Around me... something happens

Question 1:

Purna, the experience of remembering as if you have been with me before in the past lives has two dimensions - one, which you mention in your question itself.

Each meeting with an enlightened person is meeting with a mirror. You see yourself as in reality you are - not the mask but the original face, not the personality but your universal being. The meeting with the enlightened person creates a resonance, a certain vibration that reaches to the very depths of your being. Because you don't know your self, it seems you have met this enlightened being before - because you don't know your own enlightenment. It is your self nature. This is one dimension. But there is another dimension also. You have lived many lives, and it is impossible that you have not come across the awakened, the enlightened, the illuminated beings - perhaps many times.

You have met these strangers, these outsiders, on different paths, on different crossroads - the quality of enlightenment is the same. So if you loved me deeply enough, all those experiences - which were momentary, because you never lived with an enlightened being long enough; otherwise you would not be here - just passing moments, but even the shadows, the reflections, are revived again because the taste is the same.

Gautam Buddha is reported to have said, "You can taste the ocean from anywhere. It is always salty." It does not make any difference whether it is the Atlantic or Pacific. So is the case with enlightenment: it is an ocean of consciousness, and the taste is immensely sweet, fulfilling, enlightening. And the person who is before you is no longer important. What is important is the invisible experience that he is carrying within himself.

So if you have passed a Gautam Buddha on a crossroad, or a Mahavira, or a Mahakashyap, or a Kabir, or a Farid - meeting me, all those momentary impressions on your being will be revived again and it will appear as if you have known me before, many many times in many many lives.

But the very apparent meaning is not true.

I was not enlightened before this life. So even if you have met me, you have not met me - it was just an unconscious being like yourself. And you have been meeting thousands of people. I may have been one of those thousands of unconscious people that you came across - that is not significant.

The difficulty with enlightenment is that you can be enlightened only in one life, because that is your last life. Once you have become enlightened, you cannot come again into the human body.

You are released from the prison, from the pain, from the anguish, from the meaningless, miserable existence. You are no more confined in any form; you enter into a formless universal consciousness.

Once enlightened, your death is going to be the last death. In other words, only enlightened people die. The unenlightened ... very difficult - they go on coming back, they never die. Only the enlightened person can afford death; the unenlightened cannot afford it, he is not yet ready.

Life is a school, and unless you have learned the lesson you will have to come back again and again to the same class. Once you have learned the lesson, passed the examination, then even if you want to come back into the class you will find all doors are closed for you. You have to move higher, to a different level of being.

We have moved from one form to another form. Man is the last form. Beyond man is a formless, oceanic consciousness.

Gautam Buddha says, "I will be coming back after twenty-five centuries." He is simply giving a consolation. In his place I have come! But the taste is the same. He has not lied - in a sense; in a sense he has lied.

Jesus says, "I will be coming back."

Krishna says, "I will be coming back."

No enlightened person can come back.

Then why are these people saying these things? They know they cannot come back. But people will be becoming enlightened - and enlightenment has no name. Whether it is in the body of Gautam Buddha or in the body of Krishna or in the body of Jesus or in the body of anybody else, it is the same phenomenon. So apparently they are lying, but fundamentally they are saying a very profound truth.

Purna, that's what you experienced when you first met me.

Yes, you have been meeting me before - in other enlightened people. But if they can say that they will be coming ... and I have to come, then I can say I was there ... just lying backwards. When you met Gautam Buddha you met me. The experience, not the body; not the skeleton but the consciousness.

I was in Nagpur speaking in a Buddhist conference. I am not a Buddhist ... only Buddhists were invited to speak; I was the only one who was not a Buddhist. The president of the conference, Bhadant Anand Kausalyayan, was a little puzzled. I was just sitting next to him. He whispered in my ear, "Have you become a Buddhist?"

I said, "I don't need to be a Buddhist."

He said, "Then why are you here in a Buddhist conference?"

I said, "Because I am a buddha."

He said, "My God. Then you should be presiding."

I said, "That's true. Come down. You are only a Buddhist. And I have just come by the way after twenty-five centuries, to see how things are going."

But he could not absorb the shock of my saying that I am the buddha. In the night he came to meet me in the house of a friend, where I was staying. He was a common friend; he was his friend also.

And he said, "I had to come, because since the morning I have not been able to drop the idea that a man can say with such authority that he is the buddha. I have been a Buddhist for fifty years, and I don't have the guts to say that I am a buddha; I am still a Buddhist, trying to follow the principles of Buddha. And you don't seem to follow any principles at all."

I said, "Those principles are for Buddhists. Buddhas make principles, they don't follow them. And I can say it with authority because Gautam Buddha himself has said that he will be coming after twenty-five centuries. Do you think he was lying?"

He said, "No, I cannot think that way."

"Do you think he will come exactly in the same body? That body you have burned. Do you think he will be born as a prince? - because now there are no kings. Where are you going to find a beautiful woman like Yashodhara for him to marry?"

He said, "My God, in all these details ... naturally they cannot be repeated, because to repeat all those details means to bring that whole century - the kingdoms, the people ... because a single man is not an island, he is connected."

Now Buddha was the son of a king, Shuddhodhana. I said, "First you will have to find Shuddhodhana, and what about Shuddhodhana's father? It is going to be difficult. You will have to find Yashodhara. What about Yashodhara's father?

"You will have to manage a son to be born, and on the night the son is born Buddha has to be exactly twenty-nine years old and he has to escape in a golden chariot. Where are you going to find these things? You can do it in a drama, but in reality ... Trust me, I am the buddha - this time born to a different father, this time no Yashodhara, because last time it was enough. One has to learn from experience. This time no children, I cannot tolerate them; they are the nastiest people in the world."

He said, "My God. You have made the thing such that one wants to feel that perhaps you are the Buddha."

I said, "It is not a question of feeling. I don't depend on your feeling. I am the buddha, whether you feel it or not. There were many fools like you in Buddha's time who never accepted him as the buddha, the enlightened, the awakened. It is up to you to be wise or to be a fool."

Purna, you must have come across me many times - not in this body, but you must have come across the same experience. Sometimes a Mohammedan, Farid; a weaver, Kabir; a shoemaker, Raidas. Sometimes a prince, Gautam; sometimes a businessman, Tuladhar. Sometimes a man ...

sometimes a woman, like Rabiya al-Adabiya.

Enlightenment is simply realizing one's universal self. Whoever realizes it has the same taste - his eyes radiate the same light, his gestures have the same grace, he has the same beauty.

If you are receptive, meeting one enlightened person, you have met all the enlightened people who have happened in the whole history of man; not only the past, but even those who will happen in the future.

In the enlightened consciousness the past, the present, the future are all dissolved into a single moment.

Question 2:

It is certainly impossible to defend me - unless you become enlightened. That is the only defense you can provide to the world.

No logical, no rational, no intellectual argumentation can defend me; but you can become enlightened, which is far easier. Then you will be my defense - the more souls are aflame, the more I am defended.

And you say, "It is also impossible to desert you."

That too is possible through the same method, enlightenment - you will be able to defend me and you will be able to desert me. Once you are enlightened, I can say goodbye. There is no need to hang around me. Before that, you cannot defend me and you cannot desert me.

And the remaining question is absolutely absurd. You say you owe me so much - all bullshit. You owe nothing to me unless you are enlightened. What do you owe to me? I just enjoy telling stories ... and you think you owe something to me? I just enjoy gossiping, telling jokes, talking about things which cannot be talked about - just an old habit. You don't owe anything to me.

Yes, you will owe something to me when you become enlightened - just a thank you. That too need not be said. I will understand it.

Question 3:

Jaya, you know that I love you, I know that you love me; and really there is nothing else to say - either from your side or from my side.

So we can take the next question.

Question 4:

There are many things to be said about the question.

First, there is no organization around me. I am against organizations because each organization kills the truth.

The ancient story is that a little devil came running to the master devil and said, "Master, what are you doing here wasting your time smoking a cigar? There on the earth one man has found the truth.

And if the people of the earth come to know about the truth, that will be a calamity to us. Hell will be deserted. There will not be a single newcomer anymore. Something has to be done urgently!"

But the old devil went on smoking the Havana cigar. He said, "Calm down, my son. You are new. I have made every arrangement."

He said, "But I am coming exactly from the spot! There is no arrangement!"

He said, "You don't understand. There are already organizers around the man - priests, interpreters, organizers. A church is being made, and they are standing between the man and the masses.

Whatever he says, they interpret it before it reaches to the people.

"This is my old strategy. Try it, and it always succeeds. That's how I have killed all the religions."

Truth has been found many times, but it has never been possible to make it available to the people.

The organization becomes a wall - power seekers, hierarchies, bureaucracies. And the man who has found the truth - he is so alone in this crowd of scholars, priests, power seekers, interpreters; he finds himself absolutely helpless. Whatever he says they distort it. Whatever he says, something else reaches to the people.

There are others who are writing books, and these books will be worshipped, they will become holy books. Sculptors have arrived; they are making the statue of the man who has found the truth.

Nobody is interested in the truth, everybody is interested in his own business. They worship the man, and worshipping is another form of crucifying.

If you are cultured, you worship; if you are uncultured, you crucify - but there is no difference between the two.

The worshippers say, "You are God incarnate. We will remember you forever. Our children will worship you. There will be temples all over the earth, your statues all over the world."

The scribes are writing books, the writers are making great systems of thought.

Nobody listens to the man. In fact, nobody is there to listen to him. Everybody is there to exploit him.

The priest says, "Ask me. He is so far above that without mediators, there is no possibility of any communication."

Just recently the pope declared that anybody who confesses to God directly, without the mediation of a Catholic priest, is committing a grave sin. Strange - you cannot confess to God directly, it is a grave sin. First you have to go to the Catholic priest. Everything should move through proper channels; you have to tell the Catholic priest, and he will inform God, and God will inform him what punishment has to be given to you.

The old devil said, "You don't be worried. I have my popes, Ayatolla Khomeiniacs, shankaracharyas, Acharya Tulsi's - and all kinds of idiots are there. We need not be worried; just take a Havana cigar, relax. You are just new and don't understand the business yet."

So the first thing: I don't have any organization. I don't have any holy book. I don't have any mediator. I don't have any interpreter. Whatever you see as organization is not organization, it is simply functional; it is just like the post office.

Now so many millions of people writing letters to each other ... some kind of arrangement has to be there; somebody has to sort out the letters, where they have to go. But the postmaster has not any authority, nor the postman, nor the postmaster general. Who knows the name of the postmaster general? It is just functional work.

In a good world, you will not know the name of the president of your country - it is a functional post.

You will not know who is the prime minister - there is no need, it is simply functional. They should be doing their work, and they are needed just the way shoemakers are need, scavengers are needed.

The president is not needed more than the plumber; in fact, the plumber is needed more than the president. The president is simply sitting there in the capital doing nothing, and when something goes wrong in your bathroom - which happens almost every day - then the plumber is needed. But nobody honors the plumber; the plumber has no authority, he has no power. And bogus people who are not doing anything have power.

That is the miracle of organization: Organization creates useless people, but makes everybody feel that without them the whole society will collapse.

Stalin never took a single holiday in his whole life, and he was one of the men who ruled longest.

And when his daughter, Svetlana once asked him ... He must have been in a very good mood, which was rare. Svetlana was married to an Indian. She has told the story to me herself.

Stalin said that he cannot take any holiday because the holiday will make the whole country feel that the country can go perfectly well without him. And the truth is, the country will go perfectly well without him. He has to remain in the chair to make the country feel that without him, everything is going to collapse.

The whole bureaucracy makes you feel that without them everything is going to be wrong. This is their way of gaining power. And the people who are interested in power are the people who are the most empty, who are suffering from an inferiority complex. These are the most sick people in the world.

I don't have any organization. Just functionally, if only a hundred people can sit here and three hundred people come, then somebody has to prevent the two hundred, give them passes - "You come tomorrow." But that does not make him powerful, so that you have to have his picture hanging in your house - "This man is no ordinary man; this man passes out tickets, worship him." He is simply serving you, there is no question of power.

Secondly, you are not asking your question. You are asking questions that your friends ask you.

This is dishonest. You are allowed to ask your question. And I know it is your question, but you don't have the courage to say that "This is my question."

I used to live with a man for three years. He was an astrologer and a palmist. And it was an everyday experience that people will bring their own birth chart and will say, "This is my friend's birth chart"

- because if the man says something ugly nobody wants to hear it. If things are good it is good, if things are bad it is about the friend. But that man was very clever. He would say, "Good. Leave this chart here, and tomorrow bring your friend with you." Now, it was a difficulty - where to find a friend?

And who is going to be with him, to be unnecessarily in trouble?

I said, "Why do you do that?"

He said, "This is an everyday thing. They come about other people, and these are their problems.

But a person who has not the courage to say honestly that 'This is my problem' will not be able to solve it."

"Your friends ask you about the organization." It is not true. It is your own question. There is no problem; why can't you say, "I have a question about your organization"?

"Friends ask about things that happen around You." Strange. Why don't those friends come themselves? All those friends have sent one representative.

Things happen.

Wherever there is silence, a certain magic prevails.

The more profound the silence, the deeper is the magic.

I have seen people changing so dramatically, so unbelievably - one could never have thought before that this man can become so peaceful, so loving; that so many flowers can grow in his consciousness, so that he becomes almost fragrant; that his life becomes a song, a dance, a celebration.

It is simply a question of resonance. Great musicians know it. A great musician can play on his sitar, and can keep another sitar in an empty room far away in another corner. And there comes a moment when he is really lost in playing his sitar that the other sitar - which is simply sitting there, nobody is playing it - starts resonating the same tune, vibrating.

In the old days that was one of the most important things before a man was called a master musician - if he could create resonance, only then was he a master; otherwise he was just an ordinary musician.

There are stories which look fictitious, but they are not - because now we know something scientifically, that they are possible.

The Indian classical music has different ragas for different purposes. There are ragas which can create light, fire; just an unlit lamp suddenly becomes aflame. A certain resonance, a certain hit of the vibrations creates the fire, and the flame comes up.

Now - scientists say, and it has been followed by military experts - whenever soldiers pass on a bridge, their ordinary musical walk is broken. They are ordered not to walk the way they have been trained - thousands of people raising their left legs at the same time, creating the same sound.

Because it was found in the first world war that many bridges were broken - and those bridges were able to carry bigger loads; just an army passing ... what happened? Just a certain rhythm of their legs falling on the bridge, and the bridge was gone, and the people were falling from the bridge.

First it was thought to be just an accident, but when it started happening on many bridges then things were looked into. It was found that it is the sound of their musical march that gives a nervous breakdown to the poor bridge.

You say, "Crazy things happen around You." That, too, is said by your friends. I have never seen any crazy thing happening around here. Yes, I have seen crazy people becoming sane; but in a crazy world to be sane looks like being crazy. Just go to a madhouse ...

It happened to a friend's father. He is a special kind of insane person: for six months he is insane, and six months he is absolutely sane; periodically his pendulum moves. While he is sane he is always sick - this infection, that infection, and he is always going to the hospital, to the doctor, and the whole family is troubled. And when the six months pass and he becomes mad, he becomes healthy; in those six months, no infection, no illness. His weight goes higher, he looks radiant.

At four o'clock in the morning he wakes up the whole village, "Come on to the river!" He drags people out of their houses; "It is time! Go to the river." Those six months when he is mad, he keeps the whole village taking a bath at least two times a day - morning and evening. He purchases so many fruits - because he has not to pay, his sons have to pay - and distributes them to everybody.

Vegetables, fruits, sweets ... the whole town is happy when he is mad. Only his family is sick, ill - because he goes on taking money from the shop; even the small children of the house guard the shop and shout, "Mommy, father is taking money!"

And he will say, "Shut up! Am I your father, or are you my father? This is my shop." All that money goes in distributing sweets and fruits and things to anybody, whoever meets him on the way. But he is so happy, and the whole village is so happy. He disappears sometimes in those six months - just by chance he reaches the station, and if the train is there he will sit on it. Once he disappeared.

Much searching was done, and he was not found - where he had gone, which train he had caught nobody knew.

And all the ticket collectors and ticket checkers, all know him, so nobody bothers to ask for the ticket.

He reached Agra - it is so far away from my village - he was feeling hungry.

He went to a shop. There is an Indian food, it is called khaja - it also means "eat it."

So he asked what it was, and the shopkeeper said, "Khaja." He said, "Okay," and he started eating it. The shopkeeper said, "What are you doing?" He said, "Exactly what you said." And he was so robust ... And the shopkeeper said, "This is strange.

You ask the name, and you finish the whole thing! You will have to come to the court." A crowd gathered ... He said, "Listen, I am a stranger. I simply asked this fool what it is; he said khaja. I have eaten it, according to him. I am ready to go to any police station, to any court; such a name should not be given to a sweet. " In the court they found that he was out of his mind. They jailed him. He was sent to Lahore - because in those days Pakistan was not divided; now Lahore is in Pakistan.

Lahore had the greatest madhouse of those days. After three, four months, his time was over. He was periodically mad and periodically sane; he became sane. He went to the superintendent and he said, "This is the situation: I go mad for six months, and for six months I am sane. Now my madness is gone. Now I remember it was not right to eat that thing; it is the name of the thing, he was not meaning that I had to eat it. But I was mad; now I am perfectly sane. And now there is great trouble"

- because there were at least one thousand mad people in that madhouse. And he said, "When I was mad there was no problem - somebody was pulling my leg, somebody was sitting on my head; it was all okay. For mad people nothing is wrong, everything is right. But now that I am sane, it is very difficult to live with these one thousand mad people. Somebody comes and starts pulling my nose - and I am not doing anything to anybody! Somebody is sitting on my head ... and whatsoever they want to do they do. Somebody is taking my shirt, and I have to fight, and you cannot fight because they are all mad. And my trouble is that when I am mad I have energy, and when I am not mad I am a very sick person. Please release me.

But the superintendent said, "We cannot do anything against the court. You have to be here for six months."

He said, "You don't understand. When I was mad, it was okay; but now I am not mad. I am the only person here who is not mad. You just live one day inside the madhouse and you will understand my situation." But nobody would listen to him. He was telling me, "In those two months of sanity in the insane house I suffered hell. But for four months when I was mad, it was heaven; it was such a joy to be with all those mad people, such a synchronicity - everything was right, nothing was wrong.

But for those two months everything was wrong, nothing was right, and I was the only sufferer."

Here, nobody goes crazy. My people are the sanest people in the world.

But the world is crazy, and my people are few. And the world is big - they have the majority, they have the politicians, they have the governments, they have the churches.

They have everything in their hands, and they are not even alert that they are insane. To be in the mind is to be insane; mind is the place of insanity.

Only those people are really sane who have transcended the mind, who have gone beyond it into silence where no thoughts, no desires, no emotions, nothing exists. Only in that peace is your real health. And that kind of sanity happens here.

So tell your fictitious friends that people are going sane; and if they want to be sane, bring them here. But before you bring them, at least you should go sane.

Mind is crazy.

This is the difference between the ordinary psychology and the psychology I teach: the ordinary psychology says that mind can be sane or insane; and I say mind can only be normally insane or abnormally insane, but mind can never be sane.

Sanity is always above mind, beyond mind. And only very few people in the world have been blessed enough to be sane. But the mad crowd has treated them really badly ... poisoning Socrates, who is one of the sanest men possible. But it is the insane people who decide whether to poison him or not.

Al-Hillaj Mansoor was killed by the insane people. Sarmad, one of the sanest men, was beheaded in New Delhi. The insane crowd was immensely happy to get rid of these sane people. Where everybody is sad, don't rejoice; where everybody is miserable, don't look blissful; where everybody is living in hell, don't show your heart and the heaven that you have found there - otherwise you will be punished for it. It is a strange world. Here, those who are sane, blissful, blessed, are punished; those who are miserable, mad, are rewarded.

Question 5:

Nityananda, you have described very accurately each step a disciple has to go through. This is the most important conclusion: that there is no question of just being a disciple, it is always becoming.

You cannot come to a full stop; the journey is endless, and this is the beauty of the journey.

From being to becoming is a tremendous quantum leap. If you look around in life, you will never find being anywhere; you will always find becoming.

The fallacy of being is created by language, it is the poverty of language. You see a roseflower ...

you see it and you say, "What a beautiful flower." But the flower is continuously flowering, it is never in a state of stopping anywhere.The tree is continuously growing; the word 'tree' is not right. In existence there are no nouns, there are only verbs. It will be very difficult to make a language only with verbs, but the truth is, existence has no nouns.

A tree is in fact treeing, a river in fact is rivering. You are each moment growing - either growing old, the ordinary way of the world; or growing up, the way of my people. Growing old, you have not to do anything - you will grow old, biology will take care of it.

Growing up means a conscious alertness - so that the body goes on growing old, but your consciousness goes on growing upwards, growing up. But it is always growing; even in death a conscious being is growing.

The whole existence is a great verb, not a noun - not a stone, but a flower. And there is no end anywhere because there has never been any beginning. The very idea of beginning and end is just our mind projection. Otherwise, we are always in the middle - never at the beginning, never at the end, always in the middle - and we will remain always in the middle.

Gautam Buddha loved to say, "My path is the middle path, majjhim nikai" - there is no beginning, no end. We are always in the middle, growing eternally, flowering, blossoming, finding new spaces.

You are blessed, Nityananda, to have felt the change from being a disciple to becoming a disciple.

Becoming is a higher stage.

In language it is not so, in existence it is so.