The Stretched Soul Makes Music

The first question:

Question 1:

PRABHU Maya, the first thing to remember is that the idea of perfection is the root cause of all neurosis. Humanity has not been healthy because of the idea of perfection. Man has suffered immensely, and unnecessarily. Erase this word 'perfection' from your vocabulary.

'Perfection' means you are creating a tension in your life between that which is and that which should be. And that tension is what creates schizophrenia. You become split; you are no more one, you become two. And you will never again be Open because there is no end to your imagination. You can always imagine a better state of affairs. Wherever you are, you can always have your goal somewhere there on the horizon. And the horizon is never achieved.

You remain unfulfilled - not because life makes it difficult for you to be fulfilled; life is all for your fulfillment. You remain unfulfilled because of your imagination. Life is ready to deliver all that you need, this very moment - but your idea of perfection becomes a barrier. Then you cannot love, then you cannot live, then you cannot sing, then you cannot dance. All celebration will disappear from your life; you will be pathological.

And that's what has been taught by the so-called moralists and the so-called religious, down the ages. For thousands of years, man has been conditioned to be neurotic. Joy is when you accept yourself as you are. Joy is a function of immense acceptance.

'Perfection' means you reject yourself. And remember, when you reject yourself you naturally reject others too. A perfectionist is hard upon himself and is hard upon others too. He cannot relax and he cannot allow anybody else to relax. Let-go is impossible for him, and he will condemn anybody who is living a relaxed life.

These neurotics have created hell as a punishment for all those who are not perfectionists. Naturally, they suffer here, they suffer deeply. They ONLY suffer, their life is a suffering. They have crucified themselves; now they cannot allow you to go on enjoying life. They say 'Okay, you can enjoy for the moment. But remember, finally you will be thrown into eternal hell.' That is their joy, that you will have to suffer eternally. They are suffering only for the moment - sooner or later they will be free from this life and they will be in paradise, and they will enjoy all kinds of joys that they have never allowed themselves here. And you will be suffering in hell - and eternally, for ever.

That is a pathological mind. It is not capable of enjoying, and it is not capable of forgiving others for enjoying.

Drop this word 'perfection', it is a dirty word. And it is one of the root causes of your misery. You can never be blissful with this attitude towards life. Then you are always bettering, then you are always improving. Your whole energy is lost in improving yourself, and the day never comes when you can enjoy. When can it come? How can it come? You can always imagine a better state of affairs.

The horizon goes on receding back. You go on approaching it but you never arrive. You cannot arrive; it is an imaginary phenomenon, it is illusory. This is the first thing I would like you to understand.

The second thing: Imperfection is a fundamental law of life. Man is the only animal who is imperfect.

Dogs are not imperfect, each and every dog is a perfect dog. Cats are not imperfect, trees are not imperfect, rocks are not imperfect. In this whole vast existence man is the only animal who is imperfect. And that is where his glory is - because in imperfection there is growth, in imperfection there is opening, there is evolution. When you are perfect there is nowhere to go. Perfection will be suicide for humanity.

Just think, what will you do when you are perfect? In the first place it cannot happen. In the second place, IF it happens, what will you do then? The perfectionist will be at a loss, utterly at a loss - because he knows only one way of life, and that is to go on improving. Now there is no more to improve he will commit suicide.

Man's glory is that he is the only animal who grows. Out of his imperfection man has become a tremendous power. The child of man is the most helpless child, and out of that helplessness great things have happened. Man is born with very weak instincts. That's why he becomes intelligent - he has to become intelligent, he has to substitute his weaker instincts with a stronger intel-ligence.

A dog need not do anything, a dog is perfect; he lives through his instincts he never allows his in-telligence to grow. What is the point? The instincts are doing far better, more perfectly, than intelligence will ever be able to do.

Intelligence is there because you are weak in your instincts. Man has developed all kinds of technologies, science, because man is very weak. Just watch: he cannot run like a wolf or a dog, he is not strong like a lion or a tiger, he is not swift like a deer. Out of these imperfections he has done great things. He has developed weapons because he is weak physically; he could not have survived without weapons. He is delicate, he is not strong. Because he is not speedy he has developed speedy vehicles. Because he is prone to illness and disease he has developed medicine.

Out of imperfection man blooms. Because he does not know, he has developed philosophies and religions. No dog has developed a philosophy or a religion. There is no need; the dog knows already, knows instinctively. The dog is not ignorant, so there is no need to know. Man is ignorant, it hurts.

He tries to know, he becomes curious, he explores, he becomes adventurous.

All animals are satisfied; only man is continuously in discontent. That's his beauty. Out of his discontent he grows, he finds new ways of growth. Only man is anxious, anxiety-ridden. Hence he develops meditation techniques. Just watch: whatsoever you have - in culture, in art, in philosophy - is out of your imperfections.

Don't be bothered about perfection. Replace the word 'perfection' with 'totality'. Don't think in terms of having to be perfect, think in terms of having to be total. Totality will give you a different dimension.

That's my teaching: Be total, forget about being perfect. Whatsoever you are doing, do it totally - not perfectly, but totally. And what is the difference? When you are angry the perfectionist will say 'This is not good, don't be angry; a perfect man is never angry.' This is just nonsense - because we know that Jesus was angry. He was really angry against the traditional religion, against the priests, against the rabbis. He was so angry that single-handed he drove all the money-changers from the temple, a whip in his hand. And he was shouting at the top of his voice, and they became frightened - his anger was so intense, passionate. It is not just an accident that the people he was born to had to kill him. He was really angry, he was in rebellion.

Remember, the perfectionist will say 'Don't be angry.' Then what will you do? You will repress your anger, you will swallow it; it will become a kind of slow poisoning in your being. You may be able to repress it but then you will become an angry person, and that is bad. Anger as a flare-up once in a while has its own function, has its own beauty, has its own humanity. A man who cannot be angry will be spineless, will not have guts. A man who cannot be angry will not be able to love either - because both need passion, and it is the same passion. A man who carrot hate will not be able to love; they go together. His love will be cold. And remember, a warm hate is far better than a cold love. At least it is human - it has intensity, it has life, it breathes.

And a man who has lost all passion will be dull, stale, dead, and his whole life will be angry. He will not express it, he will go on repressing. Layer upon layer, anger will accumulate; he will be simply angry. You can go and see your so-called mahatmas and saints, they are angry people. They think they have controlled their anger, but what can you do with a controlled anger? You can only swallow it. Where will it go? It belongs to you, it is. part of you, it will remain there unexpressed.

Whenever anger is expressed, you are released from it. And after the anger you can again feel compassion; after the anger and the storm is gone you can again feel the silence of love. There is a rhythm between hate and love, anger and compassion. If you drop one thing, the other will disappear. And the irony is that whatsoever you have dropped, you have only swallowed it. It will become part of your system. You will be simply angry for no reason at all; your anger will be irrational. It will show in your eyes, in your sadness, in your somberness, in your seriousness. You will become incapable of celebration.

When I say replace perfection with totality, I mean when you are angry be totally angry. Then just be anger, pure anger. And it has beauty. And the world will be far better when we accept anger as part of humanity, as part of the play of polarities. You cannot have East without having West and you cannot have night without having day and you cannot have summer without having winter. We have to accept life in its totality. There is a certain rhythm, there is a polarity.

It is the stretched soul that makes music. And souls are stretched by the pull of opposites - opposite bunts, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity, where energies flow smoothly in one direction, there will be much doing but no music, much noise but no music. The music is created by the meeting of silence and sound, the music is created by the polar opposites.

Just look at life. If there are only men on the earth there will be no more music, if there are only women on the earth there will be no more music. The music is between the polarities: man and woman, yin and yang, Shiva and Shakti. Only the stretched souls can create music - stretched between polarities. A man who can be angry and totally angry will be able to be in love and totally in love.

And this too has to be understood, that it is a fact that you love a man and you hate the same man.

You love and hate the same person - who else? When you have invested your love in somebody, naturally you have invested your hate too, because hate and love are two aspects of the same coin.

Lovers fight, they are intimate enemies. And whenever the fight disappears between two lovers, love also disappears. It cannot exist without the fight.

There is an inner mechanism. When you love a person you want to come close-to him, you want a deep intimate relationship. But after a deep experience of intimacy you want to separate too, you want to go far away. You have feasted, now you would like to fast, otherwise there will be nausea.

You can love and you can be intimate only for a certain amount of time. You cannot eat for twenty- four hours, you cannot love either. If a person eats for twenty-four hours he is mad. And he will not enjoy food - in fact he will enjoy vomiting more than food; out of necessity he will have to vomit.

It is said about Nero that he was so much obsessed with food that he had four doctors following him wherever he would go. And those four doctors' duty was to make him vomit. He would eat too much and the doctors would make him vomit, and then he would eat too much again - immediately.

To make it possible for him, so he could eat many times in a day, the only way was to help him vomit. Now this is madness. And how can you enjoy food when you are continuously vomiting? It is nauseating, the very idea is nauseating. And when you digest it you will throw your whole system into a chaos. It is the mind being destructive to the body.

When you eat, enjoy it totally. But then there is a need for six to eight hours' fast - only then does the hunger arise again. The same is true about love. When you love a person you come close; you eat of him, he eats of you, you participate in each other's being. You come closer and closer and closer, to a point where no more closeness is possible. Then the reverse process sets in: you have to go away to come back again - you have to fast to feast again.

That is the inner mechanism of why lovers fight. The fight is a way to go away from each other so that they can start feeling hungry for each other again; then they come back again. Now drop fighting, then you will be stuck. Then you will never be able to come together again. That's what happens with husbands and wives. A moment comes, they become fed-up with fighting and they stop fighting, they become polite to each other. They become very very careful - they call it care but it is not care, it is just an avoidance of ugly scenes. But then they remain separate for ever, then they keep a certain distance. Then they never come close, because they have understood it by experience that if you come close you will have to go away. And the only way to go away is by fighting - otherwise how can you go away? Loving is coming closer, fighting is going away. It is hard to go away; you have to create a rationale to go away. You have to hate the person so that you can be away from the person, you can forget all about him and you can be alone. Togetherness and aloneness, this is the polarity.

You say, Prabhu Maya: I HAVE JUST RECENTLY BEEN HELPED TO DISCOVER THAT NOBODY IS PERFECT AND TO LET GO OF MY FANTASY OF A PERFECT PERSON.

You will not find a perfect person. And if you can find one you will not be able to love him either, because he will be so inhuman. He will be like a machine. Machines are perfect, but you cannot love a machine unless you are mad. There are people who love machines, there are people who love their cars; they are just mad. And there is a reason in it, why they love cars: they have become incapable of loving human beings. Because it is risky. To love a car, there is no risk; you can shout at it, you can abuse it, it will not retaliate, it will not say a thing.

You see? When people become incapable of loving human beings they start loving pets, animals - because a dog is always good to you. Dogs are such great politicians; they know your stupidity.

They know - whenever you come they start wagging their tails. Even if you are angry at them they go on wagging their tails. They never react, they are always loving. They are not like your wife or your husband, they are always loving. But can't you see that their wagging the tail continuously is false, pseudo? It is sickening - mm? The poor dog is just trying to be a diplomat, and you enjoy it.

You have fallen from your humanity.

And I am not saying don't love dogs, I am simply saying this should not be a substitute for loving human beings. And then people have even fallen from there - because a dog is after all a dog; sometimes he forgets his diplomacy, sometimes he is really angry, sometimes he becomes natural and authentic. Sometimes he is indifferent, he doesn't bother about you - you are standing there waiting for his wagging tail and he is not wagging it. He is in his dream, he is seeing his own fantasies, he does not care a bit. Then people fall even deeper, they regress - then they start loving machines. Those machines become their dolls, mechanical toys.

This state has been created because we expect perfection. No woman can be perfect, otherwise she will not be a woman. No man can be perfect, otherwise he will not be a man. And if you can find a perfect man you will not be able to live with him. He will be utterly boring. He will be sheer boredom - he will be an incarnation of boredom, an AVATARA of boredom.

You cannot live with your so-called saints. That's why people have invented worship. They worship the saint, and they say goodbye - they don't live with the saint. It is very difficult to live with a saint, he is so dry. desert-like. He will make you a desert also. He will kill you as you are, he will reduce you to a certain formula a prescription, a morality, a religion - but he will not leave you in freedom.

He will be a bondage, a prison.

Avoid, if you can avoid, perfect people. It is very difficult to find them in the first place - but if you can find them, escape as fast as you can and never look back.

I HAVE JUST RECENTLY BEEN HELPED TO DISCOVER THAT NOBODY IS PERFECT AND TO LET GO OF MY FANTASY OF A PERFECT PERSON. NOW I AM LEFT WITH MY FEELINGS OF LOVING AND HATING THE SAME PERSON...

This is beautiful. This is how it should be, this is natural. To avoid this, man has been creating many many strategies. One strategy is: love one man and hate another. That is a strategy. Indians love Indians and hate the Pakistanis. That is a strategy, otherwise you will have to hate and love Indians - and it is easier too. Everybody tries to find a scapegoat. Christians love Christians and hate Mohammedans or Hindus, Jainas love Jainas and hate Buddhists or Mohammedans - you will have to find a scapegoat.

But this is pointless; it doesn't help, it can't help. Your hatred is bogus, so is your love. Both are artificial, comfortable but untrue. That's why man has to invent a devil also with God: love God and hate the devil. Otherwise you will have to love and hate God.

In that way, the East is far more insightful. You have to love and hate God. God is both the creator and the destroyer, God brings life and God brings death. It is God who creates the roses and it is God who creates the thorns in the rosebushes. It is God who gives you health and all the blessings of life and it is God who gives you illness, old age, disease and all the curses of life.

But for that you need a very profound vision. The easier and more simple way is: divide. Let God become the direction of your love and the devil the direction of your hate. This is easier, but then your love for God will be just so-so, lukewarm - because it is false; this is not a true God.

Existence is one. And it is good to hate the same person you love, because then the play of hate and love will create music. Otherwise, just hating one person will not create music - there will be sound but no silence, and there will not be music. And loving one person will not be an opportunity, an occasion, for creating music either - because there will be silence but there will be no sound.

Sound and silence together, dancing hand in hand, embracing each other - music is created. Music is bliss. Don't be afraid. Hate the same person and love the same person, that's how it should be.

Don't become puzzled by it. Difficulties will be there, because you have been taught 'How can you hate the person you love?' - you have been taught that dichotomy. But you have to understand, the teaching is false.

How can you NOT hate the same person if you love him? - that's what I say to you. You will have to hate the same person you love - and understanding it, even hate is accepted. When hate is accepted, your love has transcended. When love and hate both are accepted totally, you have a transcendence, a great insight, a profundity - that there is a love that contains both love and hate.

Only that love is real love which can contain hate too.

Why are you so much afraid of hate? Because your love is too small, tiny. You know that if there is hate, the hate will destroy love. Only poor lovers are afraid of hate. Real lovers can hate as much as they like, and they know, they trust, that love will transcend, that love will conquer finally - there is no fear.

The second question:

Question 2:

DON'T bother God, He's got his own problems. Don't you see whatsoever He creates dies? Keep your problems to yourself. Why should one want to pray to God? God does not need your prayers.

You may be in need of those prayers, but they will not be anything more than vocalizing your desires, your de-mands, expressing your complaints. That's what people are doing in the name of prayer - complaining and complaining and complaining, and saying 'Things should not be like this.' Trying to help God to become a little more wise.

No, prayer is not needed, what is needed is meditation. Meditation has no reference to God.

Meditation transforms you; it takes no account of God. And you don't know about God in any way - how will you pray to something unknown, something x-y-z? In what language are you going to pray to God? You don't know Him at all. And there are people who say 'By praying to God you will come to know Him.' But prayer presupposes as a requirement, basic requirement, that you should KNOW, only then can you pray. You should know, only then can you love. How can you love an unknown God? Your prayer will be formal; it will be nothing but a cliche.

Meditation is a totally different dimension. Kabir will suggest meditation, Buddha has suggested meditation, I suggest meditation. Meditation is a different approach - it has nothing to do with God, it has something to do with you, with your mind. It has to create a silence within you, a deep utter silence. In that utter silence you will start feeling the presence of God.

Prayer is a consequence of real meditation. Only a meditator can pray - because he knows, because he feels, because now God's presence is not just an argument, not a logical thing, but something experienced, something lived. And then prayer is no more a corn plaint. Then prayer is a surrender, then prayer is pure love - no desire attached to it, no conditions. It is sheer gratefulness.

Let prayer come after meditation. Meditate. Meditation will prepare your heart, it will cleanse you.

It will cleanse you of your thoughts, it will throw out all the rubbish that you have been carrying in your head for ages, for lives; it will make space for prayer to happen. Meditation is like preparing a ground for a rose bed: prayer is like a rose. First you have to prepare the ground - you have to remove the weeds, you have to change the soil, you have to throw out all the stones.

Meditation prepares the bed. And only in a prepared bed can you plant roses. Otherwise weeds will overrun your roses and weeds will exploit the whole soil and your roses will not get much - they will be poor roses. And if there are stones in the ground the growth of the roses will be stunted.

First prepare the ground, then prayer happens on its own accord. Prayer is something that you cannot do. Meditation is something that you CAN do, because it has something to do with your mind - it is your mind, you can do something with it. Prayer has something to do with God. God is beyond, far away, one does not know where. What is His address? What is His name? Where to send these prayers? So you can go on praying to empty skies and deep down you know that this is all futile. But maybe... perhaps it works, perhaps it doesn't work, but it costs nothing, so one goes on praying.

First prepare yourself in meditation. Meditation means a thoughtless silence, a thoughtless awareness. Peace. When that peace is there, one day prayer bursts forth. You simply see a bud opening in your being, your heart becomes a flower and there is much fragrance. That fragrance is prayer. You bow down. Now God is no more far away, He is very close by - you are bridged by your flowering.

Prayers done without meditation are formal, foolish. Prayers done without meditation are meaningless - a sheer wastage of time and energy and life.

I teach you meditation. And prayer cannot be taught. When meditation has happened, one day you stumble upon prayer. Prayer is grace. Meditation can be of effort, but prayer happens effortlessly.

Forget about prayer and forget about God; you have first to do great work upon yourself. Be absolutely concerned with only one thing: how to drop the mind. In the dropping of the mind is all - prayer will arise. Prayer is a reward to a meditator; it is a consequence.

About this, the Eastern mystics are very clear - from Patanjali to Krishnamurti, they all teach meditation. And the reason is that the work has to be with the human mind. Prayer means a dialogue with the universal mind. Wait, be patient, first be capable of that dialogue. And then you need not go anywhere - when you are silent you hear that still small voice within your heart. In fact the dialogue is always started by God from the other side. You cannot start the dialogue, you can only be receptive; on your end a great receptivity is needed. And the moment you are ready, suddenly something is connected and the bell starts ringing. But the call comes from the other side.

It is God who calls Adam 'Where are you? Where are you hiding?'

When Adam committed his sin, his mistake - when he ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge - he became very much afraid of God. God had prohibited it; now he had betrayed, he had been disobedient. He started feeling guilty. And God started searching for him - and he was hiding behind this bush and that, and God was shouting all over the Garden of Eden 'Adam, where are you?'

Since that day, God has been calling and you are hiding behind this bush or that.

You need not have any prayer. You only need a silent heart which can hear the shouting God, the call of God. He is calling you, you need not call Him. Just be a deep receptivity. That's what meditation is all about, it makes you receptive. In that receptivity you start hearing God talking to you.

Real prayer is when God talks to you, unreal prayer is when you talk to God.

The third question:

Question 3:

GIVE up suffering. You seem to be a masochist, You love suffering - these are all just excuses to torture yourself. Don't torture yourself any more; your torture is the barrier. Only a celebrating person becomes enlightened. How can you become enlightened by suffering? Suffering is pathological, it is morbid, it is neurotic. It is not natural, it is ugly.

But that's what has been taught. Remember one thing: humanity has been dominated by the patho- logical, it has not been dominated by the healthy. And there is a certain reason behind it. Because the healthy is too busy enjoying, he does not bother to dominate others. The unhealthy cannot enjoy; he puts his whole energy into dominating. One who can sing a song and can dance a dance, sings and dances - he celebrates under the stars. But one who cannot dance, is crippled, is paralyzed, he lies down there in the corner and plans how to dominate people. He becomes cunning.

You will be surprised that hunchbacks, blind people, ugly people, are very cunning, very clever. They have to be; that is how they try to throw their weight around. One who can create, creates. And one who cannot create, destroys - but he has to show to the world: 'I am here.'

The people who become interested in politics are always ill people. No healthy person has ever been interested in politics - where will he find time for politics? He is so happy loving, he is so happy dancing, he is so happy creating. Heaven is showering on him - why should he want to go to New Delhi?

I have heard about a man who went to his party chief; he wanted a ticket to stand in the elections.

The party chief just jokingly asked him 'What is your intention, what is your motive? Why do you want to fight for parliament?' The man was also in a joking mood, he said 'I want to become the prime minister.' The chief could not believe it, he said 'Are you mad?' And the man said 'Is that a condition?'

Yes, that is a condition. The ill and the unhealthy and the ugly and the untalented, the uncreative, the mediocre, the stupid - they are all very very clever in dominating people. They find ways and means to dominate; they become politicians, they become priests. And naturally, what they cannot do they cannot allow anybody else to do. They are against all joy.

How can a cripple allow you to dance? Just think of it. He cannot dance - the only way he can feel good is if he can create a poison in your mind that dance is a sin. Then he feels perfectly okay, immensely happy. If he can create the idea that dance is a sin then he is no more a cripple, he is a saint. Look at the reasoning behind it. If he cannot enjoy, he can at least poison your enjoyment. And all the cripples can gather together and they can all put their heads into it and they can create great morality, they can condemn everything. And it is possible for logic to condemn any and everything - you just have to search for the negative and you will find it, because the negative is part of all positivity.

For example, I was just saying that when you love, you hate the person also. Now, love is the positive part, hate is the negative part. A man who is impotent and cannot love can always fall upon the negative, can always magnify the negative, and can always tell you 'Listen, if you are in love you will suffer. You are falling in a trap, you will be in misery.' And naturally, whenever hate moments come and you are in misery, you will remember him - he was right.

And they are bound to come. And there is a natural tendency to be aware of illnesses rather than to be aware of health. When you are healthy you tend to forget about your body. But when there is a headache or some pain or some ache in the stomach you cannot forget your body - it is there, very prominently there, emphatically there; it knocks at your doors, it wants your attention.

So when you are in love and happy you tend to forget. But when there is fighting, hatred, anger, you tend to magnify it. And those cripples - the moralists, the priests and the politicians - they are shouting in a chorus 'Look! We told you beforehand but you didn't listen to us. Renounce love! Love brings misery. Renounce this, renounce that - renounce life!'

And if you can go on repeating such things continuously, they have an impact; people become hypnotized. You have become hypnotized. You say you have been fasting, you have been a celibate.

What has fasting to do with enlightenment? What has celibacy to do with enlightenment? Irrelevant.

All that you have been doing - 'I have been awake nights seeking enlightenment...' Can't you seek enlightenment in the day? And why should you be awake in the night? Why go against nature?

Enlightenment is not something against nature. It is the fulfillment of nature, it is the crescendo of nature, the climax. It is optimum nature. It is through being with nature that you arrive at it - not being against it. It is not going against the current, it is flowing with the current. The river is already going to the sea, you need not start swimming against it. And that's what you have been doing.

Now you ask 'What should I do?' Give up suffering, give up your attachment to suffering. You are not in search of enlightenment, you are in search of suffering - enlightenment is just an excuse.

Love life, be more happy. God can come only to a happy soul. Only when you are utterly happy is there a possibility, otherwise not - because misery closes you, bliss opens you up. Have you not watched it, observed it, in your own life? Whenever you are miserable you become closed; a hard shell surrounds you. You start protecting yourself, you surround yourself with a great arm our - because you know you already have so much pain, you cannot afford any more hurt from anywhere.

You have to harden your surface.

Miserable people always become hard; they lose softness, they become like rocks. A happy person is a flower - he is so happy, he is so blessed, that he can bless the whole world. He is so blessed that he can afford to be open. He has nothing to fear. All is so good, all is so friendly, the whole existence is befriending him - why should he be afraid? He can open up. He can invite existence, he can become a host to existence. Only in that moment, God enters you. Only in that moment, light penetrates you and you become enlightened.

Enlightenment is not something that has to be fought for, it is something that you have to allow. It comes in a moment of let-go. In surrender it comes.

Now, you have been a warrior. And to warriors God is not available. God is available only to lovers.

God is the Beloved, He is available only to a loving heart. Love life, love His creation - that is the only way to love God. Creation is the visible God. He is green in the trees and red in the roses and gold in the rays of the sun. He is silver on the surface of a lake when the moon is mirrored. He is laughter, He is tears. He is this life in its totality. Don't become an escapist and don't brag about your masochism as spirituality. Give up suffering and start a joyous journey. If you want to enter into my temple then it has to be not celibacy but celebration, not a fast but a feast.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

The question is from Prem Leeladhar. He is a plastic surgeon, hence the question.

REMEMBER that all that has ever been invented in the world has been invented out of playfulness.

You will be surprised to know that all that you see has been invented by playful people, not by the serious people. The serious people are too much past-oriented - they go on repeating the past, because they know it works. They are never inventive.

When a bullock cart is doing well, why bother? why waste time in inventing a car? And who has ever heard of a car? - you must be mad. The utilitarian cannot be interested in it. He will say 'For what? The bullock cart is doing perfectly well.'

But there are people who are playful, who cannot be contained by the past, who always go on playing with things. And out of that playing, new combinations arise. Inventiveness is a dimension of playfulness.

And you ask me: IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A PLAYFUL MIND TO BE A PLASTIC SURGEON OR A SCIENTIST?

It is only possible for a playful mind. The non-utilitarians are the discoverers, the explorers. The utilitarian always asks what the profit is in it. For example, people have reached to the moon. The utilitarian, the business mind, asks 'For what? You cannot find a market there, there is nobody - this is a sheer wastage! Why put in so much energy and so much effort and so much money? And people are starving on the earth.' The business mind, the economist, will say that this is not right.

But there are people who are more interested in going to the moon - for no reason at all. These are the people who bring the future into the present. Right now you also cannot think of any utility, but who knows? The earth may become very inhospitable to man - it is becoming so. Man has done so much harm that the earth cannot forget and forgive it. Man has been such a disaster, he has destroyed the ecology of the earth. The earth is angry, revengeful.

The earth one day may become absolutely against humanity. It may not provide food. Then the only way to survive will be to move from this planet to some other planet. It may not be the moon - but the moon is not the end of the explorers' playfulness, that is just a station on the way. It may be some other planet which will be more green,-more alive. The earth is dying; it is a dying planet, it is an old planet.

But only later on will people say 'Great inventors were these people who landed on the moon.' Right now, every practical, pragmatic person is against it. That's how it has always been. Many weapons and tools were to begin as playthings - the bow was a musical instrument before it became a weapon, and the wheel was a plaything before it was used as a tool. In many excavations it has been found that there have been civilizations, prehistoric civilizations, which had no bullock carts but which had toys with wheels.

Ornaments came before clothes, you will be surprised - before clothes, ornaments came into the world. There are still primitives who are naked but they are as much interested in ornaments as you are - even more so. Clothes are a practical necessity, but ornaments just playfulness. Man is not as economical an animal as economists suppose. Man is more an aesthetic animal than economical; he loves beauty more than utility.

The first domesticated animals were pets. And it has been suggested that grain was first cultivated tot to raise food but to make beer. Now my Germans will be happy. And I agree with it.

Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of all his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities and talents. Wherever man becomes more of a utilitarian he loses the capacity to explore.

Wherever man starts condemning things of luxury he becomes dull, stupid.

You will see it in the East: people have become dull, people have lost all joy of invention - because all luxury has been condemned; it is a sin to seek comfort. But if you are not seeking comfort then there is no point in exploring, if you are not seeking luxury then all search stops. Then all that you need is a shelter, food, clothes - but there you are finished.

And when you don't explore you don't become rich, when you don't explore you stop growing. In the East it has happened, it has happened terribly: because the so-called priests and religious people condemned all luxuries, man became uninventive. The East is poor because of the saints - because people are bound to remain poor if they don't explore. If people are satisfied with just whatsoever is the case they become more and more poor every day, because every day more and more people are born and the place becomes more and more crowded. And they cannot find any way out of it; they take it for granted as their fate.

Man is a luxury-loving animal. Take away play, fancies and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when the people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.

When I say playfulness is the source of all discoveries, I mean it. The greatest calamity that can happen to a man is that he becomes too serious and too practical. A little bit of craziness, a little bit of eccentricity, is all for the good.

The fifth question:

Question 5:

MY approach is that the more you forget about God, the better. Leave Him alone. Realize yourself.

This is again an escape from your problems: God-realization, nirvana, moksha - these are avoiding your real problems, these are ways you start going outward. Go inward. Self-realization is the thing - God-realization comes out of it, grows out of it. It will take care of itself, you need not worry about it.

At least do a small thing: know who you are. You don't even know yourself, and you have started working for God-realization? I can be a catalyst to self-realization. And out of self-realization, God- realization comes on its own accord.

But remember, to be a catalyst is a very thankless job - because if I am to be a catalyst for your self-realization, I will also be a catalyst for many ugly things that you are carrying within you. I will be a catalyst for your anger and I will be a catalyst for your hatred and I will be a catalyst for your greed and I will be a catalyst for your violence and I will be a catalyst for your suicidalness, murderousness - all that you are carrying. And behind all that is hidden yourself. You will have to cat hart all that - only then. Don't be angry with me. You yourself are asking - you are asking 'Will you be my catalyst?' That's what I am, that's what a master is supposed to be. That's his function, to be a catalyst.

And that is what sannyas means from your side - to allow me to be your catalyst. Sannyas is a gesture that you are ready to go with me; even if I am going to hell you are ready to go with me. And remember, the way to heaven goes through hell. Then don't be angry...

I have heard:

A girl learned that compulsive emotion-reactions were called stresses. And the more she learned, the more stresses she discovered. Her job was a stress, and the improper fit of her clothing was a stress. Taking the garbage outside was a stress, and washing the dishes was a stress.

Now, stresses are tricky things, they can be redirected. For example, the girl had a boyfriend who liked to remind her of stresses. At dinner, she said 'I just hate asparagus!'

And he helpfully replied 'That's a stress!'

At the theater. she remarked 'I can't stand waiting in lines!'

'Merely a stress' he said.

As you may imagine, the direction of the stresses began to change, and it was not long before her boyfriend became the target of her anger.

'You are becoming a stress' she said.

But the young man felt bound to explain her error. So he told her that all stresses - that is, all compulsive emotion-reactions - were inside her. That the external circumstance was only a trigger, a catalyst, that caused a stress to come out in the open. Therefore, his helpful comments were not the cause of her stresses, since they all came from inside of her.

Still full of anger at him, but appreciating her logical position, she exercised her only option. With glaring eyes and a contemptuous tone, she turned to him and said 'You catalyst!'

Remember, I am ready to become your catalyst. Don't be angry - because it is going to be a rough journey. The end is beautiful but the journey is rough, it is arduous. To encounter oneself is painful - because for centuries you have not been encountering yourself, you have been avoiding all possibilities of encountering. So much garbage has gathered there - it is going into your basement where you have not been for years but where you have been throwing all kinds of junk.

A catalyst has to be a catalyst totally. And first the negative things start surfacing. And only when you are finished with the negative, then the positive.

Many people ask me why I insist so much on growth groups here - because no ashram anywhere in India has growth groups. My insistence is for a certain basic reason, it is very fundamental. The modern mind is very much repressed - the more cultured you become, the more repressed you become automatically. Those other ashrams in India have no notion of the modern mind; they still live at least three thousand years ago. They still think that Buddhist meditations will do, or Patanjali will do.

And I know perfectly well that Buddha and his meditations and Patanjali and his methods are of immense value. But they cannot work directly on the modern mind. They were not invented for the modern mind, they were invented for a different kind of mind - more primitive, more simple, more innocent, more childlike.

Before you can do vipassana or zazen you will have to go through groups like encounter and primal therapy and gestalt. They will destroy, they will take the poison out of your system. Then you will again be a primitive - innocent, childlike. Then vipassana can work, otherwise not.

So here, in this place, first we emphasize catharsis. And when the catharsis is complete, only then the second step, meditation, starts. So you can think of my approach in three steps: the first is catharsis, the second is meditation, the third is prayer.

The last question:

Question 6:

THERE are many reasons, but because ninety minutes are soon going to be complete, I will tell you about only a few. The first is, after thirty minutes one third of you fall asleep. After sixty minutes, two thirds. After ninety minutes, all. Then I have to leave.

And the second: I have no wife here. First you will have to understand a story, then you will understand my answer. What do I mean by saying that I don't have a wife?

It is said of a great political leader that whenever he would speak he would go on and on, non- ending, but whenever his wife was present his speech would be very short and sweet. His secretary was perfectly able to understand what the matter was: when the wife was present he was afraid. So there was no curiosity about this, but about one thing he was very curious. Before the leader would start speaking, the wife would always send a small note through the secretary. It was always so.

One day, just out of curiosity he looked at the note. There was not much - just a single word: KISS.

He thought 'She loves him so much, always sends a note saying "KISS" before he starts.' So that day, when he found the leader alone he said 'You have a far-out wife! Living with her for thirty years, and she is still so romantic - every time you speak she sends a note saying "KISS". '

But the politician became very sad, and he said 'You don't understand; it is a code word. It means "Keep It Short, Stupid."'