'Nothing' is my sword

Question 1:

Jean-Luc, the confusion is an indication of what I call sickness.

Clarity is health.

Have you ever heard of any madman recognizing that he is mad? If he recognizes it, that will be the beginning of sanity. But no madman ever recognizes that he is mad.

I am reminded of a few cases....

When Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was prime minister of India, there were at least one dozen people in the madhouses of India who thought they were the real Jawaharlal Nehru, and some phony man was ruling the country while they had been forced into the madhouse so that they could not expose the phoniness of the man who had become the prime minister.

In Bareilly, India has its biggest madhouse... and Jawaharlal was going to Bareilly. One madman was thought by the doctors to be cured; they thought it would be great - Jawaharlal was going to visit the madhouse and this madman could be released from the madhouse by Jawaharlal himself.

This man would rejoice, and it would enhance the prestige of the institution too.

The madman was brought to Jawaharlal. The first question he asked was "Who are you?" The doctors were a little nervous. This is not the way to talk to the prime minister of the country.

But Jawaharlal said, "My name is Jawaharlal Nehru."

And the madman had a good laugh. He said, "Don't be worried. Just three years it will take, and you will be cured just as I am cured. These doctors are great. When I came to this place, I used to think in the same way - that I am Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Now you have come - strange coincidence, that I am going out and you are coming in."

It has been happening in many instances throughout the world. During the second world war, Winston Churchill had gone for an evening walk. There used to be a certain fixed time that a horn would go off around the city. Everybody had to go inside the house, lights had to be dimmed, curtains had to be drawn. It was as if London had disappeared. But walking, and worried about the war, Winston Churchill forgot about the time and when he heard the horn he was miles away from his house. And it was a standing order that if anybody was found on the road after the horn stopped he could be shot, no questions would be asked. In a hurry, he knocked at the first door - it was a question of life and death - and a man opened the door. The man said, "Who are you?"

He said, "You don't know me? I am Winston Churchill, prime minister of this country, and you don't know me?" And that man grabbed Churchill; Churchill said, "What are you doing?"

He said, "Come in, because there are three more Winston Churchills here - this is a madhouse.

Now all four of you decide who is the real one."

Churchill told him, "Listen, I am telling you the truth. I am the real one."

He said, "They all say the same thing, everybody is the real one. And we don't know any criteria to judge - they are all fat like you, they all smoke cigars. They have been practicing being Winston Churchill for years. When you see them, you yourself will understand that you are not real; they are real."

Churchill said, "My God, I have knocked on the wrong door."

But the man was not going to let him go. He said, "Outside is death, inside you can wait. In the morning we will figure out who is the real one."

And when he saw the three others, he himself had doubts about whether he was the real one or these fellows were. They had the same kind of clothes, cigars of the same type. He introduced himself - "I am Winston Churchill."

All three of them laughed. They said, "This is strange, now there are four. This country is going down the drain, all the prime ministers are inside the madhouse. At least one must be real."

Winston Churchill tried, "Can I phone?"

He was refused. "That's what they all ask: 'Can we phone our secretaries, our ministries, cabinet people?' This is not allowed. Anything that you want to do, you can do in the morning. If you are really Winston Churchill, they will come. For these three nobody has ever turned up, now we have to wait for you. Just don't get mixed up."

No madman is ready to accept that he is mad.

Jean-Luc, what is your fear in becoming a sannyasin - because I have said that unless a man becomes enlightened he is not truly healthy because he is not truly whole; he is a confusion? I am not talking about ordinary illnesses. I am talking about the fundamental sickness of the soul, that you have forgotten yourself and you have become identified with things which you are not.

A few years ago it happened in America: they celebrated Abraham Lincoln's birthday on a large scale, for one whole year. A special drama was prepared about the life of Abraham Lincoln, and the whole of America was searched to find a man who looked like him. And they did find one man who looked like Abraham Lincoln; he was chosen. For one year he was using exactly the same clothes as Abraham Lincoln, speaking in the same way, walking in the same way. He was trained, because he would be going around the country with the drama for the whole year.

Abraham Lincoln stuttered a little, so he was taught to stutter. He was also a little lame - walking, one of his legs was a little longer than the other. So great massage, traction was done on the poor man to make one leg a little longer. Obviously he started walking like a lame man, stuttering. Experts in voice training trained him to speak with exactly the voice of Abraham Lincoln. He was made into an exact carbon copy. And for one year continually, every night, he was performing. People loved him, loved his acting, loved it that even Abraham Lincoln could not do better.

When the year was finished he came home walking like Abraham Lincoln, lame, stuttering. At first the family thought he was joking, but he was not joking; it had become fixed in his mind that he WAS Abraham Lincoln. He used the same dress, which was no longer in fashion, and urchins would follow him on the street shouting, "Abraham Lincoln is coming!"

He was taken to a psychoanalyst. He entered his office... but it was no longer a part, it was no longer acting. He was so identified that he told the psychoanalyst, "You should be respectful to the president of the country." The psychoanalyst gave him many sessions, but even in the sessions he was stuttering - and he had never stuttered in his whole life. The voice and everything that he had learned and practiced, and for one year continually had to do....

Finally the psychoanalyst called his family and said, "This man cannot be cured, because it is not an illness. He has taken a new identity, and unless he is shot just like Abraham Lincoln he is not going to listen to anybody else. But shooting this poor man will not be a cure; he will be finished, and he will die like Abraham Lincoln. That will be really the proof that what he is saying is absolutely right."

Your confusion is your sickness.

Your mind is your sickness.

Coming to a state of no-mind is health, wholeness.

That is what is meant by enlightenment. You are no more identified with the body. Have you ever thought for a single moment... you were a child, you became a young man, you became old - which body is yours? And the first day, when your mother got pregnant, on that day also you had a body. If the picture is shown to you, it will be simply a picture of a small egg - are you going to say that this is Jean-Luc?

And if it is not Jean-Luc, then you cannot be Jean-Luc either because that small egg is the beginning, and then for nine months in the mother's womb you have passed through all the stages humanity has passed through its evolution. First you have been a fish; that's what has given the idea to the scientists that life was born in the ocean. But scientists have come to this conclusion only just now.

In India, for almost ten thousand years the idea has been prevalent that the first incarnation of God was a fish, matsyavatar.

Strange that God should choose a fish to be his first incarnation - but 'God' simply means life and nothing else; it is just that one is a religious term, the other is a biological term. The scientists would say that life was born in the ocean, but they both agree that the first manifestation of life was that of a fish. And Charles Darwin came with the idea of a monkey but in India, for centuries we have worshipped the monkey-god Hanuman with great respect, because he is our forefather. Now scientists are agreeing, because the last stage in the mother's womb is that of a monkey - the child looks like a monkey.

If all the photographs from the day you become part of your mother's womb to the day you come out of the womb are presented to you, you will not be able to recognize any of them as your picture, that it is your album.

Even after birth, if detailed pictures are being kept from his childhood up to the age of seventy, a person will not be able to recognize that at some time, some day he has been identified with all these bodies. He is still there, those bodies are gone.

Man is not a body. Man is not a mind either. A Hindu has a Hindu mind, a Christian has a Christian mind, a Buddhist has a Buddhist mind. Mind is given to you by the society. What you bring with you is only a brain, and that brain is a tabula rasa, nothing is written on it. You can write Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, communism, or any nonsense. And you are not left in freedom to choose what you would like to be written on your brain. Before you are aware, the society has already filled your mind completely with all kinds of superstitions. You are not a Hindu....

It was always a problem whenever there was census in this country. The officers would come to me with their forms, and in their forms it was to be filled in to what religion I belonged. And I said, "I don't belong to any religion."

They said, "Then you have to write that you are an atheist."

I said, "I don't belong to atheism either, because if there is no God I am not going to waste my time in denying something which does not exist. A few are worshipping him, a few are denying him - and he does not exist at all. No, I am not an atheist."

But they would say, "This is not right, the form has to be filled in completely."

I said, "I am not here to fill in the form. You can take the form incomplete - and anyway I am not going to vote, because it is so difficult to choose which idiot to vote for. I have never voted in my life."

They would take their registers and run away, and they would look again and again at me - "This man seems to be dangerous. He will not fill in the form, and now he says 'I cannot vote because the problem is how to decide which idiot is less idiotic, it is a very difficult psychological problem. You just take your registers and your forms. I am just myself.'"

You are not the body, you are not the mind - these are your sicknesses, your false identities.

Enlightenment simply means coming home, coming to the center which you are.

Why are you afraid to tell others that you want to become a sannyasin, that you have filled in the form to become a sannyasin? - because they will think you are sick. But the whole of humanity is sick.

They will not laugh at you. They will appreciate your courage, that you have accepted your sickness.

This is the beginning of dissolving it.

The most difficult thing is when a person does not accept his sickness; then you cannot help him.

He will throw away the medicine, he will shut the door in the face of the doctor.

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin became old, very old - and as people become old they become troublesome, they become more and more a nuisance. Children are a nuisance, but nothing compared to old people, because old people have experience - their nuisance is supported by their experience, reason, logic; they have known the world. They will not let anybody live in peace.

And as people become older they cannot sleep, because the function of sleep is no more there. The child sleeps in the mother's womb for twenty-four hours a day, because he is growing so much that if he is awake it will be a disturbance to his growth. Nature does not allow him to be awake, but keeps him in a kind of anesthesia, fast asleep so he can grow. Scientists say that in these nine months a child grows as much as he will never grow again. In seventy years of life, he will never again grow with such speed.

After the birth, sleep starts being cut. Then the child is sleeping twenty-two hours, then twenty hours, then eighteen, then sixteen, then fourteen.... And then by the age of fourteen he comes to the average of eight hours. But as he goes beyond fifty, again less sleep - because now he has to prepare for death. In the mother's womb he was preparing for life; his body was growing, his brain was growing. It was a subtle process, a delicate process; it needed complete silence. Now everything is dying... so beyond sixty, people start becoming senile. Then they go on believing in their old memories, their golden days - the future is dark. By the time they reach seventy, two hours of sleep is enough.

Mulla Nasruddin had reached ninety years. Now he needed no sleep! It would be okay if he kept quiet but he would not. He would wake up everybody, start giving sermons and great advice to everybody. And they told him, "In the day you can do everything...."

He said, "In the day you have to do other kinds of work, you have to live life. In the night you are all at home, and there is nothing to do." So he would gather everybody, wake everybody up and start giving great sermons which were all nonsense. But he was the oldest man in the town, the most respected - what to do with him?

His sons, his grandsons were all in agony: "Every night the house becomes a church. Somehow we have to find somebody who can make him sleep." Many kinds of doctors were tried - allopathic, ayurvedic, homeopathic, naturopathic, yunani; nobody succeeded. Finally they got hold of a hypnotist who said, "Don't be worried. This is my business, to put people to sleep."

Nasruddin heard that they were going to bring a hypnotist. He said, "Okay, let him come."

The hypnotist came with his bag. Nasruddin was lying down on the bed. And the hypnotist said, "Listen, it is very easy to sleep. Just relax. I will give suggestions and you have simply to follow.

First I will give suggestions to relax the body, each part of the body, so no tension remains. Then I will suggest that you are falling into sleep... deeper, deeper, deeper. Don't resist."

Nasruddin followed. His family was surprised, because he was not a man to listen to anybody - perhaps the hypnotist had some power. And he started giving him suggestions. Nasruddin relaxed, and the whole family was very happy; they could see his whole body completely relaxed. And then suggestions for sleep... and even the hypnotist was surprised, because he was not only sleeping, he was snoring. The family was very thankful. His fee was ten rupees, but they gave him twenty rupees and they said, "You are the only one who has been successful."

And as they went out to take him to his car and came back in, Nasruddin opened one eye and asked, "Has that nut gone or not? Now everybody gather, and the sermon begins: You idiots, you should have given me twenty rupees and I would have been silent the whole night. Just give me twenty rupees each night and I will be silent. Don't waste money this way. Rather than talking business to me, you are bringing these idiots. I befooled him within seconds - and he believed even the snoring.

Who has ever heard that in hypnosis people snore? He does not know even the ABC of hypnosis."

Everybody is in confusion, young or old. Sick, sick unto death, but nobody is willing to accept it. On the contrary, he is throwing out the doctors, proving that "I am not sick."

Accepting your sickness is the beginning of gaining health. So don't be worried; tell sannyasins that you are joining them on the path. They will not laugh at you.

And it is not a question of one person; the whole world is in the same situation. Only once in a while a person becomes enlightened. It should not be so, but unfortunately this is the case. Everybody has the potential to be enlightened - but the very first step and you don't have guts to say that "I am sick, sick of the mind, confused, split, schizophrenic. One moment I am feeling good, another moment I am feeling bad, and I don't know who I am, still I go on dragging. I don't know anything of reality, still I have beliefs about everything. All my knowledge is just a burden. My reality is that of a patient."

And you have put it rightly. What is the relationship between the master and the disciple? - exactly the same as that of the physician and the patient.

I will tell you a small story.

Gautam Buddha came into a town. That town had a blind man who was a great logician, very rational, and the whole town had tried to tell him that light exists, but nobody could prove it.

There is no way to prove light. Either you can see it or you cannot see it, but there is no other proof.

The blind man said, "I am ready. I can touch things and I can feel them with my hands. You bring your light and I would like to touch it and feel it."

But light is not something tangible. They said, "No, it cannot be touched or felt."

He said, "I have other ways. I can smell it, I can taste it. I can beat it and hear the sound. But these are my only instruments - my ears, my nose, my tongue, my hands - I am making available to you my whole personality. Should I listen to my own personality, or should I listen to you? I say there is no light; it is simply an invention, an invention of cunning people to deceive simple people like me so that you can prove that I am blind and you have eyes. The whole strategy is that you are not interested in light, you are interested in proving that you have eyes and I don't have eyes. You want to be higher, superior. Because you cannot be logically, rationally superior to me you have brought in something absurd. Forget all about it, you are all blind. Nobody has seen light because light does not exist."

When they heard that Buddha had come to the town, the people said, "It is a good opportunity. We should take our logician the blind man to Gautam Buddha; perhaps he can convince him - and we cannot find a better man."

They brought the blind man to Gautam Buddha. They told the whole story that was going on: one blind man was proving them all blind, was proving that there is no light, and they were absolutely incapable of proving the existence of light.

The words of Gautam Buddha are worth remembering. He said, "You have brought him to the wrong person. He does not need a philosopher, he needs a physician. It is not a question of convincing him, it is a question of curing his eyes. But don't be worried, I have my personal physician with me."

One of the emperors of those days had given his own personal physician to Gautam Buddha to take care of him twenty-four hours a day, to be with him like a shadow.

He asked the physician, "You take care of this man's eyes."

The physician looked at the man's eyes and he said, "It is not a difficult case; just a certain growth is covering his eyes, which can be removed. It may take at the most six months."

Buddha left his physician in the village, and after six months the man opened his eyes. All his logic, all his rationality disappeared. He said, "My God, I was telling those simple people that they were cheating me, deceiving me. Light exists - I was blind! Had I accepted the idea of my blindness before, there would have been no need for me to live my whole life in blindness."

Buddha had gone far away in six months, but the man came dancing, fell at Buddha's feet and said to him, "Your compassion is great that you did not argue with me, that you did not try to convince me about the light but gave me a physician."

Buddha said, "This is my whole work. There are spiritually blind people all around. And my work is not to convince them about the beauty, the blissfulness, the ecstasy of existence; my work is that of a physician."

And that is the relationship between a master and a disciple. The disciple comes, openly accepting that "I am sick, I need your help. I am blind, I need my eyes to be cured. I want to see what you have seen. I want to be what you have become."

Question 2:

What is the need to become a disciple? Why should you ask such a question?

Do you feel your life is meaningless, that you need some meaning? Do you feel your life is empty and you would like fulfillment? Do you feel you are in darkness and you would like to be in the light?

The whole thing depends on you.

If you are contented as you are, if you are not missing anything as you are, there is no need to be a disciple. Why bother a master, and why go into an unnecessary search? But if you have emptiness, meaninglessness, anxiety, anguish, confusion, darkness; if you feel your whole life is nothing but misery, then to become a disciple is very simple.

It simply means to contact someone who is fulfilled, who has no questions left, who is only an answer.

The disciple is a question.

The master is an answer.

And as far as I am concerned, there are no conditions on the disciple. Nothing is imposed on the disciple; on the contrary, he is helped to drop unnecessary luggage and be as light as possible.

Just be receptive to someone whom you feel is not miserable, whom you feel lives in ecstasy, radiates blissfulness, in whose presence you feel a silence descending on you. Then open your heart to him. You have nothing to lose except your miseries.

Karl Marx ends his COMMUNIST MANIFESTO with a tremendously important message, although in a different context - but it is as useful to the disciple as he thought it was useful to the proletariat.

He says, "Proletarians of the whole world, unite! And don't be afraid because you have nothing to lose except your chains." It may not be correct in the context in which he was talking - because communist revolutions have happened; chains have changed, freedom has not come. First there used to be bourgeois chains, now there are communist chains - which are more up to date, stronger, more difficult to get rid of.

But in the context in which I am quoting it, it is tremendously beautiful: a disciple has nothing to lose except his misery. Because you don't have anything other than misery, but you go on hiding your misery as if you have a treasure.

And you are asking how to be a disciple.

Just drop your misery at somebody's feet in whose eyes you see some rays going beyond darkness, indicating a path to blissfulness and benediction.

Question 3:

You are certainly brainwashed.

I use a dry cleaning machine, I am not old-fashioned. And naturally you are addicted. Who will not be?

Addiction is not always bad. If you are addicted to beauty, to poetry, to drama, to sculpture, to painting, nobody tells you to drop the addiction. Addiction has to be dropped only when it makes you unconscious. Alcoholics are told to drop the addiction, but here my teaching is of consciousness - be addicted to it more and more.

And what is wrong in being brainwashed? - wash it every day, keep it clean. Do you like cockroaches? When I brainwash people, I find cockroaches. Cockroaches are very special animals.

It has been found scientifically that wherever you find man you find cockroaches, and wherever you find cockroaches you find man. They are always together, they are the oldest companions.

What have you got in your brain? So just washing it is perfectly right. But people have given it a very wrong connotation; those are the wrong people.

Christians are afraid of somebody brainwashing Christians, because then they will not be Christians.

Hindus are afraid because then those people will not be Hindus. Mohammedans are afraid, communists are afraid.

Everybody is afraid of brainwashing.

I am in absolute favor of it.

There used to be an old saying: "Cleanliness is next to God." Now there is no God, so there is only cleanliness left.

Cleanliness is God.

And I am not afraid of brainwashing because I am not putting cockroaches in your mind. I am giving you an opportunity to experience a clean mind, and once you know a clean mind you will never allow anybody to throw rubbish and crap into your mind. They are the criminals.

Brainwashing is not a crime - who has made it dirty? Dirtying other people's minds is a crime, but all over the world all the religions, all the political leaders, are using your mind as if it is a toilet. These ugly fellows have condemned brainwashing; otherwise, brainwashing is a perfectly good job.

I am a brainwasher.

And those who come to me should come with the clear conception that they are going to a man who is bound to brainwash, clean their minds of all kinds of cockroaches. Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian - they are all against me for the simple reason that they go on putting in their cockroaches, and I go on washing people's minds.

It is just an up-to-date religious laundry.

Question 4:

Bodhicitta, it is a simple phenomenon.

The people who had allowed me their total receptivity had become my messengers, but their function was not more than that of a postman. When you receive a love letter, don't start kissing the postman!

But Bodhicitta himself is a psychoanalyst and he has developed a few techniques of his own, which may look stupid to you, but in America stupidity and spirituality are synonymous.

For example, Bodhicitta has developed a psychological technique called 'hugging'; so the whole group of twenty or thirty people just go on hugging each other. It is good exercise, particularly in cold countries, but don't try anything like that here in Bombay. In Bombay only enlightened people can hug each other, and it is very rare to find two enlightened people.

You had seen those therapists who were working in the commune in Poona under me - and they were going around the world, because I was not going anywhere. I had prepared them to be just a passage; that's why you felt that they were so innocent, such beautiful people.

And what has happened to them now? Just something natural.

There is a story: In Jagannathpuri every year the chariot of Jagannath, the lord of the world, goes around the city. Millions of people gather to see it.

Once it happened, a dog was moving ahead of the chariot and everybody was falling, kissing the earth - and the dog was puffed up; he thought, "My God, I never thought that I am Jagannath, the lord of the world. Millions of people have come, and they are all bowing down to me."

The poor dog was not logically wrong; it was happening. He was not aware that they were touching the earth, doing their deep, respectful bowing down to the Jagannath in the chariot. All that he could see was that they were doing it to him.

The therapists who went around the world found sannyasins everywhere receiving them with as much love and respect as if I had come there. They had come as my representatives, they were sent by me. But what happened to those poor fellows? They started thinking that all this respect, all this love was for them. So when the commune was destroyed by the American government and there was a chaos, those few therapists started behaving as if they were enlightened, calling themselves enlightened.

I have received hundreds of letters saying that, "Osho, we don't find the same quality in these people as we used to find before. They are the same people, but Your presence is no more with them."

Even the participants in their groups have written to me, "Groups are the same, techniques are the same, but You are not there. And now we know that the miracle was not the technique but Your presence." Their groups are being deserted now; soon they will not find a single sannyasin going to them.

And if they have a little bit of intelligence, they will come back with a deep apology. They have betrayed. They were only mediums, they are not enlightened.

And this is the difference: You can know a technique - but just to know a technique is one thing, to be a master is totally different. That is the difference between a scientist and a technologist.

The scientist himself discovers - it is his own discovery, it is his own authority. The technologist simply imitates. He can do perfectly well as far as the objective world is concerned, but as far as the subjective world is concerned it is not possible.

Only the master can bring the transformation. The mediums can simply spread his word. The moment they start thinking that the respect and the honor is being given to them, they are no longer mediums. Then a dead technique is in their hands, which is not going to help.

It happened in Rome - each year there used to be a great competition of paintings. One year a painting was chosen, but one painter stood up and said, "There is something incomplete in it, it is not perfect. Whoever has done it is a technician but not a painter."

He was asked, "Can you make it perfect?"

He came..."Yes, not much is missing, but what is missing is the very soul." And he simply touched the lips of the painting with his brush. It had been looking sad and now it was smiling. And he said, "Now it is perfect. Whoever has done it should be given the award, but he is only a technician - a perfect technician - but he is not a master, because this smile is the soul of the whole painting." And because of that smile the whole painting was changed, the whole context was different.

One man in America purchased one of Picasso's paintings for one million dollars, but he was suspicious about whether it was an original or not - because there are so many technicians who are copying great paintings with such perfection that it is impossible to make a distinction unless you are an expert. He took the painting to one of the greatest critics, and the critic said, "You need not be worried about this painting. This painting Picasso has done in front of me, I was staying with him."

But doubt is such a thing... it does not leave so easily.

The American then said, "I will pay the fare and whatever expenses. You come with me to Paris, and we have to ask Picasso himself - and you be present. I want to be absolutely certain that it is a Picasso."

He said, "It is absolutely certain, you are unnecessarily wasting money. But there is no question, I am ready."

They reached Paris and they went to see Picasso. The painting was shown to him and the man asked, "Is it an original Picasso?"

And Picasso said, "No."

The critic said, "Are you mad? Have you forgotten that I was staying with you at the time you were painting this?"

Picasso said, "No, I have not forgotten that. You were staying here when I was painting this, but it is not an original."

The critic said, "What do you mean it is not an original? You painted it!"

He said, "You have to understand my definition of originality. I had painted the same painting before.

And there was no new idea coming to my mind, so I repainted it. It was only a technical job, there was no mastery - any technician could have done it. Does it matter that the technician is Picasso himself? It is not an original painting, it is a copy. And if you don't believe me you can go to the museum where the original is hanging."

They went and they could not make out any difference between the two. But one was an original idea and the other was only a carbon copy, done by the same man.

Bodhicitta, the therapists who are behaving in an utterly stupid way will have to return, because whoever has been with me cannot become a part of the world again. And once the sannyasins desert them - they are deserting them - those therapists will find that their idea that the respect was given to them was wrong. But they have to learn it the hard way.

You are fortunate. You go on doing your hugging meditation - in America; don't mention it in India.

It works in America, because for hundreds of years Christianity has made people so conditioned, that even to touch somebody is a sin. If you see a beautiful woman and you want just to touch her face because it is so beautiful, you will find yourself in the police station. And you were not asking anything; you would have touched her face, thanked the woman - and her husband - and gone your way. And the husband should be proud that he has such a wife that wherever he goes people come to touch her face.

Christianity has made touching a sin. People have to be separate, particularly men and woman have to be separate. Even in the church they have to be separate, in the synagogue they have to be separate.

So your idea is perfectly good - but in a cold country, where people are not perspiring. Let them do as much hugging as they want and they will feel great. Because touching each other's body is touching each other's energy, and if it is a group where friends are together it becomes a loving phenomenon. There is no harm in it.

But don't mention such a thing here.

He has opened an institute in Nepal. I was worried about him; this kind of psychotherapy in Nepal or India is not needed. California.... If you have got a crazy idea simply go to California - any crazy idea and you will find followers, ready-made followers who were just waiting for some crazy idiot to come. And now you have been in the East long enough; you will get a good following in California.

But don't be worried about these therapists. They will disappear just like soap bubbles because there is no reality, of enlightenment.

Question 5:

'Nothing' is my sword; it is so thin you cannot see it.

And the work is certainly so delicate, it cannot be done with crude instruments.

Do you see the sword of 'nothing' in my hands?

It is there.

Question 6:

It depends on you.

You can run by my side or you can even run ahead of me, but just don't run away.

Question 7:

Niskriya - it is really the work of a donkey, but you are not an ordinary donkey. You are a German donkey!

What do you call a donkey in German - esel. You are an esel.

But German donkeys have always done great things - two world wars, and without them the third is impossible. There are donkeys in every country but nobody can compete with a German donkey.

There are Indian donkeys - you cannot tell them "Sitting silently, doing nothing" because that's what they have been doing for centuries, and the grass has not grown yet!

For the grass to grow, a German donkey is needed. Because for the Indian donkey it is simply natural, there is nothing special in it; for the German donkey, sitting silently doing nothing seems to be impossible. And because it seems impossible, if he can manage it, the grass will have to grow.

So Niskriya, don't be worried. Be at ease.

And donkeys are not bad people... very philosophical.

It is not a coincidence that Germany has produced the greatest philosophers in the world. Donkeys are philosophical, they are continuously thinking. Just watch a donkey. You will never find a donkey UNthinking.

But the poor donkey has been condemned almost all over the world for the simple reason that he does not write scriptures, does not give sermons, does not get crucified. He is so utterly simple and lives so silently - as if he is not. In this whole world, so much is going on, but for the donkeys nothing is going on; they live in a timeless moment.

So Niskriya, when I say you are a donkey, don't feel bad about it. Sitting in your room, just think of yourself as esel, and enjoy it. It is far better than insane human beings, far better than all kinds of sick souls. Have you ever heard of any donkey going mad, or any donkey going to a psychiatrist, or any donkey committing suicide, or any donkey committing a murder, or any donkey committing a rape? Such innocent people... I support them perfectly. So remember, even if the world condemns them, I am here in total support. Relax, however difficult it is.

But if a German decides to relax, he will relax. An Indian decides many times to relax, but he never relaxes.

I used to stay in a very rich man's house in Calcutta. His name was Sohanlal Dugad. He was a man of seventy-five or eighty years of age, but he loved me very much and he had taken a promise that I would not stay anywhere else as long as he was alive. I had with me a friend who was a fanatic religious type. He was a celibate, and he was trying to renounce the world and become a monk.

And in the night when we were sitting and gossiping, Sohanlal Dugad said, "In my life I have taken three times the vow of brahmacharya, of celibacy." My friend was very much impressed.

I said, "You idiot. For brahmacharya, for celibacy, one needs to take the vow only one time. Three times?"

He said, "I never thought about it. Yes, that is correct. We should ask what happened with the fourth time!"

I said, "That is an embarrassing question to ask an old man. He himself would have said that after the third time he recognized the fact that it was beyond his capacity. It is better not to bother about it." But he insisted.

Next morning he asked him, and the old man said, "The fourth time? Don't you think three times is enough? For a fourth time I could not gather the courage - three times failing...."

The Indian decides to meditate, to relax, to become a sannyasin. But he is always having good thoughts....

You are fortunate, Niskriya, that you are German. If you decide to relax, it can be depended upon, reliable - and it will not disturb your work, I know.

He is a master of his work, he is a great filmmaker in Germany but he decided to close the whole business and just follow me. You might not understand that he has closed a big flourishing business; he was earning immense money, and now he simply takes my pictures and nothing else. This decisiveness is of tremendous value. This decisiveness gives you a spine.

And you must see his work, with what concentration he looks after every minute detail. It takes him four hours every day to set up his camera here, and he must be thinking continually about how to improve - because I go on seeing new improvements... these new umbrellas have appeared!

So many people have been making the films, and they all have been harming my eyes. He is the first man who has thought about my eyes first. That's why these umbrellas... my eyes are not affected at all.

But such minute concern, and a decisiveness to do something to its perfection - the same thing can be turned into any dimension. If it becomes spirituality, it will be the same - the same quality, the same determination, the same devotion.

So if you are feeling relaxed, it is not against action. One has to understand that relaxation is the very source of energy; it can be converted into action. In the night you go to sleep so that in the morning you are rejuvenated. The night has not been a wastage, the night has helped you to recover the energy that you have used before. Again you are young, again fresh.

In meditation, whatever happens is bound to be expressed in creativity. What you are doing is a creative act, and for your creative act you have renounced everything. For your love you have renounced everything. It will be appreciated by people when they come to know of it.