The rebel has no path

Question 1:

Marga Madir, the rebel has no path to follow; those who follow any path are not rebels. The very spirit of rebellion needs no guidance. It is a light unto itself.

The people who cannot rebel ask for guidance, want to be followers. Their psychology is that to be a follower relieves them of all responsibility; the guide, the master, the leader, the messiah become responsible for everything. All that is needed of the follower is just to have faith. And just to have faith is another name of spiritual slavery.

The rebel is in a state of tremendous love with freedom - total freedom, nothing less than that.

Hence he has no savior, no God's messenger, no messiah, no guide; he simply moves according to his own nature. He does not follow anybody, he does not imitate anybody. Certainly he has chosen the most dangerous way of life, full of responsibility, but of tremendous joy and freedom.

He falls many times, he commits mistakes, but he is never repentant of anything because he learns a deep secret of life: by committing mistakes you become wise. There is no other way of becoming wise. By going astray you become acquainted more clearly with what is right and what is wrong; because whatever gives you misery, suffering, makes your life a darkness without end, without any dawn, means you have gone astray. Find out, and come again to the state of being where you are peaceful, silent, serene, and a fountain of blissfulness, and you are again on the right path. There is no other criterion than that. Being blissful is to be right. Being miserable is to be wrong.

The pilgrimage of the rebel is full of surprises. He has no map, no guide, so every moment he is coming to a new space, to a new experience - to his own experience, to his own truth, to his own bliss, to his own love.

Those who follow never know the beauty of experiencing things firsthand. They have always been using secondhand knowledge and pretending to be wise. People are certainly very strange. They do not like to use secondhand shoes; even on their feet they will not put secondhand shoes. But what garbage they are carrying in their heads... just secondhand shoes! All that they know is borrowed, imitated, learned - not by experience, but only by memory. Their knowledge consists of memorizing.

The rebel has no path as such. He walks and makes his path while walking. The rebel is almost like a bird flying in the sky - what path does he follow? There are no highways in the sky, there are no footprints of ancient birds, great birds, Gautam Buddhas. No bird leaves any footprints in the sky, hence the sky is always open. You fly and make your path.

Find the direction that gives you joy. Move towards the star that rings bells in your heart. You are to be the decisive factor, nobody else!

That's why I have spoken about the middle way many times when I was contradicting the people who follow the extreme; because the extreme can never be whole, it is only one polarity. In certain contexts I have contradicted them, saying that to be on one polarity is to miss the other polarity, is to live only half of life. You will remain always with something tremendously valuable missing, and you will never know what it is. In that context I have talked about the middle way.

The man who walks the middle way, the golden mean - exactly in the middle - has both the extremes, like two wings reaching to the farthest corners. He comprehends the whole polarity in his being. He stands in the middle, but his wings reach to both the extremes simultaneously. He lives a life of wholeness.

But in another context, I have spoken against the middle way - because life is not so simple to understand. It is the most complex phenomenon in the world. It has to be, because it is the most evolved state of consciousness in the whole of existence. Its basic complexity is that you can never speak about it in its totality; you can only speak about one aspect. And when you are speaking about one aspect, you are automatically denying other aspects - or at least ignoring them - and life is a combination of all contradictions. So when you are talking about one aspect, the contradictory aspect of it - which is also part of life, as much as the aspect you are speaking about - has to be denied, negated.

To understand me means to understand everything in a certain context. Never take it out of context, otherwise you will be simply bewildered, confused. Sometime I have spoken of the middle way because, as I have told you, it comprehends the whole of life; its beauty is its totality. Sometimes I have spoken in favor of the extremes, because the extreme has its own beauty.

The life of the man who walks in the middle is always lukewarm. He is very cautious. He takes every step very calculatedly, afraid that he may move to the extreme. The man who follows the middle way cannot live passionately; he cannot burn his torch of life from both ends simultaneously. For that, one has to learn life at the extreme points. The extreme point knows intensity, but it does not know wholeness. So when I was talking about intensity, I emphasized the extremes. But these were all spoken in a certain context.

I have also said that there is no path. With the idea of a path we always conceive of highways, superhighways, which are already there - you just have to walk on them. That's why I have been denying that there is any path.

In the world of reality, you have to create the path while walking on it. As you walk you create, by and by, a footpath; otherwise you are entering into an unknown territory with no boundaries, no pathways, no milestones. Your walking is creating a path, certainly, but you cannot follow it; you have already walked on it - that's how it has been created.

And remember, your path is not going to be anybody else's path, because each individual is so unique that if he follows somebody else's path he loses his own identity, he loses his own individuality, he misses the most beautiful experience in existence.

Losing yourself, what are you going to gain? You will simply become a hypocrite. That's why all so- called religious people are the worst hypocrites in the world; they are following either Jesus Christ or Gautam Buddha or Mahavira....

These people are not only hypocrites, these people are also cowards. They are not taking their own lives into their own hands, they are not being respectful of their own dignity. They are not trying to figure out, "Who am I?" They are simply trying to imitate somebody else. They can become good actors, but they can never become themselves.

And your acting - howsoever beautiful, howsoever correct - will always remain something superficial, just a layer of dust on you. Any situation can scratch it, and your reality will come out.

You cannot lose your uniqueness; that is your very being. And particularly the rebel... his very foundation, his very spirituality, his whole being is an assertion of his own uniqueness. It does not mean that he is asserting his ego, because he respects your uniqueness too.

People are neither equal nor are they unequal. Those philosophies are absolutely unpsychological, unfounded in scientific truth. The very idea of equality is absolutely baseless. How can you conceive unique human beings to be equal?

Yes, they should be given equal opportunity - but for what? For a very strange reason... they should be given equal opportunity to grow to be themselves. In other words, they should be given equal opportunity to be unequal, to be unique. And the variety of different flowers, of different colors, of different flavors, makes the world rich.

All the religions have tried to make the world poorer and poorer. Just think, today the population of the world is coming close to - perhaps by the end of this month it will be - five billion. Just think, five billion people like Mahavira, walking naked all over the earth. They will not even find food. Who is going to give it to them? Where are they going to beg?... because wherever they turn they will find another Mahavira, standing naked and hungry, asking for food.

It is good that people are not so stupid, that they have not followed all these people all the way. They said goodbye to them and said, "We will worship you, we will make temples for you, but forgive us; we cannot go that far. That is only for special people" - only for twenty-four people in the whole creation, out of which historians think twenty-one are absolutely bogus, they never happened. Only three are historical figures. But at that time the idea and the number of twenty-four had certainly become very strong.

Sometimes numbers also have their days. In America, number thirteen is thought to be very dangerous. Now it is just a poor number like any other number; in the whole world nobody thinks anything about number thirteen. But in America hotels simply don't make the thirteenth floor; they don't number it. There it is - after twelve comes the fourteenth! The thirteenth simply does not come, because nobody wants to stay on the thirteenth floor. The municipal corporations cannot put the number thirteen on any house; number thirteen is simply missing in every city. After twelve comes fourteen, because nobody is willing to have number thirteen, it is evil.

In the days of Mahavira, the number twenty-four became a very spiritual number. These things happen like fashions; you cannot give any very reasonable evidence for why they happen. Jainas declared that they have twenty-four tirthankaras. Number twenty-four became important because the day has twenty-four hours, and the whole creation is conceived of almost like a day - half will be dark night, and half will be full of light.

In one creation there will be twenty-four tirthankaras... just like old grandfather clocks with a bell that rings every hour. On city towers and in the universities those kinds of clocks still exist. Nobody wants those clocks in the home, because the whole night you cannot sleep. The clock has no consideration whether you are asleep or awake; it simply goes on mechanically.

The mechanics of existence, according to Jainism, is that each hour of existence - that means millions and millions of years - will be preceded by one tirthankara and succeeded by another.

That's why there are twenty-four tirthankaras. Only three, or at the most four - the fourth is a little suspicious... but twenty are certainly a creation of the imagination to complete the number twenty- four.

Gautam Buddha... his followers certainly must have felt, "We are very poor, we have only one buddha and these people have twenty-four tirthankaras, all awakened, all enlightened. Our religion is very poor, something has to be done." It is clear-cut competition in the marketplace! They could not say that there had been twenty-three buddhas before, because there was no indication in their history, no temple dedicated to any other buddha, no scripture describing any other buddha. It was very difficult for them, so they found a new way.

They created a story that Gautam Buddha himself had been born twenty-three times before.

Whatever he had said before, he was going to re-say it completely refined, well systematized, in the twenty-fourth time when he would be coming for the last time to the world - and that's why no scriptures exist. But they managed the number twenty-four.

Up to that time, Hindus had only ten avataras, ten incarnations of God. Suddenly they felt... up to Mahavira's time all Hindu scriptures described only ten incarnations of God. But suddenly they saw that they would look poor in the marketplace if anybody asked - just ten? Jainas have twenty-four, Buddhists have twenty-four; twenty-four is the universal law. Because these were the only three religions in India at that time.... Hindus were at a great loss, what to do? - because all their old scriptures said that there were only ten incarnations.

They were in a more difficult situation than Buddhists. At least Buddhists had no scriptures, so they managed a beautiful story: nothing was recorded because in his last incarnation Buddha would give the most refined version. Twenty-three times he had rehearsed, the twenty-fourth time he would come with absolute perfection. That time it would be recorded, the statues would be made, temples would be made. At least nothing was contrary to their imagination; they could manage, in the vacuum, to fill the gaps with imaginary buddhas.

But Hindus were in more difficulty. All their scriptures, without any exception, were talking about only ten. But they started writing new scriptures, without bothering that this was creating a tremendous contradiction. All the scriptures created by the Hindus after Buddha and Mahavira have twenty-four reincarnations of God. The number had to be equal!

These religions have not been teachers of truth. These religions have been just enslavers of humanity. They were trying to bring as many people into their herds as they could, because numbers bring power. And the cowards were ready to follow the herd, the crowd, because the cowards were feeling alone, afraid. This vast universe, and you are alone... nobody, not even a companion - utter silence of the skies, nobody to show you the path, nobody to give you guidance.

The rebel is the real spiritual being. He does not belong to any herd, he does not belong to any system; he does not belong to any organization, he does not belong to any philosophy. In simple, conclusive words, he does not borrow himself from others. He digs deep within himself and finds his own life juices, finds his own life sources.

What need is there of any path? You are already here - you exist, you are conscious. All that is needed for the basic search is given to you by existence itself.

Look within your consciousness and find the taste of it. Look within your life and find the eternity of it. Look within yourself and you will find the holiest, the most sacred temple is your own body - because it enshrines godliness, divineness, all that is beautiful, all that is truthful, all that is valuable.

You are asking, "What guides the rebel?"

That's the beauty of the rebel - that he does not need a guide. He is his own guide, he is his own path, he is his own philosophy, he is his own future. It is a declaration that "I am all that I need and existence is my home. I am not a stranger here."

Question 2:

Rafia, devotion is not a path. You don't have to travel it. Devotion is a way of merging and melting into existence. It is not a pilgrimage; it is simply losing all the boundaries that divide you from existence - it is a love affair.

Love is not a path. Love is a merger with an individual, a deep intimacy of two hearts - so deep that the two hearts start dancing in the same harmony. Although the hearts are two, the harmony is one, the music is one, the dance is one.

What love is between individuals, devotion is between one rebel and the whole existence. He dances in the waves of the ocean, he dances in the dancing trees in the sun, he dances with the stars. His heart responds to the fragrance of the flowers, to the song of the birds, to the silences of the night.

Devotion is not a path. Devotion is the death of the personality. That which is mortal in you, you drop of your own accord; only the immortal remains, the eternal remains, the deathless remains. And naturally the deathless cannot be separate from existence - which is deathless, which is always ongoing, knows no beginning, no end.

Devotion is the highest form of love.

It is possible you may love one person, and love becomes so deep that slowly slowly the very quality of love changes into devotion. Then that person becomes only a window for you to take a jump into existence. That is the situation of the master, as far as the rebel is concerned.

For my people I am not a savior, I am not a messiah. I am just a door, a bridge to pass on into the infinite.

India has a very strange city - perhaps there is no other city like it in the world - Fateh-pur Sikri. It was made by the great emperor Akbar. He wanted to make a special city for his capital. The whole city had to be totally fresh, a piece of art; and he was going to shift the whole capital from Delhi to Fateh-pur Sikri. He was a very demanding man, and it had to be not an ordinary city; every house had to be a palace.

For forty years continuously the city was being built - it is surrounded by a beautiful lake - but it was never inhabited. This is the only city in the whole world which has such beautiful palaces, but nobody ever lived there because Akbar died before he could complete the project. The project was too big - to make a whole capital, absolutely fresh and new, out of a special stone; and all the houses, all the roads in a certain pattern with a certain meaning.... Thousands of artists from all over the world were called to work - stone-cutters, masons, architects.

Akbar had perhaps the greatest empire in the whole world in those days. Under Akbar, India was the greatest land; there was immense money available, but Akbar spent everything.

He wanted the capital to be complete before his death. But seeing that it seemed to be impossible, that the capital would take at least forty years more to be absolutely complete, he decided, "At least while I am alive, half of the capital - particularly the offices of the government and the special people - should move."

A beautiful bridge was made across the lake to join it with the main road; the city was almost a small island inside the lake. Akbar asked his wise people to find a beautiful sentence to be engraved on the main gate of the bridge, to welcome any visitor to the city.

They searched and searched in all the scriptures, in all the literature of the world. It is strange that, although they were Mohammedans, they could find a sentence which was absolutely suitable only in the sayings of Jesus, as if it was being said specially to be engraved on the capital of Fateh-pur Sikri. The sentence is, "It is only a bridge. Remember, don't make your house on it - it is a place to pass on."

It is a statement about life. Life is a bridge. Don't make your house on it - it is a place to pass on.

Akbar loved the sentence. It is engraved on Fateh-pur Sikri's main gate. But before any move could happen, he died. His son had been against the idea from the very beginning, for the simple reason that the whole treasury had been destroyed. Nothing else had been done, only a dead capital had been made - and Delhi was doing perfectly well. There was no need, and in fact he had no money left to continue the project for forty more years, so the project was dropped; nobody ever moved. It became a monument, a great memory of the dream of a great king. But to me the most important thing is the sentence on the bridge.

That's what a master is, for a rebel. That's what love is, for a rebel. For a rebel, love and the master are synonymous. When his love becomes so deep with the master that he cannot think of himself as separate in any way, love has transformed itself into a new height. That height has been known as devotion.

Devotion is not a path. Devotion is only a love affair, purified to its ultimate state. Then whomsoever you love becomes a door, a bridge to the universal organic unity, the experience of your small identity dissolving in the ocean just like a dewdrop slipping from a lotus leaf.

Question 3:

Surabhi, it is not only the British way of thinking. More or less, it is the only way of thinking all over the world. You cannot believe it when you are blissful. You cannot believe it if you are in a deep ecstasy and silence of the beyond; because the whole world around you is in misery, in deep suffering. If you tell them that you are enjoying life, they will think you are either dreaming or you are a heroin addict. Something must be wrong with you because nothing is wrong with you!

In this world something has to be wrong with you, only then are you a normal human being. If you say, "Nothing is wrong with me, everything is going great," people will look at you with suspicion.

Either it is a drug or a hangover from the last night or you have really gone insane. Only mad people think such thoughts.

And the majority is always right. You are alone and the trouble is that there is no way to convince anybody, because you cannot put your joy in front of them so they can examine it; you cannot put your ecstasy before their eyes so they can dissect it and see whether it is true or illusory. These experiences are absolutely subjective, they cannot be brought out, there is no way of scientific experimentation. They are not objects, hence they don't allow any objective experiments on them.

Looking around the world one is taught the feeling, "Perhaps I am hallucinating, perhaps some nuts and bolts are loose in my mind. Something must be wrong. At least one thing is certain: that I am abnormal, and abnormal is equivalent to insane."

But, Surabhi, you are not in Britain. You are not even in Poona! You are here with me... and to be miserable here is to be abnormal. We live a totally different kind of life and we speak a totally different kind of language. To be grumpy here and have a long face, to be a Britisher here, is to be insane. You can be joyous here for no reason at all; nobody will ask you, "Why are you dancing, what have you got, why are you singing? Has the lottery been opened with your name? Why are you looking like Jimmy Carter? Has your wife escaped with somebody else? What is the matter?"

Nobody asks you.

But if you are looking sad, miserable, then everybody thinks you must be acting. You must be playing a role. And if you insist on remaining serious and sad, then people are going to think that you need psychiatric treatment. And we have meditations and psychological groups and all kinds of things which bring the insane people down to sanity. Our criterion of insanity is a chronic sadness, and our definition of sanity is a natural joyousness, for no reason at all.

Surabhi, here you don't have to be worried about the British way of thinking. And before you go back to Britain, leave it to me and my people - they will have corrupted you so badly, that you will not care about Britain or Germany or America. It doesn't matter - wherever you will be, you will be a sannyasin: sane, healthy, loving, dancing, making life a celebration. One can make one's life a celebration even with two flowers or even with two leaves - or just a candle is enough.

If you really know how to celebrate, one candle is enough. To dance to abandon in the dim light of the candle, without being worried what others think... that is part of the initiation of sannyas: not to be worried about what others think and what others say. They are free to live their lives; if they want to live in misery they can live in misery with all your blessings. But you choose not to live in misery and you will not allow anybody else to interfere. Before you go, you will be strong enough not to be afraid to be happy.

Two six-year-olds were examining an abstract painting in an art gallery. "Let's run," said one, "before they say we did it."

Everybody according to his understanding...

Hymie Goldberg felt very sick, so he called in a specialist. After examining Goldberg, the specialist said, "Yes, I am quite sure I can cure you."

"How much will it cost?" asked Goldberg weakly. "My fee," said the specialist, "will be ninety-seven dollars."

"I am afraid," said Goldberg, "you will have to reduce that a little. I got a better price from the undertakers."

People just have their own way of thinking... he had inquired from the gravediggers how much they would take and their quotation was less, so why waste money? And anyway one has to die, today or tomorrow. Goldberg is thinking the way any economist, any mathematician would think. To you, he will look a little mad.

But you will find these kinds of people all around the world. Just remember one thing: you have to make it a point that the only criterion of sanity is to remain blissful, whatsoever the cost. It may even be ninety-seven dollars.

On a rough sea, during a very dangerous voyage across the Atlantic, Hymie Goldberg lay over the side of the ship and suffered. "Cheer up my friend," said the ship steward, "no one ever died of sea sickness yet."

"Ah, sure," gasped Hymie, "but it is the hope of dying that keeps me alive."

One sad, little boy in Sunday school is looking at a picture of the early Christian martyrs being fed to the lions. "Gee," he says, "just look at that poor little lion at the back, he won't get any."

Now it is up to you how you make up your mind about things. The Christian authorities of the school must have hung that picture so that the children could know what had happened to the early Christians. They were thrown to the hungry lions.

But this little boy has his own idea. He looks at the picture and he sees a sad lion standing at the back and other lions are eating, and naturally he feels sad for the poor lion: "Gee, just look at that poor little lion at the back, he won't get any."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.