No more ready-made gods

Question 1:

Maneesha, the old sage was respectable, honored by the society in which he was born. He followed the rules and regulations of the people, he went through all the disciplines required for being a sage.

He was part of the social structure - and even though there were thousands of superstitions, ugly institutions, exploitation, philosophies to console the poor and the oppressed, he affirmed them. He was never against any of the institutions the society had lived with for centuries. He was a follower of the old, of the ancient.

In a way he was a simple man, but deep down utterly repressed, because all social structures are repressive. He was not an individual in his own right, he was only a part of a certain society or cultural group. That certain group worshipped him for the simple reason that he was fulfilling their ideals, their cherished goals. He was their representative.

For example, no Hindu sage has denied or condemned the ugly institution of the caste system. It is impossible even to conceive that a man of clarity and enlightenment could not see that the caste system is a special way of exploiting the poor and the oppressed. Man has behaved so inhumanly with these poor and oppressed people; it has not happened anywhere else in the world. And this was happening in this country, which has created the greatest number of sages.

They talked beautifully about God, they sang beautifully about the other world, they lived a life prescribed by the society, absolutely according to the rules. The society was happy that they were so obedient, and they were happy because the society fulfilled their subtle egos - they were thought to be almost incarnations of God. So there was a mutual conspiracy between the so-called old sages and the social structures in which they were born.

The ancientmost scriptures of the Hindus, the Vedas, prescribes rituals in which not only animals have to be sacrificed to satisfy the gods, but even human beings have to be sacrificed - to satisfy a god that nobody has ever seen. But no sage of those days raised his voice to say that this is absolutely ridiculous, utterly irreligious, unspiritual. They all went hand in hand with the society, supporting whatever the society's beliefs were by their writings and by their living.

Their only satisfaction was that they were worshipped. But to be worshipped is a tremendous nourishment for the ego. If the society wanted them to live naked, they lived naked; if the society wanted them to live in utter poverty, they lived in utter poverty. In a single word, the old sage was just the opposite of the new rebel. The old sage was the obedient, ego-fulfilling, repressed being.

According to me, he was sick - spiritually sick.

The new rebel is not going to conform to the establishment and its interests. He is absolutely unconcerned about his respectability, reputation, honor, worship; he is not in need of any of these things. The people who are empty inside need all these decorations.

The new rebel is an enlightened being - he is fulfilled and deeply contented. He stands aloof and alone, with a clarity about everything. He will speak his truth whether it goes against the society, against the heritage, against the ancient traditions, against scriptures - it does not matter.

To the new rebel, truth is the only religion. For truth he is ready to be sacrificed; for truth he is ready to be condemned; for truth he is willing to be crucified.

The new rebel is an individual, absolutely free from the chains of the crowd - even if those chains are of gold. He is as free as a bird on the wing. He will not accept any cage, howsoever precious.

Truth is his religion, freedom is his path. And to be himself, utterly himself, is his goal.

The old sage was a yea-sayer. The new rebel is a warrior - a warrior against all that is wrong and inhuman, against all that is stupid and unscientific. And there is so much stupidity proclaimed by all the prophets, all the saints, all the sages... so much superstitiousness deeply ingrained in every religion, in every tradition, in every society, that the new rebel has to fight his way out of all these entanglements.

His attainment of freedom from the old and the rotten, the irrational and the superstitious, is an absolute necessity to attain more consciousness. The more he fights against the wrong, the more he becomes right. The more he becomes right, the more he is at ease, at home.

The old sage was a pretender, a hypocrite. The new rebel is an authentic human being. He does not claim any specialness. He does not claim, "I am the only begotten son of God." He does not claim, "I am the only messenger of God." He does not claim that he is the reincarnation of God. He simply claims, with pride and dignity, that he is a human being.

One of the most beautiful mystics, Chandidas, has a beautiful song. I have never come across any statement of more significance: Sabar upar manus satya, tahar upar nahin - "The truth of man is above all, and beyond that there is nothing higher."

The new rebel declares the pride of man and the death of God - and the death of all saviors, prophets and messengers; because they were pretending to be higher and holier than ordinary human beings.

The new rebel is a declaration of being nobody, just an ordinary human being - simple, sincere, alert and aware. Knowing himself, and knowing that everybody else is as divine as he himself is - the new rebel is a declaration of a spiritual communism.

All those old sages were "superior beings," and they condemned humanity. They condemned human nature, they condemned human instincts. In their eyes, to be human was to be a sinner. For the new rebel, to be human - to be absolutely human, natural, relaxed with your instincts, with your intelligence, with your intuitions - is the only spirituality there is. There is nothing higher than that.

The old sages destroyed the dignity of man. They destroyed the pride of being human and they raised a hypothetical God to heights which are inconceivable. They did these two things simultaneously - reducing man to the lowest possibilities, and raising a hypothetical God to the highest of heights.

The God was false, but it was a strategy, because then they could claim that they were closer to God and far away from human beings; they could have a direct connection with God, either as God's only begotten son, as his only messenger, or as his incarnation in the world. The hypothesis of God was very useful because it helped the sage, the so-called saint, to raise himself and his ego to the highest peaks possible.

The new rebel has no hypothetical God. He has a real human being. His effort is to clarify, to unburden the human heart, to raise human consciousness to its highest peaks.

The old sage had a God, ready-made. The new rebel is immensely creative. He is giving a challenge to the world: You have to create your own god within your own being, you have to be a god. And this god is not going to be against humanity; on the contrary, it is going to be its absolute fulfillment, its blossoming, its flowering, its coming of age.

Man has suffered too much, he has been insulted too much. He has made himself into the ugliest creature in the world. He has accepted ideologies which proclaim him only as a sinner. And thousands of years of continual insistence have made wounds in his heart of deep guilt - guilt which does not allow him to live totally, which does not allow him to love intensely, which does not allow him to dance passionately, which prevents him and cripples him in every possible way.

The old sage was an agent of the establishment, of the churches, of the priests, of the kings. He represented all those who had power and wanted to retain that power - power to exploit, power to enslave. And the old sage did his job very well. His reward was only a phony ego.

The new rebel is not going to accept any guilt, because whatever is natural is right. It has to be refined, it has to be lived - not repressed, not forced into the unconscious, but brought into the conscious.

Everything that nature has given to man has to be used in such a way that life becomes an orchestra.

Nothing is wrong - only things are not in their right places. And this is the work of centuries of saints and sages and prophets - the whole credit goes to these people. For their own ego fulfillment they played a role which is one of the ugliest phenomena in the history of man.

The new rebel is truly a sage. He lives with such totality, so intensely, so coherently, so harmoniously, that wisdom arises as a by-product. His enlightenment is not a gift from any God; his enlightenment is a reward of his own effort. It is his own hidden treasure that he finds.

The more harmonious he becomes... His religion will be a harmoniousness, a natural, relaxed, conscious effort to create music out of his life, to make it a dance and a celebration.

The old sage was absolutely uncreative - he has not created anything that you can be proud of. The new rebel will be a creator; he will create poetry, he will create music, he will create sculpture, he will create songs. Fundamentally he will create a luminous life here on this earth - not after death, but now.

This rebellion has been needed for thousands of years. Now it is time: those who have courage should come out of their imprisonment and declare the death of God and the birth of a new man. As far as the old sages and saints are concerned, the differences are not much. Between this religion and that religion, this culture and that culture... just superficial.

The mother gave her little girl some money to go to the movies, a treat she had never had before.

When she came home, her mother asked, "How did you get on, dear?"

"Well, Mummy, it was a bit like Sunday school!"

"What? What do you mean?" asked the mother.

"Well, at Sunday school they sing, 'Stand up, stand up for Jesus.' And in the movies they shout, 'For Christ's sake, sit down!'"

Not much difference...!

A Christian sage, a Hindu sage, a Jaina sage - not much difference. Their words may be different, their disciplines may be different - somebody is standing up, somebody is sitting down - but their basic approach is to support slavery, to condemn humanity, and to proclaim a God which is the greatest lie we have tolerated for thousands of years.

There was a young priest who went to his first parish. The old priest arranged to be in the back of the confessional, to see if the beginner did it right. The young man tried hard and asked afterwards, "I did not do too badly, did I, Father?"

"Well," said the old priest, "not too badly for the first time. But next time we can have a little less 'Whew!... Wow!... Gee!' and a lot more 'Tut, tut, tut!'"

The young priest, listening to the sinners, was saying "Wow! Gosh!..."

All that is pleasure to man has been condemned. Pain, self-torture, have been supported. Misery and poverty have been raised as spiritual values - "Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God." It is strange that the people who are going to inherit the kingdom of God should be starving and dying in Ethiopia, should be starving in India, and the people who are going to be in hell are enjoying all the pleasures the world can offer. It is a very strange arrangement!

If the world is a school, then the poor should be given all the pleasures so they can get a little bit ready; otherwise even in heaven they will feel too guilty to enjoy anything. They will bring their conditioning with them. But the society was happy that the poor were told that they would inherit the kingdom of God. Then there is no need of any revolution here, there is no need to revolt against the structures which are making them poor.

The old sage was anti-revolutionary. He was for those who were oppressing and sucking the blood of the people. The new rebel will not be an agent of the bloodsuckers, of the parasites. He will not say, "Blessed are the poor." He will not say, "Suffer your misery patiently, because after death you are going to inherit the kingdom of God."

There is no kingdom of God - that's why the rich people have never bothered about it, never even questioned it. They have allowed the priests to tell the poor that they will inherit the kingdom of God.

The priests know there is no kingdom of God, that there is no God, and the rich know there is no God, and no kingdom of God. This is a fiction just to keep the poor poor, just to keep the slaves slaves, and avoid revolution of any kind.

A young girl found herself alone at home one night, so she invited her boyfriend over. She took him into the front room, turned on the electric heater, turned out the light, poured him a drink, and sat him on the sofa. He stroked her hair, kissed her neck, then her lips. He crushed her to him, he pressed her back, he laid her down, he lay on top of her. Then he stopped.

"Go on, go on," she moaned. "Don't stop now, or I shall die!"

"But dearest, I don't know what to do next. The movies always fade out at this point."

One needs some experience. The humble, the meek, the poor, the oppressed, they shall inherit the kingdom of God. But they don't have any experience of life and its pleasures, its joys, its songs, its dances. They will be simply standing there embarrassed, not knowing what to do.

But no rich man down through history has ever raised the question: "We make all the temples, all the churches; we pay all the priests, millions of them around the world; we publish all the holy books and distribute them free; we donate to all kinds of charitable things - and we shall not inherit the kingdom of God? What nonsense are you talking? You are our servants, we pay you."

Nobody has ever objected. What could be the reason? The reason is that the priests and the rich people both know perfectly well that this is only a deception - there is no God and no kingdom of God. This is a fiction to keep the poor people consoled.

The new rebel will bring rebellion into all dimensions of life. He will transform this earth into a paradise. He will create gods out of all human beings. Every human being has the potential to be a god because he can become enlightened, he can become pure consciousness. That's what a god is going to mean in the future. In the past, God was the creator. In the future, God will be the creation of human consciousness. It will be the highest peak of human celebration, of human luminosity, of human light.

The new rebel is the first man in favor of the birth of a great humanity; and to bring a great humanity onto the earth, all fictions have to be removed. They are obstructions, hindrances. They have done immense harm to man; they have left man with only wounds.

The new rebel will preach health and wholeness. Life will become our only temple. Reverence for life will become our only religion.

Question 2:

Sushama, this is your inheritance. This is what your forefathers have given to you - indecisiveness - because they have created a split in your being: whatever is natural in you is wrong, and whatever is not natural in you is the ideal to be realized.

It creates such a dilemma, because that which you want to do is condemned, and that which you are not even interested in is praised. If you choose the ideals, you have to repress your nature. That will be a constant struggle within you. If you choose nature, you will feel guilty that you are forsaking the great ideals.

For example, celibacy.... All the religions have been teaching celibacy as one of the greatest moral characteristics. In fact, it is a crime to preach celibacy; celibacy is absolutely against nature. But those who choose to be celibate become superior beings at the cost of repressing their desires, their love, their natural instincts. Those natural instincts are continuously boiling within them. They want expression - and they will find a way out, which will be a perversion.

The rift has become so big between man's ideals and man's reality that it is always a question of deciding what to do. Whatever you do seems to put you into trouble; hence, before doing anything you are wavering and you are indecisive. The ideals are there, and the nature is there.

The indecisiveness of man will disappear when there is only nature - when nature itself is the ideal; when rather than repressing your sexuality, your sensuality, you start refining your sexuality, refining your sensuality, making it a deep art, a creative dimension. Indecisiveness will disappear by not repressing those energies - which are going to become perversions - or sublimating them, but transforming them. They are your energies, and energy is always neutral. It can produce children, it can produce a higher consciousness in you. It can produce better music, it can produce better poetry. It can give you a new birth. But the indecisiveness is going to continue as long as you have two opposite poles pulling you simultaneously in two diametrically opposite directions.

You are saying, Sushama, "I experience indecisiveness like a disease." It is a disease. But you are not responsible for it. The whole history of mankind is responsible for it. You are saying, "It always leaves me uncomfortable and paralyzed." The whole of humanity is in the same boat. Everybody is feeling uncomfortable and paralyzed because what he wants to do is condemned by the saints, by the sages, by the priests, by the politicians; and what he is not even interested in is proclaimed by everybody to be the great ideal. Whatever you do, you will be in a state of uncomfortableness and paralysis.

I have heard about a professor of mathematics who was purchasing a toy for his child - it was Christmas time. The shopkeeper knew that he was a great professor of mathematics, so he brought out a jigsaw puzzle. The professor liked it - and he tried to put the puzzle together. In whatever way he tried to fix it, it was wrong. He was perspiring! A crowd of customers gathered with the salesman and the shop owner. They were wondering: He is such a great mathematician, and he cannot solve a puzzle which is meant to be solved by small children!

Finally he asked the shopkeeper, "What is the matter? I have tried every way - nothing works out."

The shopkeeper laughed. He said, "You have to forgive me. The puzzle is made in such a way that it cannot be solved."

The professor said, "This is strange!"

The shopkeeper said, "The reason why it has been made in this way is to give the child an experience of how life is going to be. Just look on the back - the name of the puzzle is life. The child will try thousands of times; there is no way...."

You have been put into a puzzle by the whole human past. It simply makes you uncomfortable and paralyzed. You say, "When I have to make a choice, the yes and the no are both so possible that I just don't know.... What is there that I don't understand?"

Sushama, it is simple. Either become a saint, enter a monastery... it will not solve the puzzle - the puzzle cannot be solved. It will not make you comfortable, either, but that is one way of escaping.

You will remain paralyzed, but people will respect you. Deep down you will be paralyzed, your soul will be continuously suffering... a wound that goes on growing.

Or drop the whole past, and be a natural human being. Then all discomfort will disappear and all paralysis will disappear. Nature is the solution: love nature, respect nature, have a deep reverence for nature; and burn all your ideals which go against nature. Anything that goes against nature is your enemy. If you have the courage to do that, then you will never feel uncomfortable; then life becomes juicy. Then it becomes so easy, so relaxed, so peaceful.

Chuang Tzu is right when he says, "Easy is right and right is easy. And when you have forgotten both the easy and the right, you have come home."

But the simple statement, "Easy is right," can become your whole religion. In fact, it has to become your whole religion, if you want to come out of your uncomfortableness, out of your paralysis.

As far as my people are concerned, their work is to make bonfires of all that is old and rotten. Get rid of all the sages and saints who are sitting on your head - their weight is too much. Moreover, they are dead and they are stinking. And because of their mountainous weight - because it is not one saint or one sage that is sitting on your head, it is a big crowd - they are paralyzing you.

Sigmund Freud was right in his insight when he said that all the religions are against sex. Although they have been preaching this antagonism for centuries, they have not been able to destroy sex - but they have certainly succeeded in poisoning it. Now you cannot enjoy it, and you have to go into it; this is the torture. You are committing a sin... you cannot resist, because nature is irresistible, and you cannot stop your mind condemning your nature.

My approach towards life is very easy. I have never felt any indecisiveness because I have never accepted any ideals, howsoever old, howsoever respectable. I have lived according to my own light, howsoever small. And I have never felt paralyzed. I have never repented for a single thing; whatsoever has happened in my life had to happen. It was not a question of my choice - I allowed my nature to have its way. I have just been floating with the river - not even swimming. The question of going against the current does not arise; that's what creates discomfort and finally will create paralysis.

Just go with the river. It is already going towards the ocean. Why are you unnecessarily struggling against the current? Nature is already going towards enlightenment; that is its ocean. Just relax with it - enjoy it, sing it, dance it.

I teach you to be simple pagans, loving nature, enjoying all that nature provides - so that the split in your mind disappears, and you can become one organic whole. Only with that organic unity does everything come with absolute decisiveness. Not even a single part of you is against it; all the parts of your being join hands together and make your life a sheer joy.

The Sunday school teacher liked to fill his house with holy texts. One day the maid said to the mistress of the house, "I want to put my notice in."

"Why, Mary?" said the mistress. "Aren't you happy here?"

"Yes, Madam, but you don't know what the master has been up to in my bedroom."

"What has he done?" asked the mistress, suddenly pale.

"He stuck up one of those cards...."

The mistress rushed into the maid's bedroom and read: "Be Ye Prepared - For Ye Know Not at What Hour the Master Cometh."

It was a card prepared by the wife herself. She used to write all these holy things, and her husband used it for a better purpose: he just put it by the maidservant's bed. Naturally she was afraid. In a different context, the whole thing changes, it is no longer holy. "Be Ye Prepared - For Ye Know Not at What Hour the Master Cometh."

Right now you are uncomfortable, you are in a deep indecisiveness. You feel it like a disease. You are paralyzed, you don't know what to do. In this context, any advice to you to do this or do that, is not going to help, because that advice will become a new point for indecisiveness, a new paralysis, a new problem.

You have to go through surgery, and the surgery is that you have to cut yourself off completely from the past - from all the religions, from all moralities, from all that has been taught to you as being respectable. You have to be just a simple human, a nobody, with no desire for any paradise...

with only one longing, to be at peace within yourself. Then all paralysis, the whole disease, the indecisiveness, everything, will disappear on its own accord. You don't need a medicinal treatment; you need, simply, total surgery. Homeopathic sugar pills won't help.

Just be prepared: "For Ye Know Not at What Hour the Surgeon Cometh!" Just remain lying down on the bed... and wait. The master is bound to come!

But this is not the master proclaimed in the holy scriptures. This is a human master, who is not a physician but a surgeon. My work is not that of a physician, my work is that of absolute surgery - because I want you to be utterly freed from all fetters, not in installments, but in one go!

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.