Into the very center of silence

Kahlil Gibran, even in his most profound statements, always misses a few things - and those few things are so essential that their absence destroys the whole profundity. It also shows that he is not speaking from experience.

The first thing is: he always answers the question as if the question has been asked by an empty sky. A man who knows does not answer the question: he always answers the questioner. But Kahlil Gibran continuously forgets the questioner.

Secondly, he never goes deeper than the heart - and the heart is not your real being. Just as you are surrounded by a thick wall of thoughts called mind, you are surrounded by a more delicate but still very strong wall - sometimes even stronger than your thoughts - the wall of your feelings, emotions, sentiments. Unless you go beyond both, howsoever beautiful the statement may be, it lacks life, it lacks the truth.

AND THEN A SCHOLAR SAID....

Scholars are the most foolish people in the world because they know nothing, yet they behave as if they know all. They are the people who are living on borrowed knowledge - rotten knowledge which has been out of date for centuries. Their heads are full, their hearts are empty - and they know nothing of the being.

The only knowledge worth calling knowledge is an experience of your innermost center, the center of the cyclone. The feelings, the sentiments, the emotions, these are all cyclones. Thoughts, howsoever decorated, are nothing but the outer part of the cyclone.

Your being is utterly silent, still: there is no thought, there is no feeling, there is no emotion - just a pure isness. Its very purity is so virgin.... What to say of others? - even you have not entered in your virgin soul.

The scholar is a collector of all kinds of junk. I have met scholars of almost all religions, I have met philosophers teaching in the universities, but everything they say is only skin-deep; just scratch a little and you will be aware of their darkness, ignorance. Hence they are very, very touchy. That's why every day I go on receiving summons from people - their feelings are hurt, their religions are hurt. Truth is never hurt - only lies are hurt - because truth can never be exposed. Lies can be exposed any moment....

But they had believed in a lie as a truth. They have not bothered even to look at the roots - to see whether they are carrying a real rosebush, or just something plastic. And they are perfectly happy - at least to the outside world - because the world pays them respect and goes on fulfilling their egos.

And because their ego is fulfilled, they go on collecting more and more junk.

In Jabalpur there was a special market called the thieves' market, Chor Bazaar; you could get anything there - everything that had been stolen in Jabalpur, or in surrounding towns, was sold there. I was a constant visitor, particularly to a small shop one old man used to run. He used to sell newspapers, old magazines, books, stolen books. He had no price for them; they were sold by their weight - SHRIMAD BHAGAVADGITA, one kilo.

The old man started, by and by, loving me because I was a constant visitor. I told the old man, "You must be the greatest scholar in the world."

He said, "What? I'm a poor man. I can read a little bit, but I'm not a scholar."

I said, "But you have so much junk...." From his shop you could have found all the religious scriptures, all great novels, Nobel Prize winner books. I am remembering him today because I had got THE PROPHET from his bookshop, just for two annas - that was the price, because the book is small and it has not much weight.

I said, "I am saying that you are a great scholar, because your shop is nothing but a magnified form of the mind of a scholar." He is loaded with knowledge - and knows nothing. And if you question him, you hurt him, if you argue against his knowledge, he will take you to the court.

What kind of a strange world have we created? To be a scholar you don't need any intelligence, just a mechanical memory; intelligence is a totally different phenomenon. The scholar can answer only that question which is stored in his memory system, in his bio-computer. Sometimes even computers are more intelligent.

I have heard about a computer.... A man was very much amazed when he heard about the miracles that a computer can do. He said, "I would like to check it. I cannot believe that a machine can answer your questions."

So he went to the central system where the biggest and the most sophisticated computer was available, and he asked, "Can you tell me where my father is?"

For a moment the computer was silent and then he said, "Your father? He has been dead for almost five years."

The man laughed. He said, "I knew from the very beginning that it is all nonsense! My father has gone fishing. Just now I have left him on the riverbank and I have come here; and you are saying my father has been dead for five years."

He could not believe it when the computer laughed loudly. He said, "My God, you can laugh also!"

The computer said, "Why not? - because the man you think you have left on the boat is not your father; he is only the husband of your mother."

He was very shocked - and so many people heard it. The whole office knew, "This man is a bastard.

The man he thinks is his father is only the husband of his mother; his real father has been dead for five years. Even this much intelligence you will not find in a scholar. Ask only what has been fed into his bio-computer. He can repeat the question, he can give the answer, but if something new arises, which has not been fed into his memory, he is absolutely impotent. Intelligence is a totally different matter. It is your awareness encountering a new situation, and finding out ways and means to deal with it.

This country has known the greatest scholars of the world for ten thousand years, but what is their contribution? They cannot contribute anything. They can only repeat what has been repeated by others to them.

Situations go on changing, life brings new problems, new questions. But these scholars - they somehow go on giving old answers which are absolutely irrelevant to the real situation through which they are passing; otherwise ten thousand years of intelligence... this country would have been a real paradise, not a dream but a reality. But on the contrary, this country has become a hell.

And who is responsible? - all your scholars. Memory is cheap - even idiots have memory.

Intelligence needs arduous effort - to go into your aloneness, inwards, in the darkness, and to find the center of your life. The moment you find that center, immediately something that was asleep is awakened. We have called that awakened man the real and authentic man. We have called him the jina, because he has conquered himself. We have called him the Buddha, because he is enlightened. We have called him the seer, because now - only now, for the first time - he has eyes:

up to now he has been a blind fellow.

Almustafa would have done better if he first hammered the scholar a little, and he looked at the poverty of his question.

AND THEN A SCHOLAR SAID, SPEAK OF TALKING....

Only parrots can ask that question. Talking? - was the scholar a baby who does not know how to talk? Almustafa did not indicate, "Your question is stupid and you are a very scholarly idiot." He started answering him. He is not taking any note of the questioner. And I say unto you again and again: unless the questioner is answered, just to answer the question is not of much use, because it is arising out of the questioner and his ignorance. You have to light a candle into his being first; perhaps then he may be able to understand what you are going to say. This is not a small matter: it is the most important matter.

That's why Kahlil Gibran's very profound statements have been read by millions just like poetry; nobody has thought that there is any truth in it. Yes, everybody has said that his way of saying has a beauty of its own - his words are so poetic and so musical. But that is as if you are talking about the beauty of a woman and you talk about her clothes - "You are a great beauty, your clothes are so beautiful, your ornaments are so valuable" - and you don't mention her eyes and you don't mention her face and you don't mention the warmth of her body and you don't mention the love that surrounds her. She is going to freak out, "You seem to be a cloth merchant or a goldsmith! I am not my clothes, neither am I my ornaments. You have not mentioned anything that belongs to me."

YOU TALK WHEN YOU CEASE TO BE AT PEACE WITH YOUR THOUGHTS....

That is not necessarily true. You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts. Why should you talk - and about what are you going to talk - when all your thoughts are at peace, fast asleep?

I would like to say to you: you talk, or you are capable of talking, when your mind completely stops disturbing your consciousness - but it is not necessary. If you want troubles, you talk. If you want to remain peaceful and silent and enjoy, you remain silent. In this insane world, to say anything true is challenging all the idiots - because their lies are exposed. But it is not only that the thoughts are at peace.

Thoughts are never at peace.

Either they are, or they are not.

It is a contradictory statement. Perhaps he has a certain faraway insight into the truth, but he is not clear. His words...at peace with your thoughts... are a self-contradiction. Either you can have thoughts, or you can have peace - because thoughts are the only disturbances in your consciousness.

YOU TALK WHEN YOU CEASE TO BE AT PEACE WITH YOUR THOUGHTS; AND WHEN YOU CAN NO LONGER DWELL IN THE SOLITUDE OF YOUR HEART YOU LIVE....

Why do people want to talk? Everybody all over the world is talking. I have heard that only once, far back, for one minute, all talking on the earth had stopped, because a prophet had declared, "If you want to hear God... for one minute, when the sun is exactly in the middle of the sky, has crossed half way, as your clocks start chiming that it is twelve o'clock, for one minute... stop! - if you want to hear God."

It is an ancient story, told by Chuang Tzu - in whose name this auditorium is dedicated. I love many, many people, but Chuang Tzu stands separate as a class, a category in himself. He was really a great rascal saint. I love him, not because he was a saint - because saints are one rupee a dozen - but because he was a rascal saint, which is rare - a very rare combination.

Because Chuang Tzu was respected all over China, people believed him, and for one moment there was silence all over the earth. Nobody heard God - because there is no God. But nobody complained. The story has such a beautiful meaning. Nobody complained "You have deceived us, unnecessarily wasted our time - one minute. We could have smoked a cigarette or gone on chewing our gum or talking about beautiful things; you stopped us for one minute."

But nobody came to complain to him. He himself asked people, "Are you disappointed in me?"

They said, "No. The moment we became silent, we heard a very still, small voice within our own heart, within our own being. We have come to show our gratitude to you and touch your feet, because we would never have stopped - even for one minute - and would never have been able to discover that God is not in the sky, but within our own being."

But He does not shout, He whispers - just the way lovers whisper to each other, just as secrets are whispered from one mouth to another ear.

It is said that if you want your wife to listen to what you are saying, don't say it loudly; just whisper to somebody, and she will hear it, certainly. The very whispering makes it clear that something is being hidden from her, something is being kept as a secret, and she is not included in it. But if you are talking loudly, no wife listens. This is an everyday ritual....

I was staying in Calcutta, and I had to reach a meeting - and I hate to be late. The husband who was driving me was honking the horn for his wife to come. Everybody heard the honking of his horn - "Has he gone mad or what? The car is standing... nobody is ahead - why is he honking?" And then his wife opened the window and said, "I have said to you at least one thousand times that I am coming in one minute, but you go on honking your horn. Go on - but I will take my time. I will come in one minute!"

I said, "My God, she cannot even say 'in one minute' one thousand times!"

The husband said, "You will not be able to understand; you are not a husband."

I said, "I am not a husband because of people like you. Seeing all around me the situation of husbands, I decided that it is better not to be a husband than to remain in a constant hell."

Almustafa is saying: You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts. It has a different meaning also. I have given you the meaning that I would like, but you must be made aware of the different meaning. He is saying, "When you are not involved with your thoughts you cannot remain silent." You have become so accustomed to continually talking inside your mind. What else is your mind? - a talking machine, most of the time, like a gramophone whose needle has stuck at a certain point, so you go on again and again - every day the same ritual, the same thought, the same fear - and it stops at the same point.

He is saying that you talk only when your thoughts are not available to you. When your thoughts are not playing football in your mind, then you start playing football with somebody else. What is your conversation? - just a football match, throwing words at each other. Nobody is listening. Have you ever listened to anybody? You simply pick up a certain word from which you can start talking - you don't listen to what he is saying. He waits just out of courtesy, looking for the right word from which he can start again. This is called conversation: it is simply a football match.

Almustafa is right, that a man of silence will enjoy his silence. But you cannot remain silent even for a few minutes; you have to do something.

I used to live with a friend who could not stay at rest either in mind or body for a single moment; he was fidgeting in the body, tossing and turning. I said, "What kind of yoga have you learned? I have gone through Patanjali and all other yoga scriptures; I have never come across this exercise that you do."

And he was always in search of somebody to start conversation. People who used to come to me started asking me, "Is your house owner in the house? Then we are not coming, because he catches hold of us just at the gate. He holds our hands so we cannot even escape - it looks very odd - and he starts talking about all of kinds of things. We go on saying 'We have come to meet your guest.' He says, 'First meet the host. This is the price you have to pay.' So just tell us when he is not at home, then we will come; otherwise meet us in a nearby garden and let him wait at the gate."

I asked him many times, "Were you an American in your last birth?"

He said, "Why do you say that?" - because smoking cigarettes is a substitute for conversation when you don't have anybody else; chewing gum is a substitute for talking when you have nobody else.

At least the chewing gum gives you an excuse to open your mouth and close your mouth, and open your mouth and close your mouth. Without chewing gum you can also do it, but then it will look very absurd....

AND WHEN YOU CAN NO LONGER DWELL IN THE SOLITUDE OF YOUR HEART YOU LIVE IN YOUR LIPS, AND SOUND IS A DIVERSION AND A PASTIME.

When you are unable to live in silence, your whole life becomes concentrated in your lips. This is nothing but a diversion and a pastime. You are destroying your time, and you are destroying the time of others; and it is such a self-deception that you are not even aware of it.

AND IN MUCH OF YOUR TALKING, THINKING IS HALF MURDERED.

Thinking needs solitude, aloneness, so that you can figure out things in a sane way. But you continually murder your thinking, because all your energy is wasted in talking. And people are talking without thinking - what can they talk about? They repeat the newspaper they have been reading, they repeat the film they have seen, they repeat the fight that went on in their house. It is all rubbish.

Almustafa is saying that thinking should come out of contemplation; but contemplation needs that you try to be silent. Contemplation is not the greatest thing in your life. Higher than contemplation is meditation.

So these are the three layers in you: talking, which murders half of your thinking; contemplation, which can give you new insights, but they will also be converted sooner or later into thoughts; meditation, which takes you beyond, into the very center of silence and solitude. Thinking is not born out of it.

A man of meditation can talk because for him his mind has become a servant; he can use it like any machine.

Ordinarily it is just the opposite. Mind has become your master, and it has filled your whole inner space with thoughts. Even contemplation is difficult, and meditation is not even heard of.

FOR THOUGHT IS A BIRD OF SPACE, THAT IN A CAGE OF WORDS MAY INDEED UNFOLD ITS WINGS BUT CANNOT FLY.

For thought is a bird of space.... It is such a great insight that only now has science become aware that thoughts are only certain vibrations moving in space. If you have the right instrument to catch them, you can catch them. But words become cages... that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.... You must have seen cages in words.

I used to visit one of the great freedom fighters. He had traveled all over the world many times; he was a very well respected man, very rich. He was next only to Winston Churchill in being continually a member of Parliament for sixty years, nonstop. From every country he used to bring birds - he loved them - and he was rich, so the cages were very beautiful. But I said to him, "You are deceiving yourself that you love these birds. If you love them, open the doors, let them fly, because love always gives freedom. Any love that becomes an imprisonment is not love, it is hate." He was shocked.

Next morning he came to me and said, "Perhaps you are right. I don't love the birds, I simply love decorating my garden and my palace." His house was called a palace, because his father served the British government, and the British government had given him a title of raja, a king. Hence his house - it was palatial - had been called since then "the Palace of Raja Gokuldas," because that was his father's name.

I said, "You simply love your ego."

He said, "Come with me... help me to free all those birds." And it was such a joy to see those birds again opening their wings into the sky and disappearing into space.

I said, "This will give you some sense of what love is: it never encages anybody, it gives only freedom."

THERE ARE THOSE AMONG YOU WHO SEEK THE TALKATIVE THROUGH FEAR OF BEING ALONE.

You go to talkative friends for a simple reason: you are afraid of being alone. I have seen people even talking to themselves. In my village, just by the side of my house there was a dark street, and I managed to create a rumor in the whole city that it was full of ghosts - just to keep my house in complete silence, so that at least in the night nobody would go by. Almost ninety-nine percent of people stopped.

A few priests used to live there, and they did not believe the rumor. But it was half-hearted - who knows? Perhaps there are ghosts. But they had lived there for a long time, and this small boy has filled the whole city with the rumor.... They were not going to be dominated by my rumor. So they used to start chanting mantras - "Hare Krishna! Hare Rama!" - and running fast. I was amazed:

"This is strange. Why do they shout their mantras? In the day they don't shout them."

Speaking creates the feeling that there is somebody else with you, because you always speak to somebody else - it is a deep association.

I had stopped one person too, with just a small bamboo stick. The street was very narrow, and there were only two or three persons left, but they were making more noise than all the people who lived beyond the street had ever made. So I I used a simple strategy. I would just take a bamboo, tie it to a tree on this side, and to one on the other side, and the priest would come "Hare Krishna! Hare Rama!" and... flop. Then he would run saying, "My God, that boy is right!" And they had not even the courage to see that it was just a bamboo that had prevented them. Once those priests also stopped passing... it was a little tedious for them, because they had to go almost half a mile to go to their house if they wanted to avoid that street - it was a short cut.

The street became so silent, and so peaceful, that I used to meditate there. The night became, in that street, so sacred - no temple is so silent. And since I used to sit there for hours, late in the night, those priests spread another rumor that not only should you be afraid of the ghosts, this boy is also in conspiracy with the ghosts; we have seen him sitting there for hours. We cannot pass the street, but he sits there and no ghost tortures him.

And people started asking me.... Even the principal of my school asked me, "I have heard many rumors: first I heard that the whole street is filled with ghosts, and now I hear that nobody goes there after the sun sets, but you have been found sitting there in the middle of the night. So what is the secret of it?"

I said, "Are you capable of keeping a secret to yourself? - because it is a dangerous secret. If you open your mouth about it to anybody, then it is beyond me, I cannot help you. Those ghosts...."

He said, "You keep it to yourself, because it is one of the most difficult things in life to keep a secret.

One is tempted to tell it to somebody, to share it."

I said, "That is your choice. I am willing to tell you, but then I'm out of the game; then the ghosts and you are in direct contact."

He said, "I don't want that! And today I had asked myself... I'm sad, and I ask to be forgiven. Never on your account tell me the secret. Don't tell anybody; just keep it to yourself. This is your business - why should I get into it? I don't have to pass that street, I live on another road. Just out of curiosity I had asked."

I said, "I am willing to fulfill your curiosity. But once the secret is open.... The contract between me and the ghosts is that if I tell anybody, then they will take care of that person. I cannot do anything, I cannot prevent it - I'm helpless."

He said, "You simply go, and even if you do some mischief, which you are continuously doing in the school - a day rarely passes when your teachers are not sending you to my office - I am circulating a notice that this boy should not be sent to my office, because someday if he opens his mouth....

It is very difficult to keep the secret - I can understand - and you are so young you may open the secret - then I'm finished. I have children, I have a wife, I have an old father, I have an old mother.

Be compassionate!"

I said, "That's good... that is another contract between me and you - no teacher can send me to the principal."

He said, "Agreed."

I said, "This is how I make contracts."

And whenever any teacher said, "If you do this kind of mischief...." And they were not mischiefs, just simple things, but people who are in power are always worried - if just a brick is taken out of their power, then the whole house can collapse.

One day I had just brought a donkey in the class. Now it is not a mischief, because I told the teacher, "This poor fellow wants to be enrolled. I am going to give his fee."

The teacher said, "I have never seen a boy like you - a donkey...."

I said, "You are teaching so many donkeys; you yourself have been taught. Who are you? - just a donkey."

He said, "This is too much. I will send you to the principal."

I said, "I am ready, my donkey is ready. I will ride on the donkey and go to the principal. But remember that he has sent a notice to every teacher that I should not be sent to him. And you are sending me not only alone, but with my donkey. You will be in trouble!"

He said, "Wait! Just don't torture me - let the donkey go, because I am only temporarily appointed.

If the principal gets angry at me - and he is bound to get angry, seeing you coming on the donkey to his office - my service will be finished. I am not yet confirmed."

So I said, "Okay, when you get confirmed please inform me. This is a contract."

He said, "You are a strange person. You go on making contracts with everybody - one-sided contracts."

I said, "It is not one-sided. I am saving your children, your wife, your mother, your old father. What are you giving in return? It is just out of compassion. If you find or think that I am doing something which is a mischief, ignore it; otherwise the donkey will be back.

"And this donkey is no ordinary donkey. He used to live very close - he was a donkey of a washerman who used to wash our clothes, so he used to come every day. The washerman used to collect the clothes while I used to talk to the donkey. Slowly, slowly we became very close friends. If I simply give him the sign 'Come in,' he will come in; and if I say 'Go out,' he will go out. So," I said, "this is no ordinary donkey. It is very intelligent. Do you want to see?"

He said, "An intelligent donkey?"

I said, "What do you think about yourself? Just because he cannot speak, innocent dumb fellow, you think he has no intelligence?" I said, "Come in!" And he immediately came in. I said, "He even understands English." And I said, "That's okay, you can go." He went out.

That teacher said, "Okay, the contract is made. How many contracts do you have, and how do you remember?"

I said, "I have a notebook with me. Every contract is written in it, and the person with whom I make the contract has to sign it, because I don't believe in verbal things. So this is your contract - you sign it."

He said, "This is strange. If you show it to anybody he will think I am also a donkey."

I said, "There is no question of anybody thinking - you are! So simply sign it; otherwise I am going to the principal. Should I call my donkey?"

He said, "No, wait!" and he immediately signed.

And I said, "Write in your own handwriting that 'This contract will remain valid as long as I am alive.'"

He said, "Do you mean even when I have left this school, and am working somewhere else?"

I said, "It does not matter where you are. Once a contract is signed with me, it is signed until death parts us."

He said, "Okay."

Somewhere, somebody is preserving that diary, in which all the contracts that I used to make are still written. It is a historical monument against the whole humanity, asking, "What kind of people do you have?"

THERE ARE THOSE AMONG YOU WHO SEEK THE TALKATIVE THROUGH FEAR OF BEING ALONE.

You don't talk because you have to convey something, you don't talk because your talk is going to enhance the richness of the person, you don't talk because you want some intimacy, some friendship; you are destroying that person's time simply out of your own fear because you don't want to be alone.

Every woman knows it; whenever the husband gets angry she throws her keys and says, "I am going!" and immediately all anger disappears. "I am going to my father's and mother's!" - and the man knows perfectly well he cannot live alone. This woman is a constant pain in the neck, but what to do? - this is the fate of man and there is no medicine for it. Have you ever heard of any medicine which can help a pain in the neck? For a pain in the head there are medicines. A pain in the neck is a psychological phenomenon; no medicine can help it.

So the wife comes back, and you come with ice cream and flowers - perhaps. I say "perhaps,"

because it depends on different people. Some women will rejoice that you take care of them; some women will suspect that there is something cooking - why have you brought ice cream? Just to hide some guilt? Are you after some other woman? - because that's what happens; whenever a man starts being interested in some other woman, his conscience pricks. Just to erase it he comes with sweets, ice cream, flowers, new clothes, for the wife, chocolates for the children.

But any intelligent woman can say, "You never come with these things. Suddenly today - and it is not Christmas time, it is not the Hindu festival of Diwali - what special reason is there that you wasted your money? It is not even the date when you get your salary; you must have brought all these things by borrowing money from someone, because it is the end of the month, so don't try to deceive me!" So it depends on each woman, each man, what the outcome will be. But one thing is certain; nobody wants to be alone.

And to be alone is the greatest gift of existence.

This is the poverty of man and his consciousness, that he is destroying the greatest gift - because it is only in your aloneness that you can blossom, that you can find the source of your life, which is also light and which is also laughter.

THE SILENCE OF ALONENESS REVEALS TO THEIR EYES THEIR NAKED SELVES AND THEY WOULD ESCAPE.

Talking, seeing a movie or sitting before a television set helps you only in one thing. These are all alcoholic drugs, whether you understand it or not, because their function is the same. People drink alcohol to forget their ugliness, their jealousy, their anxiety, their competitiveness, their meanness, their greed - and the line is long. To forget it all, they drink; to forget it all, they talk, they become engaged in talk. Naturally, their mind cannot do both things simultaneously.

AND THERE ARE THOSE WHO TALK, AND WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OR FORETHOUGHT REVEAL A TRUTH WHICH THEY THEMSELVES DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

They say something borrowed, something upon which they have stumbled accidentally; they don't even understand that it is truth. You may stumble upon a diamond on the road, but unless a jeweler cuts it, shapes it, gives it as many aspects as possible, you will not be able to recognize that it is a true diamond. You may think it is a good stone - at the most. Or you may throw it off the road, because it may hurt somebody else.

AND THERE ARE THOSE WHO TALK, AND WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OR FORETHOUGHT REVEAL A TRUTH WHICH THEY THEMSELVES DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

It is not that you are the first one in the world who is going to find the truth; it has been found again and again by thousands of people, it has been given expression in different ways by different people. You may stumble upon it, you may start talking about it, but you don't know what you are talking about; neither can you explain it to the person who is listening to you.

AND THERE ARE THOSE WHO HAVE THE TRUTH WITHIN THEM, BUT THEY TELL IT NOT IN WORDS.

They are the mystics. They have realized it, and also realized that it is next to impossible to express it in words; hence, they remain silent.

IN THE BOSOM OF SUCH AS THESE THE SPIRIT DWELLS IN RHYTHMIC SILENCE.

These are the people who are the very salt of the earth, but because they remain silent, they don't help much in rising - awakening - those who are asleep. They are awake, but they are not at all interested that the whole world is asleep. They will not nudge you, they will not shake you, they will not throw cold water in your eyes. They have found the truth, but they are not the people who are ready to sacrifice themselves for the truth they have found. Hence there is one category, even above the mystics, which Kahlil Gibran completely forgets - perhaps he is not aware of: the category of the masters, who are mystics.

As far as their own growth is concerned, mystics have reached to the highest peak; but they seem to be dry souls, unconcerned about others who are struggling in darkness, searching and seeking, and whose lives are nothing but misery.

The master is a mystic who knows that it is very difficult to express.... but makes every effort - even to the point of being crucified, even to the point of being stoned, even to the point of being poisoned.

I would have remained silent - there was no police commissioner's order: "You have to speak within thirty minutes!" - but I could not see the point. If I am not going to speak, to live on the earth, which is unnecessarily crowded, already overcrowded.... If I have found it, it means everybody else is capable of finding it.

It is natural that if you disturb somebody in his sleep, he is going to be angry. Hence, whatever has happened to me - all kinds of harassments from religions, from governments, from police officers, from ordinary idiots of all religions - I don't blame them. It is my own responsibility.

What they are doing is simply showing their irritation - "We were sleeping so silently, perhaps we were seeing a beautiful dream, a naked girl from the Playboy magazine, and this man comes and starts waking us."

In the day people don't allow.... Even Playboy magazines or Playgirl magazines and that type of pornography is sold under the table, because even the seller is ashamed, the buyer is ashamed, and anybody else standing may spread the news that this professor, this doctor, this engineer was buying a pornographic magazine. And they hide all these magazines in their BIBLES, in their BHAGAVAD- GITAS, in their RAMAYANAS, so nobody in the home is aware - because nobody touches these books. BIBLES, GITAS, KORANS... nobody touches these books.

It happened.... A man who used to sell encyclopedias knocked on a door. The woman of the house opened the door, and she said immediately, "We have a very good encyclopedia. You can see it there on the table, so please don't bother us again."

The man looked at the table and he said, "That is not an encyclopedia, that is the HOLY BIBLE."

The woman said, "You seem to be a magician. From that far, how can you assume that it is the HOLY BIBLE?"

He said, "The dust on it is enough proof that nobody ever touches it." These are untouchable books; all your holy books are untouchable. They simply gather dust.

So if you disturb somebody's sleep, naturally he's going to be angry; hence, I have no complaint against anybody. Just once in a while I think, would it not have been better not to get involved with this insane humanity? But now it is too late. Now I'm going to speak harder and harder, and hurt as many people as possible.

I have asked my legal advisor, Tathagat, who is here, "Ask permission for me to enter directly into the courts, and to fight the cases." Why harass advocates and waste money unnecessarily? I can fight far better myself.

I am going to fight to the very last breath of my life, because I still believe in this vast oceanic crowd of humanity; there must be a few people who will be benefited - and I have nothing to lose. Particularly for the people who have gathered around me... for them I have to speak. And I have to speak for the new man who is going to be born, a new humanity, and a new earth. Any sacrifice is small, compared to the future generations.

I would like to become a demarcation line between the past and the future.

WHEN YOU MEET YOUR FRIEND ON THE ROADSIDE OR IN THE MARKET-PLACE, LET THE SPIRIT IN YOU MOVE YOUR LIPS AND DIRECT YOUR TONGUE.

But not without the movement of your spirit.... If this simple statement is followed, the whole world will fall into a deep silence. What have you to say? - it is not the movement of your spirit, but only rubbish thoughts gathered in the head.

LET THE VOICE WITHIN YOUR VOICE SPEAK TO THE EAR OF HIS EAR.

He's saying: Let the voice within your voice... because there is a voice that will be heard outside.

But before it is heard outside, there is a voice you hear inside. That which you hear inside, in the deepest parts of your being, only that is worth speaking, and only that is worth listening to. But the moment you listen only with the ears which are outside, it is not of any use. Unless you listen with the ear which is hidden inside the ear, which is directly connected to your being.... All your senses have two sides - one, the roots that go inwards; and the other, the branches and the trunk and the foliage that go outside. If you don't have roots, please, don't speak - the tree is dead or perhaps is made of plastic.

Speak from within, use the voice that can take it on it's wings to the outside. And the same has to be as far as listening is concerned: Don't just hear, listen - let it reach to the very roots of your being.

Then only is there a communion.

WHEN YOU MEET YOUR FRIEND ON THE ROADSIDE OR IN THE MARKET-PLACE, LET THE SPIRIT IN YOU MOVE YOUR LIPS AND DIRECT YOUR TONGUE.

LET THE VOICE WITHIN YOUR VOICE SPEAK TO THE EAR OF HIS EAR; FOR HIS SOUL WILL KEEP THE TRUTH OF YOUR HEART AS THE TASTE OF THE WINE IS REMEMBERED.

You must have heard of people who, with blindfolded eyes, taste the wine and can tell what make it is, in what year it was made, from what country it is coming - just by tasting it; they still remember the taste. I have heard... one man entered a pub and said, "I challenge all the drinkers here: These are one thousand dollars. Blindfold my eyes and give me any kind of wine, and I will give you the wine's name, the manufacturer's name, the country, and the year. If I fail, these one thousand dollars are yours. But if I succeed, then whoever takes the challenge and brings the wine to me, puts one thousand dollars on top of it, so the challenge goes on becoming bigger - then it is two thousand at stake, then it is three thousand dollars at stake, then it is five thousand dollars at stake."

Everybody was excited; it was worth accepting the challenge. The man seemed to be insane, because to tell the year, the country, the name of the wine, the name of the makers - such a difficult job - just by tasting it.... But the man went on winning, and winning. Ten people lost, and there was a pile of eleven thousand dollars.

Then a man brought a cup, and he tasted it, wondered for a moment, tasted it again, and then opened his blindfold. He said, "Who is this man? This is man's urine, this is not wine." And somebody in the crowd said, "But tell us whose; otherwise you are lost. It is fresh, there is no need to be bothered about the date, but tell whose it is." But there are experts: if Morarji Desai were there, he would have told if it was not fresh, or fresh; he would have told whether it belonged to a Hindu or a Mohammedan, whether it belonged to some royal family or some sudra, whether it belonged to a Ghandian or to a controversial man - Osho.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.