From information to transformation

Question 1:

Chetna, there are things in life which cannot be understood. They can be experienced, but they cannot be explained. To explain them is to explain them away.

About such things, you have to go through a transformation.

You are asking for information. Information can be given about objects; the whole of science is information. And the whole of religion is transformation - the moment religion becomes information, it is dead.

You are asking me to give some taste of enlightenment to you. Can't you see a simple fact? - that tastes cannot be transferred; either you have them or you don't have them.

Even ordinary tastes... the taste of a sweet fruit is unexplainable. You will have to taste it yourself.

I can show you the way, where the fruit is available, where the ripe fruit is waiting for you, where the flowers have become tired, because they have been waiting for you for many many lives, still hoping that one day you will come.

I am reminded of a beautiful incident in the life of Ramakrishna's wife, Sharda Devi.

Ramakrishna died, but before dying he told Sharda, "Remember, I have been here always and I will be here always, so don't think of yourself as a widow. Only my body is going to die - but you are married to me, not to my body."

In India, when a husband dies - and particularly in Bengal it is more severe for the woman, for the wife - her head is shaved... because half of the beauty of a woman is in her hair. She cannot wear any colored clothes; only white is allowed. She cannot use any ornaments, particularly the glass bangles that are used by married women. When the husband dies, she has to break her glass bangles.

Just by the way, I have to inform you why the glass bangles have been chosen as a symbol of marriage: because here in this life, everything is just like glass - breakable, easily breakable.

And when the husband dies, she has to break her bangles on the floor. They need to be made of glass, not of metal, not of gold.

But Ramakrishna prohibited her: "In spite of the whole tradition, I prohibit you. Continue the way you have lived with me. I have loved your food, your sweets. Every day, prepare my food, my sweets; and sit just the way you used to sit before me while I was eating. One day I will be coming."

Ramakrishna died.

Everybody tried to convince Sharda, "Don't be mad, don't go against the tradition. Ramakrishna was always half mad, and it seems that before death he has lost his mind completely!"

But Sharda said, "I am not married to the tradition, not married to the convention - I am married to this beautiful half-madman and I am going to follow him." She did not cry. She continued using ornaments, glass bangles, colored clothes; she did not shave her hair.

People said, "We used to think Ramakrishna was mad; this Sharda is even more mad. She is a widow, and she is behaving as if she is newly married."

And she would prepare the food with the same enthusiasm, and would bring it to Ramakrishna's room and sit in front of him with a small fan in her hands, as she used to sit - as for thousands of years in the East, wives have sat with a fan, so that no fly or anything can sit on the food.

And people said, "You are mad. There is nobody there."

And twice every day the ritual was repeated, and she lived many years.

Whenever she was asked she said, "Whatever happens... I know he is going to come one day." Such patience.

I reminded you of this incident because your fulfillment, your enlightenment, is waiting with infinite patience, for millions of years. One day you are bound to come.

Ramakrishna may come, may not come, but one day you will be sitting under a bodhi tree, enlightened - that is guaranteed. That is intrinsic to your nature. It all depends on you: you can be lazy and you can reach to your own bodhi tree in many, many lives' time. You can be total, your intensity can make you an arrow, and you can move with the speed of light.

And certainly enlightenment is nothing but your becoming light, your inner being becoming light.

Perhaps you are aware that the physicists say that if anything moves with the speed of light, it becomes light - because the speed is so great that the friction creates fire. The thing is burned, there is only light. The material disappears, only immaterial light remains.

Enlightenment is the experience of an explosion of light within you.

Perhaps your desire to be enlightened is moving with the speed of light, like an arrow, so that your very desire, your very longing becomes a flame, an explosion of light. There is nobody who becomes enlightened, there is only enlightenment. There is only a tremendous sunrise within you.

Chetna, you cannot borrow the experience from somebody else, but you can have the experience.

Why borrow in the first place? You do not understand what enlightenment is? You will never understand, unless you experience.

In the world, the law is: first understand a thing and then move towards experiencing it.

But in the inner world just a diametrically opposite law applies: experience first, then move towards understanding it.

Question 2:

Jivan Mary, the path of spiritual realization knows no differences in experiences.

There are not big, significant experiences and small, insignificant experiences. All experiences on the path are exactly of the same significance, because each experience takes you a step deeper into reality, deeper into yourself, deeper into existence.

Your first experience of suddenly encountering a white, shimmering light, and after thirty-two years you came to know that it was the day I had become enlightened.... You are not alone in experiencing that; perhaps ten persons more have related the same experience to me. And naturally they were amazed, and there was no clue available to them. Only later on, years afterwards, it became clear to them that there seemed to be some correspondence between my enlightenment and their experience.

There were great distances between me and all these people.

But as far as man's spiritual being is concerned, space and distances do not matter at all. If you are open, if you are available, if you are receptive, then one man becoming enlightened... the experience, the vibration, the light goes around the whole earth. Wherever there are people who can receive it, who can welcome it, who can take it in.... They will not only see a shimmering white light - that is the outer manifestation - there is something more hidden behind it. In their seeing, their being has taken a quantum leap.

They will never be the same as they were before. The experience of the light has drawn a line, a discontinuity in their life. Something new has entered: they have become available to the beyond; they are no longer only psychological human beings. Something of the spirit has come up out of the darkness, just like an iceberg - a part is above the water, one-tenth. Most of the iceberg is still underneath the water, but a revolution has started.

Your second experience is of even deeper mystery. It is also connected with the first experience.

The first experience was my enlightenment. You shared it, you participated in the celebration. You were a welcomed guest.

The second experience is indicative of my whole philosophy: I have gone beyond enlightenment, something new is born.

Enlightenment has been, up to now, the ultimate.

It is not the ultimate any more.

I have broken the ice. I have opened a small door - a new birth, of a new man, of a new humanity, of a new future.

Enlightenment will always remain of tremendous value, but up to now it was the end. Now it will be again a beginning of a new journey.

This breakthrough has immense implications. A few are worth remembering.

One, the old idea of enlightenment was partial. It was partial in the sense that all the religions of the world have emphasized the fact that the man has to renounce the woman, to renounce the world, renounce all the pleasures of the world. He has to become an ascetic - in reality he has to become a self-torturer, because to cut man from woman is the beginning of torture.

Man and woman are part of one whole; they are not opposites, they are complementaries.

My emphasis is: no more renunciation, no more self-torture, no need to create a painful, miserable life for yourself.

The woman is not against the man.

The new humanity has to create the right atmosphere where men and women are friends, fellow travelers, making each other whole. The journey becomes a joy, the journey becomes a song, the journey becomes a dance.

And if men and women in total harmony can give birth to children, those children will be the 'superman' we have been dreaming about for thousands of years. But the superman can be created only out of the harmonious whole of man's and woman's energy. Then he will be born enlightened.

In the past, people had to seek enlightenment. But if a child is born out of a couple who are in total harmony, in absolute love, he will be born enlightened. It cannot be otherwise. Enlightenment will be his beginning; he will go beyond enlightenment from the very first step. He will seek new spaces, new skies.

Your second experience is indicative of my whole philosophical approach.

I am bound to be condemned by the old religions. I cannot even complain against them. I accept it, it is just natural - because I am trying to bring a totally new religious experience into the world. And with the new religious experience there is bound to be a new world, a new humanity, new eyes to see and new hearts to feel.

Jivan Mary, you are blessed that, far away from me, you experienced my enlightenment and you also experienced my transcendence of enlightenment. You are absolutely ripe, mature, to explode into the beyond, the unknowable, the ecstatic existence.

You are old, but only in the body. Your heart is younger than the so-called young generation. You have not just grown old, you have grown up, you have matured.

And I can say it without any hesitation: this is going to be your last life. You will not die without experiencing your immortality, your eternity.

It is very difficult to predict any such thing, because there are so many hazards. One can go astray from the very last step - just one step more and he would have arrived home, but one can go astray.

There is a Sufi story.

A king who was not just a king, but also an enlightened human being, was talking to the court astrologer. He told the astrologer, "Your science is the most difficult one. Predicting anybody's behavior, future, is almost an impossibility, because on each step there are crossroads, and one never knows where the person will start moving and changing. And life is so accidental and everything is in darkness; people are unconscious."

But the astrologer said, "No, that is not so."

The king said, "Then you will have to prove it by experiment. I know a beggar who sits just in front of the palace...."

In front of the palace there was a beautiful, big river, and the beggar used to come across the bridge to sit in front of the palace. And certainly he was the richest beggar; he was the royal beggar. And he was a very strong man - he had made it clear to all the beggars of the capital that this place belonged to him, nobody should ever try to enter here.

You may not know that beggars go on doing this. You may not be aware that you belong to some beggar, that no other beggar can approach you; you are a possession of some beggar.

In one of the cities where I used to go, I always used to find a beggar at the railway-station and I would give him one rupee. One time I went there, the beggar was not there. A young man was standing there. I said, "What happened? What happened to the old man?"

He said, "I am his son-in-law."

I said, "Son-in-law? But where is the old man?"

He said, "He has given the railway station as a dowry to me. Now it belongs to me."

Only then did I become aware that we may not know at all who the beggar is who possesses us, our house, our street... nobody knows. That is their decision amongst themselves; there are divisions.

So the palace of the king was the kingdom of the beggar. And the king said, "Tomorrow when this beggar comes towards the palace, we will put a golden pot full of gold coins in the middle of the bridge. He comes so early that he is almost the first man to cross the bridge, and he will get hold of the pot and all the money that the pot contains."

And the astrologer and the king and their other friends were waiting and watching from the palace.

The beggar came, but they were all surprised: he was coming with closed eyes, with a walking stick to find the way. He was not blind; he had never been seen with a walking stick.

The astrologer said, "This is strange."

And the beggar certainly missed the pot, because the bridge was big, and he was walking with closed eyes.

He reached the palace.

The king called to him, "What is the matter? You are not blind."

He said, "No, I am not blind."

"And you have never carried a walking stick."

He said, "Never."

"What happened today?"

He said, "Just this morning when I was coming out of my home, the idea arose in me that if I should become a blind man - anything can happen in this world; people become blind - will I be able to find my way to the palace? So I said, 'It is better to try.' I am not blind, but it is better to try, as a rehearsal, in case I become blind."

The king said to the astrologer, "Do you see my point? This man passed by the pot full of gold. But an idea in his mind... 'If some day I become blind, it is better to have some rehearsal beforehand.'

And it is a coincidence that he has chosen today to practice it."

It is very difficult to predict that somebody is going to become enlightened, because people have slipped from the very last step - they were just at the door of the temple and they turned back...

some idea....

But about Jivan Mary, I am saying she is going to make it in this life. Her experiences show the purity of her heart. She is not a woman of the mind. And her purity has been growing, and death cannot be so cruel. She is going to become enlightened any day... but certainly before her death.

She should go on just as simply, as ordinarily, as humbly as she has been going up to now. She should not start thinking that she is going to become enlightened; otherwise the idea has entered, and can distract.

She should not bother about enlightenment or no-enlightenment. She is perfectly good as she is, and she should continue in her humbleness, in her love, in her purity, in her compassion.

Enlightenment will come on its own accord. She is not to desire it, she is not to expect it.

Question 3:

The question has its own answer in it.

I certainly am a murderer.

And also, I never do a thing, so I am a murderer of a very strange category. Just like the candle, and the moth comes towards it, dancing, and dies on its own accord... the candle does not do anything, but certainly it kills.

The whole function of the master is to create such energy, such a magnetic force that you are pulled in and slowly, slowly start disappearing. And a point comes when you have become one with existence. This I call real death.

The ordinary death that you see every day is not real death; It is only a change of the house, or a changing of your clothes. The master is the real death - because once you are consumed in the energy that the master makes available to you, you will not be coming back into any form; you will disappear into the vast universe.

It is death from one side: you will not be this small, imprisoned soul.

It is life eternal from the other side: you will be freed from the prison and you will become one with life itself.

You will not be separate; you will be immortal, you will be universal. Just all your misery, all your limitations - the birth, the death, the old age - all these will disappear. You will be simply young, vibrating, eternal life.

On the one hand the master is a death.

On the other, he is the resurrection.

Question 4:

It is the right way.

In the beginning silence feels like sadness, because you have always been active, engaged, busy - and suddenly all your activity, all your busyness-without-business, all your doings are gone. It feels as if you have lost everything, your whole life. It looks like sadness.

But just be a little patient - let this sadness settle. This is the beginning of silence.

As sadness settles, you will start enjoying the peace, the inactivity, no turmoil... and a point will come where you will see that it was a misunderstanding: it was silence, but you misunderstood it as sadness. You just have to become acquainted with it. A little deeper friendship with what you are calling sadness and the same sadness will become your deep, cool silence.

But we are so much accustomed to being busy. Nobody allows himself or others just to relax, not to do anything. People condemn such people.

I have heard that one day as the archbishop of New York entered the church he saw a young man who looked like Jesus Christ.

He thought, "It is impossible... Jesus Christ? He must be a hippy; many hippies look like Jesus Christ. So keep your courage, don't be afraid."

He went in and asked the young man, "What are you doing here?" - although inside he was trembling: "Who knows? He has said that he would come again; perhaps he has come." But...

New York? He should go to Israel.

The young man laughed. He said, "Don't be worried, and don't tremble inside."

He said, "My God, so you know that I am trembling inside?"

"Yes," he said, "I know, and you are thinking I am a hippy. You idiot! You can't recognize your lord Jesus Christ?"

He said, "I had recognized you. In fact, when I first entered, I had the idea: 'My God, the man looks exactly like Jesus Christ.'"

He said, "I do not look like Jesus Christ, I am."

The archbishop said, "Just wait a minute" - because he thought, "Now what to do?" He had never in his life thought that he was going to meet Jesus Christ. And if you meet Jesus Christ, what are you going to do? So he immediately made a long phone call to the Vatican in Rome. He asked the pope, "It is very urgent. Jesus Christ has come into my church. And the guy seems to be really Jesus Christ, because he even reads my thoughts!"

Even the pope started trembling inside..."This is strange!"

The archbishop said, "What should I do?"

The pope said, "Do? - just look busy, and inform the police! What else can we do? Just look busy so the lord does not think that his archbishops and bishops are wasting time and doing nothing. Just do something, anything will do. Don't bother me. It is good that he has not come here! And inform the police."

Looking busy....

Even if you are sitting silently in your shop or your office and somebody comes, you start looking busy - putting this file there, and that file there, and you know it is useless. But just sitting in your chair not doing anything looks somehow not right. What will the man think? 'Business' is accepted, busy people are accepted.

I was a student of a professor who was a very traditional man, and he had taken the vow of celibacy.

Just teaching Indian philosophy, by and by he became so much involved in it....

Just like all the Bengalis - he was a Bengali - he used to keep an umbrella. But all other Bengalis feel embarrassed that whether there is rain or not, heat or not, they carry their umbrellas; the umbrella is something essential. But this Professor Bhattacharya was not embarrassed, because he was always using it. He was using it to save his celibacy: he kept his umbrella so close to his head that he could see only two or three feet ahead, so he was saved from all kinds of women in the university.

The most troublesome thing was that there were only three students in his class - two were girls, and I was the third one. And because of the two girls he used to teach with his eyes closed. Because you cannot keep the umbrella while you are teaching, that will look really... too much!

And it was a great joy for me, because he kept his eyes closed, I kept my eyes closed. Really, I slept; that was my time to sleep. And he thought that perhaps I was also a celibate; he had great respect for me.

One day it happened that those two girls were absent. He started teaching with his eyes open, but I was accustomed to my sleep, so I closed my eyes. He said, "You can open your eyes, because those two girls are not here."

I said, "Girls or no girls, this is my sleeping time."

He said, "My God, and I had so much respect for you and I thought that you were also a celibate."

I said, "All nonsense. If I were a celibate I would always have an umbrella with me! You could have figured it out, that this man never carries any umbrella. Without an umbrella, can anybody be celibate?" I said, "You can go on teaching, it does not disturb me. You have trained me so well... because for two years I have been listening to you, and sleeping perfectly well. It has been a discipline. Now I can sleep anywhere."

He said, "Then what is the point? You sleep. I should go home."

I said, "That is up to you."

He said, "But these girls not coming has revealed a fact."

I said, "It has not revealed anything. In fact, first you see the girls, then you close your eyes. You have seen the girls - do you accept that or not? - otherwise how do you decide whether to close your eyes or not?"

He said, "That's right."

"And why have you not closed your eyes today? - because you have seen that the girls are not here!

So you are seeing girls unnecessarily - why are you creating trouble for yourself? And I suspect that even under your umbrella you must be watching who is passing by, whether it is a man or woman.

You cannot see the face, that is true; but you can see the feet, you can see the legs. And your celibacy is so thin... even a girl's naked legs, and it is finished. The umbrella cannot save it. No scripture says that celibates should carry umbrellas. From where did you get this idea? Just being a Bengali, conventionally...

"You are not a celibate, because a celibate need not be so afraid. He should be fearless, and you are so full of fear. In this state of fear, forget all about celibacy."

The question contains its own answer. But it seems that you are writing your question with closed eyes, or you are writing your question unconsciously, not even thinking twice about the fact that you have answered it also.

The moment you come in contact with a master, you start dying.

It is a slow process. It is so slow that you are not aware of it. You become aware of it only when you come to a place which I call the point of no return - from where you cannot return, because almost three-fourths of you is dead. Even if you return, people will think you are a ghost; nobody is going to recognize you again.

The same is the situation about sadness. You ask the question, but you have not allowed the sadness to penetrate your being. You have not allowed yourself to be acquainted with it. If you had allowed it, you would have seen that sadness is just the beginning of silence.

Because you are coming from a world of too much activity and suddenly you have stopped everything, it looks sad. Before entering into silence, you have to pass the transitory period, which will be sadness.

But sadness has its own beauty. It has tremendous depth, it has its own calmness, quietness, softness. It is a beautiful experience.

So don't try to avoid it. If you avoid it, you are avoiding the door to silence.

Enjoy it, receive it with open hands, embrace it. The more you are welcoming, the sooner sadness will start changing into silence.

And silence, slowly slowly, becomes a music without sound.

Question 5:

Anybody who says that love is a hindrance on the path of self-realization is not a sage.

But I can understand your question.

In the past, many so-called sages have been teaching people to be unnatural, unpsychological.

These people were basically sick, they were not sages. But they were capable of doing certain things which normal human beings cannot do, and because of their doings people thought they had special powers and that those powers were coming from their sagehood.

For example, you will find people in Varanasi lying down on a bed of thorns - they are worshipped as sages; thousands of people come to worship them. Naturally you cannot lie down on a bed of thorns because you don't know the trick. The trick is very simple; once you know it, you will laugh. It is not any power; this man is befooling you. On your back, there are spots which are sensitive spots and there are spots which are insensitive spots. Just tell your child or your wife or your friend to take a needle and prick you in different places on your back, and you will be surprised: in a few places you will feel the pain and in a few places you will not feel even that the needle has been inserted into your body. There is no sensitive nerve there, these are blind spots.

Those beds are made by experts in such a way that the thorns only touch the non-sensitive parts of the back - but the man becomes a sage. He has not done anything creative, he has not shown any talent, he has not shown any intelligence, but through a simple trick of cheating he is befooling people.

There are people.... I was passing through a village and I saw a big crowd, so I stopped the car. I inquired what was the matter. They said, "In our village we have a great sage."

I asked, "What is his greatness, what is his sagehood?"

They said, "He has been standing for twelve years."

I said, "Even if he is standing for twelve centuries, that does not make him a sage."

I went to see the man. He had a support for his hands, and his legs had become elephant legs.

It is a certain disease: if you go on standing for twelve years, the blood goes more and more into the legs, and the legs start becoming thicker and thicker. The upper side of his body had become shrunken, his whole weight had gone to the lower side. His face was that of an utterly tortured man.

There was no intelligence in his eyes. He was not capable even of speaking. Those twelve years had taken everything from him, but it had given him tremendous honor.

And there was a circle of priests around him, continuously chanting songs, day and night, collecting money, donations. People were coming and worshipping him.

The ego is such that it can make you do stupid things if it feels a certain gratification in it.

Now he was known around many villages as a great sage - and so cheaply.

If you look at your sages, you will rarely find any intelligent person, any genius. You will find all kinds of retarded people, but they have managed at least one thing: they have done something which you cannot do, and that makes them special. It seems as if they have attained to something spiritual.

You are saying to me that sages have said that the woman is a hindrance.

Anybody who has said it.... The woman must have been a hindrance to him, that much is certain.

That much can be said with a guarantee - that he was suffering from sexual repression. Now he is trying to make a general theory out of it. His own repression is a sickness, and he is creating a theory for all human beings that women are hindrances. They are not.

I used to know a saint who was teaching continually against women. I asked him, "If women are hindrances to men, then women are in a far better position to reach heaven, because nobody is hindering them. Men are not hindrances to women; no sage has said that, no scripture says that."

So it seems that all women have reached heaven, and all men are suffering in hell - naturally, because if there is no hindrance where will women go? You will have to make some place for them too. And all men have suffered and suffered badly - but they were responsible for their suffering, because they escaped. And whenever you escape from anything, it follows you. It becomes your fantasy, it comes in your dreams. They did not solve the problem, they were cowards.

My people are not escaping from anything.

Life is a beautiful experiment to solve problems. The more problems you solve, the more intelligent you become. Escaping is not the way.

If the woman is your problem, then find out the reasons why. Perhaps you are the cause. Perhaps you want to dominate the woman. And naturally, if the husband wants to dominate the woman, the woman reacts in her own way: she starts trying to dominate the husband. Their methodologies are different.

Men are responsible for keeping women ignorant, uneducated, uncultured, are responsible for keeping women almost imprisoned in their houses. Now, if they react, who is to be blamed?

You have taken all their freedom, you have taken all their independence. Financially, they cannot stand on their own feet. Educationally, you have deprived them completely. They cannot fight with the man in the competitive world. The man has all the privileges, the woman has no privileges. This is a man's world in which the woman has been simply accepted as a slave, for centuries, in every culture and in every country.

Now if she reacts, if she nags you, if she makes your life miserable, I think it is perfectly right. And by escaping from her... where are you going to escape? You can escape from the woman, but you have an instinct within you that wants a woman - that instinct will go with you. You can escape from your wife, but then that instinct within you will create problems somewhere else.

I have heard a story. A great sage was dying, and he called his chief disciple and told him his last message. There was great silence, because it is the last message; it has to be something immensely important. And the sage said to the disciple, "Remember one thing: never keep a cat in your house" - and he died.

Everybody was shocked. A great sage... and what a message!

People will ask... what will he say? - the chief disciple was at a loss. He inquired of the elders in the society what to make of it.

They said, "You don't know the story of your master; we know it...."

He escaped from his wife. He remained in the forest near a village where he used to come to beg for his food.

The villagers said, "We are poor people, and every day you have to come - in the rains, sometimes it is too cold, sometimes it is too hot - you have trouble. And we are poor people. So we have a suggestion, a simple suggestion, and it will help you also in the other problems for which you again and again come" - because there was one problem.

He had two angots - that is a special saintly underwear - and the trouble was that there were rats in the forest, and they would make holes in his underwear and he would have to come to the town so somebody could mend it.

And they said, "It is unnecessarily tiring. We suggest to you.... We have gathered money and we have purchased a cow. You keep the cow, and we will clear some land by the side of your cottage so you can cultivate some grass. And what are you doing the whole day? So the cow will be supported by the grass, and you will be supported by the cow's milk.

"And we have a beautiful cat, so take the cat also. The cat will take care of the rats, and your underwear will not be damaged anymore. But you have to give the cat milk also, because just the rats will not be enough."

He thought that this seemed to be a good plan, so he took the cat, he took the cow. For a few days things went well, but then troubles started arising.

Living just on the milk was difficult; it was not full nourishment. It is full nourishment for small babies, but not full nourishment for a grown-up man.

So he went back to the town: "It is okay for me, and your cat has been very helpful - she has finished the rats and the problem with the underwear is no more a problem. But a new problem has arisen:

just living on the milk, I am feeling very weak."

So they said, "There is no problem. We will clear a little more land for you. There is so much land lying around you. And we have a widow in our town who needs some work. She is a nice woman, so take her with you."

He hesitated a little..."I have escaped from one wife"... but this was not a wife.

And the people said, "Sometimes you will be tired - she can massage your feet. And if you have a headache, she can massage your head. She will take care of the cow and the cat. And she was a farmer's wife, so she will start farming - and you can help her also - so you can grow your own food.

You need not bother us any more."

So he took the widow. The widow was really nice, and beautiful. He was trembling inside, but he said, "Now this seems to be the only solution."

And the widow started working. She took hold of the whole house, and managed everything beautifully. And she would massage his feet, and she would give him a good bath. And by and by, as things grow, they grew... love comes through such strange doors. Soon there were children, and there was the whole world again.

So the elders of the community said, "That's why he said to you, 'Never bring a cat into the house', because that is where things start going wrong."

But you cannot avoid.

Man is half, so is woman half. The whole idea of separating them is creating unnecessary misery, and in misery there is no development of consciousness.

Consciousness evolves only in a blissful, happy way - when you are in a dancing mood, when you are in a singing mood.

So what has happened to you, that with your wife....

You are a sannyasin, your wife loves me, you both are meditating and you have been feeling to go deeper into meditation. Don't be bothered by any sage who has said that women are hindrances.

Look at your own experience: your wife has been a help.

And the sage who has said that women are hindrances must have been an escapist.

Never listen to the escapists.

The world is for those who can live in it and not allow the world to enter into them; who can be in the world, and will not allow the world to be in them.

And that is the whole secret of sannyas.

Question 6:

There is no one who is a small disciple or who is a great disciple.

One is either a disciple or not a disciple.

You cannot be a small disciple. What do you mean by a small disciple? - the size? the weight?

Discipleship is the same. It is not a quantity which can be more or less - it is a quality.

So it is perfectly right that you are a disciple. You are as blessed as any other disciple has ever been.

And because you think you are a small disciple you are even more blessed, because that feeling of being small is nothing but humbleness.

Question 7:

No one has to make any effort.

One has to be more relaxed.

You are feeling a difficulty because you are a German; hence, relaxedness looks like laziness.

You don't have to make any more effort. You just open your eyes and look around: you are sitting on the top of the mountain where you want to reach.

Everybody is where he wants to reach. It takes time - sometimes years, sometimes lives - to go round and round and round in the world. And finally one comes to a place, and is amazed: this is the place where he had been sitting in the very first place.

There is no need to make any effort. Just once in a while, when you can open your eyes, just have a little glimpse of the place where you are, who you are.

Nobody is a German and nobody is an Indian. Nobody is an Italian. You are a sannyasin. What nonsense are you talking, that you are a German? After being a sannyasin, you cannot be a German.

That's why the German government is so much afraid. They won't allow me into Germany because they know that if I am in Germany, Germany will disappear. So many Germans have already disappeared; they are no longer Germans.

Whoever becomes a sannyasin immediately drops his religion, his nation, his race. For the first time he realizes that just to be a human being is so beautiful... why carry unnecessary luggage?

So it is perfectly good; as far as I am concerned, to be lazy is perfectly good. Just once in a while, when you open your eyes, just see where you are. Enjoy that moment.

Don't think of any goal. Don't be goal-oriented.

Sannyas is not goal-oriented. Sannyas is a realization of the moment, now and here. No effort is needed - because you are already here, you are already now. And the laziest person can, just once in a while, see where he is, who he is. In fact, the laziest may reach before the so-called active people.

And the active German is dangerous. A lazy German is perfectly good. If the whole world becomes lazy, we will have such a beautiful world, with no wars, no atomic weapons, no nuclear weapons, no crimes, no jails, no judges, no policemen, no presidents, no prime ministers. People will be so lazy that they won't need all this nonsense that our activity makes absolutely necessary. Just think sometime: has any lazy person in the world done anything wrong? And still, poor lazy people are condemned.

Two lazy persons were lying down resting under a tree, a beautiful mango tree. And the mangos were ripe, and one mango fell from the tree. It was just by the side of one lazy person, but he didn't move. Just by stretching his hand he could have picked up the mango.

Just then the other lazy person said, "What kind of friend are you? A dog has been urinating in my ear and you never did anything."

He said, "Why should I do anything? A beautiful, juicy mango is lying by my side, and you pretend to be my friend and you have not done anything - and you have heard it fall, you have seen it fall."

Lazy people have never done any harm to anybody - they cannot. They will not go through that much trouble.

It is the active people who are the real problems.

So don't be worried about your laziness. It is totally acceptable as far as I am concerned. I want the world to become less active, more enjoying laziness: relaxing on the beaches, taking sunbaths, playing on their guitars... doing everything that is allowable to a lazy person, and not doing anything that only active people have been doing up to now. The active people have created Nadirshah and Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin and Mussolini and Ronald Reagan.

The world needs to get rid of these active people. And nobody writes about the lazy people, there is no history about them. There must have been lazy people in the world, but nobody writes any history about them. And they are the very salt of the earth.