Joy arises from the center, and from nowhere else. So let it be a criterion, and be a fanatic about it.

You are walking on the road; suddenly you recognize that you are not enjoying the walk. Stop. Finished - this is not to be done.

I used to do it in my university days, and people thought that I was crazy.

Suddenly I would stop, and then I would remain in that spot for half an hour, an hour, unless I started enjoying walking again. My professors were so afraid that when there were examinations they would put me in a car and take me to the university hall. They would leave me at the door and wait there: had I reached to my desk or not? If I was taking my bath and suddenly I realized that I was not enjoying it, I would stop. What is the point then? If I was eating and I recognized suddenly that I was not enjoying, then I would stop.

I had joined the mathematics class in my high school. The first day, I went in and the teacher was just introducing the subject. In the middle I stood up and tried to walk out. He said, "Where are you going? Without asking, I won't allow you in again." I said, "I'm not coming back again; don't be worried. That's why I am not asking. Finished - I am not enjoying it! I will find some other subject which I can enjoy, because if I cannot enjoy it I am not going to do it. It is torture, it is violence."

And, by and by, it became a key. I suddenly recognized that whenever you are enjoying something, you are centered. Enjoyment is just the sound of being centered. Whenever you are not enjoying something, you are off-center. Then don't force it; there is no need. If people think you crazy, let them think you crazy. Within a few days you will, by your own experience, find how you were missing yourself. You were doing a thousand and one things which you never enjoyed, and still you were doing them because you were taught to. You were just fulfilling your duties.

People have destroyed even such a beautiful thing as love. You come home and you kiss your wife because it has to be so, it has to be done. Now, a beautiful thing like a kiss, a flower-like thing, has been destroyed. By and by, without enjoying it, you will go on kissing your wife; you will forget the joy of kissing another human being. You shake hands with anybody you meet - cold, with no meaning in it, with no message in it, no warmth flowing. It is just dead hands shaking each other and saying'hello'. Then you start, by and by, learning this dead gesture, this cold gesture. You become frozen, you become an ice-cube.

And then you say, "How to enter to the center?"

The center is available when you are warm, when you are flowing, melting, in love, in joy, in dance, in delight. It is up to you. Just go on doing only those things which you REALLY love to do and you enjoy. If you don't enjoy, stop.

Find something else that you will enjoy. There is bound to be something that you will enjoy. I have never come across a person who cannot enjoy anything. There are persons who may not enjoy one thing, then another, then another, but life is vast. Don't remain engaged; become floating. Let there be more streaming of energy. Let it flow, let it meet with other energies that surround you. Soon you will be able to see that the problem was not how to become integrated, the problem was that you have forgotten how to flow. In a flowing energy, you are suddenly integrated. It happens sometimes accidentally too, but the reason is the same.

Sometimes you fall in love with a woman or a man, and suddenly you feel integrated, suddenly you feel you are one for the first time. Your eyes have a glow, your face has a radiance, and your intellect is no longer dull. Something starts burning bright in your being; a song arises, your walk has a quality of dance in it now. You are a totally different being.

But these are rare moments - because we don't learn the secret. The secret is: that there be something that you have started to enjoy. That's the whole secret. A painter may be hungry and painting, and still you can see that his face is so contented. A poet may be poor, but when he is singing his song he is the richest man in the world. Nobody is more rich than him. What is the secret of it? The secret is: he is enjoying this moment. Whenever you enjoy something, you are in tune with yourself and you are in tune with the universe - because your center is the center of all.

So let this small insight be a climate for you: do only that which you enjoy, otherwise stop. You are reading a newspaper and halfway through it you suddenly recognize that you are not enjoying it: then there is no necessity. Then why are you reading? Stop it here and now. If you are talking to somebody and in the middle you recognize that you are not enjoying it, you have just said half a sentence, stop then and there. You are not enjoying, you are not obliged to continue. In the beginning it will look a little weird. But my sannyasins are weird, so I don't think there is any problem. You can practice it.

Nisagar is old, but I can see a childlike quality in her. She can also do it. And I hope she will do it. Within a few days many contacts will be made with the center, and then you will understand what I mean when I go on repeating again and again that that which you are seeking is already in you. It is not in the future.

It has nothing to do with the future. It is already herenow, it is already the case.

the second question:

Question 2:

The human ego always feels humiliated when it comes across a fact that it cannot explain. Whenever the human ego comes across a fact that it cannot name, and it has to recognize its ignorance, it feels very offended. That's why people go on labelling things. They are no longer interested in things themselves; they are more interested in labelling.

If they see a flower they don't see the beauty of it, they don't smell the fragrance of it, they don't look at the message of it. They simply start looking as to what species the flower belongs, what its name is. The flower really has no name. If you ask the flower, it cannot say any name to you. It has no identity card, it has no passport; it has no identity. It is simply there; and all names are given by man.

And man is really continuously giving names, since the days of Adam.

There is a story in the Bible that God created things and he told Adam, "You name it and that will be the name of it"... a beautiful story. So he started naming things. God created the rose, and Adam looked at it and he called it 'rose'. Not that he knew it was a rose - nobody knows, not even God. God had told Adam to say, and whatsoever he said would be the name. And the names that he has given to things have remained, but they were just accidental. It was a very crazy way to name things, but that was the only way - because things don't have any name. And man has named many things very wrongly.

When God created woman He asked Adam; that was the last thing Adam named. He called her 'Hava' or 'Eva' or 'Eve' or 'Haba'. These were the different pronunciations of what he called her: 'Hava' or 'Haba' or 'Eve'. 'Hava' means life; he called the woman his life. But down through the centuries man has suffered very much; and many times man tried to change the name, but it was too, late.

And since then this has been a continuous effort: all that scientists go on doing is just naming things.

And you ask, "How do you name it?" It is the same old technique; it is just a crazy way. They discover a new star; how do they name it? How do they call it Pluto, or Neptune, or anything? Who decides? They go on naming things, just anything that comes to the mind. Now even on the moon they have decided on names. Wherever man reaches, the first thing he does is to decide on labels. Man has an obsession. The moment you see somebody you ask, "What is your name?

What is your religion? What is your country?" Are these things in any way helpful to know this man who is standing in front of you? What difference does it make? How does it make any difference whether he is called Robert, or Ram or Raheem? It makes no difference. But it is easier - if the man is called Raheem you know he is a Mohammedan. And if you are a Hindu, now there is a conflict.

Now you can avoid this man; this is not of worth. It is dangerous. Now you can remain alert: "This is a Mohammedan; he must be carrying a knife, and he may kill you!" Or if he is Ram, you are very happy:"So he is a Hindu - and not only a Hindu, but he must be religious; his name is Ram." You are very happy.

Suddenly there is no barrier: you would like to talk to this man, you will come a little closer. You are ready to expose yourself to him.

Naming, knowing who is who, helps you to become a little more certain about the uncertain reality. But the reality remains uncertain.

Once.it happened....

I was travelling, and there was only one more passenger in my compartment. He asked me what my name is. I told him one name. Then after a few minutes I said, "Sorry. that was not my name." I told him another name. Now he became very suspicious. I was the same man, but he became very suspicious. When the conductor came he told him that he wanted to change compartments. "What type of man is this? Just a few minutes ago he said 'this is my name', and then he himself says 'I am sorry'. Is he crazy? And it is dangerous to sleep with this man in the night."

When he was leaving I said, "Sorry, the first was right."

He simply escaped without saying anything.

Names, labels, categories... the mind feels very happy. If you can explain - maybe your explanation is absurd, foolish - just the explanation makes you feel happy. People go to outlandish lengths, exotic explanations - because nobody wants to recognize the simple fact that they don't know. If somebody asks, "What is your name?" and you say, "I don't know, because when I came I came without a name"; if somebody asks to what country you belong and you say, "I don't know, because the earth is one," then that man will feel uncomfortable, uneasy.

Any explanation will do.

People have a very great desire to remain knowledgeable, because knowledge is security and knowledge is power. That's why each century invents its own nonsense - because there are millions of problems which can never be solved.

Who knows who made the world? But there are foolish people who want to know. Only foolish people want to know who made the world; the question is foolish. It is foolish because the question will lead into an infinite regress. If you say, "God made the world," then the question arises, "Who made God?" And you go on and on; it cannot be ended. There is no way to end it.

But there are people who are ready to supply you with answers. You ask and they are ready. They manufacture answers. Three hundred religions exist on the earth, and three hundred religions have at least three thousand metaphysical theories, and each theory is against the other, and there is no way to decide who is right - because all are wrong. You cannot decide because all are just imagination.

I was reading:

In a ladies' turkish bath, one woman was standing out because of the length of her breasts. She had very, very long breasts, almost incredible.

"Oh dear, what happened to your breasts?" she was asked by a friend.

"Well," she tried to explain, "my husband is such a baby, he likes to sleep sucking my breasts."

"Well, so does mine," said the friend, still not understanding.

"The problem is," continued the first woman, "my husband and I sleep in two different rooms."

Now everything is explained, now there is no problem! If you look at your metaphysical theories you will find such explanations. They are all stupid, but they satisfy a certain urge. They help a certain uneasiness. They help you relax:

"God created the world? Okay." So you know the answer; so you are in the know, you are not ignorant. Then you would like to know what God looks like.

Then somebody - some painter, some sculptor, will make an image.

A small boy was painting something and the mother asked, "You seem to be so interested. What are you doing? For hours you have been there."

And the boy said, "I am trying to make the face of God."

The mother laughed. She said, "Nobody knows how God looks."

The child said, "Wait. When I have finished, everybody will know."

That's what has been done. Temples, images, paintings - nobody knows how God looks. It is everybody's guess, so you can give four faces to God, one thousand hands to God; it is up to you. Your god is your creation, but once you have made it, it is very difficult. If somebody says that it is just imagination, a guess, you will be angry. You will start fighting. That's why religions have been fighting with each other. Why does so much fight go on? Whether God had three faces or four, what difference does it make? But no, it is a great problem, and the problem is psychological.

If you say to the person who has always believed that God has three faces that He has four, you are disturbing. You are disturbing his knowledge. He is not worried about God; who is worried about God? But he is worried about it. He has settled himself, he was feeling secure in his knowledge, he was feeling that he was in the know. Now here you come and you say,. "No, God has four faces."

Now you create an anxiety in him, again the same anxiety that was there before he had decided. That's why one religion does not want to listen to another religion's ideas - because it creates anxiety. It creates a great turmoil, it creates a great chaos.

People want to remain fixed in their ideas; nobody should disturb them. But this is not knowledge. This is what belief is. Belief means: you cannot recognize the fact that you don't know. You are not courageous enough to recognize that you are ignorant. Cowards carry many beliefs with them, so there is no need to recognize the fact of ignorance. But ignorance is more beautiful than false knowledge; at least it is true, authentic. If a person says, "I don't know," to me, he is the beginning of a religious consciousness. He is at the door. The person who says, "I know," and if you say anything against him he gets disturbed and is worried and starts protecting and defending himself, then it seems that his knowledge is just a security measure. He has just created a make-believe around him. He had been living in his dream, and you come and you disturb the dream.

You cannot disturb a man of knowing - because a man of knowing knows that the ultimate cannot be known. You can have a taste of it, but you can never formulate it. The ultimate remains a mystery; mystery is its very nature. There is no way to dissolve the mystery. He knows his ignorance, he knows the ultimate mystery. And the ultimate mystery and the seeker's ignorance meet with each other, and there is a great communion.

When the person of knowledge goes to truth, he never listens to truth - because truth is also disturbing. He has his belief: the truth has to follow his belief. The truth has to come in the form of his belief; only then can he recognize.

It is said about Tulsidas, a great Hindu poet - I will not call him a great Hindu saint, but he was REALLY a great poet....

He was taken to a temple of Krishna's Mathura. He was a follower of Ram. A person took him to this beautiful temple, and Krishna's statue was there with a flute on his lips. But Tulsidas would not bow down. The friends asked, "Why?

Why don't you bow down?" He said, "I cannot. I can bow down only to Rama.

If," he said to Krishna's statue, "if you want me to bow down to you, then you will have to become Ram. Change your form, and rather than the flute take a bow, as Rama carries a bow." The story says that Krishna transformed his form.

He became Ram with a bow on his shoulder. And then Tulsidas bowed down.

The story must be fiction, but it is very symbolic: a person who has a belief would always like to force truth to come according to his belief, according to his channel. But truth never comes according to you. So half the story seems to be true and the other half seems to be fiction. It seems to be true that Tulsidas said that he would not bow down unless Krishna took the form of Rama, because he was a devotee of Rama's. Up to this point the story seems to be true. But Krishna taking the form of Rama? Truth following your belief? - that means truth has to bow to you first, and then you will bow down to truth. That is ugly. Even to conceive it is horrible. No, truth is not there to fulfill anybody's expectations.

Beliefs become barriers, but beliefs help. They help you to dissolve anxiety.

The questioner asks, "Why is it that by giving a name or a theory to an uncomfortable, confusing, or painful place, I feel better?" - because you become knowledgeable. Then the problem is dissolved. There is no mystery; you know.

But this knowledge is very dangerous. Don't do it any more.

Remain uncomfortable. It is better to remain uncomfortable. If you feel uneasiness. remain with your uneasiness. but don't just try to find an explanation. Don't invent any explanations. Remain uneasy. Accept that as natural, and soon you will come to a point where you will start loving the mystery of things. Then the uneasiness will disappear, and you will not become knowledgeable. You will not become a PUNDIT, a scholar - because the scholar is in a worse place. Even sinners have reached to truth, but nobody has ever heard of a scholar - because the scholar is in a worse place. Even sinners have reached to truth, but nobody has ever heard of any PUNDIT reaching to truth. It is impossible; it does not happen. The more you know, the farther away you are from truth, because the more corrupted you become with your knowledge. The more innocent you are, and the more your eyes are not filled by any theory and are simply there like open windows ready to absorb truth, the better it is.

Be innocent, not knowledgeable. Be ignorant. It is better, because in your ignorance you accept the mystery of life. Life cannot be explained. All explanations are very tiny, small, rigid; and life is so vast, so immense - it cannot be contained in any explanation. Neither Christian, nor Hindu, nor Mohammedan, nor Jaina, nor Buddhist: all attempts to explain have failed. All religions have failed.

So don't choose convenience, choose truth. The truth is that truth is a mystery.

Don't name it, and don't feel good just by naming it. Your name explains nothing; it simply protects you from truth. You become closed to truth, you are defending yourself against truth. And what type of defense is this? - it is destructive. Don't be defensive, be vulnerable. If truth makes you uncomfortable, let it be so. That is the price one has to pay for truth.

the third question:

Question 3:

Listen to the question. "I know I am a woman" - that too has become knowledge:

"I know." Can't it be said simply that you are a woman? Has it to go through knowledge? It is as if somebody says, "I think fire is hot." Can't you say simply, "Fire is hot?" Has it to go through your thinking first? You say, "I THINK that fire is hot." Fire is simply hot; your thinking is not needed. Either you are a woman or a man. What is the point of saying, "I know I am a woman?" Why does everything have to go through the door of knowledge? Why can't facts simply be facts?

Even the question shows... everything shows your mind; even the formulation of the question shows it.

I have heard....

When asked by the marriage counsellor what seemed to be the problem in their marriage, the husband replied, "I don't have a problem. But old what's-her-name..." and he stopped and pointed to his wife, "she does not think I pay enough attention to her."

'What's-her-name' he says. He does not even know the name of his wife.

The very formulation shows the problem.

"I know I am a woman" - please stop knowing, start feeling. FEEL you are a woman. Feeling is from a different center; it is from the heart. Knowing is from a different center; it is from the head. Knowing is dead, feeling is alive.

People come to me and they say, "I think I have fallen in love." Can't you simply fall in love? Has the head to interfere everywhere? Has the head to always be between you and your relationships, in any relationship, in every relationship?

Can't you put your head aside a little?

There is a famous dictum of a western philosopher, Rene Descartes: COGITO ERGO SUM - I think, therefore I am. This is absurd: I THINK. therefore I am? It shows that thinking is primary and being is secondary - I think, therefore I am.

Thinking is secondary. being is first. First you are, then you think. If you are not, then who is going to think? Thinking cannot exist in a vacuum. If somebody says, "I am, therefore I think," it is right. But to say "I think, therefore I am" is simply absurd. But still there is a meaning to it: Descartes is the father of western philosophy, and the whole western mind has been influenced by two persons - Aristotle and Descartes. So in the west everything goes through thinking; EVEN BEING GOES THROUGH THINKING. Even being is not a simple fact; you have to think about it first, then you are - as if it is a logical conclusion. It is existential, it is not logical.

So first stop thinking that you are a man or woman. Just know it. Knowing is direct. Somebody else can be in suspicion, but you should not be in suspicion.

Somebody else can think about whether you are a man or a woman - and if you live in hippie style, sometimes it can be very difficult.

When I give sannyas to somebody and I cannot decide, I have to ask Mukta, "Mukta, what do you think?" And now she has learned; whenever she feels that I will be in suspicion, she silently whispers, "She is a woman."

Two hippies entered a hotel, and the hotel manager said, "You cannot come in because we follow particular rules. Anybody who enters here has to wear a tie."

So the one said, "Okay." He went out. Fifteen minutes later he came with a tie, and the manager said, "Okay, you can enter, but what about the other?"

He said, "HE is my wife. Don't you even allow women to come into the hotel without ties?"

If others are in suspicion as to whether you are a he or a she, it is okay. But you yourself? - then the doubt has entered very deep and has become a disease.

Drop that.

But the question is very significant: "I know I am a woman but at times I display traits that seem to be very masculine. Are there such things as innately female or male characteristics?"

Each individual is both - because each individual is born out of both, a mother and a father. A part of you comes from your father, a part of you comes from your mother, so you cannot be absolutely a man or absolutely a woman. In fact, everybody is unisex; the difference is only of degrees, quantity. A man is more man than woman, that's all; a woman is more woman than man, that's all. The difference is of degree. That's why there is a possibility of change of sex. If hormones can be injected and your inner balance can be changed, a man can become a woman, a woman can become a man. And by the end of this century people will be changing sexes in large numbers, because it is natural. One gets fed-up with being a man, always a man, always a man; one gets fed-up with being a woman, and one wants to change places. By the end of this century changes of sex will become a very common thing. And it is good. A person can have three or four lives in one life: for a few years you remain a woman, then you become a man, and then you become a woman again. And it can be done now. It is scientifically feasible and better processes will be available soon. It can be done, because each is both.

If you are a man then the conscious part of your brain is man and the unconscious part is woman. If you are a woman, then the conscious part is a woman and the unconscious part is a man. And many times there are reversals also.

For example: as a man becomes older, he starts becoming more feminine, and when women become older they start becoming more masculine. Old women start growing moustaches, their voices become more like a male's, they become more quarrelsome, fighting, angry, irritated. As a man becomes old he becomes more docile, more obedient, more henpecked.

Mulla Nasrudin's wife was telling her kids, of which there were fifteen, "From this month, every month I am going to give an award to the most obedient child."

They all said, "This is unjust."

She said, "Why?"

They all said, "Papa will win the award."

By and by the man becomes docile, and by and by the woman becomes more dominating. And there are changes every day also. If a woman becomes very angry, she loses her conscious part and the unconscious becomes very predominant. An angry woman is more dangerous than an angry man. An enraged woman is more dangerous than an enraged man. Because the woman's unconscious part is very fresh, it is rarely used, so when it is used she can become very dangerous. If a woman loves you, she loves you tremendously; if she hates you, then she hates you tremendously.

When a man is loving, his love is very deep, deeper than a woman's, because his unconscious part is unused. In love, man goes very deep, deeper than woman - because for a woman to love is very ordinary. It is her usual way; she is loving.

But for a man to fall in love is very difficult. It is not his usual way, it rarely happens. But when it happens then his love is so deep that no woman can compete with him.

This is my observation: if a woman loves - and all women love - love is just natural. It is part of the feminine mind. Ordinarily a man never loves so much.

Ordinarily love is just one of the many things that they do, one of the many things, and may not even be the most important. Sometimes business is more important, and love is just a recreation, just a relaxation from business, secondary to business. If they have to choose, they will choose business.

A Jew was caught red-handed with a gun in his hand.

He was going to kill a man: the man was making love to his wife. The magistrate asked, "Your gun was loaded, then why didn't you really kill him? Were you simply pretending or something?"

The man said, "When I took my gun and I was just about to kill him, this man asked, 'How much will you take for the gun?' Now, how can you kill a man who is talking business?"

A Jew is a Jew: how can you kill a man when he is talking business? Then you forget all about the wife, that he was making love to the wife, when business comes.

There are people for whom politics is more important than love - money, respectability, morality; a thousand things are there for a man. But a woman loves. She loves totally - that is her one thing. It is not one thing in many. When a man loves, he loves for a few minutes in a day. When a woman loves, she loves for twenty-four hours. This is natural. But if sometimes a man loves, then no woman be compared to him - because then his inner woman erupts. Then there arises a Majanu, or a Farihad; a great lover is born. Have you watched this fact?that Majanu and Farihad and this type of man has existed, but no woman has existed in the stories to compare to them? Why? Nobody has loved so madly; no woman has loved so madly as Majanu, no woman has loved so madly as Farihad - because when a man really goes into love, then he is no longer a man.

Then his inner unconscious explodes and takes total possession of him.

When a woman becomes angry, aggressive, then she can be very dangerous.

Never provoke a woman. If you provoke a man he will follow some rules and regulations of fight and war; a woman does not follow these. She simply will jump upon you and tear you, bite you, kill you - she will not follow any rules.

She does not know them. Her man is not trained at all: when he explodes, he simply explodes.

Both of these are together in you. What does the seeker have to do, what does a disciple have to do? He has to become aware of both, and he has to drop being identified with either. A true seeker has to drop identities. He has to learn that he is neither a man nor a woman; he is the witness. Then you go beyond biology.

Then only do you go beyond body - because man and woman exist in the body.

At the most, their reflections exist in the mind. But the soul is neither man nor woman. You have to go beyond both. So watch... and remain distant, aloof.

Remain aware. When the woman is there functioning, watch; when the man is there functioning, watch - but remain alert that you are neither.

That's why real awareness always leads you beyond sex, and celibacy happens on its own accord. Because to be in sex you have either to be identified with the male or identified with the female. A real celibate is one who has gone beyond, who is neither.

But I am not talking about repression. I am not saying that you should repress. I am not saying that you should repress your woman or repress your man. I am against all repression. I am saying: express your womanhood, express your manhood, but remain alert. Because if you repress then it will come in some way or other.

Let me tell you one anecdote:

The three priests, dressed in slacks and tee-shirts, were about to tee off when the golf hustler interrupted and asked if he could make up the foursome. "Okay," said the eldest priest. "But we must tell you, we are not good golfers." Of course, the hustler swore he was a poor player too. "And how about a bet to make it more interesting?" One of the priests protested that they never bet, but to please him they made a rather steep wager. Naturally the golf hustler won and the priests paid up.

When they all returned to the locker rooms, the hustler was shocked to see their habits and offered to return the the money.

"No, we made a bet and we stick to it. It will teach us a lesson," said the eldest priest.

"Well," said the man, "I still feel funny hustling priests. Is there anything I can do?"

"Do you have parents?" asked the priest.

"Yes, I do."

"Well bring them to me and I will marry them."

Repression is like that: you want to say 'bastard', but you go roundabout.

And repression can create a change, but not a real change. You will move from one extreme to the other. Only awareness can take you beyond the duality.

Let me tell you one more anecdote.

On a long train ride in the hot afternoon, one of the passengers kept repeating aloud, "God, I am thirsty! God, I am thirsty! God, I am thirsty!" Annoyed by such mantric repetitions, the traveller sitting in front of him brought the thirsty man a large bottle of cold soda at the coming station. With eyes beaming in gratitude, the thirsty man stood up, grabbed the bottle, and drank it at once. For a split moment he seemed happy, satisfied, content. Then he sat down again and started repeating aloud, "God, I was thirsty! God, I was thirsty! God, I was so thirsty!"

... but the mantra continues.

You can move from one extreme to the other; the change will be just on the surface. Deep down you will remain the same, and the change has to happen in depth. Only awareness goes into depth. Repression is just whitewashing; it does not change your roots, it is not radical.

Question 4:

You have to be absolutely clear about it: if you already have the inner light there is no need for any surrender, because surrender is only going to help you to bring the inner light. If you have it already, then forget all about surrender. But...

you don't have it. Just to avoid surrender you imagine that you have it.

If you have it, you have it. Then the question of surrender does not arise. You don't have it. You only have inner darkness, no inner light. So when you go in you find darkness; then you start thinking of surrender. When you start thinking of surrender then you become afraid - because the ego comes in. It is not the inner light that is hindering you. Inner light never hinders anybody.

Let me say it in this way: if you surrender, it is a help to the inner light; if there is inner light, it is a help to surrender - because inner light and surrender are two aspects of the same coin.

If you have inner light then there is no fear in surrendering, because fear comes only because of the ego. The inner light is already a surrendering phenomenon; you are already surrendered.

So if you have the inner light, first I say there is no need to surrender; second I say that if you have the inner light, then there will be no problem in surrender. If you don't have the inner light, then there is trouble. Then you need surrender in the first place, and you will avoid surrender in the second place. Let me tell you one very beautiful story. Meditate over it.

One day, an atheist was walking along a cliff when he slipped and fell over the edge. As he plunged downwards he managed to grab the branch of a small tree that was growing from a crevice in the rock. Hanging there, swaying in the cold wind, he realized how helpless his position was. Far below were jagged boulders and there was no way to climb up. His grip on the branch was weakening every second. "Well," he thought, "only God can save me now. I have never believed in God but I might be wrong. What have I to lose?" So he called out, "God, if you exist, save me, and I will believe in you." There was no answer. He called again, "Please God, I never believed in you, but if you will save me now, I will believe in you from now on!"

Suddenly a great voice boomed down from the clouds, "Oh no you won't, I know your kind."

The man was so surprised, he almost lost his grip on the branch. "Please God, you are wrong. I really mean it; I will believe."

"Oh no you won't. That's what they all say."

The man pleaded and argued. Finally God said, "Alright, I will save you. Let go of the branch."

"Let go of the branch!" the man exclaimed. "Do you think I am crazy?"

Think about this.

Even when you have nothing to lose, you are afraid to surrender. Now the man says, "Let go of the branch! Do you think I am crazy?" Hanging onto this branch in the cold wind, and his grip every moment becoming weaker and weaker, and still he is not ready to surrender.

God can save you only when you surrender. Your surrender shows that you trust; there is no other way to show it. Your prayer is not enough. The man was praying. "Save me!" but he could not show trust. Your prayer is impotent. If there is no trust to back it, then it means nothing. Only your trust shows that your prayer is meaningful, that you really mean it.

If you feel that on your own nothing is happening and you are getting lost more and more in darkness; on your own if you see that only death is coming closer and closer and your grip is becoming weaker and weaker and you will dissolve into death sooner or later; if you see that, this is my message: let go of the branch.

And if you can let go, immediately, in that very let-go you are saved... because you are saved from yourself.

The problem is not somewhere outside; the problem is your ego. You have to be saved from the ego. The problem is man himself; man has to be saved from man himself. The enemy is not outside, the enemy is within. In surrender you drop that enemy. In that very dropping the inner darkness disappears. Not that you surrender and I will do something; remember, nobody can do anything. When you surrender, in that very surrender something happens and your inner light starts burning, your inner light starts becoming clear. Clouds disappear.

Not that through your surrender I will do something to you; YOU do something to you through your surrender. I am just an excuse. And this has to be understood.

Don't surrender to me in order not to have any responsibility. Don't surrender to me in greed. Don't surrender to me thinking that now I will do something.

Nobody can do anything to you: that is your total freedom, nobody can interfere in it. I am just an excuse. Without me it will be difficult for you to surrender.

Otherwise, you can go and you can surrender to the sky; the same will happen.

You can go and you can surrender to a Buddha-statue and the same will happen.

You can go to a mosque where there is no statue and surrender, and the same will happen. These are all excuses. Whichever excuse you like best you can do - but surrender you have to do.

In surrender your ego is dropped. Your ego is your ignorance, your ego is your darkness, your ego is your prison.