Greed Behind Greed Behind Greed

Question:

If not dead, then seriously ill, on his deathbed. Which is far worse.

I have heard:

There was a small synagogue somewhere in some obscure village in central Poland. One night when making his rounds, the rabbi entered and saw God sitting in a dark corner. He fell upon his face and cried out, "Lord God, what art thou doing here?"

God answered him with a small voice, "I am tired, Rabbi. I am tired to death."

God is tired of man's inhumanity to man. God is tired of man's immense stupidity. God is tired of man's unawareness. Only man seems somehow to be a misfit. The whole existence goes on harmoniously; the whole existence is a dance. Man is out of step. And the reason is that only man is free to be out of step. The glory of man is that he is free? totally free. Nobody else has that freedom. Because of the freedom, man can choose. He can choose either to be with God or he can choose to be against -- and man has chosen to be against. There is a reason for it.

Each child has to choose to be against his parents. That is the only way for the child to attain his ego. If the child goes on saying yes to the father, yes to the mother, and says always yes and never says no, then the child will not have any backbone. Then the child will not have any soul. Then the child will be just an extension of the parent. That hurts, that humiliates.

And it is not just accidental that we have called God the father. It is the same drama played on a more cosmic scale.

Man is still childish. To be, he still needs to say no. A man is mature when he can be and can say yes too. Try to understand it. A child has to say no to the parents, a thousand and one times he has to say no, because that is the only way he can feel "I am." Sometimes he has to say no against his own welfare; sometimes he has to say no in spite of himself. Sometimes he wants to say yes, but he cannot say it, because to say yes means not to be. And each moment the struggle: to be or not to be. The moment he says yes, he is not; parents are. The moment he says no, he is. So the child has to say no. He has to rebel, he has to go against, he has to go astray to be.

But one need not be a child forever. Adam was a child; Jesus was a mature man: Adam went out of paradise. In fact, he was not expelled, he expelled himself. That was the only way to have individuality. That is the childish way to have individuality. Now, Jesus was so certain about his integrity he could say yes and yet remain himself.

Do you follow it? When you can say yes and yet remain individual, you are mature. Then there is no necessity of saying no, because if you say no and then you become individual, your individuality has a negative taste to it. It is not real individuality; it is not yet positive. It is just a no deep down, a wound, a hole. And through the no you can become an individual, but your individuality will never be satisfying. There will be no contentment in it, there will be no bliss, because bliss flows only out of yes. When you can say yes to existence, you start flowing blissfully. No cripples, paralyzes. No makes you an enemy of the existence; no gives resistance. Yes makes you nonresistant; yes makes you vulnerable.

God is dead or dying because man has not yet grown. There have been millions of Adams and Eves, and only very rarely Christs -- a Buddha here, a Christ there, a Lao Tzu -- only few and far between. The people who have really said yes, they give life to God. By saying no, you give life to yourself. By saying yes, you give life to the total, to the whole; you pour your life into the whole. So if you really want God to be alive, you have to say yes.

Man has killed God -- almost killed him -- by saying no, continuously saying no.

I love this story. The rabbi asked, "Lord God, what art thou doing here?" God answered him with a small voice, "I am tired, Rabbi. I am tired to death." Yes. God is tired. In fact, God cannot die. God can die in YOUR life. There are millions of people in whose lives God is dead, in whose lives God has disappeared. That is the meaning when I say God is dead. Look into people's eyes and you will not find God alive there. And where else can God be alive?

Millions and millions of hearts are completely empty of God. That's what I mean when I say God is dead.

God lives in a Jesus, in a Buddha, in a Krishna. Is God living in you? The question is not basically about God, whether God is dead or alive. The question is whether God is alive in YOU! If he is not alive in you, then what difference does it make if he is alive somewhere in heaven? It does not make any difference. For you it is practically the same: God is dead.

Nietzsche is right about modern humanity when he says God is dead. Not that God is dead! How can God be dead? God means the eternal element, the first principle. God cannot be dead. But you can be so against God, you can be so empty of God, that for you he is dead.

You have to pour your life into him, you have to make God alive in you, so he can beat through your heart, he can pulsate in you, he can love through you, he can BE through you.

That's what sannyas is all about: an effort to allow God to live in you, an effort to become a shrine of the divine.

Look into your own being and search there. You will be fortunate if you can find in a dark corner of your being somewhere God sitting, tired -- tired to death. You will have to revive him. You will have to breathe for him, live for him. You will have to surrender your life for the whole. A religious person is one in whom God has come alive again.

Question:

You can be unique only when you are nothing. If you are something, you are comparable.

If you are somebody you can be compared with others, and that which can be compared cannot be unique. Unique means incomparable. Unique means you are alone, there is nobody like you. So if you are somebody ... If you are a man there are millions of men; you are comparable. If you are rich, then there are millions of rich people; you are comparable. If you are good you are comparable. If you are bad you are comparable. If you are a painter you are comparable. If you are a singer you are comparable. If you are somebody you are comparable, and by being comparable you cease to be unique.

The moment you attain to a nothingness, when the "I" disappears ... The "I" is comparable; the "no-I" is incomparable. That's why I say if you become nothing you become unique. If you become nothing you become uncorruptible; the nothing cannot be corrupted.

You have heard Lord Acton's saying, "Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Why does power corrupt? Because power makes you somebody. It gives you a definition. It says who you are -- you are a prime minister of a country or a president of a country. Power gives you a definition; it demarks who you are. If you have money, it demarks you. If you don't have money, it demarks you. If you are a musician or a poet or a singer, it shows who you are. The moment you know who you are, you are limited, you are finite -- and you are comparable.

But if you are nobody -- just a pure nothingness, pure sky with not even a particle of dust -- then how can you be compared.?

God is unique because God is nothing. You cannot find God anywhere. Either you can find him everywhere or nowhere, but you cannot find him somewhere. Either he is the whole or he is nothing.

When you are nothing you also become the whole. When you are nothing you also become divine. By being somebody you remain human. By being nobody you attain to divinity, you become divine. Hence I have said that the moment nothingness arises in you, you have become unique.

Buddha is unique not because he is the great saint, because there are millions of saints.

Jesus is unique not because he is the most virtuous man. That's all nonsense. He is unique because he is nothing. He is unique because he is ready to crucify his ego. And the moment his ego is crucified, he resurrects -- he resurrects as the whole. He dies as the part and resurrects as the whole. He dies in time and is resurrected in eternity.

Question:

It is going to be difficult. The intellect has no why out; the intellect is a cul-de-sac. The intellect moves in a vicious circle. It creates its own world of concepts, words, theories, and lives there. There is no way out from the head. The way out is from the heart, because the heart opens -- so the way out is possible. Intellect lives in a closed way. Intellect has no doors to go out from; it is a closed existence, encapsulated.

It is very difficult to communicate with an intellectual, almost impossible. You say something; he hears something else. You show something; he sees something else. His intellect is a constant interference. It is very difficult to communicate; there is no bridge.

Communication is possible only between two hearts, not between two heads. Two heads simply collide with each other, conflict -- confusion, but no meeting, no communion. Only hearts meet.

But the intellect has been praised down the centuries because intellect is very useful. The intellect is capable of exploitation. The intellect is capable of domination. The intellect is capable of cheating nature, of oppression. The intellect is very, very useful as far as the world of things is concerned. So man has cultivated his intellect and has denied his heart, because the heart is dangerous. You cannot exploit if you are a heart man. You cannot use somebody's life as a means if you are heart-oriented. The other becomes an end unto himself. You cannot become a politician and you cannot become a scientist. The politician exploits other human beings, and the scientist exploits nature. Both are destructive. The politician has destroyed humanity, and the scientist has destroyed nature.

Now the whole of existence on this earth is collapsing -- because of the politician and the scientist. And they both are together. The atom bomb became possible because Albert Einstein and Roosevelt joined together. It would not have been possible if Roosevelt had wanted it alone. It would not have been possible if Albert Einstein had wanted it alone. It becomes possible only when politics and science meet. Then there is a Hiroshima and a Nagasaki, and then there is destruction. And the politician and the scientist have been in cooperation down the ages. They have been helping each other.

The heart-oriented man can become a poet, but of what use is a poet? Of what use is poetry? A heart-oriented man can become a musician, but of what use is music? A heart-oriented person can become a lover, but the world does not need lovers. It needs soldiers; it needs people to kill and to be killed. It needs butchers. It needs mad people. It does not need sane people, who love, who live -- who live peacefully and who help others to live peacefully. The world does not believe in rose flowers. It believes in swords, in rifles in atom bombs.

Intellect has been very destructive. I am not saying that intellect has to be dropped completely. That will be foolish. Intellect has to be used -- but not as a master, rather as a slave. The mind is very beautiful as a slave, but it is a very lousy master. Never make the intellect your master. Use it. It is a beautiful instrument, a biocomputer. No computer yet made by man is so delicate, so evolved as the human mind. The human mind is such a beautiful, delicate mechanism. It can be of much use, but it should be in the service of love.

The head should be in the service of the heart; then you are really intelligent. Remember the difference. I don't call an intellectual an intelligent person. An intelligent person is one whose intellect is in the service of the heart, whose logic is in the service of love, whose reason is in the service of life, which is more than reason. Otherwise your so-called intellectuals are just stupid people.

One story:

Five men are on a military plane crossing the North Atlantic -- President Jimmy Carter, former President Ford, Kissinger, a Catholic priest, and a hippie ...

Maybe the hippie was my sannyasin.

... The plane is suddenly buffeted by a thunderstorm and the pilot rushes into the passenger section. "We have just been hit by a lightning bolt. The co-pilot is dead. Our power is gone.

Here are four parachutes. Decide among yourselves who will use them." ...

There are five persons and four parachutes.

... With that, the pilot bails out.

President Carter speaks first: "I have the burden of the whole free world on my shoulder. I am sure you will agree I must carry on." He dons a parachute and bails out.

Ford speaks up: "I have never done any harm to anyone. Besides, I have a golf date." And he bails out.

Henry Kissinger declares: "I am sure you will agree that I am the smartest man in the world. Obviously I must be spared." And he jumps.

The priest turns to the hippie, "I have led a full life. I am not afraid to meet my maker. Go ahead, my son, and take the last parachute."

"But Father," says the hippie, "there are two parachutes left. The 'smartest man in the world' just bailed out wearing my knapsack."

Please don't be the smartest man in the world. Intellectuals are not very intelligent people.

Question:

The question is asked by Nirgun.

Who do you think is playing Laxmi's role? It is Chuang Tzu.

A few things to be understood about the question. It's certainly difficult to play an authoritative role, but the difficulty arises not because of the role but because of the unconscious desire to dominate. You can repress the desire, you can avoid any authoritative role; the desire will remain there. Whenever the authoritative role is given to you, the desire hidden in the unconscious, the repressed desire, becomes alive, jumps on the role.

It is beautiful to watch it and get rid of it; rather than getting rid of the role, rather than trying to avoid the role itself, it is better to get rid of the desire to be authoritative. So Nirgun, it is good that you are placed in a role where again and again you will have to say to people, "Don't do this."

But this can be said in a very nonauthoritative way. There is no need to be authoritative about it. Don't make it a trip. And then the situation will be a great opportunity to grow. I have put many people in authoritative roles. That is the only way to get rid of any repressed desire.

When the situation is there and the opportunity is there, the desire comes up, surfaces.

And Nirgun has that desire deep down; hence the fear. She would like to escape from the situation. She would like some work where there is no need to say to anybody, "Don't do this."

But how will you get rid of the desire? It is easy to avoid children, but it is very difficult to get rid of the parent role. It is very easy never to be in a position where you have to say to people, "Do this. Don't do this." Very easy. But how will you get rid of the subtle aggressive energy in you?

I would like you to use these situations. And this ashram has to be a constantly ongoing group. Every situation has to be used in such a way that it helps your spiritual growth.

She refers to Chuang Tzu, the famous story that Chuang Tzu was asked by the Emperor to come to the palace and to become his prime minister. I have commented on the story. I love Chuang Tzu.

Two messengers came from the Emperor. Chuang Tzu was fishing, and they came and they said, "The Emperor wants you to become the prime minister of the country." Chuang Tzu said, "Do you see that turtle there, wagging its tail in the mud?" They said, "Yes, we see."

"And do you see how happy he is?" They said, "Certainly. He looks tremendously happy."

And then Chuang Tzu said, "I have heard that in the king's palace there is a turtle, three thousand years old, dead, encaged in gold, decorated with diamonds, and he is worshiped. If you ask this turtle who is wagging his tail in the mud to change his role, to become that turtle in the palace -- dead, but encaged in gold, decorated with diamonds, and worshiped by the emperor himself -- will this turtle be ready to accept that?"

The messengers said, "Certainly not. This turtle will not be ready."

So Chuang Tzu said, "Why should I be ready? Then be gone! I am happy in my mud, wagging my tail, and I don't want to come to the emperor's palace."

Now, this is a beautiful story, but if I meet Chuang Tzu I will say that he is still afraid, he still has a certain fear. If I had been in Chuang Tzu's place, I would have gone to the palace.

You can wag your tail in the palace too, and it will be fun. But Chuang Tzu must have been a little afraid, a little fear that maybe he will become imprisoned there, maybe he will have to lose his freedom, life, aliveness, maybe he will start going on a power trip, ego trip. But that fear simply shows that something in the unconscious is still lingering on.

A man should be so free that if the situation demands him to be in a power role, he can be in a power role -- without being powerful. If the situation demands it of him, he can easily accommodate himself to the new situation without any trouble. A man should not have a fixed role in life. He should be fluid. And the question is not of roles; the question is of consciousness.

So Nirgun, be more conscious, be more loving. Don't allow that urge to dominate to become an unconscious trip, that's all. Become conscious of it. Through consciousness, it will be dropped.

Because of this fear, millions of people down the ages became monks and nuns. What was their fear? Why were they afraid of the world? They were afraid not of the world, they were afraid of their unconscious desires. They knew well that if opportunity is given to them they will fall from their pedestals. But what type of awareness is this? If you can be happy only in the forest and cannot be happy in the marketplace, your happiness is not worth much. If you can be celibate only when there is no woman available, your celibacy is not of any worth, not worth much. If you can be nonpossessive when there is nothing to possess, then what is the point of your being nonpossessive? When you have the whole world to possess and you remain non-possessive, this is attainment, this I call SIDDHI, this I call real achievement.

So my sannyasins are not to become escapists. They have to live in the world, and they have to live above the world -- in the world and yet above it, in and yet not in it. My sannyasin has to face more than Mahavir's sannyasin or Buddha's sannyasin. My sannyasin has to remain liquid, flowing -- and yet uncontaminated.

Question:

The question is from Vani.

Vani, it is too early. To be really a fool one needs to be very wise. To be a fool one needs to be TRULY wise. That's why all wise people have something of foolishness in them. Jesus was known as a fool, so was Buddha, so was Francis of Assisi. They were known as fools.

There is a certain quality of foolishness in a real wise man. Why? Because a real wise man contains the opposite. He is both together. He is more comprehensive. A wise man who has no foolishness in him will be dry, dead. His juice will not be flowing. He will not be green. He will not be able to laugh; he will be serious; he will be a long face. A wise man who is just wise and in whose being the fool has not been integrated will be very heavy. It will be difficult to live with such a wise man. He will be very boring. He will be boring to you and he will be boring to himself. He will not have any fun; his life will not know any joy. He will be completely unacquainted with laughter. And when laughter is missed, much is missed.

And one can never know God without laughter. One can never know God without joy.

One can never know reality just by being wise.

The fool has something to contribute too -- the laughter, the joy, the nonseriousness, the quality of fun, delight. The fool can dance, and the fool can dance for any reason whatsoever -- any excuse will do. The fool can laugh. And the fool can laugh not only at others, he can laugh at himself.

When the wise man and the fool meet together in a consciousness, then something of tremendous value happens. There are foolish people and there are wise people. The fool is shallow; the wise man is serious. The fool does not know what truth is, and the wise man does not know what joy is. And a truth without joy is worse than a lie. And a joy without truth is not reliable. A joy without truth is momentary, cannot be of the eternal.

My approach is that of great balance. You have to be very, very balanced. Delicate is the balance, difficult to achieve, but once achieved you will know that there is a quality of consciousness which can absorb wisdom and foolishness together, and there is no contradiction. They both become two aspects of your energy.

Then you are sincere, but not serious. Then you are truthful, but not joyless. Then you have joy, but the joy is not of the momentary, it is of the eternal. It is not within time; it is beyond time.

So Vani, it is too early. To really become the ashram fool, you will have to become almost enlightened. Don't think that it is easy to become a fool.

I am not talking about the common variety of fools. Gurdjieff used to talk about eighteen varieties of idiots; they come in all sizes and all shapes. But I am talking about the ultimate.

Gurdjieff used to say God is the ultimate idiot. Looks very profane. The ultimate idiot, God?

And Gurdjieff used to say if he was not an idiot, why should he have created you all? Some idiocy, some trait of foolishness must exist in him; otherwise why man? And not only you.

Men like Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan, Nadir Shah; men like Joseph Stalin, Mao Tsetung. Why in the first place? God must have some trait of foolishness. He must be fooling around; he must be trying trial and error. Yes, sometimes he turns up with a Buddha too, that's okay -- but rarely, very rarely.

God must be a fool. Otherwise there cannot be so much joy in existence. Just think: a mahatma ruling the world. All joy will be simply prohibited. Can you laugh in a Christian heaven.? Have you asked this question to your ministers, priests? Can you laugh in a Christian heaven.? Can you have a belly laugh, standing in front of God? No, that doesn't seem proper.

But I tell you, you can have. And if you don't have, God will have, looking at your seriousness.

Look at trees, the birds, the animals, the stars. There seems to be tremendous joy. Life is not serious. Life is very, very playful.

So when I say become a fool and wise together, I mean don't think of life as a duty, but as a play. Always remember, if your prayer is without laughter, you are missing something. If your laughter is without prayer, you are again missing something. A prayer without laughter is dead, and a laughter without prayer has no depth. Can you pray and laugh together? Can you be prayerful and dance too? Can you meditate and love together?

That is the synthesis I am trying. That is the highest possibility a man can arrive at, the greatest symphony, when you can love and meditate together. There have been meditators, but they were against love, and there have been lovers who were against meditation. There have been people who say eat, drink, be merry, but they are against God. The Charvakas, the Epicureans -- they say eat, drink, be merry, there is no God. They help you to be joyful, but that joy cannot be very deep. Without God your joy cannot go very deep.

Your joy -- on your own -- cannot be real joy. It will be very shallow and superficial. It will not have the quality of the ultimate in it. It will not throb with eternity. And you will get fed up with it sooner or later.

That's what is happening in the West. The West has followed the Epicurean tradition -- eat, drink, be merry. Now people are fed up, really fed up; nothing seems to satisfy. The superficial cannot satisfy long. One day or other it is exposed; you come to know that it is not much and it is a repetition. The West is fed up with the Epicurean ideology, the ideology that says, "Just enjoy. There is no need to seek and search."

And the East is fed up with the opposite ideology, the other polarity that says, "Don't enjoy," that says, "'Eat, drink, be merry' is the ideology of the sinners. Wear long faces, be ascetics, mahatmas. Do yoga. Fast. Destroy the body and the senses. And be seriously after God: the only thing that is worth achieving is God-realization; everything else has to be sacrificed."

The East is fed up, tired. The West is fed up and tired. It is natural because both have chosen one aspect. God is all the aspects together. God means totality.

My approach towards God is Epicurus plus Buddha. Be as Epicurean as possible, and be a meditator, a seeker, as authentic as possible. And I don't see that there is any conflict. There is no conflict in meditation and love. In fact, the more you meditate, the more you become capable of love; the more you love, the more you become capable of meditation.

And there is no conflict between being a fool and being wise. If you can have both, that is the best. And don't settle for one; otherwise one day you will repent. The missing one will take its revenge, and with vengeance.

But to Vani I would like to say it is too early. Get a little ready.

I have heard:

Once there was a fellow who was too forward. He would meet a girl and within two seconds say, "Honey, let us make love." His buddy took him aside and explained that he should act suave and carry on a friendly conversation for a while before he suggested such things. On his next date he remembered the words of wisdom. He started the conversation by saying, "Honey, have you ever been to Africa?" just to create a conversation.

She said, "No." So he said, "Well, let us make love."

Vani, it is too early. Wait a little more. The hello has to become hello-lujah, but wait a little more.

Question:

The question is from Deva Anando.

Yes, it is one of the most fundamental questions. When you are not looking, the honey is everywhere. When you start looking for it, suddenly it disappears. This is a great truth. The moment you start looking for it, you become tense. The moment you start looking for it, you become very, very concentrated, you become closed and narrow. And the honey is possible only when you are open, not closed, not narrow. The honey overflows all around you when you are also overflowing, in every direction.

To look means to be directed in one direction. Not to look, not to seek, then you are available to all directions -- you are available to every direction possible, you are available to the whole existence.

But the difficulty is that if I tell you not to look you say, "Okay, we will not try," but an unconscious effort goes on. You even try not to look, but that too becomes just an effort to look.

The question is very fundamental. Buddha says, "If you are desireless, all desires will be fulfilled." Now, one monk asked one day, "Since you have said that all desires will be fulfilled if you become desireless, I have got only one desire: to be desireless. Now what to do about it?" But the desire to be desireless is still a desire; it is on the same plane. Whether you desire money or you desire power, prestige, or you desire desirelessness, it makes no difference at all: only the object of desire changes; the desire remains the same. And the desire is the problem, not the object.

If you desire money, people will call you very worldly, materialistic. If you desire God, people will call you spiritual, other worldly, religious. But those who know, for them, there is no difference at all: you are still worldly. It is not that a few desires are worldly and a few desires are otherworldly! Desire, as such, is worldly. There can be no otherworldly desire.

So God cannot be desired. If you desire, you miss. If you seek, you will not find. The more you seek, the more miserable you will become. Don't seek, and find. Just be -- in an attitude of nonseeking. Not that deep down you still go on thinking "Now he must be coming because I am not seeking"; then you are in the same trap again.

The question is what should be done: "How can I drop my greed ...?" But why do you want to drop you greed? Why in the first place do you want to drop your greed? There must be some greed behind it -- to attain to God, to nirvana, to enlightenment, to this and that, all sorts of rubbish things, all nonsense.

Enlightenment HAPPENS. You cannot desire it. When one day suddenly you find all desires have disappeared, enlightenment is there. It has always been there; just because of desires you could not see it. The desire becomes a curtain on your eyes. You lose clarity, you cannot see what is. How can you see what is when you want something to be there? When you expect something, the expectation does not allow you to see that which is. With the expectation you have already moved into the future.

You want a beautiful woman, and you have a fantasy. Because of that fantasy, you will miss your woman, who is just in front of you, but because of the fantasy you cannot see her.

The fantasy goes on driving you away.

You ask, "How can I drop my greed?" I would like to ask why in the first place you want to drop greed. And suddenly you will find some greed hidden behind. Greed behind greed behind greed. This is not going to help.

So I will not tell you how to drop it. I will tell you how to understand it. In understanding, it drops on its own accord. Not that you drop it. You cannot. You are greed; how can you drop greed? You are desire; how can you drop desire? You are the search; how can you drop seeking and searching? This YOU is the center of all your madnesses. You ask how to drop greed. Who is asking? The "I". Now the "I" wants even God to be possessed. The "I" wants enlightenment to be possessed. The "I" does not only want the world, it wants the other world too. The "I" is getting more insane.

Just understand. There is no need to drop anything. Man cannot drop anything. Just try to understand. Try to understand the ways of greed. Try to understand how greed functions. Try to understand how greed brings more and more misery, more and more frustration, how greed goes on creating new hells for you, ahead of you, goes on creating new hells so when you are there, they are ready. Just look into the very phenomenon of greed -- with no idea of dropping it, because if you want to drop it, a part of greed will remain unobserved. The part that wants to drop greed will remain unobserved, will remain in the dark.

There is no need to think in these terms. Simply try to understand. That is what Socrates means when he ways, "Know thyself." It does not mean that you sit silently and repeat "I am soul,'? "I am God"; it doesn't mean that. "Know thyself" means whatsoever is the case, go into it deeply, layer by layer. Expose it to your understanding. Go to the very bottom of it, to the very root of it. Look through and through.

And the day you have looked through all the layers ... The layers are just like an onion.

You go on peeling an onion. So peel your being like an onion, go on peeling. Fresher layers you will find; go on peeling, go on peeling ... One day suddenly you have peeled through and through and nothing but emptiness is left in your hand. In that emptiness greed has disappeared, and in that emptiness enlightenment has happened. In that emptiness God is.

That emptiness is God.

So rather than asking how to drop greed, ask how to understand greed. The whole thing hangs on one thing: understanding. When the understanding of anything is perfect, it liberates.

That's what Jesus means when he says, "Truth liberates." When you know the truth of greed you are liberated. When you know the truth of sexuality you are liberated. When you know the truth of anything whatsoever you are liberated from it. To know is to be free; not to know is to be in bondage.

So don't ask how to drop. There is no hurry. In fact, go deep into it, watch it deeply before it drops; otherwise you will always miss that understanding. If it drops before understanding, something will remain missing. That's why it never drops, it clings to you. It clings up to the last moment, when you understand it, when you have looked into it so deeply that nothing is unrevealed, you have seen the ways of greed, the subtle ways of greed.

Now, this question is a subtle way of greed: how to drop it? That was the problem of Pooh; he thought he understood: "... but for days after when he made sudden surreptitious glances out of the corner of his eye -- no honey!" You will also make surreptitious glances from the corner -- unless you understand greed totally.

"He even tried sitting down again and saying very loudly, 'I am not looking for honey!"'

And you will say the same too. You have said it already many times, that "I am not looking for God and I am not looking for enlightenment. Osho says nirvana is the last nightmare. I am not looking for it" -- and then surreptitiously, from the corner of the eye, you are looking for it.

You are waiting and you say, "What is the matter? And Osho has said, 'When you drop all desire it happens,' and it has not happened yet." You have not dropped the desire yet.

But you CANNOT drop the desire! I insist on it! My emphasis is absolute on it. There have been other teachers who say, "Drop it!" I don't say drop it, because I know you cannot drop it. Nobody has ever dropped it. Not even a Buddha was able to drop it. It dropped on its own accord one day -- when Buddha understood it.

If you drop something, the ego now feels very enhanced "I have dropped it" -- and the ego is the root cause. It will create a new greed; it will find new ways. It is very inventive. Because of this inventive ego, you cannot discover that which is. Because of too much inventiveness, the reality is being missed. It will find some other way; from the back door it will come back.

So don't ask how to drop it. I am not here to help you to drop it. I am here to help you to understand it. If it is still there, it simply shows one thing: that you have not understood it.

You have not done your homework yet. Do the homework. Don't be in a hurry to drop it. Just look, watch.

Watch in small things of life. You are walking on the road; a car passes by. Just look into yourself: some greed has arisen. The moment you say the car is beautiful, a subtle greed has arisen to possess it. A beautiful woman passes by, or a man, and suddenly a desire to possess.

I have heard:

A woman sat in her doctor's waiting room alongside of a mother and her child of five. The child sat very quietly while the woman and his mother exchanged pleasantries. The woman was very much impressed by the child's good behavior ...

He was really graceful, sitting silently like a small Buddha.

... "I wish," she said, "I had a little boy like you."

"Well," countered the child -- the little Buddha, "why don't you get pregnant?"

The moment you see something -- a beautiful child -- and a deep desire arises: you should have a child like this. And the child is saying, "Why don't you get pregnant?" And he is right.

In fact, if you look deeply in your desire, you will find that the desire to become pregnant has arisen in you. On the deepest layer it is there. On the surface you simply say, "How beautiful a child. I wish I had a little boy like this." On the surface it is very simple, as if you have simply complimented the child, but deep down many things have happened.

In small things of life ... You are eating, you know your appetite is gone, and you continue to eat. Watch. Greed is there. Now you are not eating out of hunger; you are eating out of greed. One day in meditation something beautiful happens -- a breeze comes into your being, suddenly there is light, suddenly there is fragrance, and you sway with that fragrance -- and then it is gone. Now you want every day in every meditation that that has to happen now. Now you are frustrated; and the more you are frustrated, the less is the possibility. Now that window will never open again. And when it doesn't open, you hanker for it too much; then you become very miserable -- "Why is it not happening?"

I have been observing so many meditators, thousands. When for the first time meditation really goes deep, immediately, for months, that glimpse disappears. And then they come to me, saying, "What is happening? I had seen something, and it was tremendously beautiful.

Why has it disappeared? What wrong have I done?" You have not done anything wrong: you became greedy. When it happened for the first time, you were not greedy, because you had not ever known it. How could you have been greedy about it? It was unknown; it came from out of the blue. It simply came; you were caught unaware. Now watch. It came when you were not asking for it -- you had not known it, so you could not have asked for it. It came on its own.

Now you are asking for it. Now you are asking for something which had come without your asking. You are creating the whole trouble -- the greed has entered.

Sometimes it has happened that a man has come very close to satori, very close, and then he went astray because of the greed.

So watch. Eating, watch. In the morning, you know that the sleep is over, but you still want to turn over and have a little nap. Now it is greed. If your body is fresh and you are feeling good and the tiredness is gone, then watch. It is everywhere. Eating, sleeping, meditating -- it is everywhere.

One day you make love to your woman or to your man, and it is ecstatic. Now you hanker, now you start repeating, but that ecstasy never happens again. You are miserable. You don't know what has happened, what has gone wrong, "Why am I not attaining that peak?" You will never attain it again, because you are looking for it. The first time it happened, you were not looking for it.

This is a fundamental law. Things happen and they happen on their own accord; you cannot manage them to happen. Great things cannot be managed by you; they are beyond you.

You can, at the most, allow them to happen. At the most, you can keep your doors open so that they can happen, but you cannot force them to happen.

If you force, then nothing happens. Then you can go on making love to the woman and nothing will happen; in fact, you will start feeling nauseous about the whole thing. You will start hating the woman, you will start hating the man; you will think that the other is cheating you. And you will start looking for another woman, for another man, somewhere else to go -- "It is not happening here anymore." And you will become suspicious as to whether it had ever happened or you had imagined. How can it happen with this woman? It is not happening now.

So you will become doubtful even about the experience that had happened.

People come to me and they say, "Now for months nothing is happening in the meditation," and they say they have become doubtful. Had they imagined the first time? They had not imagined; it had happened. Now they want it to happen and they are imagining and they are creating an idea around themselves.

So what is to be done? You have to watch all the ways of the mind. Greed, desire, ambition, jealousy, possessiveness, domination -- you have to watch everything. And they are all interconnected, remember. If greed disappears, then anger will disappear. If anger disappears, jealousy will disappear. If jealousy disappears, violence will disappear. If violence disappears, possessiveness will disappear. They are all intertwined. In fact, they are spokes of the same wheel, and the hub that supports them all is the ego. So watch the ways of the ego.

Watching, watching, watching ... one day suddenly it is not there. Only the watcher is left.

That moment of pure watching is the moment of transformation.

Question:

The question is from Anand Nitya. Why she has asked has to be understood.

Since she has been here in this ashram, she has not been able to become part of the family.

She has been resisting in many ways. I tolerate these things for a time, but I cannot tolerate them forever; otherwise I will not be able to help you at all. A day is bound to come when I will start hammering. The day I start hammering, you start feeling negative, you start feeling against me. If I go according to you, then everything is beautiful, then Osho is beautiful. The moment I start going in some other direction when it is not easy for you to go with me, then negativity arises.

And I have to go against all of you! Because I love you. I have to go against all of you; otherwise I will not be of any help to you. If I simply go on consoling you and simply go on patting your heads and simply go on saying, "You are good, everything is good" ...

I say that for a time. In the beginning I say that. If you are not yet a sannyasin, I will continue saying, "Very good!" The moment you are a sannyasin things change. Then I have to be more truthful to you, even if it hurts. It hurts, truth hurts, because you have become so untrue.

So the day I started hammering on Nitya, she must have started thinking, "Where have I come to? Is this man really a Osho or not?"

Hence the question: "My parents deceived me with Father Christmas. Are you real, or will I be disillusioned again?"

First thing: Father Christmas is far more real than I. I am absolutely unreal, because I don't exist as an ego. I am not solid at all. If you go through me, you can pass through me without coming across anybody. I am empty.

The second thing: Because of this emptiness, I can function as a screen for any sort of projection. You can project anything on me. There are people who think I am a saint, and there are people who think I am a rascal. There are people who think I am the greatest sinner there is, and there are people who think I am the greatest Master there is. And both are right and both are wrong, because I am neither. You project. There are some people who come and they say, "Osho, you have such beautiful eyes." And just the other day I was reading an article by Rahul Singh in THE ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY OF INDIA, and he says, "This man has hypnotic and sinister eyes." Good!

It is difficult for you not to project, that I know. But I have to help to destroy all your projections. Once your projections are destroyed, you will be freed.

Father Christmas is far more real. If you look into him, you will find a real person there. If you look into me, there is no person. In the East we call God the imperson. There is no personality. I am just a window; you can look through me. There is not even a glass; there is nothing. But you can project. So it is very easy for you to project because, whatsoever you project, there is nobody to deny it. There is nobody to say, "No, your projection is wrong."

You are playing the game alone.

You will know my reality only when you have stopped all projections, when you have become empty, when you have attained to meditative energy. The meditative energy is a nonprojective energy. It does not project anything; it simply looks at things as they are.

If a meditator comes across a flower, he will not even say it is a rose flower, because the word "rose" becomes a projection. With the word "rose" all the roses that you have known before come between you and this rose. With the word "rose" all that you have heard about roses, all the poetry that you have read about roses -- all that arises between you and the reality. A real meditator will simply look at the rose without even saying the word "rose" inside his being; there will be no language. There will be no idea what it is. He will simply see that which is, the nameless. And that is the only way to see the real rose.

If you want to see me, my reality -- I am not a person, but if you want to see my nothingness -- you will have to come to me without any ideas. And that's how, if you come closer and closer, more and more projections will fall.

"Are you real, or will I be disillusioned again?" You will be disillusioned, and this time disillusioned forever. That's my hope. If you cooperate with me, you will be disillusioned forever. Then you will never project again. And that's all a Master can do: to help you not to project again.

I have heard:

Two Martians were walking along Piccadilly. One of them nudged the other and pointing to a traffic light said, "How would you like her for a girlfriend?" ...

A traffic light! But you can think about Martians -- they can project ... "Wow!" said his friend. "What a beauty! I think I will go over and chat her up."

After about ten minutes he rejoined his companion, who asked, "Well, how did you get on?"

"Not bad," replied the second Martian. "She did not actually say anything, but she keeps winking at me."

A traffic light, but you can project.

All your projections are yours, Nitya, and they have to disappear. You have to be disillusioned. Only in that moment of disillusionment does reality explode.

Question:

It is shocking, but precisely, that is the purpose. A Master has to shock you to awake you.

A Master is not a lullaby. A Master is not a tranquilizer. A Master has to be like a sharp knife in your heart. To be with a Master is painful. And the Master has to destroy all possibilities of projections.

First the child learns to project on the mother and the father. Then for the whole life one goes on projecting. Have you watched it in your own being? Whenever you are attracted by a woman, you may be again looking for your mother. Whenever you are attracted by a man, just watch. Are you again looking for your father? Because the first man the child has known was the father and the first woman was the mother. The child is imprinted with the first form of the woman and the first form of the man. That imprint is very deep.

You all know that suddenly one day you see a woman and something clicks. What clicks?

The mother in you. When you see a woman and something reminds you deeply of your mother ... It may not be conscious, you may not be aware of it, you may not be able to figure out what it is, you may not be able to put your finger on it, but if you go deep into your unconscious you will find that the way the woman walks, the long nose of the woman, or the black eyes of the woman or the style of her hair, or her voice, or something, suddenly has clicked your unconscious and the unconscious knows, "This is the woman." People fall in love so suddenly, without knowing the woman, who she is -- love at first sight. How is it possible?

What psychological mechanism is functioning there? Your mother. And so it is true about the father.

When Zen Masters say, "Kill your parents," they are saying, "Destroy the imprint of your mother and father from your unconscious." Once that imprint is destroyed you will be free.

Christianity, Islam, or Judaism or Hinduism are not as perfect religions as Zen, because they still talk of the Father God or the Mother Goddess. The imprint continues. Not only in this world, it goes on being projected in the sky too -- God the Father or Kali the Mother. You are still looking for your parents. Now, even in the ultimate reality you are looking for your parents. When will you become adult? When will you become mature? Zen is a process of maturity: so kill the parents.

There is a saying among Zen people that a man becomes really mature when his father and mother are dead. Have you not watched? If your father and mother have died, you are shocked. You have never thought that they would ever die. Although many times you have wished that they should die -- an unconscious wish -- because they are heavy on you, because their very presence is a restriction.

Have you watched, whenever you go to talk to your father you start stuttering, perspiring, you become nervous? Because he reminds you again that you are helpless, a small child, and he is a powerful man. Have you watched, when you go to your mother it is so difficult to communicate? It is so difficult to say anything. It becomes so difficult to talk to a mother, to sit and chitchat is almost impossible. What to say? She is puzzled and you are also puzzled.

Both are embarrassed.

So deep down sometimes you have thought, "They should die, so I should be free of them." And when the father and mother die, suddenly you feel you are a child no more.

But when Zen people say it, they mean something else. They are not talking about the father and mother on the outside. They are talking about the inside. When the father and mother in the inside die, you become mature, you become free.

And remember, if you are free from your father and mother in the unconscious, you will be capable of communing with your father and mother for the first time, because then there will be no barrier. In fact, you will be able to love them for the first time. You will be able to forgive them for the first time. You will be able to feel compassion for them, how much they have done for you. When you are mature, when you are free of them, when their presence is no more a heavy weight on your heart, you can feel them for the first time. You can be with them in a loving space.

So it is shocking, but it is not irreverent, one thing.

The second thing: they say, "If you meet the Buddha on the way, kill him immediately."

And these people who have said these things, they were worshiping Buddha every day in the temple. They may have said it sitting at the feet of the statue of Buddha.

The man who said this was a priest in a temple. He lived in the temple, worshiped in the morning, evening, would bring flowers and incense, and he said one day to his disciples, "If you meet the Buddha on the way, kill him immediately!" One disciple asked, naturally, "What do you mean? And you have been worshiping Buddha." And the man said, "Yes, I have been worshiping him because he has helped me. Even to kill him he has been helpful! It is he who has helped me to kill him. It is he who has helped me to be free of him." The ultimate work of the Master is to make you free of himself.

Zarathustra is leaving his disciples and they ask him, "What is your last message?" And he says, "Beware of Zarathustra." Without any comment he escaped into the forest. "Beware of Zarathustra" -- the last message. Beautiful. Tremendously Zen. "Beware of me; otherwise you may become a slave to me" -- that's what he means.

The same I say to you. Forget about Buddha. because you can kill Buddha very easily. Kill me. That will be far more difficult. With Buddha you have no relationship at all, so you can take it, "Okay, if he comes on the way, we can kill him." But I say to you, kill me when I come on your way. And I will come.

At the last moment, when everything has been cut off, the Master remains, because that is the deepest relationship. You can cut your relationship even with your mother because that is only biological, physical. You can cut your relationship even with your beloved because that is psychological. But to cut your relationship with the Master is the most difficult thing. You will need a really sharp sword, a really, really sharp sword, and you will need great courage, because the disciple-and-Master relationship is a spiritual relationship. It goes deepest in your being. You will start trembling.

When I will stand on your way ... And that is going to be the last barrier: the Master is the passage to God and the last barrier too. You will have to leave the Master also. And these things are of the inward journey, remember again and again. At the last moment when you are disappearing into emptiness, the last hand that you will have to leave will be the Master's hand.

So it is not irreverent. It is with great respect that it has been said.

One thing more. The Zen people are totally different from Christians. You cannot think of a Christian saying to another Christian, "Kill Jesus when he comes on your way. Kill him immediately!'? That will look very sacrilegious because Christians have not yet been able to be nonserious about their religion. Their religion is very serious. Hence it misses much. Zen has the quality of laughter, it can laugh. And Zen has the quality of rebelliousness, nonauthoritativeness. And Zen goes on keeping a balance: surrender to the Master, and yet remain independent. Very difficult, almost impossible. But when you do the impossible, only then does the ultimate happen to you. Surrender to the Master, and yet remain independent. Be sincere in your search, but don't lose your laughter. Become wise, but let foolishness also flower. And Zen people are very, very absurd in that way. They can say things which will shock you.

A Zen Master is weighing flax, and a man comes, a seeker, and he asks, "What is Buddha?

What is Buddhahood? What is Buddha-nature?" The Master is weighing the flax, and he says, "Three pounds of flax. That is what Buddha is."

Three pounds of flax! -- and he is talking about Buddha? Looks very sacrilegious.

A Zen Master, on a cold night, burned a Buddha statue, a wooden statue, because he was feeling cold. No Christian can do that. No Hindu can do that. No Mohammedan can do that.

Hence they lag behind. In the night he burned the Buddha statue because it was too cold, and in the morning he was worshiping again.

This playfulness, this nonseriousness, is of tremendous value. With me also, remember that: you have to surrender and yet you have to remain independent. In fact, your surrender is needed so that I can make you independent. Paradoxical of course, but this is how one grows.

I have heard one beautiful story -- very shocking, but tremendously beautiful. The story is from Sheldon Kopp:

One Sunday afternoon after church, God and St. Peter went to play golf. God teed up on the first hole, swung his driver mightily, and sliced the ball off into the rough beside the fairway. Just as the ball hit the ground, a rabbit came running out from beneath a bush, picked up God's golf ball in his mouth, and ran with it out onto the fairway. Down from the sky swooped a hawk and pounced on the rabbit. The hawk picked up the rabbit in its claws and flew with it over the green. A hunter spotted the hawk, took aim with his rifle, and shot the bird in midflight. The hawk dropped the rabbit onto the green. The golf ball fell from the rabbit's mouth and rolled into the cup for a hole in one.

St. Peter turned to God with exasperation, saying, "Come on now! Do you want to play golf, or do you want to fuck around?"

This is perfect Zen.