You have your problem -- I'm going home

Question 1:

The mystery of life always happens in spite of you. In the beginning there is no other alternative possible. Only in the end does it start happening through you. But it can happen through you only when you are not. Then you become a hollow bamboo which can be turned into a flute and the song can pass through it.

In the beginning you are -- you are too much.

So when the first experience of mystery starts happening it is in spite of you. And it is good to understand that life is far bigger than you can conceive and its power is immense beyond our any conception; just we are waiting patiently, searching patiently, knowing perfectly well that we don't know the way, knowing perfectly well that we have lost our original eternal home -- knowing perfectly well that we are unconscious. All our efforts, our search, our seeking is groping in the dark.

It is good to remember our situation. Do your best. In spite of your darkness, blindness, unconsciousness, whatever you can do, do. But remember, it is not going to happen through your doing. It is going to happen because you are longing for it so deeply that existence cannot resist, cannot remain indifferent to you.

So although you are not prepared, nobody is prepared. Nobody knows the way, nobody knows where the home is, nobody knows in which direction to move, what discipline to follow.

But there are two kinds of people: those who are not aware of their situation of darkness and blindness, and those who think that they are not blind, that they are not in darkness; that they know the way, that they know where they have to go, that they know what they have to do.

These are the people to whom existence cannot happen; they are too much. And all that they know is absolutely false, they have not experienced it. But their falsity is so much identified with their being, it is their ego which says, "You are not blind. There is no darkness and all that is needed you know it through the scriptures, through the old masters, through reading, learning, studying." But all that is borrowed; it is not going to help.

No two persons reach the end on the same route. Hence Gautam Buddha may have reached through a certain path and Chuang Tzu may have reached through another path, but their paths are no longer useful for you. In fact, it is impossible to find their paths either. Their paths disappear just as the birds flying in the sky don't leave any footmarks.

So you cannot find out from where the world has reached to the heights, and you cannot follow because there are no footprints. All there is, is what is written in your scriptures...

and you try. The Buddhist tries the way Buddha may have followed. In the first place there is no way to find what way he has followed, because the way is inner and nobody is capable of giving an expression to it. So what is written is a faraway echo in the minds of the disciples.

It is a strange story to remember that the man who remembered the most of what Buddha has said in forty-two years... And Buddha continuously resisted their efforts to write it down because he did not want to leave any scripture behind nor did he want to leave any statue of himself. He wanted to disappear just as if he has not come. One of his names is Tathagata. It has two meanings; both are significant. One is: the man who taught the philosophy of suchness. The other is more literal but has a tremendous significance.

Literally the word 'tathagata' means just came, just gone, leaving no mark behind, just like a breeze comes you feel it and the coolness of it, and it is gone. Neither do you know from where it comes nor you know where it goes.

So for his whole life Buddha did not allow his statements to be compiled. And in the end he said to them, "No statue, no memorial should be made of me because I want to disappear as if I had never been. Because whatsoever is left behind becomes the hindrance for people; it does not help them."

There is a great insight, very profound -- and such egolessness, such simplicity, such humbleness that he wants to disappear silently without any footprints, because nobody can follow anybody else. Nobody can become wise by reading and studying scriptures.

So that greater part of humanity which believes that they know, they are the ones to whom the mystery is not going to happen. But if you are searching, knowing perfectly well that you know nothing -- you don't even know that your ignorance is absolute; it is not that a little bit you know and a little bit you don't know -- in this humbleness, in this acceptance that I don't know, the mysteries start happening. They happen in spite of you.

You cannot manage -- they are not manageable, they are not under your control -- but once they start happening they make their way through you.

Slowly, slowly the ice of your ego melts and a passage is made. Existence starts singing its songs, sending its music, giving you directions; helping you to find the doors of all that is mysterious and is not available to the mind but only to the man of heart, to the man of humbleness -- to the man who is perfectly aware that he knows nothing.

And it is good that you ask, "Beloved Master, beloved mystery, who am I?"

You are Swami Satyadharma. This much you should remember; otherwise in the ordinary life you will get lost. Once you forget that you are Swami Satyadharma then you don't know where you are going and what you are doing.

I have told you two small stories...

One is about George Bernard Shaw. He is traveling in a train from London to some place and the ticket checker comes. Bernard Shaw looks into everything, opens this suitcase, that suitcase, all the pockets, and the ticket is missing. He starts perspiring and looks very much afraid and concerned.

The ticket checker says, "I know you; everybody knows you. The ticket must be somewhere; there is no problem. You will find it. Don't get so nervous and excited in your old age" -- he was ninety.

The ticket checker said, "I will not disturb you, I am going. You just relax."

George Bernard Shaw said, "You don't understand. It is not the question of the ticket.

Who is bothering about the ticket? The question is where am I going? Can you tell me where I am going? Without the ticket... now I have got into a tangle. I am not searching for the ticket for you -- I don't care about you or anybody. But the problem is: Where am I going?"

The ticket checker said, "My God, that is impossible for me to figure out where you are going. Now I can understand why you are feeling so nervous. Your hands are trembling."

The second anecdote is about Mulla Nasruddin in the same situation as George Bernard Shaw. The ticket checker is asking for the ticket and he is looking everywhere. Other passengers are puzzled that he looks into every pocket but he leaves one pocket. He does not touch that one.

Finally, the ticket checker said, "You have looked everywhere but you don't look into this pocket."

He said, "Don't talk about that pocket. That's my only hope and I don't want to destroy that hope. If it is not there I'm finished. Then it is nowhere else. So I cannot open that way. I will look everywhere possible..."

He had thrown all the clothes and everything out of the suitcases. The ticket checker was at a loss, the passengers were at a loss. But Mulla was absolutely reluctant, "Whatever happens, I am not going to touch that pocket. That I will leave because at least there is a hope that perhaps the ticket is there. If the ticket is not there then I am completely finished."

The problem is the same: I don't know where I am going. So as far as the world is concerned, you are Swami Satyadharma -- and there are two Swami Satyadharmas here.

Remember, you are not the other one. To make it clear, the other one is German; so don't get mixed.

Just as you call me Beloved Master, beloved mystery, I call you beloved disciple, beloved mystery. Behind Swami Satyadharma everything is a mystery. Satyadharma is just a facade for the outside world, just a utilitarian identity; it is not your reality; but behind it is a mysterious being. You are becoming aware of gifts of existence, of mysteries. Something is happening through it; just allow it.

Your function is not to prevent, not to be reluctant. Join your hands with whatever is happening. That's what I mean by let-go.

Let existence cleanse you.

Allow it total power over you.

Don't be worried that you will be destroyed, because you will be destroyed. There is no need to worry; it is absolutely certain. When things are certain there is no worry. It is only the uncertainty that creates worries.

You will be destroyed.... That which will remain undestroyed in you is your authentic self. That which is destroyed is your personality, your false self; it needs to be destroyed.

You can use that destroyed part in the world because they won't understand if you say that you are a mystery. Even your family, your wife, your children, your parents will think you have gone mad if you say, "I am a mystery." Nobody is a mystery and only you are a mystery? -- where did you lose yourself?

So as far as the outside world is concerned you are Swami Satyadharma -- not the other one; that you have to remember! This is a problem for sannyasins because they have the same names, many. You can get lost and start thinking, Who am I? And naturally, you are a mystery, but a German mystery or an Italian mystery... this much you should remember: that you are not a German mystery.

For the outside world, completely keep your old false identity, your name, your profession, your qualifications. But inside you will know that it is only utilitarian, not real, useful; useful in the society, but when you are alone you are not Swami Satyadharma and you are not Italian or German or English.

You are not even your body.

You are not your mind.

You are just the pure mystery behind.

Now there is no way to describe it, you will have to experience it, and you are moving rightly towards that experience. Just don't in any way knowingly out of fear hinder the process. There is no fear: only the false will die and the real will remain always and always. That is the definition of the real: That which remains.

The false is just useful. In the crowd of the world you need a name. The reality is nobody has a name, but it will be a very difficult world if everybody drops the name because it is false. Then you won't have any address. The postman cannot find you anywhere because everybody is a mystery! You will create troubles because you are not the husband and you are not the wife and you are not the father and you are not the child -- everything outside will be disturbed, will become a chaos.

Outside keep everything as it is.

Inside don't be identified with it.

This is the whole secret of finding yourself without being condemned by the society as mad.

A traveling salesman was just on the point of checking into a hotel when he caught sight of a stunning young woman who was without doubt giving him the full come-on treatment. He strolled over to her and nonchalantly exchanged a few words with her, behaving as though he had known her all his life. Then they both walked to the reception desk and booked in as man and wife. After a one-night stay, the salesman went to collect his bill and check out. He was appalled to be presented with a bill for one thousand pounds.

"Look here, this is out of the question. I have only been here for one day," he cried.

"Yes sir," replied the receptionist, "but your wife has been here a month."

So don't get into such trouble. On the outside remain exactly what you are, Swami Satyadharma.

Question 2:

It is not masochism, Prem Rajiva, nor is it a mind trip. You are sincerely wanting to get out of the entanglement. You want to be free of all entanglement; you want to come out of the prison. What you are calling the Gordian knot, you want it to be slashed.

It is a sincere and authentic desire, but the trouble arises because this desire is also from the mind. So one part of the mind is ready to cut the Gordian knot and another part of the mind is always against. It is not a special question about the Gordian knot that divides you.

Mind's functioning is through duality. The right word used for that is 'dialectics'. Karl Marx has used that word as a foundation of communism. He calls his philosophy dialectical materialism. He says the society evolves through dialectics, and by dialectics he means it will be helpful to you for your development -- and what he says has some truth in it.

The meaning of dialectics is that one part functions as the thesis, another part functions as the antithesis and out of the conflict of the two comes the third part, a synthesis.

Synthesis on its own accord becomes again thesis and creates antithesis, and their conflict brings a new synthesis. This is how step by step evolution happens.

And he is right, although he used his philosophy to support a political ideology. That is fictitious, but the idea of dialectics in itself is absolutely correct.

He says that the proletariat, the poor are the thesis, and the rich, the capitalists are the antithesis. Now there is going to be a class struggle, a revolution, a fight between thesis and antithesis that will create the dictatorship of the proletariat as the synthesis. On its own then it will become the thesis and it will create its antithesis as democracy of the proletariat. And out of the conflict between the two will arise another synthesis.

Every man's capacity to think is limited. That synthesis never becomes thesis. He has come to the end of his row; he has arrived at a state where there is no class, no government. He has achieved the utopia. Now there is no need of any conflict, any revolution. But I don't see that evolution is going to stop anywhere. So he has used a very significant principle of philosophy for his political ideology. And as he reaches to his ultimate goal he forgets all about dialectics. That is not only his fault -- everybody's. The religions say God created the world, and when you ask them who created God -- finished.

They have come to the end of their row.

The Jainas in India say that man has been evolving, not in his physiology as Darwin thinks -- that in physiology he is evolving from apes or monkeys or gorillas -- but Jainism says man is evolving through different animal consciousnesses, not physiologically but in his soul. It seems more accurate than Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin does not have any evidence.

The whole thing seems to be hypothetical because nobody has seen any monkey, because if in the past, thousands of years ago, some monkey became a human being, why are other monkeys not becoming human beings now? They are now more evolved as man has evolved. Now they will be jumping every day! Suddenly you see a monkey, and he jumps and becomes a man and says, "Hello, where are you going? I am coming too."

Nobody has encountered any monkey becoming a man. And the difference between a monkey and man is so great that it cannot be possible to take a jump suddenly. Monkeys know how to jump, but that does not mean they can jump and become a human being.

They can jump from one branch to another branch -- that's perfectly okay -- but they cannot jump from one state of consciousness into a totally new state of consciousness, because it needs a new brain, a different size of brain; it needs a different structure of the body. Just to stand on two legs a monkey will need so much bodywork that he will not survive.

It has happened in Lucknow...

A boy was found who had been raised by wolves in the forest, and just the other day a girl was found. She was the same age, thirteen, and she had been raised by animals. So the boy and girl walk on all fours -- naturally, they have imitated their parents.

It has happened in Calcutta too. They tried to make him stand on two legs, thinking that the man should be restored to humanity -- they killed him. Just the effort to make him stand on two legs was so difficult because he now had a fixed structure. For fourteen years he had walked on all fours; now suddenly he could not stand.

And the same happened in the Lucknow case: in six months they had killed the boy. I put the whole responsibility on the stupid idea that these people should be restored. They were perfectly beautiful; there was no need. This boy who was killed in Lucknow by the scientists and the doctors... They were giving him all kinds of medicines and injections and bodywork and massage. And the boy was so strong that they needed four or five people to catch hold of him; otherwise he used to run faster on his four feet than any runner. He could have come first in any Olympic race anywhere; he was a wolf.

It would have been more humane to leave him back in the forest. But this is how the unconscious mind functions. Now a girl has been found in Europe and they have immediately started working on her to restore her. They will kill her. I can predict it -- because this "restoration" is not possible; it would take a lifetime.

As for the Lucknow boy, in six months the whole success for the scientists and the doctors was that he learned one word: the name Ram that they had given to him. That was their whole success -- and they enjoyed very much, that they had done "great service." All they did... There are five billion human beings, what is the point of taking a beautiful wolf back into humanity, and rejoicing that he has learned the name Ram?

And thousands of people were coming -- he had become an exhibition -- to ask him, "What is your name?" And he would say, "Ram" -- with anger. According to his mind, it was purely torture because traction was being done.

Suddenly a monkey cannot become... And Charles Darwin also was looking for a middle link. The monkey must have become first a middle link between man and monkey, and then from middle link he may have moved to monkey. He never could find any middle link; his hypothesis remains hypothesis.

All these philosophers go on using some idea. Once they get attached to it they extend it into a philosophy, into a whole system. That's what Marx did. But dialectics is a natural phenomenon, particularly as far as man's psychology is concerned: mind functions through dialectical ways.

You will never find mind without any split.

I keep coming across very intelligent people.... I wanted one of our sannyasins who is a very intelligent legal expert, to come here -- and there is no problem in coming. His wife is also as educated as he is. They were both colleagues in law college, his wife was a magistrate. He has been in the commune. The wife had also come, but because they had a small child she went back and took a job as a magistrate. Now that her husband has gone back to join her, she has dropped out of her job. So I told both of them they could come here. He informed me that ninety percent he wants to come, but ten percent of his mind thinks of security, safety; the child, his education, old age, the future...

I have come across such people all my life, and I have asked them only one thing: If you are intelligent enough, then why are you choosing the ten percent part of your mind against the ninety percent? You are not realizing at all that you are choosing ten percent of the mind -- and you are afraid to choose the ninety percent.

And mind is never going to be a hundred percent for anything. That is not the way mind functions, it is out of the question. Mind's function is always to be divided on every question: a thesis, antithesis, and then you have to find out the synthesis, and you have to function according to the synthesis.

So there is no problem about your being a masochist; you are not on a mind trip either. It is simply the way of the mind that it never functions as a total unit. In fact, if you see the dialectics in life you will find it in many places. You walk, that is dialectical. If both your legs move together one hundred percent you will fall down. Fifty percent remains static, fifty percent moves. Then the other fifty percent becomes static and the static part starts moving. That's how you walk; that is dialectical philosophy. That's how a bird flies; that's how you use your hands.

Even your mind is not one single piece; it has two hemispheres. Your right hand is connected with the left side of your mind and your left hand is connected with the right side of your mind. So if something goes wrong with the left side of the mind, for example paralysis, then your right hand will be paralyzed.

Both have different functions. The right side of the mind thinks and the left side of the mind feels, and thinking and feeling are just like two legs. They cannot join together; otherwise there will be no progress in life. You will remain static.

So it is simply a matter of not understanding the nature of mind. You have one part of the mind ready -- let it go and do its job. That is the moving leg, and the other part is the static part. And you think that you would like me to slash the knot asunder. I cannot do that because I love you.

Once I started doing things for you, you would become dependent on me. And that is the last thing that I will tolerate. I would not like you to be dependent on me. I can give you the way, I can show you the way, but I will not walk for you. You will have to walk yourself, because I want you to be absolutely independent and free. Today I am here, tomorrow I may not be here.

If you become dependent on me, as has been happening all over the world for centuries -- people become dependent on the masters, and the masters enjoy the dependence. Neither are the masters authentic nor are the disciples intelligent -- and humanity has remained static.

Are you aware of the fact that for centuries there has been no evolution? If monkeys have become human beings at some time, what have human beings done? -- they are stuck. At least some daring human being should take a jump and start flying, do something! But you know perfectly well that if you try flying, there will be no evolution, only multiple fracture.

It has happened to a few people under LSD or under impact of some drug -- particularly LSD gives these ideas that you can fly. And one woman flew out from an eighty-storey building, from the eightieth floor. She simply flew out of the window. And you know what would happen... so it happened.

LSD is a very harmless drug, but it should be used under medical supervision, because it gives such ideas, great ideas, and the mind is no longer functioning so there is no opposition; there is a one hundred percent surety -- and that is very dangerous. A one hundred percent surety is not favorable to evolution. It is good that the mind should be divided for and against, discuss, argue, and slowly slowly progress.

But one thing is strange, that for at least one million years there has been no evolution as far as man is concerned. You cannot call this evolution: one person becomes a Gautam Buddha or one person becomes a Bodhidharma or one becomes a Tah Hui -- you cannot call that evolution. The whole of humanity is stuck somewhere.

What is the problem? The problem is, humanity is not moving with the part of the mind which is for evolution; it is staying with the part of the mind which is not for evolution.

You have to learn only one thing, that you have already a part of your mind ready, happy to do that. So do it! Don't bother about the other part of the mind. That mind is pulling you back; it represents your past. And the mind that is feeling happy and excited to do something, it represents your future. Choose the future.

Don't depend on somebody else, because that dependence is dangerous. It is not only one question that can be solved, there are a thousand and one questions -- and your evolution depends on your own readiness to risk, your own acceptance of danger.

You are in a right position; there is no problem. Just listen always to the part of the mind that is for the future, that is for the unknown, that is for evolution, and the other part will come following behind.

Once you are decisive, the other part of the mind will immediately follow you. It will remain against you until you are decisive. And the decision has to come from looking at the fact of which mind is for the future and evolution, which mind is going to give you a better life, a better understanding, a better consciousness -- choose that and the Gordian knot will be slashed without any effort on your part or without any need from outside help.

A woman leaned over her side of the fence and asked the little boy next door how he was getting on with his new stepfather.

"Great," he replied, "every morning he takes me out in the boat to the ocean, puts me in the water and then I swim back to the beach."

"But is not that a bit dangerous for a little boy?" asked the woman.

"Oh, that's easy. The hard part is untying the knot and getting out of the bag."

It is certainly a little harder... but if you can manage to do it, it will give you a sudden quantum leap for a higher consciousness.

Question 3:

Tilo, in the first place psychotherapies like Fritz Perls' Gestalt therapy and others are already old; they are not new. The only new thing which is the latest fashion is Voice Dialogue -- but they are all just mind games.

They cannot contribute anything to a man who is already meditating -- no psychotherapy has the quality of meditation, because no psychotherapy has produced a single enlightened being. Their founders were not enlightened and the enlightened beings in the East never bothered about any psychotherapy. They have not even bothered about psychology or mind itself, because for them the question was not to solve the problems of the mind, for them the question was how to get out of the mind which is easier. Then the problems all are finished, because once you are out of the mind, the mind has no nourishment to go on creating problems; otherwise it is an unending process.

You get psychoanalyzed, whether old or new fashions it doesn't matter; they are just variations of the same theme. Your mind feels a little fresh and good after a psychological session, because you have unburdened yourself. A little understanding of mind also comes -- that keeps you normal.

In fact, all psychotherapies are in the service of the establishment; their function is not to let people go abnormal. Somebody is going outside the herd and the norms of the herd and doing things which it is not supposed that you should do...! They may be harmless but the society cannot tolerate such people. They have to be brought to the normal, to the average standard.

The psychotherapist's work is to clean your mind. It is a kind of lubricating your mechanism -- it functions a little better and you start becoming a little more understanding about the functionings of the mind, although that does not make any revolutionary change. And it is possible you may solve one problem, but you have not removed the cause.

Mind itself is the problem.

So you can remove one problem, mind will create another problem... It is just like pruning the trees: you prune one leaf and just out of self-respect and dignity the tree will grow three leaves in the place where there used to be one. That's why gardeners go on pruning; that gives trees more foliage, more leaves.

The same is the situation with the mind: you can remove one problem by understanding it -- and it is costly -- but the mind is still there which has created the problem, and psychoanalysis does not go beyond the boundaries of the mind. The mind will create a new problem, more complicated than the one that you have solved. Naturally, because the mind understands you can solve that kind of problem, it creates something new, more complicated, more foliage.

Meditation is a totally different thing than psychoanalysis or any therapies which are confined to the mind. It is simply a jumping out of the mind: You have your problems -- I'm going home.

Because mind is a parasite it does not have its own existence. It needs you inside in it, so it can go on eating you, your head. Once you jump out of it, the mind is just a graveyard.

All those problems that were too big drop, they simply drop dead.

Meditation is a totally different dimension: you simply watch the mind and in watching you come out of it. And slowly, mind with all its problems disappears; otherwise the mind is going to create strange problems.

The other day in England a court released a murderer. It is a very strange case, and it may give impetus to many people to murder. The murderer was in the second world war fighting in Japan. And he pleaded in the court that in the night he dreamt that the Japanese were chasing him, and they were just about to get hold of him. He became so frightened and he wanted to survive, so he caught hold of the neck of one Japanese and killed him by pressing on his neck. And as the Japanese was killed, he awoke from the dream and the Japanese was no one but his wife.

The court was in a difficulty what to do, because he had not done it consciously, in awareness. Now to punish him does not seem right, even in a traditional England, where anything new takes years to be accepted. When the whole world will accept it then England will try!

The judge must have been a man of great understanding, but he has also opened a door of dangers. Now anybody can kill his wife and say, "What can I do? Japanese were following..." It is a precedent that you have released one man, acquitted completely from committing any crime.

Now you are able to commit crime. You just have to pretend that you are asleep, and there is no way for the court to find out whether you were really asleep and the Japanese were really following you in your dream. The poor woman was fast asleep, he jumped up and killed her -- and perhaps he is right... But now there will be cases which will not be right. Perhaps what he is saying is true; he has been in the war in Japan and that may have come as a dream from his unconscious; and out of fear, to protect himself, he started fighting with the Japanese. And there was nobody else in the room except the wife close to him just on the bed, so he jumped, caught hold of the Japanese...

Mind is your only problem.

All other problems are just offshoots of the mind.

Meditation cuts the mind from the very roots.

And all these therapies -- Gestalt and Voice Dialogue and Fritz Perls -- we can use them for those who have not yet entered into meditation just to have a little understanding of the mind so they can find the door from where to get out.

We are using all kinds of therapies which are helpful, but not for the meditators. They are only helpful in the beginning when you have not yet become accustomed to meditation.

Once you are meditative you don't need any therapy, no therapy is helpful then. But in the beginning, it can be helpful, and particularly for the Western sannyasins.

I don't suggest it much for Eastern people that they should do therapy groups. For example, Japanese have been found not to understand that in an encounter group if people are fighting it is just playful fighting. They really start fighting and they can become dangerous; they can kill somebody.

Different cultures... Japanese have been writing letters to me saying that in the therapies they are telling us that you hate your mother, your father -- and it is absolutely wrong!

We will kill the therapist! Japan has a totally different culture. The very idea that you hate your mother -- and the person will commit hara-kiri. He will kill himself because it is so shameful.

I have come to know such stories of hara-kiri that you cannot believe. One famous historical case happened three hundred years ago. A very well-known master of martial arts forgot, when he went to meet the emperor, to bow down. In Japan you have to bow down even to your enemy when you go to fight.

Both bow down to each other because one never knows who will be left alive. At this moment enmity and friendship don't matter. At this moment when one person is never going to be seen again and will not even be able to ask for forgiveness, they give respect.

And it is authentic, it is not formal.

Going to the emperor and forgetting to bow down... And he forgot because he was a great master and thousands of people who were learning under him were all bowing down to him. So he had become accustomed to people bowing down to him, and then he would respond by the same gesture. It was such bad manners that when he was made aware that he had committed a great crime because he had not bowed down to the emperor, he committed suicide.

That is the routine process. There is no other way except that to show that you really feel repentant. It is not so easy as in the West where you can just say, "I'm sorry" -- that is very formal and very easy. Japanese take things very seriously. The only way you can say, "I'm sorry" is by hara-kiri -- one feels so ashamed of himself that he cannot allow himself to live anymore.

The more strange thing is that his three hundred intimate disciples committed hara-kiri because their master had behaved in a shameful way. They were not at all concerned, but because their master has fallen in grace, how can they stand in the world with grace and dignity? Three hundred disciples committed hara-kiri. This is a historical fact, and this kind of thing has been happening in Japan for centuries.

So one sannyasin has written to me, "The therapist goes on insisting, 'You must hate your mother...' Either I will kill the therapist or I will kill myself if he is right. Because I don't see that I have ever hated my mother."

And in fact the situation is different. In Japan almost one-third of the girls don't marry; they remain with their mother. In the rest of the world the situation is different. And what psychoanalysis has found does not apply to the Japanese. It applies only to the Western mind and its upbringing.

Sigmund Freud is right only about the Western mind and its tradition. When he says that every girl hates her mother because she loves the father, the whole thing is based on their understanding of sex, that one loves the opposite sex. So girls love the fathers, the boys love the mother. But the girls cannot express their love, particularly they cannot be sexually related with the father, and the mother is related sexually. So they become jealous of the mother -- the mother is their enemy. The boys become enemies of the father and because of that the boy cannot make love to the mother.

The Japanese cannot even think of this; even Indians cannot think of this -- just a totally different upbringing. Indians cannot believe what kind of nonsense this is. And for the Japanese things are very difficult. If you insist and you convince him that he hates his mother or he hates his father -- and the whole psychoanalysis depends on these kinds of things: who you hate, why you hate... And they go on digging deeper and they prove to the person that from very childhood there has been a jealousy and that is creating all the problems.

"Why can't you love your wife?" -- the psychoanalyst will come to the conclusion that you wanted to love your mother -- and your wife is not your mother -- and the wife does not love you because she wanted to love her father and you are not her father. So you are bound to fight continuously. You have fallen in love with the girl because something in her resembles your mother. And the girl has fallen in love for the same reason: something in you resembles her father.

So you have married your mother; she has married her father. This is psychoanalysis.

And because neither she is behaving like your mother nor you are behaving like her father, problems arise.

But to say to a Japanese, "You have married your mother," is simply out of the question.

To say to an Indian, "You have been secretly loving your mother and you wanted a sexual relationship with her..."; he cannot even think..."Are you in your senses or..."

In India the tradition is that the son loves his mother almost like a goddess. He loves his father and respects his father next to God. And the difficult thing is that even the people in the East who are teaching or who are in the profession of psychoanalysis, as professors or as practitioners, they have all learned from the West and they don't understand that the East has a totally different orientation.

And Sigmund Freud or Jung or Adler or Assagioli or Fritz Perls have no idea. Not even in their dreams have they thought that people can be different from the Western people.

In the East psychoanalysis is not of much help. For the Westerners, I like them to go through groups just to clean the mind. With a clean mind, to enter into meditation is easier. But if you don't enter meditation and you simply depend on cleaning the mind, then you will be cleaning the mind for your whole life and you will not go anywhere else.

Because of its different orientation the East should find seats in the universities for meditation, not for psychoanalysis.

One of the great Indian psychologists who was the head of the department in the Hindu university of Varanasi belonged to a village near my village; and moreover, he was father-in-law to one of my friends who had studied with me. He was one of the most respected professors of psychology, but he was condemned by everybody because people, thinking that he would be able to help them with their mind problems, would go for psychoanalysis, and psychoanalysis brings... They would ask, "Whom do you hate?"

And the Indian would find himself at a loss because everything comes down to sex -- and the Indian cannot accept that idea. It is not the same orientation as in the West.

This man's name was Laljiram Shukla. And because his son-in-law was my friend, the son-in-law was continuously telling him that he must meet me at least once. He was an old man. I was just out of the university. He invited me to come to Varanasi because his son-in-law was continually praising me. It became a psychological problem for the psychologist that the son-in-law was more interested in me, and not interested in him and was continually praising me. It became a challenge to him.

I was not aware what the situation was. When he invited me I thought perhaps it was because of my friend; he may have talked about me, so I went. I was a guest in his house, and I immediately became aware of a certain tension.

I asked my friend, "What is the matter?"

He said, "The problem is that I have been talking about you not knowing that he was feeling very offended. But he never showed it, and now, because you are here -- and many other professors have become interested; all his students, nearabout twenty postgraduates, they are all coming in the morning to meet you -- he is feeling very much wounded."

So in the morning he exploded. He started arguing with me, and because I told him, "All your education is from the West; all that you are talking is simply nonsense in the East -- what do you know about meditation? All your knowledge is about the mind, and that too of a certain mind, the Western mind. You are betraying the East by teaching people all kinds of nonsense, which does not make any actual impact on them, because that is not their problem.

"I have never seen anybody, I have looked in so many people's minds... In the East nobody is jealous of the father, nobody wants to make love to the mother, but without these things the psychoanalyst will say, 'If you want to be cured you will have to cooperate.'" And I argued with him -- I had to because he was so angry with me that I could not understand why he had invited me. And because he could not answer, I asked him directly, "I ask you, have you ever in your childhood wanted to make love to your mother? Have you ever thought in your childhood to kill your father because he was your competitor for the same sex object, the mother?"

He cooled down, and he said, "Never. I never thought about these things."

I said, "What are you doing now? Imposing on people ideas which are not their problems, are you helping them or destroying their integrity? You are telling them that their problems are things which are not their problems."

In the East for centuries the problem has been how to get beyond the mind -- the only problem, the single problem. But for the Western mind, because it has developed in a different way, it has never thought about transcending mind. I have looked into Jewish sources, into Christian sources; there is not a single statement in the whole history of the West where somebody has made an effort to go beyond the mind.

They have used the mind to pray, they have used the mind to believe in God; they have used the mind to become religious, virtuous, but they have never even thought that there is a possibility of going beyond the mind.

In the East that has been the only, single search. The whole genius of the East has been working for one thing, no other problems: how to go beyond the mind. Because if you can solve your problems wholesale just by going beyond, then why go for retail solving of problems. The mind will go on creating; it is a very creative force. You solve one problem, another problem arises. You solve that problem, another problem arises.

It is a good business for the psychoanalyst, because he knows you are never going to be cured. You are not going to be cured of the mind; he cures your specific problems. Your mind is there, the source. He never cuts the roots, he only cuts leaves, branches at the most, but they go on growing again -- the roots are there.

Meditation is cutting the very roots of problems.

I repeat: the mind is the only problem, and unless you go beyond the mind, you will never go beyond problems.

It is strange that even today, the Western psychologists have not even pondered over the fact that the East has created so many enlightened people. None of them has bothered about the analysis of the mind.

Just as in the Western literature -- religious, philosophical, theological -- there is no idea of going beyond the mind, in the same way in the Eastern philosophical literature there is nowhere any mention that psychoanalysis or psychology is of any importance. The West has lived with the mind and the East has lived beyond the mind, so their problems don't seem to be the same.

Ugly things can happen when you impose. For example, Erhard was running the movement of EST -- and it looks stupid to the Eastern meditator. What he was trying to do is so hilarious, but people felt very good. You will also feel very good if you do it, without paying him the two hundred and fifty dollars fee for you to become enlightened.

And how you become enlightened is a very simply process.

You are not allowed to go to the bathroom, so your bladder goes on becoming more and more filled with... and it starts hurting -- and you are not allowed to go to the bathroom.

And the session continues from the morning till night. The whole day to contain yourself, to resist the temptation...!

In such a situation who is listening to what nonsense he is talking? You are trying to hold yourself so that in some unaware moment... And then it starts happening, because how long can you do it? Particularly women don't have any control on the bladder; man has a little control, but women don't have.

So one woman starts pissing -- and when one starts... And Erhard used to say, "That is great!" And she feels certainly immensely relieved. First you created the tension and the tension became too much; it became anguish, agony. And now, she feels so released: It is enlightenment." She says, "I have got it" -- and then follows a chain... Somebody else starts getting it, somebody else starts getting it -- they used to fill the whole hall with urine. And they have paid two hundred and fifty dollars -- you can do it on your own!

If this is enlightenment, just close your room, and if you need some help it can be very easy; your friend can tie you so you cannot go to the bathroom. Then, contain yourself as long as you can and there comes a moment when you cannot contain. Then the bladder simply takes over. You are simply surprised by what is happening. And such a great relaxation and relief follows, such peace that you have never known -- peace that passes understanding!

These idiots have been creating new fashions in psychology, in psychoanalysis, therapies -- and earning millions of dollars, and cheating people. It is not enlightenment. And if this is enlightenment then there is no need to be enlightened. It is perfectly good to go to the toilet... forget all about enlightenment.

The East has never bothered about the mind, has not even taken any note of it, has ignored it. From Patanjali to Gautam Buddha, to Shankara, to Ramakrishna, to J.

Krishnamurti -- the whole tradition does not bother about the mind. The mind is mentioned only for one purpose: how to transcend it.

Hundreds of methods have been found which can help you to transcend the mind, and once you are beyond the mind all its problems look as if they are somebody else's problems. You attain to a state of a watcher on the hills, and all the problems are in the valleys. And they don't have any impact on you; you have gone beyond them.

The West has remained utterly mind centered. In the West the only thing they have thought about is matter and mind. And matter is the reality and mind is only a by- product; beyond mind there is nothing.

In the East matter is illusory, mind is a by-product of all your illusions, projections, dreams. Your reality is beyond matter and mind, both.

So we divide reality in the East into three parts: matter, the outermost; the soul, the innermost; the mind is in between the two. Matter has a relative reality; it is not absolutely real, just relatively real. The mind is absolutely unreal, and the soul is absolutely real.

This is a totally different categorization of humanity. In the West the categories are simple: matter is real, mind is just a by-product, and there is nothing beyond mind.

So remember, Tilo, if you are meditating then nothing else is needed. If you are not meditating, then these psychotherapies may be helpful as a stepping-stone for meditation.

It was sunrise, and the young athlete was doing push-ups on the beach when a drunk appeared.

The drunk weaved his way to within a few yards of the perspiring young man, sat down on the sand and laughed and laughed.

"What the devil are you laughing about?" asked the annoyed young man.

The drunk laughed and said, "Don't look now, but somebody stole your girl."

Unnecessarily doing push-ups...

The West is unnecessarily making tremendous effort in analyzing the mind -- utterly useless unless they accept a transcendental state. And that's why again and again they get cheated by frauds. For example, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is cheating the whole of the West by any stupid thing. First it was transcendental meditation, then people became fed up with it because it was not meditation; it was mind repeating a mantra. You were not going beyond the mind, so what is transcendental in it?

So his earnings became very low; he had to invent something new. So he has invented spiritual yogic flying. First he started by spiritual levitation: you can meditate and become so light that you will start rising upwards! -- and you can find idiots everywhere... And people were paying four hundred dollars for learning spiritual levitation. In the first place what are you going to do by... even if you levitate, what purpose is going to be served by it? In the second place nobody was levitating; people were hopping.

Trick photography was being used and spread. People were shown to have levitated, and they had levitated with their mattress also -- that was strange. The mattress also has become yogic, spiritual...!

He was continually asked, "Give a public demonstration of your levitation" -- and he could not. A case was brought in the Supreme Court of America by seven of his own disciples, who had been working hard on levitation and found that it was absolute nonsense -- they were just hopping! So they had brought a case against him, demanding ninety million dollars. He has been cheating the whole world, and he has accumulated tremendous money.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi dropped that idea because he could not give a public demonstration. He came with a new idea, and this new idea is yogic flying -- even greater. And what is the purpose of yogic flying? -- if one person can learn to fly, then ninety-nine persons in the world will become meditative and silent and peaceful.

A big business, because it means for five billion people to become peaceful -- no war, no conflict, just blissfulness -- millions of people will have to learn yogic flying. Again, he was aware that he would be asked to give a public demonstration. He has given one demonstration in Europe, and now another is planned in America soon. And what people saw was, it was the same hopping, but now it is hopping not only in one place, you go on hopping...

Every frog knows it! And it is so stupid that people are paying millions of dollars to learn what the frogs know without any difficulty. They are giving public demonstrations and they don't even see that they are being absolutely stupid. A few have become so expert that now there are hurdle races; small hurdles are places and they hop over the hurdles.

They are great spiritual people.

But I don't see the connection. Even if they can hop, and go on crossing the hurdles, in what way is this going to create peace in the world...? Nor can it create peace in the person who is hopping. It will create more retardedness in him. The very idea that he has accepted this stupid thing shows that he has no intelligence at all. And what peace, how can peace be attained by these kinds of things?

He is now proposing to the world that if millions -- he has calculated exactly how many millions of people are needed to learn hopping to prevent the third world war.

I don't believe that man is so stupid that he gets caught by such frauds. People are learning. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has opened an academy in Switzerland where thousands of people are learning hopping.

The West is being exploited by all kinds of frauds for the simple reason that the West has not looked into the matter of meditation itself. So any idiot goes and says anything, and gathers followers because they don't know what meditation is. Neither will chanting a mantra nor hopping nor levitation...

These things have nothing to do with meditation. Meditation has only one meaning, and that is going beyond the mind and becoming a witness. In your witnessing is the miracle - - the whole mystery of life.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

The Invitation